~Upstream and Down~

Recently I had the privilege of going with a group of photographers to a bird banding station in Plymouth— Manomet Center ForConservation Sciences.   In the roughly forty years the center has been operating, the center has banded more than 350, 000 birds. The coastal acres are thickly wooded. Fine mesh nets edge trails and capture low flying birds. Volunteers check the nets hourly and gently extricate any birds that have become entangled, then band them and send them on their way.  Because the staff knew we were coming—twenty of us with our cameras—they had held onto a few birds for us to photograph up close.  What became quickly apparent was the personality of each species. Some are cooperative and preen for the camera, some are flighty and flustered at being the center of attention, some peck at the handler, and others resort to unusual postures, like the blue jay who bent its head at a ninety degree angle to its body and stuck his beak in the air, resisting gentle &q