Chinquapin makes it to Bahamas!

Check out this article describing Chinquapin's flight through Hurrican Irene! (Apparently those are Alex's hands.....)

Watch out for Hurrican Irene, Whimbrels!

The following is a press release sent to me by my former boss, Fletcher Smith.  Alex and I worked with Fletcher on a Whimbrel project last summer on the eastern shore of Virginia, capturing Whimbrel and helping put on radio and satellite transmitters.  It seems as though some of the Whimbrels will be greatly affected by Hurricane Irene.  This is not a new thing though, as we have all watched other Whimbrels fly directly into off-shore storms before.  As these birds fly right into the storm (including Hope, the most well-known Whimbrel in the world!), be thankful you have a roof over your head and that you don't have to migrate thousands of miles every year...through giant storms.


Fletcher says... "Check seaturtle.org tomorrow to see the current status.  We expect transmissions around 4pm eastern time today, though maps won’t update until tomorrow.  You can also follow the other 3 live birds, including Goshen who flew around the east edge of the storm and landed in Montserrat (in the volcano exclusion zone), and Hope and Machi that are directly in Irene’s path in coastal Virginia.    Chinquapin was captured and processed by our partners at Georgia Department of Natural Resources Non-game Division in spring 2010."

Check out a few of my blog posts from when I worked with Fletcher trying to capture Whimbrels...

Whimbrel Capture 1
Whimbrel Capture 2
Whimbrel Capture 3
Whimbrel Capture 4
Whimbrel "Watch"

Scientists Track Shorebird into Hurricane Irene

(Williamsburg, VA)---Scientists have tracked a migrating shorebird into Hurricane Irene. The shorebird, a whimbrel migrating from Canada to South America left Southampton Island in upper Hudson Bay on Saturday, flew out over the open ocean and appears to have encountered the outer bands of Irene on Tuesday. The bird named Chinquapin flew through the dangerous northeast quadrant of the storm during the day on Wednesday. It is being tracked by a small satellite transmitter and is scheduled to transmit a new set of positions within the next day. In 2010 this same bird flew around Tropical Storm Colin while a second bird flew into the storm and did not survive.

The long-term tracking study has documented several previous encounters between whimbrel and major storms. Earlier in August one of the birds flew through Tropical Storm Gert in the North Atlantic. This bird encountered high headwinds for 27 hours averaging only 9 miles per hour. Once through the storm, flight speed increased to more than 90 miles per hour as the bird was pushed by significant tail winds and made it back to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. In 2008, a bird was tracked into Hurricane Hanna and landed in the Bahamas only to be hit later by Hurricane Ike.

Updated tracking maps may be viewed online.
http://www.ccb-wm.org/programs/migration/Whimbrel/whimbrel.htm
How migratory birds navigate around and survive major storm systems has been an open
question to science. Achieving an understanding of this process is important because the

Caribbean Basin is a major flyway for many bird species moving from breeding grounds in North American to winter in South America and their migrations coincide with the period of highest hurricane formation. Changes in storm frequency, intensity, or distribution may have implications for timing and routes of migratory movements.

This tracking project is a collaborative effort between The Center for Conservation Biology, Georgia Department of Natural Resources Non-game Division, The Nature Conservancy, The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Virginia Coastal Zone Management Program, and Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences.

 

Two More Long-billed Curlew Nests!

For a curlew update as of yesterday, visit The Nemesis Bird for a summary of how we found our first two nests.

Fortunately, there is more good news today.  We arrived at our curlew hotspot early this morning with volunteer Gary Worthington, and got to rope-dragging early.  We decided to save behavioral observations until it got a little warmer out, when females may get off their nests and be more visible. 

While taking a break from rope-dragging, males were displaying on territories, but it seemed like a few were acting a little different.  From a distance, I saw one male mob a Red-tailed Hawk, and made a mental note to revisit that spot later.  Then we spotted three curlews in the air that turned out to be a female being pursued by 2 males...a potential new arrival?  Speaking of arrivals, check out this photo that compares a Whimbrel with a female Long-billed Curlew.  It was taken by Darren Clark, in Roberts, Idaho.  The two were apparently in a field together with Sandhill Cranes.  Pretty cool comparison shot!  Maybe this means a few female curlews will still be arriving at our sites?

