A Story Of Evading Bureaucracy-- Getting Crazy In Baltimore (In Pictures)

This is how the story goes. There was a nest high in a sycamore tree by Oriole stadium in Baltimore we needed to that we needed to access in order to band and weigh the young, as usual. Here's what the nestlings begging and then parent and nestling begging looked like:



It was a Monday a week and a half ago, and it was the day that was at least 100F. We had worked since the wee hours of the morning mist netting and we were all hot and tired.

We took our ladder, climbing and banding gear and drove over to the nest. When we parked, we were accosted by the stadium security. They asked to see our permits. We couldn't find our permits. We told them we had state and city permits, and they said they wanted something from the governor, but by the way the land on the other side of the fence from the nest, just five feet away, was city property so our city permit would enable us to be on that land.

We went and printed out our permits at the local Staples, then returned and propped our ladder over the fence and my advisor, aka Tarzan, climbed into the tree using the ladder so that he never touched the ground on stadium property! He lowered the nestlings to us in a bag and we jumped over the fence momentarily to get them, processed them, and returned them to him in the bag with the string attached so he could pull them back up and put them back in the nest. Rather a clever way of evading bureaucracy if you ask me.

Here is Tarzan in the tree and Eagle Eyes and myself, Hermit Thrush, on the ground. You can see the ladder leaning against the fence dividing city of Baltimore property from Oriole stadium federal property. You can also see the bag with the nestlings being raised back to the nest. The first photo isn't labeled, in the second almost everything is.



Just in case you can't see the nest clearly I've circled it in this edited version of the above photo:


If you are wondering how close we were to Oriole stadium, it is on the right of the road in the photos above. Here you can see it in the background (with Tarzan climbing the tree):


And if you made it this far, here's a shot of me supporting all of Tarzan's weight with the climbing gear so he can hang out over the nest. The gear always pulls up on me, but I've gotten comfortable with it and if I'm sitting down I no longer feel like I will be pulled up into the air. Note the permit lying on the ground next to me in case we got busted again! Every time I heard sirens I got nervous it was the police but it turned out to be ambulances going to the nearby U or MD medical center instead, luckily for us.