Birds and Other Angels

Birds, to me, are wonderment. A flash of color, a song. I love listening to and looking at birds. Poets and songwriters have rejoiced in the songs of birds since Homer. In painting and literature they have been thought of as messengers from Heaven. 

I made these photographs of birds using an 8x10 film camera while working with bird banders in northeast Ohio and central Massachusetts during the spring migration. Bird banding is a method of observing birds, providing conservationists and ornithologists with information to protect birds and their vital habitats. Researchers catch and then release the birds for the purpose of gathering data to study their behavior, monitor the population and to track migration routes. This data is used for both scientific research and conservation projects and provides a barometer for measuring the health of our natural ecosystems. With the increasingly obvious effect of humans on the course of nature, birds are an important link to understanding our impact.