WildResearch Nightjar Survey News

1. 2017 Annual Report

The 2017 Annual Report for the WildResearch Nightjar Survey is now available on the WildResearch website here! Huge thanks to all the coordinators, Board of Directors, contributors and particularly co-author Alex Noble-Dalton for helping put this report together. Highlights include:

• 198 citizen scientists surveyed and submitted data for 1,681 survey stations along 146 routes;
• Volunteers reported observations of 858 Common Nighthawks, 32 Common Poorwills, and our first 2 Eastern Whip-poor-will detections;
• Updates from each of the six survey regions;
• Route and Citizen Scientist Highlight articles from Shayna Hamilton and Kris Mutafov;
• Analysis of Common Nighthawk habitat associations in south central BC by Alessandra Hood; and
• Future directions!

And as always, huge thanks to the citizen scientists that collect the data that went into the 2017 Annual Report!

2. Survey Region Expansions

The WildResearch Nightjar Survey is growing again! We are in the planning stages of opening one new chapter and expanding one chapter for the 2018 survey season.

New Ontario Chapter

We are super excited to announce an Ontario chapter for 2018! Ontario is an important region to survey for nightjars because Common Nighthawk declines are particularly steep in this province, and because Ontario is also home to the most abundant Eastern Whip-poor-will populations in the country.

The launch of the Ontario chapter is being made possible thanks to our new Ontario Regional Coordinator, Elora Grahame! Elora Grahame is a graduate student in the Norris lab at the University of Guelph and is studying survival and reproductive success of breeding Common Nighthawks in Ontario. Originally from Massachusetts, Elora attended Penn State University for her undergraduate degree, where on several occasions she heard seasoned birders lamenting the absence of nighthawks in areas where they had been encountered regularly decades before. She is interested in conservation biology and has experience banding Northern Saw-whet Owls and migratory passerines as well as conducting point count surveys and nest-searching for ornithological research. Please join us in welcoming Elora to our team! You can also follow Elora on Twitter @elora_grahame.

Maritimes Chapter

The New Brunswick chapter is expanding into a Maritimes chapter! Regional Coordinators Virginia and Alex Noble-Dalton have offered to take on another province’s worth of survey routes and volunteers. The Maritimes chapter will combine the existing New Brunswick routes with a set of routes from Nova Scotia that were surveyed by Environment and Climate Change Canada in 2016. We look forward to continuing to survey those routes for Common Nighthawks and Eastern Whip-poor-wills. Thanks Virginia and Alex for your continued contributions to the nightjar surveys!



3. Protocol Translation

After much patience from our Francophone volunteers, we are excited to announce the Canadian Nightjar Survey protocol is available en Français! The translation was contributed in-kind by Kevin Quirion Poirier and Audrey Lauzon. We are deeply thankful to Kevin and Audrey for this substantial contribution!




4. Appreciation Coasters

To show our appreciation, we mailed out nightjar drink coasters to each of our 2017 volunteers with an address in the database. Each volunteer received two drink coasters so that they could "have a drink on us"!

If you surveyed a route in 2017 but didn't receive coasters and would like some, 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 2017 volunteers for an amazing year!



5. Nightjar Atlas at the FME Conference

Ever wondered about what goes on behind the scenes at the Nightjar Atlas? Well a big part of the mapping capacity that facilitates the route sign-up process is a powerful piece of software called FME Server and a non-governmental organization called the Community Mapping Network (CMN)! Rob Knight, Director of CMN, gave a presentation last year about the Nightjar Atlas at the 2017 FME International User Conference. Check out Rob's presentation about the Nightjar Atlas and how it facilitates the WildResearch Nightjar Survey! The Nightjar Atlas is pivotal in providing capacity for our program because it reduces work load for our volunteer coordinators.

1. Changes in Whip-poor-will Diet
Nightjars are part of the aerial insectivore guild, or group of birds that eats flying insects, and that guild is declining faster than any other guilds in North America. One of the leading hypotheses for the observed declines of aerial insectivores is changes in their diet. Philina English from Simon Fraser University and her colleagues tested for long-term changes in the diet of Eastern Whip-poor-wills by sampling portions of the pectinate claw from museum specimens. They showed that the nitrogen isotope ratios in those claw samples had declined with time, both on the breeding and wintering grounds. Their results suggest that the diet of the Eastern Whip-poor-will has changed over time, with the birds eating smaller insect prey in more recent years.

You can read more about Philina's study in this CBC article or read the full article in Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution here.


2. European Nightjar Foraging Behaviour
Mounting evidence suggests that many nightjars do not forage on their territory like most songbirds, but instead travel outside their territory to other areas to eat. In Belgium, Ruben Evans and his co-authors showed that the European Nightjar travels an average of 2.6 km from its territory every evening to forage. More importantly, they showed that the nightjars were using cultivated grasslands and recreational areas for foraging, which are land types previously thought to provide unsuitable habitat for the species. Their results will inform conservation efforts for European Nightjars.

The article is available in the Journal of Avian Biology online here.


3. European Nightjar Foraging Effort
After finding that European Nightjars forage in agricultural areas, Ruben Evans and his co-authors set out to test whether habitat availability affected the effort a given individual put into foraging. They found that individuals that nested in areas with less available foraging habitat travelled further to forage, had to forage for longer periods of time, and had elevated stress levels. Their results further emphasize the importance of an integrated, land-scape scale approach to conservation of the European Nightjar.

The full article is available in Nature Scientific Reports online here.

1. Satanic Nightjar

The Satanic Nightjar (Eurostopodus diabolicus) is a nightjar species endemic to the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia. The species is named 'Satanic' because the because it was believed to feed on the eyes of sleeping people, and is related to the 'plip-plop' call of the bird.

The species is listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN due to few observations and rapid habitat loss, but some think the Satanic Nightjar has been overlooked and is more common than previously thought.

Listen to the 'plip-plop' sound of the Satanic Nightjar on Xeno-Canto here.