This Week's Highlights 10 October 2014 Download a Printable PDF Version International News Project FeederWatch / Projet FeederWatch INTERNATIONAL Join Project FeederWatch Partners in Flight Conference National News Christmas Bird Count for Kids James Bay Shorebird Survey Regional News Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas NB Piping Plover Habitat Stewardship Archives Bird Studies Canada Main Page Hairy Woodpecker Photo: Ric Hornsby 10 October 2014 – The 28th season of Project FeederWatch begins on November 8! Please join our team of thousands of volunteers across North America, and turn your bird feeding hobby into research for bird conservation. Your counts will help scientists monitor changes in winter feeder-bird populations. You choose how much time you want to spend. New participants receive a kit with a handbook, a bird identification poster, a calendar, and an instruction booklet. Results are published in BirdWatch Canada and Winter Bird Highlights – the FeederWatch magazine. You can also explore maps and charts online to see what others are reporting during the count. Anyone with an interest in birds and nature is invited to join Project FeederWatch and become a Citizen Scientist. To learn more or to sign up, visit our website or call 1-888-4482473. Your $35 donation defrays the cost of the materials and data analysis (free for members of Bird Studies Canada). Project FeederWatch is a joint program of Bird Studies Canada and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. Participez au Projet FeederWatch 10 octobre 2014 – La nouvelle campagne du Projet FeederWatch commence le 8 novembre! Joignez vous à notre équipe nord américaine de milliers de bénévoles. Les participants déterminent eux mêmes le temps qu’ils souhaitent consacrer au dénombrement des oiseaux, et leurs observations permettent aux scientifiques de surveiller les changements au sein des populations en hiver. Les nouveaux venus reçoivent une trousse renfermant, entre autres, un guide, une affiche des principaux oiseaux de mangeoires, un calendrier et un livret d’instructions. Les résultats du recensement sont publiés dans la revue BirdWatch Canada d’Études d’Oiseaux Canada ainsi que dans Winter Bird Highlights, la revue du Projet FeederWatch. Les bénévoles peuvent également visionner des cartes et des graphiques en ligne pour se tenir au courant des mentions des autres participants. Nous invitons tous les amateurs d’oiseaux et de la nature à se renseigner sur le projet et à devenir un « citoyen chercheur ». Pour en savoir davantage au sujet du Projet FeederWatch au Canada ou pour vous y inscrire, envoyez un courriel à [email protected] ou composez le 1-866-518-0212. Les frais d’inscription de 35 $ couvrent les coûts de la trousse et de l’analyse des données. Les membres d’Études d’Oiseaux Canada participent gratuitement. Le Projet FeederWatch est un programme conjoint d’Études d’Oiseaux Canada et du Laboratoire d’ornithologie de Cornell. PIF Conference: Connecting with Bird Conservation Colleagues 10 October 2014 – This week, two Bird Studies Canada staff participated in the Northeast and Southeast Partners in Flight joint conference in Virginia Beach, VA. It was a productive week of presentations, workshops, and meetings of importance to bird conservation. Our Toronto Projects Coordinator Emily Rondel – who leads our Goldenwinged Warbler research in Ontario – attended sessions and working group meetings on this species by partners who are doing similar work in the U.S. Our Long Point Bird Observatory Manager Stu Mackenzie presented on the Motus Wildlife Tracking System. The conference theme was “Full Life Cycle Conservation: Flyway-scale Planning, Implementation, Monitoring, and Communication.” Members of the bird conservation community from throughout eastern North America gathered to improve linkages, enhance coordination and collaboration among individual partner efforts, and work toward unified approaches for guiding conservation at landscape scales. The conference was organized by Partners in Flight, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Virginia Department of Game & Inland Fisheries, and the American Bird Conservancy. Return to Top of Page NATIONAL Host a Christmas Bird Count for Kids! Photo: Alexandre Nicole, SCIRBI 10 October 2014 – Introduce youth to local birds, and the fun of birdwatching, by hosting a Christmas Bird Count for Kids (CBC4Kids) in your community this winter! This family-friendly program celebrates birds while engaging youth and their families in real Citizen Science. CBC4Kids events can be hosted by anyone who enjoys connecting