Bird Study MB and Climate Change and Outdoor Code

[RememberSchiff]

The effect of off-shore wind turbines on bird and bat flight paths

"Dominion Energy agreed to install a wildlife-tracking system called Motus on both turbines at the end of the required monitoring period. Motus uses antennas to detect signals from birds and bats tagged with tiny radio transmitters.  

Since the Motus network launched in 2015, more than 30,000 birds, bats and butterflies(?) have been tagged, but the majority of the 1,500 antennas are on land. Meanwhile, many species migrate over the ocean.

Extending the Motus network offshore can help managers identify migration paths as well as stopover habitat on land, where birds fuel up before long flights over open water. Conserving those areas is critical, as migration is the most perilous time in a bird’s life cycle, due to the physical demands. "

And some results with photos (including flight paths) are at sources:

https://www.fws.gov/story/2024-03/where-do-birds-go-offshore-answers-may-be-blowing-wind

https://www.fws.gov/story/wind-farm-beneath-their-wings

[RememberSchiff]

Texas Skyscrapers are going dark to keep billions of birds safe - Lights Out Texas

"For birds, Texas is a major flyover state: approximately two billion birds, or one in three birds migrating through the US, fly through the Lone Star State in the spring. It is snugly situated at the convergence of two major migratory flyways – the broad north-south routes that many different bird species all use to migrate. Both the Central Americas Flyway, which stretches from the Canadian Arctic to the southern tip of Argentina, and the waterway-rich Mississippi Flyway, beloved by migratory waterbirds, pass through Texas.

Along the route, hazards abound – including bright city lights. Though the Galveston collision (May 4, 2017, 395 migratory birds died) was a particularly dramatic example, birds hitting buildings is a common phenomenon. Every year, between 365 million and one billion birds are thought to be killed in building collisions in the US. The risk increases when they migrate and pass through cities in large numbers."

...

"Around the same time as the Galveston bird crash, the Cornell Lab of Ornithology developed a way to forecast bird migration during specific times and locations, using radar. The resulting BirdCast migration forecast maps are freely accessible. Their live migration map allows anyone to check how many birds are migrating now, and where, as well as how many are predicted to pass in the near future. For one night in October, they recorded a "billion bird night", with that number or more birds passing in a single night.

In 2020, Cornell, Houston Audubon and a range of other organisations joined forces to start the "Lights Out, Texas!" campaign, which encourages building owners, developers and businesses to switch off non-essential lighting from 11pm to 6am each night during spring and autumn migration. Timed for around March-June (spring migration) and August-November (autumn migration), the campaign aims to help create a safe passage for nocturnally migrating birds. Since then, Lights Out Texas has taken hold in every major city in Texas. The state is considered an especially important place for the campaign given its position as a mass bird migration hotspot."

Much more at BBC source:

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20240410-how-switching-off-lights-stops-migrating-birds-collisions-with-buildings

[RememberSchiff]

The annual late summer-fall HawkWatch (viewing and counting hawk migration) has begun. Combined with a hike , it is good scout activity, e.g., Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatiory .

There are about 34 species of diurnal raptors in North America, some sites have more, some less.  About 15 species migrate through Maine and only 3 were counted last year in Acadia,

Source (good read about identification and Acadia Hawk Watch)

https://www.bangordailynews.com/2024/08/23/outdoors/outdoors-contributors/annual-hawk-watch-cadillac-mountain-acadia-joam40zk0w/

References:

HawkWatch daily counts by location

https://www.hawkcount.org/

Interactive US map to find hawkwatch sites and respective data

https://www.hawkcount.org/sitesel.php

https://www.nhaudubon.org/conservation/raptor-migration/

Edited August 25 by RememberSchiff

[yknot]

Fall hawk watches along any of the nation's flyways are reliably good for daytime spotting and for honing ID skills. On moonlit nights, point bins up at the moon to see if songbirds are on the move. On big flight nights when conditions cooperate, it's awe inspiring to see streams of them flying by.  

This is a really fun tool to look at what is flying over your neck of the woods each night. You just enter in your state or county:  

https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/migration-dashboard/

 

 

[SSScout]

Got a Red Shoulder hawk family at one end of our woods and a Bared Owl family about a mile  west in the same woods....

Blue Jays alert the folks at our feeder when they come by.....

We seem to have two nests of Ruby Throat HBs here at our sugar water feeders.  Buzz fights. 

Edited August 28 by SSScout

[RememberSchiff]

Bird Banding Campout

"On one recent weekend, 18 Scouts from BSA Troop 639 held a bird banding campout in northern Minnesota. The experience was a first for all involved, and made possible by one Scout’s grandfather, master bander and White Bear Lake resident Frank Taylor. 

Taylor greeted the troop at the banding site with the day’s first capture already in hand: a sharp-shinned hawk. He proceeded to tell all about that species’ physical features, diet and migration. He then enlisted the Scouts to help him record the bird’s measurements and information from its newly attached band. One fortunate Scout, Declan Johnson, was chosen to release it back onto its journey south. 

As he worked, Taylor showed the Scouts his equipment, talked about the banding process and shared more about raptors and their migration through northwestern Minnesota. He explained that since the vast water of Lake Superior doesn’t produce the warm air thermals the birds need to make their long migrations, they are funneled down the North Shore. As a result, they pass his banding station—and Duluth’s famous Hawk Ridge—in large numbers each fall."

 

( Read link)

Scout Owen Tollefson remarked “It was just so cool. I felt like I wouldn’t have an experience like this, probably never in my life again.” 

What a great program idea. Scout salute.

Much more (including photos) at sources: 

https://www.presspubs.com/white_bear/news/white-bear-lake-master-bird-bander-widens-scouts-outdoor-world/article_ef7e8408-9678-11ef-851b-87c14a58c2b1.html

North Shore Banding - Frank Taylor

https://bandingreports.blogspot.com/