WildResearch Nightjar Survey News

1. 2016 Annual Report Available

The 2016 Annual Report for the WildResearch Nightjar Survey is now available on the WildResearch website here! This is the first report since the program expansion, and it is full of exciting highlights including:

• Surveys conducted under the new standardized Canadian Nightjar Survey Protocol;
• 270 citizen scientists surveyed and submitted data for 2,066 survey stations along 192 routes;
• Volunteers reported observations of 1,142 Common Nighthawks and 45 Common Poorwills;
• Updates from each of the six survey regions;
• Route and Citizen Scientist Highlight articles from Alessandra Hood and David Wilde;
• Analysis of a potential bias in road-side surveys by Dhakshayini Boopalan; and
• Future directions!

Huge thanks to everyone who helped put the 2016 report together, including the WildResearch Board of Directors, and of course, our amazing team of Regional Coordinators.

2. Nightjar Buttons Released

To show our appreciation, we mailed out individual nightjar buttons to each of our 2016 volunteers with an address in the database last week! Each volunteer received one of nine nightjar historic art or photo buttons. All three of Canada's nightjar species are represented in the buttons! Can you tell which is which?

If you surveyed a route in 2016 but didn't receive a button and would like one, please give us a shout at nightjars@wildresearch.ca with your address. We would be happy to pop one in the mail for you.

Sincere thanks to all our 2016 volunteers for an amazing year!

1. Influence of habitat and food supply on Eastern Whip-poor-will distribution

Check out this recent paper from Ph.D. Candidate Philina English who is studying the Eastern Whip-poor-will at SFU's Centre for Wildlife Ecology! Published in the journal Landscape Ecology, Philina and her coauthors found that the distribution and abundance of whip-poor-wills in Ontario is related to human activity, the amount of forest in the surrounding area, and the amount of moths and beetles.

You can find the paper here. Congratulations Philina!

Citation: English, P. A., Nocera, J. J., Pond, B. A., & Green, D. J. 2016. Habitat and food supply across multiple spatial scales influence the distribution and abundance of a nocturnal aerial insectivore. Landscape Ecology, 1-17.

2. Migratory connectivity of the European Nightjar
Researchers in Sweden have revealed, for the first time, the migratory pathway of a species in the nightjar family. Norevik and coauthors deployed light-level geolocators on European Nightjars and found that the birds travel to and overwinter in southern tropical Africa. The birds performed a loop migration over the Sahara and Sahel, travelling faster in autumn than on spring migration. You can read their article in the Journal of Avian Biology here.

Citation: Norevik, G., Åkesson, S., & Hedenström, A. 2016. Migration strategies and annual space‐use in an Afro‐Palaearctic aerial insectivore–the European nightjar Caprimulgus europaeus. Journal of Avian Biology.

3. Common Nighthawk and Eastern Whip-poor-will habitat preference in clearcuts, burns, and wetlands
Researchers at Environment and Climate Change Canada and Carleton University used acoustic recorders to study Common Nighthawks and Eastern Whip-poor-wills in northwestern Ontario. Between clearcuts, post-wildfire areas, and wetlands, the team found both species occupied approximately 40% of the areas studied, but that neither species occupied any one habitat type more than another. Their study also expanded the  Eastern Whip-poor-will breeding range further north than previously known, emphasizing the need for research on nightjar species in the boreal forest. The study is available in Forest Ecology and Management here.

Citation: Farrell, C.E., Wilson, S. and Mitchell, G., 2017. Assessing the relative use of clearcuts, burned stands, and wetlands as breeding habitat for two declining aerial insectivores in the boreal forest. Forest Ecology and Management 386:62-70.