SongbirdSOS

Saskatchewan Scientist Studying Impact of Pesticides

in Conservation  by July 22, 2014 0 comments

Christy Morrissey is in a race against time to prove that neonicotinoid pesticides are causing steep songbird population declines in the Canadian prairies. An ecotoxicologist at the University of  Saskatchewan, Christy has been researching how these powerful pesticides are seeping into the surrounding wetlands and poisoning the food chain.

We filmed with Christy last year as she collected her first wetland samples. The results were troubling. Of her 80 test water samples, all but two were contaminated with neonicotinoid pestcides. We checked in with Christy to see how her research is progressing this year. Christy and her team collect spring wetland water sample

Christy Morrissey

A portion of her study involves measuring the clutch size and body condition of Tree Swallows in different regions across the prairie. Could there be a connection between weaker birds and pesticides?

Christy and her team are in year three of their Tree Swallow study and are developing a stronger understanding of the birds’ diet. In spite of disruptions in their food supply, the birds maintain their diet of midges and mosquitoes, even if they are in short supply.

“We hypothesize that birds at agricultural sites must work harder to deliver to the chicks,” she said. “They will either increase the number of foraging trips or increase the amount of time spend attending the nestlings.” She hasn’t been surprised to notice that the birds are generally weaker in areas with more intensive agriculture and higher concentration of pesticides.

Pest damage

The flea beetle is an incredibly damaging pest for farmers if left untreated

Her team has also started to use radio frequency identification (RFID) tags on the tree swallows to record the number of feeding trips they make to their nests. This new possibility opens up doors to exciting research opportunities; Christy can now relate the number of feeding trips by each sex to their stress response.

This summer will be a busy and exciting time for Christy but at the same time, troubling. During filming, Christy made an interesting comment about her complicated relationship to her research. “I get excited about the results,” she said. “The fact that there are neonicotinoids in the water, seeing impacts as a scientist makes me excited because it’s interesting. But as a naturalist and even just a mother I guess it makes me concerned that…very little work has been done from the regulatory perspective to address this.”

Related posts:

  1. Are Pesticides Causing Problems for Tree Swallow Songbirds?
  2. Scientist uses light study to prevent bird collisions
  3. Pesticides Make Migrating Birds Lose their Way
  4. The Messenger’s Cagan Şekercioğlu’s Environmental Request while Accepting a Prestigious Award

SongbirdSOS Newsletter#1

in News  by June 12, 2014 0 comments

songbird_sos. image with bg.from Su's website_cropped

 

We are happy to announce that filming for our feature documentary SongbirdSOS is nearly complete. We are in the thick of editing now and look forward to sharing the film with audiences in the fall.

Humans share an intimate relationship with songbirds. The impulse to listen to their song and to capture them in our stories and music has existed for thousands of years. But this connection is in danger of being broken, as we have only half the birds now than we had in the 1960’s.

Over the last year the SongbirdSOS crew has been following and filming the birds around the globe — from Eastern Turkey to the Boreal Forest to New York City. We have touched down in places where songbirds are threatened and met the people from around the world who are working passionately to help them on their way.

While our development and production journey started four years ago, our journey to share this documentary with you and other people interested in birds and conservation issues starts now.

We will be announcing important dates and opportunities for involvement including details around film festivals, broadcasts and other screenings. We will also share highlights from the field through our blog. So please pass on this email if you know anyone who might be interested in the film. Like us on Facebook or follow us on Twitter.

With your help we believe we can make a difference.

Our website and trailer will give you a glimpse of what to expect.

Dominik Eulberg_pic1_small

 

Our crew just wrapped shooting in France and Germany.  While there,  Director Su Rynard met with Martin Wikelski (Max Plank Institute)  who is on the cusp of tracking bird migration paths from outer space. The crew also partied with Dominik Eulberg, a raving ornithologist and famous DJ whose fascination with bird song inspires his electronic dance music.  Read more about our trip on our blog.

 

 

 

 

Bridget + Student

 

Our featured scientist this month is ornithologist and author Dr. Bridget Stutchbury. You will hear Bridget’s voice on our film trailer. Bridget wrote the highly acclaimed 2007 book, Silence of the Songbirds, a nominee for the Governor General’s Award, one of the most prestigous books awards in Canada. Bridget’s book was where our filmmaking journey began. Currently she is using ground-breaking geo-locator tracking devices to map bird migration routes across the globe. Read our blog post to find out more about her work.

