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You

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The expression bird on a wire conveys a sense of freedom mixed with risk

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The American Kestrel embodies this phrase in the air these small Falcons enjoy limitless freedom while on the ground

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Changing conditions put them at risk

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Protecting these colorful flyers has become a mission for brand Smith. Okay, I'm brand Smith

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And I volunteer for Southern Wisconsin Bird Alliance, and I coordinate the Kestrel monitoring program

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On summer days brand leads fellow volunteers in caring for Kestrels

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We're citizen scientists. I call ourselves the amateurs

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But the professionals like scientists they can tell us what information they want us to gather and hopefully they can determine the reasons why

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Their numbers are declining. It's opened our eyes as far as just how much we as

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Humans can either help or hurt nature out there. The bird Alliance has put up some 200 Kestrel nesting homes

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Across southern, Wisconsin and brand and his crew are making house calls hold us

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And we might need to stretch it out just a little bit more

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It starts with the sneak peek using an endoscope

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You see the three eggs? Yeah, okay

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good

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Then it's the newly hatched they're seeking

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If you look in when they're five days old all you'll see is a pile of fluff

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To get up close brand climbs the ladder and expertly extracts the chicks

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Then the science begins

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We're documenting when we see the eggs when they hatch how old they are and when they fledge

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For age the chicks are compared to a photo book of day-by-day development. Okay, I'm looking here. Let's go one more

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Let's go with 16 days

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The birds are carefully weighed 139

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and banded

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We put identification bands on the birds. Now you have no how much they weigh the band. How much is that way?

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very little

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And what that is for is to help determine migration how old they live to be

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See how the the band will slide up and down on its leg so that leg won't get any bigger and it'll stay there its entire life

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Would someone like to hold this one under an umbrella? Yes

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Then the volunteers experience their own close encounter literally holding the kestrel's life in their hands

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I could feel a very strong heartbeat

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I'm in seeing its its beak how developed it is and the little tongue and everything. So yeah, it was it was very cool. Yeah

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See that tongue is me so that the food goes back down the throat

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As much as the group enjoys seeing kestrel's up close

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Brands thrill comes from watching the volunteers

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The part that I really like is seeing the people that just brighten

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Most of the visitors that were here today have probably never seen a kestrel

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And here that we're able to see nestlings. So it's really just seeing faces light up

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Kids here they were really light up

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Just being able to see them experience something that brings them joy

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Learn about nature and what's out there. It just brings a warmness to my heart

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And really that's the part of our education as a group

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Exposing them to things that are outside that we're able to see something they've never seen before

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And through their work help ensure kestrel's will be seen long into the future

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You