Anyone Ever Find A

[Cliff KS]

bird band? Last night I only had about an hour to hunt before dark, so I went to a nearby farm site I have pounded pretty hard off and on for a couple of years. I was using the 6" HF DD coil in all metal and only found 3 targets that read higher than iron.

They were hard to find as it was getting darker and all 3 were small objects and I had forgotten to take my pinpointer.

One find was the aluminum bird band -- about 5/16" outside circumference and about 1/4" H. It has number and abbreviation for US Fish & Wildlife Service on it and is about the size they would use on a dove or quail or maybe a songbird. Although I think it has been in the ground for years, I think I will call the band info 800 number this week and see if they can tell me when/where/species it was placed on originally. The bird may have died naturally or the band may have been tossed by a hunter after already being reported or not.

My second find was a jagged fragment of a brass shell casing about 5/16" x 1/4" and dark like the soil so it was hard to locate. My third find was a thin 5/16" diameter copper washer, also dark like the soil and hard to locate.

I'm a coin hunter so the hunt was kind of disappointing for me, but at least I found the bird band to kind of follow up on as an item of interest. These are some of the smallest items I have dug in a while.

The old farm sites I have been hunting, I have hunted a lot and the number of non-ferrous targets is dwindling, but there is a lot of iron of all sizes at these sites, so I have been using the 6" DD. I bought and tried the 9" LF, but it sounded like a machinegun and was too mentally fatiguing to me to hang with for very long. Would this be a good place for the 10.5" DD MF? What do you'all think?

 

[Mark in S.E. IA]

I've found 2 of those bird bands so far and both of them were found in the woods. I think both of them are from private bird handlers and I was not able to find any info about them.

I've been using the 10.5 DD 7.5 kHz coil for 3 years now and I think it does a great job at places that are loaded with iron. Something that you might try before you buy another coil. Try running in pattern 1 and 4 tones and when you get a iffy signal switch to AM and then see how it sounds. Running in pattern 1 might help you to hear the good tones a little better and be a little easier on your ears.

 

[Cliff KS]

Hey thanks for the tip Mark. I'll have to try that --I guess you mean with the 9 LF coil? I had been trying the multi-tone setting in AM mode as Digger and others said that's how you get it to give you a low iron grunt on deep iron that was distinguishable from deep silver, but I had such a machine gun effect that I couldn't sort out much of what was going on, it was too much for me, so I have been using the 6 HF.

The band I found has "WRITE F&W SERVICE" above the number and "WASH DC USA" below the number so it should be in their records. I thinking it has been in the ground awhile because it was about 5" deep and I think they changed their bands some time ago to say "Call F&W Service" and the 800 number you should use to do so.

I think the racing homing pigeon crowd bands a lot of their pigeons. I was told that some of the clubs/owners have websites where they post their band numbers, etc., in the hopes that someone found their live birds if they can't find their way home and will return them to the owner as they pay a lot of money for a bird from a breeder that is known to have "fast" stock. They are pretty good at the homing thing, but occasionally one will be unable to find its way back due to extreme weather or something of that nature.

 

[Mark in S.E. IA]

Yeah, I would try that first with the 9" LF coil and see if that helps. What kind of GB numbers do you get at that site and some of the other areas that you MD at?

 

[Cliff KS]

GB has been 37. Usually 35-40 in my area. Never below the 28 that Digger says is a good point to switch to a DD. I like using DD's for the target separation in the iron-infested sites, not because of mineralization. Our soil is pretty mild here.

 

[Mark in S.E. IA]

With the higher GB numbers I would try using pattern 1 with 4 tones with your concentric coils and see if that don't help. if that don't help then you could try the 10.5 DD 7.5 coil. That's the only coil I use but most areas that I MD at the GB numbers are uaually below #30, but not always.