Hummingbird Banding - The Lasting Legacy of Toolmaker Lee Rogers

By Johanna Juntunen
 

Banded hummingbird before release. Photo by Johanna Juntunen

Researching hummingbirds is not like studying other birds. Hummingbirds in North America range in weight from approximately 2.3 g (Calliope Hummingbird) to 8.6 g (Blue-throated Mountain-gem). Banding is the main method to monitor hummingbird diversity and abundance, range expansion, and longevity, and gather other demographic data. Measuring and banding the smallest birds in the world requires exact and small customized tools. Bands must be made with great precision to avoid injuring the birds: they must be cut, smoothed, shaped, and stored carefully.

The earliest record of hummingbird banding dates to 1923, but larger-scale banding started in the 1950s even though professional tools for conducting high-quality and ethical research didn’t exist. Earlier hummingbird banders tinkered with many iterations of tools and bands until Lee Rogers, a former IBM engineer turned innovative toolmaker, started to design better tools to minimize the impact on hummingbirds. His garage at the off-grid home he built in Patagonia, AZ, became a tool research lab.

Various tools in Lee Rogers’ garage. Photo by Johanna Juntunen.

Lee pioneered and produced quality precision tools for hummingbird researchers worldwide for 20 years until his passing in 2022. Lee was married to master bander Susan Wethington, one of the founders of Hummingbird Monitoring Network (HMN), now Hummingbird Conservation Networks (HCNs). This unique organization is dedicated to studying and conserving hummingbird diversity and abundance throughout the Americas.

Lee’s most important innovation made leaps in measuring the tarsus size aka ankle circumference to find the optimal band size for each bird, because one size doesn’t fit all, even for birds of the same species. He developed the Tarsus Gauge, a ruler with a letter corresponding to the size of the bird’s ankle determining the size of the aluminum band. Therefore, the ruler has 24 slots that increase in width by 0.065 mm. The accuracy of the tool is about the diameter of a human hair!
 

The Tarsus Gauge, developed by Lee Rogers, determines the correct band size. Photo by Johanna Juntunen.

Additionally, when female hummingbirds are gravid and nesting, their ankles swell like those of pregnant women. Female birds need a larger band size rounded up from the tarsus measurement, although the bands are not round because hummingbirds have oval-shaped tarsus. The bands used to be perfectly round, which made them spin around. If spiderweb got stuck in the band, the spider silk would go around the tarsus until the circulation was caught off.

To match the different band sizes Lee perfected metal shaping jigs to shape bands in perfect cylinders, and their ends create a seamless butt joint with no sharp edges after polishing. His adjustable band-cutting tool, The Chopper cuts bands to size with ends to a slight angle, so that they make a perfect fit with no gaps. Lee developed customized pliers for eight different band sizes to close them from the smallest circumference (5.4 mm) to the largest (7.9 mm).
 

Banding pliers in Lee’s tool shop in Patagonia, Arizona. Photo by Johanna Juntunen.

Bander Dr. Michele Lanan, an entomology professor at the University of Arizona, recognizes the importance of Lee’s tools.

“Before Lee’s designs, the tools were different. All bands were made at the banding table, and there were only three sizes. And they weren’t precisely measured like now. There wasn’t data or studies on how the different sizes would affect the birds,” Lanan says.

The most notable difference was survivor data which went up with the designer tools that also included Band Storage Pins to protect the shape and integrity of the thin and tiny bands.

“The system works. Year after year we recapture birds we have banded, even as old as 13.”
 

Measuring and banding hummingbirds requires exact and small customized tools. Photo by Johanna Juntunen.

After Lee passed away in early 2022, the HCNs have been unable to offer high-quality tools to hummingbird researchers. While he was still alive, Lanan started to learn how to make the tools and documented Lee making them. She has limited time to edit the videos and create new tools, so HCNs found Rafe Copeland, a young toolmaker for scientists and museums, who now produces and improves Lee’s tools. Copeland’s company, Limn Research in Tucson, works in instrumentation research, and prototyping. His modern and fully equipped machine shop has CNC machining, surface grinding, heat treating, and inspection facilities.
 

Michele Lanan shows Lee’s hummingbird banding tools to Rafe Copeland. Photo by Johanna Juntunen.

Copeland explains that there is always room to improve the tools’ accuracy, consistency, and ease of use so that banding can be done safely.

“Band quality equals bird safety. Hummingbirds have very tiny bodies, specifically very tiny legs. The danger of injuring the birds is therefore real, either through clumsy banding, or by leaving bands on the birds with snags, rough edges, or a poor shape,” says Copeland.

Another area that needed improving was efficiency. Producing bands quickly in one place can save banders across the continent countless hours. Individual hummingbird bands are made up of sizes from A to O, in increments of 0.2mm in diameter. These bands must be prepared by hand from a sheet of 100 numbers preprinted by the USGS. It is challenging to produce these bands, which are too small to be easily handled, yet they must still be extremely accurate to ensure safety.

“Currently, no specific tool exists for cutting bands out of these sheets—large industrial cutting tools have been used to date, which are inappropriate for the task. That's like trying to cut a cake with a 36" chainsaw. This has resulted in high rejection/waste rates, slow production of bands, and even needing to send banding sheets down to Patagonia for Lee who sliced them into strips on his giant shear,” Copeland explains.
 

Limn Research offers high-quality precision length cutters with precision-adjustable stop for preparing bands to the required ±0.05mm accuracy. Photo by Limn Research.

The banding community's existing tools are a labor of love—made by volunteers in home or garage shops and often meticulously finished by hand. Copeland notes that these volunteers often lack the appropriate means to measure such small tools accurately. He has redesigned the tools from the ground up so they can be produced from better materials to a higher standard, and in greater volume using higher-quality machining and inspection methods.

“Modern manufacturing techniques will allow us to produce more tools for the community and ensure they are more consistent and accurate. Moving away from a volunteer-based production model also means we can offer a steady supply of tools.” Better materials such as hardened tool steel for banding pliers replace lower-grade steel for longer-lasting and repairable, sustainable tools.
 

Limn Research improved the design of Lee’s banding pliers making them from hardened tool steel. Photo by Limn Research.

Complete Hummingbird Banding kits are available at Limn Research. Photo by Limn Research.

Copeland researched materials and mechanisms, made and tested prototypes with HCNs, and developed production methods for months until Avian Research Tools (ART) went into production. These quality tools will be available to all avian researchers, not just hummingbird banders.

R&D costs climbed to $25,000.00, of which HCNs have raised $5,000.00. Copeland remarks that even though science tools are more expensive than similar consumer/hobby tools, the goal is to keep the price of the tools as low as possible.

“Funding has been a major challenge—so we took it slowly. We are finally ready to take orders, there is just a 30-day lead time,” Copeland exclaims.

To order ART tools, please visit Limn Research’s online catalog 

To donate to Hummingbird Conservation Networks (HCNs), please visit savehummingbirds.org/donate.
 

Johanna Juntunen is a biology graduate student in the Project Dragonfly Global Field Program (GFP) at Miami University. She is a hummingbird enthusiast, a lifelong birder, and a freelance journalist. You can read and subscribe to her free newsletter Hummingbirds in Our Gardens here.