Whooping Cranes' progress in Operation Migration

Weather in Hardin County, Tenn., has grounded the 10 young Whooping Cranes migrating from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin to Chassahowitzka NWR in Florida. (Click on the image to see a larger version.)

With guidance from three ultralight aircraft, the birds will fly more than 1,280 miles to reach their wintering grounds. This year's flock began their journey on October 10, and as of today, migration day 51, they've flown about 646 miles. You can compare their progress to previous years' timelines.

Why do ultralight pilots help these captive-bred cranes travel south? Look here for details about Grus americana, North America's tallest bird, and its struggle to return to a healthy population from an all-time low of 15 birds in 1941. You can learn more about Whooping Cranes and hear their calls here.

If you want to increase your odds of seeing the big birds along their migration route, look at this list of flyover locations. The OM crew stresses that their movements depend on the weather, so watchers need to remain flexible and understand that the birds might have to sit tight for a day or more if winds and other factors prove inhospitable.

Those of us who can't see the flock in person have another option: CraneCam. The site says:

Please note the camera will be broadcasting a LIVE feed while airborne with the young Whooping cranes. Best viewing time is (weather permitting) each day beginning at 7am Central and ending at approximately 9am. On days when weather is favorable, we will also set up the camera near the travel enclosure at each of our stopovers.

Remember: Hands off the birds -- unless you have permits

A press release sent Monday says:

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) has been receiving calls about Brown Pelicans that are either washing up dead on the [Oregon] coast or are exhibiting behavior which is uncharacteristic for the species (ie. begging for food, no fear of humans, eating bread crumbs as handouts). Many of the birds are emaciated or starving, and this is the reason for their seeming lack of fear of humans.

California Brown Pelicans are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Thus it is against the law to capture, kill, or possess these birds. Anyone found in violation of this law could face penalties of up to $15,000 in fines and/or 6 months imprisonment for each violation. If you have information of anyone violating the Migratory Bird Treaty Act please fill in the violation report form or call your local U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Special Agent.

Wildlife officials recommend contacting a nearby wildlife rehabilitation center if anyone encounters a bird that appears starving and also says,

Finally, please DO NOT feed these birds. This will only lead to further habituation of these birds to handouts from humans. It is important that these birds continue on their migratory route.

Photo courtesy of International Bird Rescue Research Center/Tom Grey

College students to study effects on climate change on birds

NASA provided more than $445,000 to University of Georgia so undergraduate students can attend classroom instruction and field classes that look into the effects of climate change on birds and their migration, the university announced this week. The grant subsidizes a year of classes that will begin with the fall 2010 semester and will cover global climate change models, research methods and ways to design field experiments. Students will conduct their experiments during the summer period.

Jeffrey Hepinstall-Cymerman, assistant professor of landscape ecology in the Warnell School of Forestry and Natural Resources, said students will use NASA data, models, spatial analysis, statistics and field methods. Hepinstall-Cymerman will work with two professors in the Warnell School -- Robert Cooper and Michael Conroy -- as well as Marshall Shepherd, professor in the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences.

The effect of climate change on birds is sometimes overlooked when the controversial subject is debated, but Conroy notes that if springs continue to get warmer, then it affects when the primary food source for birds—insects—emerge. If birds don’t adjust to that change, he said, newly-hatched birds won’t have enough food. ...

Although the NASA grant primarily funds instruction activities, the summer undergraduate research will offer undergraduate students the type of field research experience generally found only at the graduate level and will tie in with work Cooper is doing on breeding bird productivity along an elevational gradient at Coweeta.

“The mountainside is a surrogate for climate change,” said Cooper, “and leafout and insect emergence will be later at higher elevations. Migrating birds that arrive in the spring to breed may be right on time to hit peak insect numbers at higher elevations, but not at lower sites, a phenomenon that is likely to be even more extreme with increasing global temperatures.”

CMBO Morning Flight takes off

Down at the southernmost tip of New Jersey, a birding tradition began its seventh year on Sunday, just after sunrise. At Higbee Beach Wildlife Management Area, bird counters stood on the dredge spoil and counted the songbirds traveling north and following a cold front.

From atop the dredge soil, looking south and at the observation platform

With support from Zeiss, Cape May Bird Observatory's Morning Flight Project employs counters and provides Zeiss spotting scopes and binocular to identify the fall warblers and other species. On some mornings -- such as Oct. 16, 1990, and Oct. 18, 1995 -- more than 100,000 birds fly above Higbee.

