Banding Courses 2026
MAPS season is well under way, and we are very busy monitoring our breeding birds. This is our busiest season, and our work is more appropriate for experienced banders or visitors with experience from other banding stations.
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We are excited to announce the dates for our 2026 level one beginner banding courses. We will offer two sections for our beginning banders, one up north of Seattle, and one at Northwest Trek near Eatonville.
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The dates are:
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Northwest Trek, Eatonville, WA: Sept. 11, 12, 13, and Sept. 19, 20.
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Up North: Sept. 25. 26, 27, and Oct. 3, 4, at the Willow Creak Hatchery, Brightwater Treatment Plant, and a very secret location in Shoreline.
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Both of these sites are epic, and different. Both will offer focussed classroom instruction and coached field practicum.
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Bird Banding Opportunities with PSBO 2026!
Bird Banding is a research technique that demands a high level of skill, knowledge, and practice. The Puget Sound Bird Observatory is strongly committed to developing well trained researchers who have sufficient experience and opportunity to use bird banding practices in their research. We take bird bander development very seriously at PSBO!
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If you are interested in becoming part of the research team here at PSBO, please get in touch: contact@pugetsoundbirds.org . There are several ways you can get involved with bird research through banding with the Puget Sound Bird Observatory:
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If you are interested in joining the PSBO research team, or would like to visit to help at the station, and have taken our level one banding course, or have the equivalent experience elsewhere, we would welcome you to come out. If you have worked at another banding station, or have a NABC certification, or any other certification (internationally, BTO, Euring, for example), or have run your own station as a grad student or similar, let's talk, we'd be very happy to meet you!
As A FULL bander...
EXPERIENCE REQUIRED
If you are an academic, researcher, grad student, or have questions about our station, methods, or research, please get in touch here. If you have common interests, wish to propose collaboration, look at data sets we have, discuss projects, or just nerd out on birds with us, get in touch! We'd love to chat with you.
As a researcher or academic...
AFFILIATION AND CV PREFERRED
If you feel like you would like to learn to become a bird bander/researcher, and do not have the equivalent of a full basic level banding course under your belt yet, PSBO would love to help you get started. We offer two sections of our Level One (Beginner Banding) Course in the late summer/early autumn every year. This course is ideal if you have not banded at all, or are just getting started. The course will cover all that you need to join a banding station, with instruction on extracting, banding, aging, and lots of field experience over five days. A perfect seminar for a active ornithologists and researchers, biology students who wish to acquire practical field experience, birders who want to understand the molt process, and anyone else who wants to participate in real field science. Get in touch, and keep watch on the PSBO website for more information. This is a fast-paced course and requires a nimble mind, a reasonably physically fit body, and the willingness to learn and grow in a cooperative team seminar environment.
AS a nEW BANDER...
NO EXPERIENCE NECESSARY
Please always feel like you can get in touch and ask questions. Our research team is guaranteed not to bite, and we believe that as a community of scientists, we all grow stronger through collaboration. Please, reach out and connect with us!
Beginner bander classes 2026
We will offer two beginner bander courses in 2026. These will occur at the end of the breeding season (Section One: Sept 11, 12, 13 and Sept. 19 and 20 at Northwest Trek in Eatonville and Section Two: Sept. 25, 26, 27 and Oct 3, 4 in Edmonds, Woodinville, and Shoreline.). These courses will teach the basics of beginning as a bander, and all that you'll need to know to join a banding station anywhere in North America. The course is five days long, spread over two weekends, and will teach setting nets, extracting birds, banding and processing birds, and managing data for a banding project. It's a great start if you would like to become a bird banding field researcher and is open to all.
Locations and Dates:
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September 11, 12, 13 and September 19, 20 at Northwest Trek, Eatonville WA.
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September 25, 26, 27 and October 3, 4 in Edmonds, then Woodinville, and finally in Shoreline.
Cancellation Fee:$150 if cancelled more than a month before the start of the class.$300 if cancelled less than a month before the start of the class.
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