Bird bands - and resights - allow researchers to track spoonbill movement, nesting, and behavior. Spotted! Wading Bird Research Specialist Shauna Sayers caught sight of an elusive band on the leg of a Roseate Spoonbill – a critical piece of data that brings their movement, behavior, and population into focus. Staff at the Audubon Everglades Research Station conduct weekly surveys of Roseate Spoonbill colonies in Florida Bay during nesting season to get nesting and general population data. Two of the colonies have been monitored for 30 years. In 2003, Audubon scientists began applying leg bands to chicks in nests in Florida Bay and in Tampa Bay at the Richard T. Paul Alafia Bank Bird Sanctuary, leased from and managed in collaboration with Mosaic and Port Tampa Bay. In 2013, staff also began banding birds hatching from nests at St. Augustine Alligator Farm. In total, Audubon has banded about 3,000 Roseate Spoonbills, which are considered an indicator species for Everglades ecosystem health.…