U.S. Department of Agriculture: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Date of this Version
August 2005
Abstract
We use mass color-marhng to track the local and regional movements of large roosts of blackbirds (Icteridae). Several marhngs have been done by National Wildlife Research Center scientists, including marhng of spring roosts in northeastern Missouri and eastern South Dakota (Knittle et al. 1987, Knittle et al. 1996, Homan et al. 2004), fall roosts in central North Dakota (Linz et al. 1991, Homan et al. 2005), and winter roosts in the southern U.S. (Harsch 1995). Here, we provide a description of the process and methodology of aerial mass color-marhng with fluorescent particles.