After we get the birds out of the trap we place them in kennels and store them on the boat until all the kennels are full or we empty all of the traps. The kennels have mesh netting inside to keep the birds from resting in their own feces. We split into crews of two and each has ten traps to check. We stop the boat away from a trap (to not distress the decoy hen any further) and process the birds. First we put on the band, then swab the bird's cloaca for avian influenza, then take measurements of the tarsus (leg), wing chord (folded wing), and head (tip of bill to back of head) and then weigh the bird. The study compares the body condition of birds with bird flu to those without. We need the morphometric measurements as a reference to the mass of the bird, as different sized birds can be expected to have different mass. After the bird is weighed it is released.
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