When we were about to stop rope-dragging for the morning, we spotted a pair of curlews on the ground in front of us.  They were foraging around, and it looked like a solid pair;  the female was actively following the male, and the male wasn't calling excessively.  While the guys searched the ground for some eggs, the pair flew a short distance to a nearby hillside, where I watched the female make a bee-line to a scrape.  She was getting pretty cozy in it, standing and sitting repeatedly, and scraping her feet to make it the perfect shape for a few eggs.  The male helped out by putting very small pieces of grass in it, which she continually rearranged.  She sat on the scrape while the male foraged nearby.  This scrape may have an egg in it, but since they were actively constructing it, we decided to back off in case she hadn't laid any eggs yet.  I will revisit the scrape on monday and hopefully find at least 1 or 2 eggs in it!  It is only a few hundred meters away from the nest we found yesterday.

At this point, it was getting a little warm out, so we broke up into pairs to do some observations.  I headed across the road with Alex, where we had rope-dragged over a week ago with Jay.  In the distance, there was a pair foraging around a hill side, and they look like they will soon have a nest.  The female of this pair is pretty massive and you can tell she is a female from quite a distance because of it.  While I was watching this pair to the south, a juvenile Red-tailed Hawk flew in a few hundred meters to the west, and a different male curlew immediately took flight from the ground and thermalled up towards the hawk.  He then dive-bombed the Red-tail repeatedly and escorted it away.  He landed just out of view over the next hill, so I left Alex with the previous pair and headed over.  At the top of the hill, I found the male foraging alone, and a quick scan over the horizon revealed the head and long bill of a female sitting on a nest!  While I waited for Alex and the gang to arrive with egg floating supplies, the female kept her head up as the male pursued any raptor that came within about 300 meters of the nest.  His alarm calls at a female harrier were particulary full of rage as the raptor passed low over the hidden female.  He seemed to be doing a great job of keeping the raptors away, who seemed to be genuinely surprised by his sneak attacks from the ground.  Each time, he landed within a few hundred meters of the hidden female. 

Long-billed Curlew (male) standing guard near his nest

When Alex and Gary approached, the female hunkered down pretty tight to the ground and became nearly invisible.  Even as we approached the nest, we could only see her tiny eyeball staring at us through the short grass.  The male was actually ignoring us, and took his foraging a little farther from the nest.  I guess he saves all his energy for chasing raptors. 

Long-billed Curlew (female) hunkered down on nest; head/eye visible at bottom of arrow

The female held tight to the nest until we were only a few feet away.  She then flew low off the nest and half ran/flapped for about 10 feet in a distraction display, mostly with her wings outstretched.  She made herself look pretty huge and weird, and if I was a predator, I would have headed towards her for an apparent easy meal.

Long-billed Curlew (female) distraction display away from nest

She then "snuck away" very low to the ground, even though her large body was barely hidden in the grass. Any predator would be hot on her trail by now, getting led away from the nest. 

Long-billed Curlew (female) "sneaking" away from her nest

She watched pretty impatiently but at a safe distance while we floated the single slimy egg that apparently had just been laid.  It didn't take her very long to "sneak" right back to her nest. The awesome thing about this nest is that it is right next to a massive, perfectly circular cow pattie!  We had heard that curlews will nest near large objects like cow patties but hadn't yet seen it.  This scrape isn't lined at all, but we think maybe nest construction continues throughout egg-laying, since our 4 egg nest was prefectly lined with a fluffy layer of grasses.

Long-billed Curlew nest #3 (top left side) next to cow pattie

Long-billed Curlew (female) waiting to go back to her nest

Alex and Oly are headed out to do owl surveys next week, and we are getting a new co-worker who is lucky enough to be starting right when it looks like things are getting started!

