February Fun - Band Making

Hummingbird bands must be handmade because they are so tiny. I spent my February hunched over a table making 600 shiny silver bands. Bands come to us printed on a sheet of aluminum, 300 per sheet. They are printed with a letter prefix followed by 5 numbers. Each band number is unique and belongs to an individual bird. The bird will wear the band for its entire life.

Bands are cut into strips of 10 using a mini sheer. The edges are carefully smoothed so they don’t irritate the hummingbird’s leg. Then we use a special clipper to cut the strips into individual bands of the needed sizes. The clipper was designed and built by our family engineer, Son-in-Law Phil.

Finally, each band is hand shaped into a tiny circle using a specialized jig. The bands are stored on a wire loop until applied to a bird. Each hummingbird species has a different leg sizes and so requires a particular size band.