Other misc facts I learned:
Some of the raptor gloves for bigger birds are made of kangaroo leather, which is tougher than cow leather. Looking at product descriptions, it describes kangaroo leather as the most puncture resistant leather, which is good when dealing with large powerful talons.
The operculum is the muscle that controls an owl's ears. Fish also have operculum muscles, which are what flaps their gills.
To start a banding program, you need to apply to the government and demonstrate you have the ability to handle the birds you want to study and write a report detailing why you want to study a particular bird species in a particular area and get their approval. There is very much involved in the whole licensing program.
There are different mist nets to catch different birds. The program leader said a hawk would punch right through his nets, but they are put out at night for the owls in places owls are likely to fly and not other birds.
The nets are checked every 20 minutes while they are out. It is illegal to possess mist nets without a license as they are abused for poaching. To possess any bird or part of a bird without a license is a felony and it is taken very seriously, so it was neat to be able to handle feathers and parts of the raptors in person.
You can't age a bird by the UV light technique after 4 or 5 years. When they are younger, they don't have enough energy to replace them all every year, but once they get strong enough they can, so it become impossible to age them. They're just considered "adult birds" from then on.
There's probably more that in forgetting, but it was a lot of fun. It was a 2 hour program and was a $15 donation for attendance and we got refreshments as well. Very much worth it, and would have been even more amazing if we had caught some owls, but that's the luck of the draw...
I'm learning all these people are so knowledge because of how rigorous the requirements are to get any of these jobs, and there are many long and random hours of dedication involved too with with them, because you largely have to do it on the animals' schedules, so everyone you will meet really knows their stuff and loves to share there knowledge because they practically have to make it their life.