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If birds can be captured, marked, and released unharmed, a great deal of information can be learned about their movements. Many different marking methods have been developed to identify particular individuals when they are observed or recaptured at a later date. A few of the general methods are summarized in this section.

Bands, Collars, Streamers

Since 1920, the marking of birds with numbered leg bands in North America has been under the direction of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in cooperation with the Canadian Wildlife Service. Every year professional biologists and voluntary cooperators, working under permit, place bands on thousands of birds, game and nongame, large and small, migratory and nonmigratory, with each band carrying a serial number and the legend, NOTIFY FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE, WASHINGTON, D.C., or on the smaller sizes, an abbreviation. When a banded bird is reported from a second locality, a definite fact relative to its movements becomes known, and a study of many such cases develops more and more complete knowledge of the details of migration.