Subject: [Tweeters] BIG Black Swift news
Date: Jul 25 09:05:56 2010
From: Charles Swift - chaetura at gmail.com


Just to give credit where credit is due this was originally reported by
Nathan Pieplow on his earbirding blog here:
http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/2247 (although perhaps Rick Wright
passed it along on his blog as well). The original post from Nathan is in
Larry's email. The earbirding blog may be of interest to those interested in
bird song, recording, recording equipment etc. Nathan also reports on other
news of interest such as taxonomic changes, bird distribution, etc.

thanks, Charles.

On Sat, Jul 24, 2010 at 11:37 PM, Larry Schwitters
<lpatters at ix.netcom.com>wrote:

> 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<http://earbirding.com/blog/archives/679> 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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>


--
Charles E. Swift
Moscow, Idaho, USA
(north-central Idaho, 80 miles SE of Spokane, WA)
46?43?54? N, 116?59?50? W
email: chaetura at gmail.com
skype: charles.swift
voice: 208-991-2473
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