The project will continue until Oct. 31. Free programs that describe the count will occur at 8 a.m. on Saturday and Sunday morning through the end of October.

Birding site earns spot in L.A. Times

I felt delighted to open Sunday's Times and see a bird -- an American Avocet -- on the front page of the California section. This birding article is the second within a month to get big play in the Times (the other one being the Travel section's piece about High Island, Texas). Nice to see birds, birding and birders like Jon Dunn receiving more coverage in a mainstream newspaper!

From the photo gallery

From Sunday's Los Angeles Times:

Reporting from Lone Pine, Calif. -- Teams of biologists fanned out across the vast playa of Owens Lake on Saturday to take a full accounting of one of environmentalism's unintended successes: tens of thousands of migrating waterfowl and shorebirds roosting on a dust-control project.

The 100-square-mile lake just east of Sequoia National Park was transformed into dusty salt flats after 1913, when its cargo of snowmelt and spring water was diverted into the Los Angeles Aqueduct. Since 2001, however, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power has flooded portions of the lake bed to control choking dust pollution.

Nature quickly responded to the ankle-deep sheet of water delivered by the $500-million dust-control project's plumbing system. First to appear on the sheen of water tinged bright green by algae were brine flies. Then came migrating birds that feed on them and peregrine falcons that feed on the birds.

This year, Audubon California designated Owens Lake one of the 17 most important bird areas in the state and a globally important wetlands in the making.

More federal money for migratory birds?

Birders have another chance to tell legislators about their passion for and concern about migratory birds. A timely, concise message can show that birders want their elected officials to support the Senate bill recently introduced by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) with cosponsors Sens. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) and Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.).

Senate bill S.690 aims to reauthorize the current Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act but with more funding. Recent reports -- such as "The State of the Birds" -- show declines in bird populations, hence the need for increased funding.

The senators' hyperlinked names above allow birders to send messages to those officials. Check here for the snail-mail addresses, phone numbers and online contact forms for your state's senators.

South American bird of prey sets world record

From Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pa., comes news of a White-throated Hawk that became the first raptor proven to migrate north across the equator to spend the winter.

An international team of ornithologists from Argentina and the United States used satellite telemetry to monitor White-throated Hawk movement and watched one individual move more than 3,700 miles north along the western slope of the Andes from its nest site near the resort town of Bariloche, Argentina, (41 degrees southern latitude) to winter near Bogota, Colombia, (3 degrees northern latitude). The bird crossed the Equator sometime between June 8 and 11.

This record-setting flight for “White-throated Hawk #72349” establishes the species as the first known bird of prey to breed in the Southern Hemisphere temperate zone and over winter north of the Equator in the Northern Hemisphere.

The raptor is the second member of its species to be tracked by Lorenzo Sympson of Bariloche, Argentina, Marc Bechard of Boise State University, and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s Director of Conservation Science Dr. Keith Bildstein in Kempton, Pennsylvania. The brain child of Sympson, the White-throated Hawk Migration Project has received critical support from NorthStar Science and Technology, the satellite tracking device manufacturer in Maryland that donated both tracking devices, and Hawk Mountain Sanctuary which paid for tracking time and data downloads.

Whooping Cranes migrate through Tennessee

Photo by pilot Joe Duff, Operation Migration

Fourteen endangered cranes made it to Hardin County, Tenn., today during their migration from Wisconsin to Florida. Led by four ultralight aircraft, the crane chicks left Necedah National Wildlife Refuge on Oct. 17. Their final destinations are Chassahowitzka and St. Marks national wildlife refuges.

The Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership coordinates the eight-year effort to reintroduce the endangered species in eastern North America. Currently 68 migratory Whooping Cranes live in the region.

"This is an exciting year for the reintroduction project with the addition of St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge in the Florida panhandle," said Sam D. Hamilton, Southeast Regional Director for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "We wish the intrepid pilots of Operation Migration all the best with the new route as they enter the Southeast, and hope for a safe and speedy arrival at St. Marks and Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge."

Click on the images to see larger versions.

Ultralight aircraft lead endangered birds during migration

On Friday the 17th, 14 Whooping Cranes followed ultralight aircraft from Necedah National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin to begin their fall migration to wintering habitat on Florida's Gulf Coast.

The group of young, endangered birds are the eighth flock in an annual program coordinated by Whooping Crane Eastern Partnership. The birds will follow four ultralights on a new route Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia. Their final destination: Chassahowitzka and St. Marks national wildlife refuges.