Related posts:

  1. SongbirdSOS heads to Germany
  2. The songbirdSOS experts talk about International Migratory Bird Day
  3. Geolocators track bird migration routes
  4. Stutchbury Tracks Tiny Songbird Migration with Geolocator

Related posts:

  1. Breeding Bird Survey Provides Valuable Songbird Population Data
  2. FLAP recovers three species at risk from bird collisions
  3. Are Pesticides Causing Problems for Tree Swallow Songbirds?
  4. Ottawa Citizens Start FLAP Bird Rescue Initiative

The Breeding Bird Survey: A Birder’s Guide

in Conservation  by June 11, 2014 0 comments

BBS volunteer  Jim Blakelock shares how he got into birding and became involved in an annual North American Breeding Bird Survey route with his friend  and avid songbird watcher Sheldon McGregor.

“It was embarrassment that got me into bird watching. After University I spent a number of years working at construction and factory jobs. One of these jobs was at a house with a fruit tree in the back yard. It was fall, a warm day when a flock of songbirds descended on the tree, started to gorge themselves on the fruit. They promptly got ‘high’ on the fermented fruit, and started falling from the branches and staggering about the lawn.”

“The carpenters asked me, “So college boy, what are those birds?” I had no idea. My high priced education drew a blank and then and there I resolved not to get caught short again. It turned out they were Cedar Waxwings and I went on to be able to identify most common birds but was certainly not a crack identifier.”

Jim met Sheldon McGregor in 1976, when he was a student in his homeroom grade 7 class. On the weekends Jim would take students to a local marsh to bird watch.

“More often than not it was just Sheldon and me. In June, the kids restless with the approach of the summer holidays would whine to go outside and play baseball. “Sure,” I told them. “If a Kirtland’s Warbler lands in that tree outside the window.”’

“This caused great anticipation. Baseball was surely about to begin. Except for Sheldon smiling in his quizzical way saying “Don’t go for it guys. This is not a good deal.” Of course Sheldon knew that there were only about  200 pairs of Kirtland’s Warblers in the world and the odds of seeing that particular songbird outside our classroom window were nil. “

Around 1990 Sheldon asked Jim if he would like to help him with the annual bird population census, the Breeding Bird Survey, and they have been doing it together ever since. They have a route in rural Ontario. Jim records, Sheldon watches and listens. They do this for 3 minutes every half-mile (800 m) a total of 50 times beginning at 5:02 am, ending after 10 am.

In between they catch up on each other’s lives, children, careers, and of course, the birds. Jim is adamant that Sheldon teaches him much more than he ever taught him: the voice of the alder flycatcher or the call of the flicker that really may be a pileated woodpecker. Each of the 50 stops has its own attraction.

One of his favourites is a quiet spot. The trees are thick, leaning over the road tunnel-like. The forest floor is damp and flooded. “It’s here every stop for the past 30 years, that we have heard the Northern Waterthrush calling sharply without fail. It’s reassuring but worrisome at the same time; one wonders will we hear it next year?

Of course a day will come when one, or both of them will not be doing the count. Jim has been retired from teaching for 9 years now.  On his retirement Sheldon gave him a lovely pen and ink drawing of a bird – a Kirtland’s warbler.

The Kirtland’s warbler is a bird that is so rare that the Breeding Bird Survey does not have any accurate population data on the species. It is believed that due to conservation efforts there may now be about 5000 in Michigan.

As they head out to do their count this year, Jim and Sheldon hope this is the year when they will actually get to see one.

 

 

Related posts:

  1. Breeding Bird Survey Provides Valuable Songbird Population Data
  2. FLAP recovers three species at risk from bird collisions
  3. Are Pesticides Causing Problems for Tree Swallow Songbirds?
  4. Ottawa Citizens Start FLAP Bird Rescue Initiative

Breeding Bird Survey Provides Valuable Songbird Population Data

in Conservation  by May 26, 2014 0 comments

It’s that time of year when many die-hard birdwatchers go out to count birds.  For some birders, the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) is simply a fun tradition, but the BBS has become a valuable, one-of-a-kind resource for biologists, and conservationists.

Being able to identify two to three hundred songbird species by their vocalizations is a skill in and of itself. BBS participants will often inherit their routes from birders that have mentored them for years.  That was the case for Sheldon McGregor, who assisted a more experienced birder as a teenager and eventually took on the route when he was ready to pass it on.

We filmed with Sheldon and his birding partner Jim Blakelock on their last annual route in southern-central Ontario. “I’ve been doing my route almost 30 years,” said Sheldon. He’s noticed his route has grown quieter over the years. Especially absent are some field birds, such as meadowlarks and bobolinks.

