Archives for Research

Studying a species that is poorly understood has many challenges, but it also brings opportunity; most importantly the opportunity to build a community from the ground up. Elegant yet enigmatic: we know little about nighthawks, and yet they are declining in many parts of their range. A new collaborative study in Ecography is a big step in the right direction for this species.

Researchers at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science’s Appalachian Laboratory, University of Delaware, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Colorado State University, Georgetown University, University of Massachusetts and Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center defined a new migration metric called the stopover-to-passage ratio (SPR). Using eight years of data from 12 weather surveillance radars, they found approximately half of the birds migrating through the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic coasts of the southeastern U.S. stop within 100 km of its coastlines, totaling ~1.2 to 2.0 billion birds each spring and autumn. Further, the drivers of stopover habitat use differed between spring and autumn migration, suggesting seasonal differences in habitat function.

It’s October and birds are on the move, and none more so than the Blackpoll Warbler. Thousands of these medium-sized warblers are streaming across North America towards the Atlantic coast in preparation for an epic journey to South America. Remarkably, where Blackpoll Warblers touch down in South America and what they do on arrival was largely unknown until recently…

Many species of migratory birds travel thousands of kilometers between their breeding grounds in Canada and the United States and their wintering grounds across Latin America. During these movements they will experience different geographies, land cover types and threats. Among all migrants, those going as far as South America are declining most steeply. While the exact cause of declines for these species is not always clear, considerable evidence suggests that extensive loss of mid-elevation forest in their Andean wintering grounds is a primary contributor.

The IMBCR program is the second largest breeding bird monitoring program in North America, spanning 16 western states. The strength of the IMBCR program lies in its partnership with multiple state and federal agencies and nonprofit organizations. Monitoring resources are pooled among the partners in a spatially balanced, probabilistic framework, which promotes a more efficient use of resources and allows us to monitor larger spatial and temporal extents compared to individual monitoring efforts.

From a hummingbird’s point of view, wildfire can be good or bad. With support from the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and WHP, Dr. Deborah M. Finch from the Research Station collaborated with Dr. Alexander and his research team at Klamath Bird Observatory in Oregon and with Dr. Sarahy Contreras from the University of Guadalajara – CUCSUR to complete a literature review about the effects of wildfire on hummingbird habitat, how restoration actions including prescribed fire affect those habitats, and how hummingbirds respond.

Over 1,000 years ago, ancestral Polynesians set off in a boat in search of a place they thought existed. Historians believe that migrating birds guided them. During the day they could track a long-legged wading bird by sight, and by night they could follow their loud calls.

All hummingbirds are metabolic marvels, but Rufous Hummingbirds take it to an extreme. The species has the longest migration of any hummingbird in the world. Relative to its body length, this bird- equal in weight to just a nickel– migrates farther than any bird species.