Did you know there is a strong connection between birds in Utah and Mexico? The American White Pelican commonly breeds in Utah and Idaho, and then travels south to spend the winter in Mexico. Researchers are banding birds and using GPS transmitters to track their movements. Follow along on their tracking website and keep on the lookout for banded birds!
The SJV Awards Program supported the work of biologists in Baja California Sur to research the endemic and endangered Belding’s Yellowthroat, as well as to develop strategies for its conservation.
The Sonoran Joint Venture Awards Program is supporting work to provide Yellow-billed Cuckoo survey training to Mexican biologists to build capacity for increasing knowledge of cuckoo habitat use and distribution in Mexico.
First-time Christmas Bird Count participant Debbie Slobe shares her experience tagging along with expert birders at the longest-running CBC in Mexico in San Blas, Nayarit
Did you know Long-billed Curlews are snowbirds? Researchers from Intermountain Bird Observatory found that birds breeding in the Intermountain West are wintering in the Mexicali and Imperial valleys of the Sonoran Joint Venture. IBO Research Director Dr. Jay Carlisle shares some thoughts on collaboration for conserving this declining species.
A recent study of wading birds in Bahía Kino in Western Sonora, Mexico, may prove critical to future efforts to conserve birds and their habitats in this unique and vital area.
In 2005 various partners, under the umbrella of the Arizona Bird Conservation Initiative, began seriously discussing the need for a Coordinated Bird Monitoring Program in the state.
You might remember last year the SJV supported researchers from Hawk Mountain Sanctuary on their New World Vulture Project.
The 2014 Statewide Tricolored Blackbird Survey will take place on April 18-20, 2014. The triennial statewide survey is the primary means used to monitor California’s tricolored blackbird population. It was originally developed by Ted Beedy and the late William Hamilton in the 1990s and has helped to gauge the trend in the population. For example, the … Read more
The American Ornithologists’ Union recently separated Sage Sparrow into two species: Bell’s Sparrow (Artemisiospiza belli) and Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis).
Rapid ongoing climate change presents new challenges to natural resource managers. Effects are usually at large landscape scales and management actions must account for future uncertainty, often based solely on locally available data. Because birds are known to be indicators of ecosystem health and function and are cost effective to survey at multiple scales, they … Read more
“Boots on the ground—4:15!!” Doug Loney’s booming voice echoed in our ears as we drove away from Desert Rat Studio, in Maricopa, Arizona. We were three days into a week of field work trapping Turkey Vultures as part of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s New World Vulture Project. From 1996-1997, SJV Education and Outreach Coordinator Jennie Duberstein … Read more
By Robert Murphy, USFWS Southwest Region Protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act and Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act, western North America’s Golden Eagles are increasingly threatened by multiple factors such as collision with wind turbines, electrocution on power lines, and lead poisoning (from eating carcasses left by hunters who used lead ammunition). The … Read more
A new article about the status of climate change research for bird conservation in Mexico (Jennie Duberstein, SJV Education and Outreach Coordinator, is a co-author) was just published in HUITZIL, the Mexican ornithology journal. Abstract Global climate change is affecting the world’s biodiversity. In Mexico, several lines of research have been developed to forecast the … Read more
By Emily Wittman Trudging through waist high water, losing shoes in 12 inch deep mud flats, kayaking to remote sections of estuaries, and feeling the breeze whipping against your face on the boat ride to Isla Alcatraz are all in a day’s work if you are a Research and Conservation Fellow for the Waterbird Monitoring … Read more
A new study (partially funded by the SJV) has been published by SJV partner Janet Ruth and colleagues in The Condor. They used radar and satellite land-cover data to determine the habitats with which birds are associated during migration stopover. Bird densities differed significantly by habitat type at all sites in at least one season. … Read more
The American Ornithologists’ Union recently separated Sage Sparrow into two species: Bell’s Sparrow (Artemisiospiza belli) and Sagebrush Sparrow (Artemisiospiza nevadensis).
The Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory (RMBO) has released the first-ever conservation plan for grassland bird species that winter in the Chihuahuan Desert. Grassland birds have declined more steeply than any other group of North American birds. The Chihuahuan Desert Grassland Bird Conservation Plan was developed with support from the Rio Grande Joint Venture and American … Read more
Researchers recently published a paper in Western Birds about Roseate Spoonbills nesting on the central coast of Sonora at Bahía de Kino. The work is a result of the Prescott College Kino Bay Center for Cultural and Ecological Studies’ Waterbird Monitoring Program and was supported by the SJV Awards Program. Read the entire article here. … Read more
A momentous workshop was held in October 2011 in Mazatlán, Sinaloa, to develop the first-ever standardized shorebird-monitoring protocol for Mexico.