Gordon Sterchi, age 7, of Louisville, KY., for his question:

What is birdbanding?

Nobody flies south with the birds in the fall. But we know just where they go and the routes they take to get there. No one checks off the birthdays of the wild birds. But we know how long they are likely to live. These are some of the questions that have been answered by birdbanding.

A sandpiper was caught on the island of martinique, which is in the west indies. Around one of his long yellow legs was a band of aluminum with a long number. This code number was sent to birdbanding headquarters, and a machine figured out what it meant. The bird, it seems, had worn his little bracelet only six days. It had been fixed on his leg by an expert in Cape Cod, which is almost 2,000 miles from Martinique.

This birdbanding job proved that the sandpiper had flown about 2,000 miles in 6 days. Another banded bird was found in Holland, the Number stamped on his bracelet showed he had worn it for 28 years. It proved that this oyster catcher bird and his relatives could stay alive and well for almost 30 years. A pretty arctic tern was caught and banded in the frozen north. Later he was caught again in Australia, l4,000 miles away.

Millions of birds are caught and banded every year by experts in many lands. They are caught in nets or gentle traps that do not hurt them. The banding does not hurt them, either.

The band is usually an aluminum ring fixed around a bird's leg and stamped with a long code number and the address of the birdbanding headquarters. The banding is done carefully by an expert. Headquarters may be a bird society or the fish and wildlife society, Washington, DC if we wish to band birds, we must learn how to do it properly and get government permission.

Birds are world wide travelers, and we are curious about their trips. Every year thousands of banded birds are caught in faraway places. Some are trapped by foreign bird experts, some die and some are shot by hunters. These birds tell us thf stories of their travels. Their coded numbers are sent to headquarters and sorted. Thousands of records help the experts trace when and where the feathery travelers go, where they stop to rest and often how long they live.

Sometimes bands are fixed around the necks of geese and other long necked birds. Bird watchers can spot these bright necklaces as the birds fly overhead. Sometimes birds are sprayed with bright and harmless paint to make it easy to spot them from the ground, but most birds are traced by small leg bands. If you find a banded bird, gently remove his bracelet and send it to the address stamped on the metal.