From June until August biologists and volunteers at will mist net and band songbirds at the Kodiak Refuge Headquarters building on the Buskin State Recreation Area. This program has been running on Kodiak since 2010; about 2500 birds have previously been banded and 160 banded individuals have been recaptured in following seasons. The banding effort is part of a North American-wide program called Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS).
The MAPS was established in 1989 to monitor spatial and temporal patterns in adult survival rates and productivity for populations of landbirds across North America. The MAPS program currently consists of nearly 500 monitoring stations sampled annually, many of which have been operated for less than 10 years. The MAPS program provides estimates of adult apparent survival and recruitment rates and indices of productivity for about 150 landbird species.
MAPS is a Citizen Science program; committed volunteers are welcome. Read more about MAPS in this article.
Learn more about landbirds.