My name is Emily Munch and I was the first ever Banding Trainee for Bird Conservancy of the Rockies at the Barr Lake banding station this past fall. My role was to learn how to safely extract birds from mist nets and how to identify, age, sex, and band birds.
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 Conservancy of the Rockies’ social media posting on August 31 grabbed my attention. Featuring a close up of a Black Swift in hand, the accompanying post announced that the Black Swift Research Team had recently caught three Black Swifts, all of which had been banded 17 years ago in 2005 as adults, breaking the longevity record of oldest known for the species. My heart nearly stopped.
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.
Did you enjoy our last post about IMBCR? In this post, we explore a brief overview of IMBCR’s unique study design, explore two of IMBCR’s core data products, and find out how you can use this freely-available data.
Every year, biologists and technicians traverse on foot across mountains, prairies, and deserts to survey breeding birds under the Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR) program. The second largest breeding bird monitoring program in North America, IMBCR’s footprint stretches across private and public land from the Great Plains to the Great Basin. Check out this StoryMap for a closer look at this impressive program!
Of the shorebirds species that breed in North America, a clear majority migrate to wintering grounds in the temperate and tropical regions of Central and South America. Shorebirds whose breeding and wintering grounds are far apart must replenish their fat reserves during migration. They do this by stopping at a chain of staging areas, such as the Texas Coast, Cheyenne Bottoms in Kansas, the Rainwater Basins in Nebraska, and the Prairie Potholes of the Dakota’s. Threats to shorebirds have become more diverse and widespread in recent decades and pose serious conservation challenges. Effective conservation requires a wide-ranging approach to identify and reduce threats throughout the flyway.
A chewed tree stump, an interwoven dam of sticks, logs, and mud, or a what might look like a pile of mud with branches and grasses are all signs you are in a beaver territory. And this territory is on its way to becoming a thriving part of our ecosystem!
Effective conservation requires understanding when and where species face limiting factors. For nomadic birds collecting this data can be extremely challenging. Bird Conservancy is testing out Motus for tracking the winter movements for an uncommon Colorado bird, the Brown-capped Rosy-Finch.
Bird Conservancy of the Rockies researchers are developing a network of automated radio telemetry stations to study the movement of grassland birds. This work will help fill in missing information about where these birds go during migration, and will ultimately help managers better conserve important grasslands for the birds to use into the future.