Thanks to Gary Worthington for helping us out today!  We covered a huge amount of ground!

Santa Barbara County Birding Day 2, July 31

After spending the night near Santa Barbara, we woke up and hit a few beaches along the coast.  Brewer's blackbirds were pretty common on the beaches, and weren't bothered by beach-goers.  This is a bird we rarely get to see so it was awesome to get an up-close look!

male Brewer's Blackbird

Nearby, a flock of gulls was relaxing on shore.

First Year Western Gull

First Year Ring-billed Gull

Adult Western Gull (has only one eye)

 

Our next stop was Santa Barbara Harbor.  This was an excellent stop!  A jetty with a walkway on it protects the marina and harbor, and the ocean-facing side is lined with huge algae-covered rocks.  About half-way down the jetty, we started seeing Wandering Tattlers and Black Turnstones!  All the people walking on the jetty had no idea they were there because of a big cement wall that acts as a wave-breaker.  A few people peeked over the wall to see what we were photographing and got a glimpse of them!

Black Turnstone, the Ruddy Turnstone's evil twin, balancing on slanted rocks

At a few beaches in the area, hungry Black Turstones were running around after waves, picking up and eating small mussels and sand crabs.  They seem famished, and are recent arrivals on the Santa Barbara coast right now.   We also saw a Surfbird fly over, but didn't get a good look at it.

Black Turnstone on the beach

This Black Turnstone were so preoccupied with eating

that a huge wave plowed right into him! (and me)

This one has a small mussell

These Wandering Tattlers (lifer) were on the ocean side of the jetty in groups of 3 to 4. 

This tattler perched on a rock as I hid nearby.

Afew Tattlers narrowly escaped incoming waves.

The tattlers would run to shore after every wave, and would be chased back up again by it.

The Wandering Tattlers were also frantically eating, and this one caught a huge sand crab!

While I was photographing shorebirds, Alex found this Common Merganser fishing

 in the marina.The water was so clear you could see him hunting underwater!

Butterflies were far and few, but we did find this

small Western Pygmy Blue fighting the wind.

Next we took a trip to the nearby Museum of Natural History, where they had an excellent

 collection of bird taxidermies. In the museum gardens, Oregon Juncos were hopping around.

We decided to go back to Santa Barbara Harbor since the birds were cooperative and the lighting was great.  We found a flew small flocks of Western Whimbrel on shore, and throughout the evening, more flew by, likely migrating down the coast. 

Western Whimbrel in Santa Barbara Harbor

Double-crested Cormorant, a common bird of the harbor

As the sun started setting, the turstones and tattlers settled in to dark rocky crevasses.  Alex and I took a walk down a small sandy beach, and found this Long-billed Curlew foraging along the shoreline.  He knew we were watching him, but didn't seem to care as we inched forward for some great photos.

 Long-billed Curlew foraging on beach

The curlew eventually flew towards Alex, but was flushed back towards me by some people.

When he landed he showed a quick glimpse of his bright rufous and cinnamon underwing,

which seemed dramatically red in the setting sun. We spent the night again in Santa Barbara.

Virginia and Arizona bound...whimbrels and cuckoos

In late April, Alex and I will be starting a job on the Delmarva peninsula, tracking and monitoring whimbrels until early June.  We will be working for the Center of Conservation Biology at the College of William and Mary.  I am really looking forward to radio-tracking again.  The last time I did telemetry was on the saw-whet owl project.  We will be living at the Eastern Shore of Virginia NWR, no doubt a great place to be in early summer.

Right after that, we just found out we got accepted for a job through the Southern Sierra Research Station Yellow-billed Cuckoo project.  Work will take place in the lower Colorado River Valley, and will potentially take us into Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and California.  We will be monitoring the birds through radio-telemetry and color-band resighting.  Arizona is obviously a great place for new birds, and we are really looking forward to working with the cuckoos.  This job will last through the summer.

Yellow-billed cuckoo, from SSRS website

Stories of both of these jobs to come later this year!