The Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (CMMN) is a unique network that works collaboratively to monitor avian migration in Canada. To find out more about the network, check out the CMMN website.
David Hussell was one of the original “band of banders” – a spirited team that ventured out to the tip of Long Point in fall 1959 to investigate the site’s potential as a banding station. A wise visionary from the outset, David soon had it in his mind that migration monitoring would prove to be a useful tool for tracking bird population changes. Shortly thereafter, the Long Point Bird Observatory (LPBO) operation was born.
LPBO is the oldest research station of its type in the Western Hemisphere, and it’s impossible to overlook David’s extraordinary contributions. He was not only one of the Observatory’s founders, he served as the Chair of the Board and then as the first Executive Director from 1974-1982. David continued to be involved in LPBO and Bird Studies Canada research activities during his subsequent employment as a Research Scientist for the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, and later throughout his retirement. For more than five decades, he maintained a close involvement in the Observatory’s programs, especially in the field of migration monitoring and Tree Swallow research.
David is widely regarded as a founding father of migration monitoring in North America. Not only was he instrumental in developing LPBO and its programs, he played major roles in developing the Thunder Cape, Innis Point and Prince Edward Point bird observatories, as well as helping champion the development of the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (CMMN). He developed the first analytical approaches to calculating population trend estimates of migrating birds, and developed guidance documents that we still use today for establishing migration monitoring stations. Most recently, he had a big hand in developing the ‘Raptor Population Index’ for hawk monitoring stations across the continent. Indeed, when you think about trickle-down effects, David played some sort of pioneering role in the development of all migration monitoring stations in North America.
David was also among one of the first to recognize, promote and celebrate the exceptional contributions that volunteers can make as “citizen scientists” to the study of birds, whether it was at migration monitoring stations or through other types of surveys like breeding bird atlas projects, the Canadian Lakes Loon Survey, Project FeederWatch, heronry inventories, or surveys of beached birds. He figured that volunteers could be motivated in other ways too, including fund-raising. He proved it by creating the Baillie Birdathon in 1976. To date, Birdathon participants have raised over $5 million for over 600 worthy bird conservation and research projects across the country.
In the process of all this, David served as a trainer and mentor for dozens of young biologists – many of whom have since gone on to pursue distinguished professional careers. In the mid 1970s, together with his wife Erica Dunn, he created the Young Ornithologists’ Workshop (YOW) at Long Point, which I think is one of his most important legacies. Most of the teens who graduated from the YOW program have since gone on to obtain degrees in biology and are making strong contributions to science and conservation. And more are on the horizon.
Last but not least, David also enriched the lives of lots of ‘grown-up’ professional colleagues. They’ve awarded him with many official accolades, including lifetime achievement awards from the Society of Canadian Ornithologists, Hawk Migration Association of North America, Ontario Field Ornithologists, Ontario Bird Banding Association, and the Linnaean Society of New York.
On his way to becoming a biologist, David first trained as a civil engineer. I can’t help but think that this engineering mindset helped shape his natural ability to design and tinker with things – big and small – contributing to elements that showed up later in his distinguished career as a scientist.
Like all trail-blazers, David’s path is a tough act to follow. But once you’ve taken up the road map, you’ll find that the sign posts he laid down serve as clear stepping stones to the future.
Every two years, representatives from the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (CMMN) gather to discuss our successes, challenges, and to identify network priorities. So we are excited to announce that our upcoming National Meeting will be held at the Oak Hammock Marsh Interpretive Centre next spring in Manitoba. This beautiful education centre is located just 20 Km north of Winnipeg. We would like to thank Paula Grieef, Resident Naturalist, for offering to be our host. And also to our Steering Committee Members (Doug Collister, Audrey Heagy and Patti Campsall) for volunteering to help organize this important network event. We are hoping that this central location and early spring date will make it easier for all of our members to attend, and we look forward to hearing your updates. Our network depends on the active participation of our members and we need you there! So please mark the date in your calendars and stay tuned for more details as the planning gets underway.
The name has changed but the the Great Canadian Birdathon is still a GREAT way to raise funds for Canadian Migration Monitoring Network stations. Bird Studies Canada is continuing to support CMMN member stations by sending 75% of every dollar in donations raised by Birdathoners who have designate your station when they register. Plus, doing a Birdathon is GREAT fun and a wonderful opportunity to engage your members and develop new supporters. Earlier this year Bird Studies Canada returned a total of $58,235 to 16 CMMN stations, based on funds raised during the 2014 Birdathon.
Anyone can do a Birdathon for your station, or they can sponsor you as an individual or as part of a team. There are four steps to doing a Birdathon: 1) register on-line (or you can print off a registration form and mailed it in), 2) collect some pledges (sponsors can donate online), 3) go birding (anywhere, any day in May), and 4) share the story of your day’s birding with friends and sponsors. Check it all out at the Great Canadian Birdathon website.