From a press release by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service's Southeast regional office:

“We are excited about the migration this year,” said Joe Duff, CEO of Operation Migration, the WCEP partner that leads the ultralight migration. “The new migration route offers opportunities for increased outreach and conservation education. Also, we know it will be safer, and we hope it will be faster.”

The ultralight pilots and support crew post updates along the way, so you can check their In The Field journal to learn of progress and challenges along the new route.

Click on the map to see a larger version.

10 spring must-see sites

Earlier this month, John Flicker -- president of National Audubon Society -- cited 10 favorite spring birding sites. They don't appear to be ranked in order of preference.

Kern River Preserve in Weldon, Calif.
Francis Beidler Forest Sanctuary in Harleyville, S.C.
Rowe Sanctuary in Gibbon, Neb.
Waunita Lek in Gunnison, Colo.
High Island, Texas
Easter Egg Rock in Muscongus Bay, Maine
Ottawa National Wildlife Refuge in Oak Harbor, Ohio
Central Park in New York City
Souris Loop National Wildlife Refuge in Minot, N.D.
Tara Wildlife in Vicksburg, Miss.

Have you been to any? Do you agree with Flicker's list? What do you consider your top 10 spring sites?

San Francisco might help migrating birds inadvertently

From today's San Francisco Chronicle:

San Francisco's picturesque skyline would be dark at night under a first-in-the-nation law proposed Tuesday that would mandate all skyscrapers turn off nonemergency lights after work hours.

Board of Supervisors President Aaron Peskin said his measure would reduce the energy wasted in the city's downtown.

"Anyone who has passed through our Financial District after dark knows that many large financial buildings in the downtown keep their lights on throughout the night even when there is not work or janitorial service going on," Peskin said.

The proposed law says businesses that do not comply would receive fines. I'm not sure that's a good route, because it creates more bureaucracy to enforce the law.

If, however, more skyscrapers turn off more lights between, say, 9 p.m. and 5 a.m. on the upper floors, then perhaps fewer migrating birds will die from collisions with skyscrapers or exhaustion.

Consider this important? Do something.

Share details about Fatal Light Awareness Program with Peskin and Ken Cleaveland, director of government and public affairs for the Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco. The program's website discusses urban threats to birds, with a section on light attraction:

Birds migrating at night are strongly attracted to, or at least trapped by, sources of artificial light, particularly during periods of inclement weather. Approaching the lights of lighthouses, floodlit obstacles, ceilometers (light beams generally used at airports to determine the altitude of cloud cover), communication towers, or lighted tall buildings, they become vulnerable to collisions with the structures themselves. If collision is avoided, birds are still at risk of death or injury. Once inside a beam of light, birds are reluctant to fly out of the lighted area into the dark, and often continue to flap around in the beam of light until they drop to the ground with exhaustion. A secondary threat resulting from their aggregation at lighted structures is their increased vulnerability to predation.

Also consider asking Audubon California and Golden Gate Audubon Society what they're doing, if anything, related to this proposal. The FLAP website doesn't show San Francisco as a city with a FLAP program; perhaps the site is outdated, and perhaps birders have taken the iniative to address the skyscrapers' effects on migrating birds. If they haven't taken that initiative, now's a good time.

Operation Migration at Space Coast festival

From Florida Today:

Highlights of this year's festival are two presentations by Joe Duff, co-founder and CEO of Operation Migration, the nonprofit organization dedicated to saving endangered bird species like the whopping crane by introducing them to safe migratory routes.

"This is one of the most exciting things that (has) happened to the festival," said Harris. "He'll be showing us how the program works."

The program to teach whopping cranes to migrate by following ultralight aircraft has been called the "wildlife equivalent of putting man on the moon."

The cranes follow the pilots from Wisconsin to Dunellin, Florida.

As an ultralight pilot, Duff has racked up more hours of flight alongside more species of birds than any other human.

Duff will speak once on Jan. 25 and once on Jan. 26. You can find more details at Space Coast Birding & Wildlife Festival.

Ultralight-led bird migration

From the Operation Migration website:

The Whooping Crane is the most famous endangered bird in North America. In part because it is large, distinctive, and photogenic and partly because, since 1967, Canadians and Americans have cooperated in a successful recovery program to safeguard it from extinction.

