Birding Wire

Surveys

This year, Playa Lakes Joint Venture joined a region-wide bird monitoring effort, Integrated Monitoring in Bird Conservation Regions (IMBCR), a large partnership-driven program that uses state-of-the-art approaches for the entire process, from the sampling design to how it reports results.
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Over the last two years, Commission biologists have been working with the Center for Conservation Biology, Williamsburg, Virginia, to assess black rail populations in North Carolina. While the species is disappearing rapidly from sites in Virginia, North Carolina has been considered the birds' stronghold, but even here, they are no longer present in areas they were found decades ago.
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An abundance of spring rainfall, along with ongoing efforts associated with the Lesser Prairie-chicken Range-wide Conservation Plan, has helped increase the lesser prairie-chicken's population approximately 25 percent from 2014 to 2015, according to results from a recent range-wide aerial survey.
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Wednesday, July 8, 2015
North America's spring duck population is at a record high, but returning birds initially found a lower pond count in key areas of the breeding grounds, according to the 2015 Waterfowl Breeding Population and Habitat Survey released July 1.
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Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Now through early March is Winter Raptor Survey (WRS) season, and the Hawk Migration Association of North America has recently revised its guidelines to simplify recording and insure collected data are scientifically useful for analysis.
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Wednesday, December 10, 2014
December through early March is Winter Raptor Survey (WRS) season. Hawk Migration Association of North America has recently revised its WRS guidelines to simplify recording and insure that collected data are scientifically useful for analysis.
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Once again in 2014, Bird Studies Canada staff participated in the Western James Bay Shorebird Survey, sending a team of researchers to monitor 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.
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The S.C. Department of Natural Resources (DNR) counted 2,020 wood stork nests in the state this year, down slightly from the record high of 2,057 nests that were counted during 2004. Nests were observed in 21 colonies in South Carolina this year, including 2 colonies where storks were not known to nest in the past.
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Wednesday, April 3, 2013
Anyone who loves watching birds can help scientists study and the plight of Tree Swallows, Barn Swallows, Violet-green Swallows, Purple Martins, and Eastern Phoebes by participating in the Cornell Lab of Ornithology's NestWatch citizen-science project (NestWatch.org).
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