Bird migration is in full swing and long-term monitoring of birds is taking place at Presque Isle State Park.

Members of the Erie Bird Observatory are coming together for bird banding by placing a numbered aluminum band on birds.

Sarah Sargent, Erie Bird Observatory’s executive director, said if the bird is caught, people are able to identify where the band was put on the bird by the labeled number.

Sargent said the method of bird banding is still a useful technique today to know which birds are going where during migration and how far they are flying from one day to the next.

The executive director told us migration season is exciting but also a dangerous time for birds.

“Migration is the most mortality in the life cycle in the annual cycle of all these birds. Migration is challenging it’s a challenging time period of their life and many of them won’t make it back by spring,” said Sarah Sargent, executive director, Erie Bird Observatory.

Sargent added that the bird observatory is starting a program called Bird Safe Erie to make Erie more bird-friendly during migration.