What To Do When You Find a Severed Leg

No, not a human leg!  Thank goodness!

I found this bird leg in my garden a few weeks ago, just laying there by itself.  I saw the orange foot first, and reached down to pick up what I thought was a piece of plastic, and found myself holding a severed bird leg!  Yikes!  I looked all around for the rest of the bird, but I didn't see anything else - not even a pile of feathers.

I had a close look at the foot and realized it was some kind of duck leg, given the webbed foot.  Of course, one of the things I immediately noticed was the leg band.  I had to get out my magnifier glasses (yes, I have reached that stage in life) to read the band.  Interestingly, it had a website on it, as well as a 1-800 number.

I went to the website (www.reportband.gov) and learned that it run by the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center Bird Banding Laboratory in Maine.  The Center is part of the United States Geological Survey, and it cooperates with the Canadian Wildlife Service on bird banding projects.  Here's some information from their website:

The Bird Banding Laboratory was established in 1920 to support the collection, archiving, management and dissemination of information from banded and marked birds in North America. This information is used to monitor the status and trends of resident and migratory bird populations. Because birds are good indicators of the health of the environment, the status and trends of bird populations are critical for identifying and understanding many ecological issues and for developing effective science, management and conservation practices.

The laboratory administers the North American Bird Banding Program, which manages more than 77 million archived banding records.  Each year, approximately 1 million bands are shipped from the BBL to banders in the United States and Canada, and nearly 100,000 band encounter reports are entered into the BBL systems.

Using the website (or the phone number) is the way to report any sighting or finding of a bird leg band (which unfortunately often means a dead or injured bird, since most birds don't sit on your lap and wave their leg bands around for your perusal).  I entered the number and the information on how I found the band using the screens on the website.  It was really easy.

I received an emailed certificate of appreciation! 

The scientists who study birds need citizens who are interested and motivated to send in information to help them track and learn more about birds.  My bird leg was the leg of a female mallard duck who was hatched prior to October of 2015.  She was banded near to where I live, so it wasn't surprising to find that band locally.  Here's a mallard in considerably better condition than the banded one - I took this picture at the waterfowl park last year.

I expect that she was preyed upon by either an owl (we have quite a few around here) or possibly a raccoon.  Or perhaps she died some other way and her body was moved by a scavenging animal.  I think her leg ended up in my yard without the rest of the body after having been carried here by a raccoon or something.  It was a little bit weird, but I'm glad I submitted the leg band number.

So now you know, if you ever find a bird leg with a band on it, submit the number!  Some of the bands are metal, like the one I found.  Others are coloured plastic.  Some bands also come with a monetary reward for reporting them!