kids with the natural world. These events are fun and easy to set up: just choose a location and date, advertise your event to youth and families, go birdwatching, and submit your group’s bird count data to eBird Canada. If you’re interested in coordinating a CBC4Kids event in your area, view our flyer for details or visit the CBC4Kids website. For more information, email [email protected] or call 519-586-3531 ext. 128. Please register your event with us by November 15, 2014. To host an event in the U.S., contact our program partners Sonoma Birding at [email protected] or 707-939-8007. Monitoring Shorebirds at James Bay Red Knots Photo: Ron Ridout 6 October 2014 – Bird Studies Canada staff have been participating in the Western James Bay Shorebird Survey for several years. Our 2014 contingent included Janice Chard, Dayna LeClair, Tim Lucas, Stu Mackenzie, Ron Ridout, Adam Timpf, and Emily Rondel. They were part of a team of researchers monitoring the tidal flats for several migrating shorebird species. Each camp was situated within an Important Bird Area, and the data collected will be used to update Canada’s IBA database. The survey results continue to illustrate the region’s critical – and unheralded – value as a migratory stopover for substantial numbers of shorebirds. In total, 26 species were observed, including a Western Sandpiper (very rare for the area). On August 11, all three camps reported a mass exodus of shorebirds as a major cold front passed through the area. Nearly 75,000 birds were tallied that day. Additionally, 150 individual birds of three species were tagged with radio transmitters that were monitored by receivers for the Motus Wildlife Tracking System throughout their time on James Bay. A high proportion of this sample has since been detected throughout the arrays in Ontario and the eastern seaboard. The Western James Bay Shorebird Survey is a cooperative effort spearheaded by Environment Canada’s Canadian Wildlife Service, the Royal Ontario Museum, Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, Bird Studies Canada, and Moose Cree First Nation. The project is funded by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Neotropical Migratory Bird Conservation Act program. Additional support for the 2014 expedition was provided by TD Friends of the Environment Foundation. Return to Top of Page REGIONAL Celebrating the Manitoba Atlas Project Photo: Ian Cook 10 October 2014 – On Friday, November 7, the Manitoba Breeding Bird Atlas will host an Evening of Celebration at the Caboto Centre in Winnipeg. Please join us in recognizing the project’s extraordinary achievements and thanking the many volunteers who have contributed to this massive undertaking. We are fiercely proud that participants in our province, which has a relatively small population, have collected more than 300,000 records, contributed over 40,000 hours of survey effort, and confirmed five new breeding species in Manitoba! The celebration will feature a banquet, guest speakers, presentations, door prizes, and a fundraising raffle. To purchase tickets, please contact Bird Studies Canada’s Manitoba Program Manager Christian Artuso at [email protected] or (204) 945-6816. Piping Plover Habitat Stewardship in New Brunswick 6 October 2014 – Late last month, Bird Studies Canada volunteers enhanced critical nesting habitat for the endangered Piping Plover by removing 275 kg of waste from New Brunswick’s Bouctouche dune. The dune is a privately-owned protected area. For the last two years, Bird Studies Canada has organized a beach clean-up as part of the annual Bouctouche Ecofestival dune walk hosted by the Irving Eco-Centre. We thank everyone who participated in the event for all of their hard work, and we look forward to doing it again next year! Bird Studies Canada gratefully acknowledges TD Friends of the Environment Foundation and the Government of Canada’s Habitat Stewardship Program for Species at Risk for supporting beach stewardship in southeast New Brunswick. Return to Top of Page To subscribe or unsubscribe to Latest News, follow this link. If you receive duplicates of this email, or if you do not wish to receive it, contact [email protected]. For questions about the news items or for media inquiries, please email [email protected]. Ce courriel a été envoyé depuis l'adresse [email protected]. Si vous recevez plus d'une copie de ce message, ou si vous voulez que l'on retire votre nom de la liste d'envoi, veuillez communiquer avec nous. Nous nous excusons du fait que ce message ne soit pas disponible en français. 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