mantruc
Brent bleeding the sparrow
My friend Brent invited me to go with him for a morning of fieldwork. I picked him up at 4.45 AM. We headed down to the Penobscot Experimental Forest, it was very cold and it had snowed that night (you can still see snow in the background).
He wanted me to help getting pictures of his work. He's a biologist and is studying parenting behavior in White Throated Sparrows, they are looking for the link between a certain hormone and their parenting attitudes.
He catches them with a mist net and has 3 minutes to take blood samples from the bird with these capilary tubes before the stress of being caught starts producing hormonal changes in it's bloodstream. He told me to be very still over his shoulder while taking the pictures so I wouldn't startle the little bird. He was very good at handling them and making them stay cool.
When approaching for this shot, I did move a little rough once and the bird freaked a bit. Taking pictures is always a very focused moment for me, where all my attention is on the shot, but having to do it all quickly and standing absolutely still made the capture even more exciting, my heart was racing.
After taking the samples he would heal the tiny would on the wing.
Brent bleeding the sparrow
My friend Brent invited me to go with him for a morning of fieldwork. I picked him up at 4.45 AM. We headed down to the Penobscot Experimental Forest, it was very cold and it had snowed that night (you can still see snow in the background).
He wanted me to help getting pictures of his work. He's a biologist and is studying parenting behavior in White Throated Sparrows, they are looking for the link between a certain hormone and their parenting attitudes.
He catches them with a mist net and has 3 minutes to take blood samples from the bird with these capilary tubes before the stress of being caught starts producing hormonal changes in it's bloodstream. He told me to be very still over his shoulder while taking the pictures so I wouldn't startle the little bird. He was very good at handling them and making them stay cool.
When approaching for this shot, I did move a little rough once and the bird freaked a bit. Taking pictures is always a very focused moment for me, where all my attention is on the shot, but having to do it all quickly and standing absolutely still made the capture even more exciting, my heart was racing.
After taking the samples he would heal the tiny would on the wing.