Plate 35a

two phoebes near Philadelphia bearing the silver cord he had tied to their legs the previous year, when they were still in their nest. (The banded nestling phoebes—called Peewee Flycatchers in Audubon’s day—became special friends of Audubon’s; he frequently visited them while courting Lucy Bakewell, later his wife.) These isolated incidents were among the first faltering steps toward using a monitoring technique that took a century to catch on but eventually became a worldwide activity. Today thousands of serious students of bird biology participate in banding, and it contributes substantially to our knowledge about birds.[77]

Science
In Europe the development of systematic bird banding is attributed to a Dane, Hans Mortensen, who began with European Teal (Anas crecca), Pintail (A. acuta), White Storks (Ciconia ciconia), Starlings (Sturnus vulgaris), and various hawks in 1899. Back then, there was no guarantee that the bird bands, if found, would be sent back to Mortensen. Within three years, in 1902, Paul Bartsch had instituted systematic banding in North America using bands etched with the words “Return to Smithsonian Institution.” Soon after that, in 1909, the American Bird Banding Association was organized.

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Plates 35 and 35a. Untitled [The banding of a heron] and detail, probably 1764, by an unknown artist

© 2008 Darryl Wheye and Donald Kennedy