Nocturnal REVELATIONS
“Ah, got one,” field tech Kaitlyn Okrusch says, approaching the mist net. Hearing her voice, a diminutive shape struggles to escape the net’s almost invisible filaments. “Looks like we’ve got a Townsend’s,” Okrusch says, stepping closer. “It’s OK, little bird, we’re not going to hurt you.”
With fingers trained by months of experience, she deftly untangles the tiny creature, making sure that her pulling doesn’t damage its wings or feathers. Continuing to coo calming words, she slides the bird into a small orange sack, cinches it closed, and tucks it inside the warmth of her jacket, where it joins three other bagged birds from nearby nets.
The Townsend’s Warbler is the 30th bird Okrusch and her fellow field techs have caught this morning, part of an avian smorgasbord of warblers, thrushes, kinglets, vireos, and chickadees. What the warbler doesn’t realize is that it will be selected for very special treatment. After being inspected, measured, and banded, it will participate in a scientific project of enormous scope, difficulty, and importance. It is a project that could help revolutionize our understanding of birds and how to protect them.
The project, informally dubbed the “Bitterroot Array,” is spearheaded by avian biologists Debbie Leick and Kate Stone. My teenaged son, Braden, and I first met Leick during a Christmas Bird Count that she led near our home in Missoula,