It is believed that approximately 1,400 whooping cranes existed in 1860. Their population declined because of hunting and habitat loss until 1941 when the last migrating flock dwindled to an all-time low of 15 birds. The wild flock has slowly increased to over 180 in late 1999. This flock winters in and around Aransas National Wildlife Refuge on the Gulf coast of Texas. In spring, they migrate north, nesting in Wood Buffalo National Park, which straddles the border of Alberta and Northwest Territories in Canada. This flock of whooping cranes is the only naturally occurring wild population in the world. Scientists have long recognized the risk of having all of the wild whooping cranes using one wintering and breeding location. With all the wild birds concentrated in one small area, the population could be wiped out by disease, bad weather, or human impacts. Whooping crane survival depends on additional, separated populations.

International Whooping Crane Recovery Team
The Whooping Crane Recovery Team (WCRT) is the governing body charged with responsibility of the species. Consisting of ten members: five Americans and five Canadians the team of ornithologists and biologists provide policy recommendations to the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Canadian Wildlife Service. Primarily, the team plans actions to protect the Aransas/Wood Buffalo natural flock and to establish two additional flocks in efforts to safeguard the whooping crane from possible extinction.

The team's efforts to establish a non-migratory Whooping crane flock began in Florida in 1993, using cranes hatched in captivity. In September, 1999, after searching for the best possible location to establish a second migratory flock, the team recommended that the flock be taught a migration route with central Wisconsin as the northern terminus and the west coast of Florida as the new wintering location. The WCRT sanctioned Operation Migration's ultralight-led migration technique as the main reintroduction method.

Each fall, an Operation Migration team leads a flock of Whooping Cranes from Wisconsin to Florida. Human pilots fly in ultralight aircraft while wearing baggy white clothing and remaining quiet to prevent the cranes from becoming domesticated.

This year's adventure began on Oct. 13. You'll find updates about the four pilots' and birds' progress -- or lack thereof -- in the field journal. New information is posted there as soon and often as possible. The entries include photos and lots of details.

If you want to support Operation Migration, visit its membership page.

Photos courtesy of U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service

President Bush talks about migratory birds

In case you missed it, our president visited the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, Md., over the weekend, and he talked about plans to improve stopover habitat for migratory birds in national wildlife refuges and national parks. He highlighted the success of cooperative conservation efforts that involve citizens, private groups and government officials.

President Bush also said:

There's something else we can do. I asked Congress to provide tax incentive to reward landowners who donate conservation easements. Conservation easements are a good way to ensure the long-term preservation of habitat. They allow people to give up the right to develop parts of their land and then count the value of that right as a charitable contribution.

He mentioned the Conservation Reserve Program, an element of the farm bill currently being rewritten in Congress.

He closed his speech by saying

Our efforts to restore habitats are strengthening bird populations. Since 2004, the Department of Interior has improved the status of five migratory bird species, and the Department is helping ensure that more than 62 percent of our nation's migratory bird species are healthy and at sustainable levels. But that's not good enough -- 62 percent is good, but we can do better. And so I've asked the Secretary to -- Secretary Kempthorne to focus on the status of five more species over the next five years. And to achieve this goal we need good data. I mean, we just don't want to be guessing about bird populations, we want to measure. And so I've asked the Secretary to produce a State of the Birds Report by 2009. This report will chart our progress, it'll identify species that need additional protections, and help us bring more of America's bird species into a healthy and sustainable status.

And Mr. Secretary, I appreciate your commitment. I appreciate the fact that you understand America's greatness is not measured by material wealth alone; it's measured by how we manage and care for all that we have been given. We're people united by our belief that we must be good stewards of our environment. The cooperative conservation policies that we have put in place show our commitment to protecting America's migratory birds, conserving the habitat they depend on and ensuring that generations of Americans will enjoy the beauty of birds for decades to come.

Start your hawks!

Yes, raptor fans, it's almost time for fall migration! To find hawkwatch sites, click here.

Find one near you, and try to catch a few hours ogling birds of prey. Do you have a favorite hawkwatching site? Feel free to share details.

With that, I'll bid adieu for a week. My vacation location won't include online access, so this place'll be quiet until Sept. 4. Best wishes for a fabulous end to the summer!

Darker skies during migration?

Do the taller buildings and skyscrapers near you turn off indoor lights at night? Audubon Minnesota -- along with the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources, the University of Minnesota and the Wildlife Rehabilitation Center of Minnesota -- will ask owners of high-rise buildings to go dark between midnight and dawn from March 15 to May 31 and Aug. 15 to Oct. 31.

The goal: to reduce window collisions by birds migrating along the Mississippi flyway. The Lights Out Twin Cities program follows in the footsteps of Fatal Light Awareness Program in Toronto and similar efforts in New York, Detroit and Chicago.