Hello!

My name is Laura-Marie ('LM' for short) and I am excited to be the bird bander at Presque Isle for the spring migration this year. I have a pretty diverse background: I studied ancient languages and culture all over the world as an undergrad, I spent some time as a solicitor in the UK after grad school, and then I was a full time wildlife rehabilitatior for a few years. One thing has always remained a constant though- my love of birds. I grew up on the east coast and some of my earliest and fondest memories are of walking the Delaware Bayshore with my grandmother as she educated the public about shorebirds and I tried to convince people to flip over the stranded horseshoe crabs. I am very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with many of the shorebirds from my childhood, both here in the States as well as in other countries. I have spent the last seven years working with wildlife in various capacities and in particular, I have spent the last three years sharpening my avian banding skills by banding birds on three continents and working with various sized birds from hummingbirds to albatross so, trust me, your birds are in good hands! Most recently, I had the privilege to trap shorebirds on their wintering grounds in Brasil in between working and volunteering at Powdermill Nature Reserve over the last two years. Powdermill is a very special place not only because it is the longest continually run banding operation in our country but also because it is uniquely situated to catch a large diversity of birds during migration and so during my time there, I had the opportunity to work with 112 unique species. Hopefully, many of which I will be able to show you up close if you come down to visit me whilst I'm banding. As mentioned in a previous post, we will be posting a schedule and more information in the upcoming weeks. I hope that all of you will come down and visit me at least once this season and share in the love that is witnessing spring migration up close and in the hand. I should be pretty easy to locate once you get to the banding site- I usually have a bird in the hand and a big smile on my face but I've attached some photos in case you need a better reference (also these photos show just some of the diversity of what you can catch with mist nets!).

I look forward to meeting each and every one of you and here's to a great season!

For the last four years, I've been trapping raptors in Cape May, NJ during fall migration. This is the first Red-tailed Hawk that I ever caught.

I actually caught this swan on a net round while banding at the largest passerine station in the world (Icklesham, UK).

I have had the pleasure of working with Semipalmated Sandpipers on both the DE Bay and in Brasil. This particular population has seen a significant decline in the last few decades.

The first time that I ever caught a Belted Kingfisher, I actually caught two in the same net! Talk about a happy biologist!