NORTH DAKOTA OUTDOORS MAGAZINE

A Bird in Hand

Zachary Eshleman

Bird banding has been used to study migratory birds for hundreds of years. In the United States, the first recorded instance happened around 1803 outside Philadelphia when John James Audubon tied silver thread to Eastern phoebes to see if they returned to the same nesting area each year.

This early experiment still aligns with the purpose of modern banding. Researchers use banding to learn where birds come from and where they go. That lets conservation work focus on where it will do the most good, and it gives decisionmakers a current picture of what the most prized game birds are doing.

Knowledge that modern bird hunters take for granted, such as the existence of the four flyways, the timing of different species’ migrations, and where prairie ducks winter, would not exist without this persistent effort.

I wanted to see behind the scenes of how this data is collected and used, so I went to John Palarski, North Dakota Game and Fish Department migratory game bird supervisor, and asked to get out in the field with him this banding season.

“By the time we get to August, that’s when our focus really shifts to duck banding,” Palarski said, “Throughout the whole month and all the way up until our regular waterfowl season opener, we’re out there.”

Palarski, an avid waterfowl hunter himself, has a difficult task this time of year. In his words, he is looking to get “as many ducks as possible,” and it’s not like he can just shoot them out of the sky. With rocket netting, it is a one-shot deal, so the ducks cannot just trickle into the chosen location. He needs to find high numbers grouped together to make that one shot worth it.

Biologist moving netted birds to temporary cages

“I’m used to scouting, trying to find fields or water with lots of ducks, and getting access on private land. So, it’s very similar to hunting,” he said. “By the time we get to waterfowl season, I’m not necessarily burnt out on duck hunting yet. But it almost feels like I’m hunting them for two months before the season even starts.”

The two main capture methods are swim-in traps and rocket nets, and which one he chooses depends on a few factors.

“The methods we decide to use to catch these different duck species actually kind of depends on the species. The swim-in traps do a really good job of catching species like redheads and blue-winged teal,” he said. “But if you’re really trying to target mallards and pintails, rocket netting is the best way to go.”

That is how we ended up sitting in a blind together at 4 a.m., looking down on a bait line about 100 yards away.

“If you’re getting out here when they’re already moving around, you’re way too late,” he told me the day before. So, there we were in the moonless night, as he monitored an infrared trail camera placed down by the bait pile.

Two other biologists waited in a truck over a hill behind us, ready to bring the equipment and themselves as quickly as possible after the shot to limit the time the ducks spent in the net. Just as the light started to break, Palarski, now looking through binoculars at the ducks piling in, made the call and hit the trigger. The three rockets, which looked like pieces of metal pipe with holes drilled in the end cap, worked surprisingly well. They lifted the net and carried it about 30 feet, draping it over the ducks below.

Then it was time to hustle. They worked to get the ducks quickly out from under the net and into crates, separated by species. This time around we got about half mallards and half wood ducks. Palarski already had the bands sorted by species, age and sex. The crew examined each bird for those traits, fitted a band so no edge would rub the leg, and released it. “The thing that’s quite remarkable is how resilient and how consistent things have been for the last 100 years,” Palarski said, “We’re still using very similar methods that are tried and true and still work today. That’s a testament to our forefathers who conceptualized this idea. It still works even in 2026, which is quite amazing.”

What surprised me was how little the whole process seemed to bother the ducks. Most of them calmly waited in hand until it was over.

“Some species like wood ducks, for instance, and male mallards, are seen as being trap happy. Meaning, we’ll catch them one day, and then we might shoot that net off at the same spot the following week and catch that same bird again on bait,” Palarski said, “You’d think that they would learn and say, ‘Hey, this bait pile is not safe. I got a rocket shot over the top of me the last time that I was here.’ But we’re catching a lot of these birds multiple times.”

Nathaniel Rykerd, Department wildlife biological technician, releases a banded wood duck.

Banding ducks and geese, and collecting and maintaining the data, are excellent examples of the long-term thinking conservation science requires. It takes a lot of effort, and yet, each duck banded is just a small piece of data, and each year’s information is just a small piece of the truth.

But when that information is combined with parts collection, visual surveys and time, a vast story is created. That story is paid for in long nights and early mornings by state, federal, provincial, tribal, and nonprofit crews across the United States and Canada.

“Between those three pieces of information, that’s how we’re making a lot of our decisions related to harvest management of waterfowl species,” Palarski said. “It’s a critical component of those three that we need to make really good conservation decisions.” Once the bands are out in the ether, the fun part begins. Every week Palarski gets an email of every duck under the Department’s banding permit that has been reported somewhere in the world. Maybe the bird was spotted through binoculars hanging out on a wetland, maybe it died and was found by a passerby, or maybe it tried to land in a well-placed decoy spread.

“There’s a really neat marriage between hunters and the managers and biologists who are collecting the data, because we couldn’t do it without each other,” Palarski said. “We’re putting the bands on and collecting the data, but that really doesn’t help us out all that much unless hunters harvest those ducks and report the bands. That’s when it really becomes useful data.”

So, the next time a banded duck drops into your spread, take a moment to report it. You’ll be closing the loop on a lot of people’s hard work, and you’ll be leaving your own mark on research that started more than 100 years ago and still guides conservation today. To report a band, go to reportband.gov or call 1-800-327-BAND.

Return to North Dakota Outdoors October 2026 Edition