WildResearch Nightjar Survey News

1. Invitation to WildResearch Appreciation Party
 

WildResearch is hosting our 6th Annual Volunteer & Membership Appreciation Party on November 20 and you're invited! The Annual Appreciation Party is a way to celebrate the contributions of our valuable volunteers and supporters (that's you!). The event is located in Vancouver, so we realize that many of you will be unable to make it, but please stop by if you're in the Vancouver area! We would love to see you, and it's a great chance to get to know WildResearch and enjoy the beverages, free food, and door prizes.

WildResearch 6th Annual Volunteer & Membership Appreciation Party

Date: Friday, Nov. 20th, 2015

Location: 1432 Kingsway, Vancouver (entrance on Kingsway by TD Bank; map)
Time: 7:30 pm - 11:00 pm (immediately following our AGM)

Hope to see you there!

~The WildResearch Board of Directors 

2. New Partnership with the Bioacoustic Unit

WildResearch is excited to announce we have partnered with the Bioacoustic Unit to conduct bioacoustic monitoring of nightjars! The Bioacoustic Unit is a collaboration between Dr. Erin Bayne's lab at the University of Alberta and the Alberta Biodiversity Monitoring Institute (ABMI). WildResearch will be working with the Bioacoustic Unit to collect data using autonomous recording units (ARUs), to standardize data collection and processing, and to manage data storage. The partnership also opens up the possibility for data sharing, and WildResearch ARU data is already being used by an undergraduate student at the University of Alberta to examine whether road-side surveys have an impact on the number of Common Nighthawks detected.

Read more about the Bioacoustic Unit by visiting their website or reading ABMI's blog post about the Bioacoustic Unit here.

 

3. 2015 Biologist Azim Shariff Wraps Up Science Horizons Internship

With the end of October, we also saw the end of Azim Shariff's 2015 Science Horizons internship with the WildResearch Nightjar Survey. You may remember Azim from data submission correspondence, the 2015 orientation sessions in central BC, or from his recent Nightjar News "Dispatches from the Field" article. Azim has been working with WildResearch for the last six months to coordinate the Nightjar Survey, conduct our 2015 orientations, complete nightjar surveys across central BC, and collect autonomous recording unit (ARU) data. Since returning from the field, Azim has been assisting with a variety of tasks and conducting analyses for the 2015 Annual Report. Azim will be putting the final touches on that report and we look forward to sharing it in the next Nightjar News.

Please join me and the WildResearch Board of Directors in thanking Azim for all his contributions this year! Azim is a pleasure to work with and did a fantastic job of being a nightjar ambassador, a proficient field biologist, and a huge help for the WildResearch Nightjar Survey.

Azim and WildResearch President Christine Rock conducting nightjar surveys near Lillooet, BC. Photo credit Paul Levesque.

4. Seeking Additional Volunteers to Process 2015 Acoustic Data

Do you have a keen set of ears (and eyes)? Join a group of WildResearch volunteers and help us with data processing by listening to acoustic nightjar survey data. Learn how to read a spectrogram and help us turn those audio files into WildResearch Nightjar Survey data!

The audio files were collected by in BC and Alberta in order to assess various methods for surveying nightjars. An assessment of methods will help researchers integrate the WildResearch Nightjar Survey data set with other datasets in order to complete large-scale analyses for conservation purposes. The audio files were collected using autonomous recording units (ARUs), which are rapidly becoming popular as a data collection tool in conservation biology.

In addition to sharp ears, volunteers will need to have a computer and a set of circumaural (over the ear) headphones in order to process the audio files. Training will be provided remotely by the WildResearch Nightjar Survey Program Manager, Elly Knight. See the ARU Data Processing Protocol on our website for more information.

If you’d like to volunteer, or for further details, email Elly at nightjars@wildresearch.ca.
 

Spectrogram of an ARU recording with Common Nighthawk vocalizations. Spectrograms are a way of visualizing acoustic data, and are used for detection and identification of vocalizations and wing-booms.

1. Do American Crows Contribute to Population Declines of the Common Nighthawk?

A new study published in the Wilson Journal of Ornithology provides evidence that American Crows could contribute to population declines of the Common Nighthawk via depredation of nighthawk nests located on gravel roof-tops in urban areas. The authors used artificial nests with Common Quail eggs to study nest depredation in Laramie, Wyoming. They found depredation rates were higher in urban than rural areas, and that American Crows were the predators responsible in all cases.

Read the abstract here or access the full article on ResearchGate here.

2. Follow PhD Candidate Gretchen Newberry's Research on Roof-top Nesting Common Nighthawks

Gretchen Newberry is a PhD Candidate in Biology at the University of South Dakota studying habitat, nest success, and heat stress of Common Nighthawks. Her research focuses on roof-top nesting individuals, and she is also conducting point counts in agroecosystems and natural landscapes to determine habitat associations. Gretchen has completed three field seasons, and will be completing a final field season next summer.

Follow Gretchen's work on her blog here! Make sure to check out previous blog posts because she has some fantastic photos of adults, eggs, and nestlings both from her own camera and from remote wildlife cameras. You can also read more about Gretchen's research in a recent Big River Magazine article here.

3. British Trust for Ornithology Releases Initial Results of European Nightjar Tracking Study

The British Trust for Ornithology (BTO) deployed geolocators on 19 European Nightjars in 2011 to track their migration. Geolocators are tiny devices that record light levels, which allow position to be calculated within approximately 100 km. BTO managed to recover three of the geolocators in 2012, and have released the first set of data on their blog. Check out the migratory route of LB12420 on BTO's blog here.

Program Manager Elly Knight coordinating 2015 Nightjar Survey volunteers in her comfy WildResearch t-shirt from her "office" in the boreal forest in northern Alberta. Photo credit Janet Ng.