My journey toward a love for birds began in Central America during my Peace Corps years in Guatemala. Working as a volunteer, I was tasked with cataloging all bird species in a newly designated wildlife refuge and sprawling freshwater lowland jungle called Bocas Del Polochic. Working with local rangers hired to protect the refuge, we roamed the area via dugout canoe documenting the vast assemblage of different bird species.
Our banding trainee position strives to provide technical bird banding experience to foster future ornithologists. While learning these skills the trainee also becomes part of the community at the banding station. Lauren is our second banding trainee at the Barr Lake banding station. Read on to hear more about her time at the station.
The Red Crossbill, Loxia curvistra, is a peculiar finch found among the spruces, firs, pines, and hemlocks of coniferous woodlands. The Red Crossbill is one of three of the 17 finch species in North America that have an unusual, but spectacular beak. Per their name, the crossbill has a crossed bill. You may be thinking, what does having a crossed bill have to do with the journey of a crossbill? Everything.
As the summer slowly progresses towards fall many birds are finished nesting and feeding fledglings and are preparing for the next step in their annual cycle. Some will migrate south as far as Central and South America, while others will hunker down for winter in the same areas where they bred. Each morning the dawn chorus is a little quieter and the species list less diverse. To a technician working on the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program this signals that the point counts are done for the year and they too will move on to their next adventure.
There are always eyes reflecting back in the beam of my headlamp. Usually, it is deer or elk, their silhouettes looking vaguely alien because of their large ears. Other times, it is a Common Poorwill that sits on the trail, eyes reflecting red, and flutters up in a panic when I walk too close. A handful of times it has been a bear, that crashes away through the undergrowth once it catches a whiff of this unwashed field tech and vanishes astonishingly quickly for an animal so large…
We were almost down to our camp when I noticed two beautifully round orbs staring at us from behind a bush. We both froze in our places while we racked our brains on what to do. It did not take long to draw from what we had learned in our training,
By my students’ calculations, we had spent over 50 hours trying to capture this particular Flammulated Owl, dating back two summers. Make no mistake—there have been many challenging owls to capture over the course of this 40-year demographic study, but this owl had drawn extra attention from the nine students working with me that summer, with its Houdini-esque tactics for evading capture at a nest cavity high in a quaking aspen.
Update from the field! Seasonal Bird Conservancy banders are working in the Chihuahuan Desert this winter to tag non-breeding grassland birds for our Motus project. Read the blog to learn more about what they are doing and how it will aid in our efforts to help grasslands and the birds that call it their home.
Bird Conservancy has been monitoring Mexican Spotted Owls since 2014. Learn why we are working on the project and the threats this elusive owl endures.
The Bird Migration Explorer reveals migration data consolidated for 458 bird species found in the United States and Canada. It allows users to see the most complete data collected on migratory species in their neighborhoods and where those birds go throughout the year. Read on to find out how Bird Conservancy was involved in the creation of this platform.