The secret to raising funds for your station is to get lots of people doing a Birdathon for you. Some stations organize a Birdathon event in May to make it easy for their birders to get out and have a fun day enjoying the return of the spring migrants while raising funds for bird monitoring and conservation. You can celebrate International Migratory Bird Day at the same time!
As an added incentive, every CMMN station that raises $100 or more gets entered in to a draw for a Celestron spotting scope! And there are prizes for participants as well. Join us in raising funds and awareness for migratory bird conservation! Register (or sponsor someone) today!
The long-awaited CMMN project aimed at answering this question has finally been published (Hobson et al. 2015). Here is the abstract, which gives an overview of the study and its results.
“The Canadian Migration Monitoring Network (CMMN) consists of standardized observation and migration count stations located largely along Canada’s southern border. A major purpose of CMMN is to detect population trends of migratory passerines that breed primarily in the boreal forest and are otherwise poorly monitored by the North American Breeding Bird Survey (BBS). A primary limitation of this approach to monitoring is that it is currently not clear which geographic regions of the boreal forest are represented by the trends generated for each bird species at each station or group of stations. Such information on “catchment areas” for CMMN will greatly enhance their value in contributing to understanding causes of population trends, as well as facilitating joint trend analysis for stations with similar catchments. It is now well established that naturally occurring concentrations of deuterium in feathers grown in North America can provide information on their approximate geographic origins, especially latitude. We used stable hydrogen isotope analyses of feathers (δ²Hf) from 15 species intercepted at 22 CMMN stations to assign approximate origins to populations moving through stations or groups of stations. We further constrained the potential catchment areas using prior information on potential longitudinal origins based upon bird migration trajectories predicted from band recovery data and known breeding distributions. We detected several cases of differences in catchment area of species passing through sites, and between seasons within species. We discuss the importance of our findings, and future directions for using this approach to assist conservation of migratory birds at continental scales.”
You can download the paper here (see citation below). While only selected cases are discussed in the body of the paper, full results are shown in the Appendices. The wide geographic coverage should allow all CMMN stations, even those not part of the study, to find out the most likely area of origin for migrants they capture.
While this paper is a big step forward, there is a lot more to be done. We found clear evidence that different species moving through a site may have different breeding areas. As well, within a single species, spring and fall migrants captured at a given station may breed in different areas. We already knew this to be the case, but seeing it in the isotope results means that additional isotope work can help us refine species-specific catchment areas.
What are the next steps? Some results were not included in the paper (e.g. species with moult migration, date effects), and additional papers should follow with results we already have. There are also over 12,000 feathers that can still be analyzed. Recent studies have shown that combining isotope and genetic results can improve definition of catchment area. Another avenue is to combine isotope study with tracking of spring migrants. The MOTUS Wildlife Tracking System, for example, has documented differences among species in departure directions from Long Point in spring that “point” to different breeding areas.
Now that this project is complete, we can start thinking about priorities for new research initiatives that will further increase the value of our migration monitoring.
Thanks to all the stations and individuals that helped collect these data, and for the suggestions, prodding—and patience—shown to the authors over the years it took to complete this study.
Citation:
Hobson, K. A., S. L. Van Wilgenburg, E. H. Dunn, D. J. T. Hussell, P. D. Taylor and D. M. Collister. 2015. Predicting origins of passerines migrating through Canadian migration monitoring stations using stable-hydrogen isotope analyses of feathers: a new tool for bird conservation. Avian Conservation and Ecology 10 (1): 3. [online] URL: http://www.ace-eco.org/vol10/iss1/art3/
Bird safety always comes first. So as many of our stations across the country are busy starting up their spring migration monitoring programs. it is a good time to review your station's procedures for handling an event when you have captured a large number of birds. Are your staff prepared?
An article by Stuart Mackenzie (LPBO/BSC) and Marcel Gahbauer (MBO/MRE) in North American Bird Bander provides a synopsis of strategies and methods that can be used by banders to manage potentially busy situations that might be outside of the operation's normal comfort zone. Their note has great information based on considerable experience at migration monitoring stations. We hope that you will use these guidelines and suggestions to help develop your own strategies so you are ready to handle potentially high volume events at your stations.
We would like to encourage you to become a more active member of your network! Whether it's posting a Fall Migration summary, sharing an interesting species observation, or showing a new technique that you use...there are many ways to be more engaged with your network. We would love to hear from you!
The Canadian Migration Monitoring Network is a success due to the collaborative efforts and support of our members. Thank you to the following organizations and stations for your commitment to avian migration monitoring!