The BBS has grown into a continent-wide population-monitoring program involving 2000 participants each year.  Close to 500 BBS routes are run by over 300 volunteers each year in Canada while more than 2300 routes are run in the U.S. Canadian participants run their routes between the May 28 and July 7.

Our documentary crew also went to Maryland and met with Chandler Robbins, who launched the BBS all the way back in the 1960’s.    The survey he created was standardized with skilled observers stopping 50 times along a route approximately 24.5 miles long. With every stop, the participant listened and watched for songbirds & other birds for three minutes and recorded the number of each species they saw.  Almost half a century later, except for some new gadgets, the process remains relatively the same.

When we walked into the basement at the Breeding Bird Survey headquarters at the USGC Patuxent Wild Life Research Center in Laurel MD,   it felt like we were stepping back in time. Over 100 cardboard boxes filled the archive room in rows of metal shelves. Each box was filled with carefully logged data sheets containing bird detections from regions across North America.

“We have 48 years of Breeding Bird Survey data in total. Over 80 million bird detections, “ said Keith Pardieck, Head of Operations at the BBS. “Those data are used to monitor the status and trends in North American bird populations, over 400 bird species.”

In 1962,  Rachel Carson used some of Chandler Robbin’s early bird population data research when she herself noticed some songbirds were dying while writing her revolutionary book Silent Spring.   Her book alerted the public to the disastrous consequences of DDT pesticides and was key to the start of the environmental movement.

Pardieck hopes that the Breeding Bird Survey’s alarming population data can be the inspiration behind a similar movement. “Birds are bell weathers of their environment. So, if we know that they are in trouble, I think it’s pretty clear that there could be things coming down the road that will be affecting us as well.”

The Breeding Bird Survey is always looking for experienced birders to volunteer in Ontario and British Columbia.  Check out their website for more information.

Related posts:

  1. The Breeding Bird Survey: A Birder’s Guide
  2. Bill Evans Unique Songbird Acoustic Monitoring
  3. FLAP recovers three species at risk from bird collisions
  4. Stutchbury Tracks Tiny Songbird Migration with Geolocator

FLAP recovers three species at risk from bird collisions

in Conservation  by May 14, 2014 0 comments

Fatal Light Awareness Program (FLAP) just released a sobering news release about three federally listed species at risk that they have recovered from building collisions in Toronto. We’ve written about FLAP on our blog before, they’re an incredible group of volunteers committed to advocacy and rescue work surrounding bird collisions with buildings.

If you’re in Toronto’s financial district in the very early morning of spring or fall, you may spot someone scurrying along the sidewalk carrying paper bags and a butterfly net. That’s a FLAP volunteer, scanning the street for a stunned bird that they can rescue or a dead one they can lay to rest.

So far this spring, those volunteers have recovered a live Red-Headed Woodpecker, a dead Golden-winged Warbler and one live and six dead Wood Thrushes. All these birds are protected under the federal Species at Risk Act and we can’t afford to lose anymore of them.

Last year, we filmed with Keith Pardiek at the Breeding Bird Survey, a joint American-Canadian songbird population-monitoring program. While there, he shared some distressing statistics with us: since 1966 Wood Thrush populations have declined 62%, Red-Headed woodpecker 70% and Golden-winged Warbler 70%.

“These birds play a vital ecological role,” said Michael Mesure, Executive Director of FLAP, “There are many commercially available, aesthetically pleasing solutions that can help to reduce bird collisions with buildings. Urban structures can be made safe for birds.”

We have filmed with FLAP several times over the course of shooting our documentary. The footage is inspiring and we can’t wait to share it with you. The story isn’t all doom and gloom either; there are reasons to be hopeful. FLAP’s advocacy work has led to some especially deadly buildings to be treated with bird-friendly window decals.

The same day FLAP published this news release, The New York Times published a feature about a large-scale research collaboration with New York City Audubon, the American Bird Conservation and Fordham University focused on various types of glass and their ability to deter birds. The goal of the project is to help conservationists and ornithologists understand and prevent this needless carnage.

FLAP Canada is asking anyone who finds a bird that has collided with a building to report the incident on FLAP Mapper – a live web tool that they have developed. Users can easily report a collision on an interactive map, as well as view locations of others.

 

Related posts:

  1. Ottawa Citizens Start FLAP Bird Rescue Initiative
  2. Scientist uses light study to prevent bird collisions
  3. FLAP launches birding apps for International Migratory Bird Day
  4. The Messenger Action Alert: Help Protect Birds from Window Collisions.