Subject: [Tweeters] BIG Black Swift news
Date: Jul 24 23:37:27 2010
From: Larry Schwitters - lpatters at ix.netcom.com


They pulled it off! This is the exciting news as told by Rick Wright,
past ABA editor.
Last fall I posted about the project to put geolocators on Black
Swifts in an effort to determine, for the first time, where the
species spends the months from October to May. I just got exciting
news from Rocky Mountain Bird Observatory?s Jason Beason: on Wednesday
night, the team succeeded in recapturing one of the birds wearing a
geolocator!

Of course, this success will take a while to bear fruit. First Jason
has to hang the geolocator outside his house for a week so that it can
be calibrated according to the sunrise and sunset times at a known
location. (All the geolocators were also calibrated in this way prior
to deployment.) Then, assuming that all has gone well with the device
over a year of riding swiftback, the team can download the data and
begin the complex task of determining the latitude and longitude of
the device every day for the past year based on sunrise and sunset
times. Then, and only then, will the team be able to generate a map
of the bird?s travels.

Only four geolocators were placed on swifts last year: three at a cave
in the Flat Tops Wilderness and one at a nest at Box Canyon Falls in
Ouray. The geolocator recovered on Wednesday came from the Flat Tops
cave. To have recaptured one of only three marked birds there is a
tremendous success, but a calculated one, since Black Swifts have
tremendously high site fidelity from year to year. Jason and his
collaborators (Kim Potter, Carolyn Gunn, Chuck Reichert, and Todd
Patrick) will revisit the cave next month to try to snag one or both
of the remaining geolocators at that site, and they will be attempting
to recapture the Box Canyon bird tomorrow?it is believed to be
attending the same nest as last year.

Thanks and congratulations to the intrepid explorers who are on the
verge of solving one of the biggest remaining mysteries of North
American bird migration!



Larry Schwitters

Issaquah
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