2021: Our Best Year Ever?
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The calendar has flipped over to 2022, and that means our tenth year of data collection has drawn to a close here at the American Kestrel Partnership (AKP). We’re thrilled to report that all of our wonderful partners have continued to knock it out of the metaphorical park, with our 2021 season breaking numerous program records and arguably qualifying as our best ever.
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Our recent participation data show that we currently have just as many active AKP partners, and those partners are monitoring their boxes more routinely than at any previous time in the ten-year history of the AKP. Thank you one and all!
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In total, 176 AKP partners submitted nest observations in 2021, just one shy of our all-time record of 177 active partners set in 2020. Those partners monitored a total of 1,320 boxes, the highest total since 2018 and the third-highest yearly total in the history of the project. But it gets even better: a whopping 5,805 observations were submitted in 2021, blowing away the previous record of 5,375 submitted in 2018. The 713 observations submitted from Canada also set a new record high for that country, surpassing the previous high of 508 submitted last year.
Geographically, AKP partners submitted observations from nests in three countries, six Canadian provinces and territories (tying our record high), and 35 US states (a new record high). This included two states (Tennessee and Alabama) from which we received our first ever observation data! In total 14 US states, one Canadian province, and one Canadian territory all set new high-water marks for the number of observations submitted in a single season. One of these was Wisconsin, which shattered our all-time record for observations in a year submitted from any one state, province, or territory with an astonishing 1,448 observations submitted from the 2021 season.
We could go on, but you get the idea: it was a banner year for the American Kestrel Partnership and for collaborative kestrel conservation. Thank you, thank you, THANK YOU to all our partners who've helped us reach these amazing numbers, and we can't wait to see where you take us in the future!
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The 2021 AKP season set numerous record highs for the history of our program, making it arguably our best season ever. Thank you to each and every one of our partners for being a part of it!
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Still have 2021 (or older) data that you haven’t submitted? It’s too late to include your numbers in this article (unless you own a DeLorean), but it’s never too late to submit your data to our database. Log on at kestrel.peregrinefund.org now to submit any outstanding observation data and make your monitoring work count for conservation!
A huge thank you to all of our partners who contributed data in 2021, and throughout the history of the American Kestrel Partnership. Whether you’ve submitted two observations or two thousand, your efforts are a vital part of our mission to identify the causes of kestrel decline, and we’re proud to call you all partners. We look forward to working with each and every one of you as the AKP carries on into a new decade.
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New Tech Answering Old Questions in the Lone Star State
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Recent research into kestrel declines continues to confound efforts to identify the causes, with no obvious reason for the decline emerging. As a result, scientists are beginning to cast a wider net, trying to identify if a specific time of year or a specific location on the globe is more dangerous for kestrels than others.
For several years, the American Kestrel Partnership has provided monetary, hardware, and staff support to a team from the University of North Texas (UNT) conducting just such research. Since 2016, well over 400 American Kestrels have been captured and fitted with color bands featuring unique field-readable codes. “We plan to examine the apparent survivorship of overwintering migrant kestrels in Texas by resighting these banded birds year after year,” says UNT graduate student Maddy Kaleta, the project lead since fall 2021. “We’re hoping this will give us clues as to what time of year, and stage of life, kestrels may be struggling.”
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A kestrel sporting a color band with the alphanumeric code 6/X. Researchers in Texas have fitted over 400 kestrels with similar bands, which allows them to identify individuals and estimate survival rates for these populations. Two tracker antennas are also visible on this bird: a short GPS antenna above its back, and a longer VHF antenna extending just beyond the tail tip. Photo by Heather Bullock.
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Of course, it’s not just a question of when kestrels are struggling, but also where. “When we began, no published study had ever tracked American Kestrel migrations,” says Kelsey Biles, a PhD student at UNT and Kaleta’s predecessor as project lead. A major reason for this is the species’ small size, which requires much smaller tracking devices than the more powerful ones used on eagles and other large birds of prey. “When we started, the only trackers small enough to put on kestrels stored data directly on the device,” explains Biles, “so we had to recapture the birds to access the information.” But this was no easy task.
“They were totally on to us!” laughs Dr. Jim Bednarz, the project’s principal investigator. “Birds with trackers would not only avoid the traps, but they’d fly away if they saw us or even our vehicles. We suspect the additional processing time and extra handling required to harness on a tracker thoroughly educates the kestrels that getting captured is an experience that they never want to repeat!”
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Project lead Maddy Kaleta shows off a kestrel fitted with a Lotek PinPoint VHF 40 tracker during the 2021–2022 season. The team is hoping to relocate this bird and remotely download its tracker data when it returns to its non-breeding territory in Texas next winter. Photo courtesy of Maddy Kaleta.
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But the team now has a new weapon in their arsenal: the newly developed Lotek PinPoint VHF 40 tracker. These new devices are small enough to not affect the kestrels wearing them, but still boast a robust feature set including VHF radio telemetry, GPS location tracking, and critically, the ability to download data remotely. The first twenty of these new trackers were deployed last winter, and the team has resighted seven of the birds so far this winter, close to the expected ~50% return rate. “When we got our first successful download, it was magical euphoria!” Bednarz enthuses. “So far we have two successful downloads of data, documenting exactly where these two kestrels nested and most of their migratory routes through the central US.”
That's not to say that the project hasn't experienced setbacks. While the team has two successful downloads under their belt, they've been unable to download data from any of the other five located trackers, presumably due to dead batteries. "It's probably premature to call this the magical kestrel tracking solution we've been hoping for," comments Dr. Sarah Schulwitz, director of the American Kestrel Partnership. "Due to the high cost and limited success rate thus far we'd recommend against deploying these devices on a large scale until more of the kinks have been worked out. With tech getting better and smaller every year, we might still be a few years and maybe a tracker generation or two away from being able to reliably track kestrels with GPS-level precision. But in the meantime, we're still learning a lot about working with tracking devices on kestrels generally, and learning a lot about kestrels wintering in Texas specifically."
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AKP biologist Matthew Danihel uses a handheld radio receiver to search for a kestrel fitted with a Lotek PinPoint VHF 40 tracker last winter. The technology shows promise that reliably tracking kestrels with GPS-level precision may be possible within the next few years. Photo by Matthew Danihel('s dash cam).
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The team remains optimistic about what the future could bring. “If a large enough sample size is obtained, the GPS data can be further analyzed to examine home range and territory sizes, migration connectivity, and more,” says Kaleta. “This information could be applied to potential conservation or management methods by identifying stopover sites and potential periods of concern for kestrels throughout the annual cycle.” And Bednarz is thinking even bigger. “Regardless of the challenges, I consider the successful download of precise location movement data from a relatively small migratory raptor a huge breakthrough. Documenting the full annual cycle is now possible not only for the American Kestrel, but for many more medium-sized migratory birds.”
With so many questions about American Kestrels still unanswered, it’s an exciting development to see this new technology showing the potential to help us hone in on exactly where and when kestrels may be under threat. Stay tuned for more on the UNT team’s findings—including specifics from the recovered trackers—in the coming months.
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30 Years of Kestrel Conservation in Idaho's Treasure Valley
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Of course, our partnership with UNT isn’t our only collaboration with university scientists. Long-time AKP partners may know that since 2015, the AKP has teamed up with researchers from Boise State University (BSU) on the long-running Southern Idaho American Kestrel Nest Box Project.
“The project started in the early 1990s through a collaboration between BSU graduate student George Carpenter and United States Geological Survey scientist Karen Steenhof,” says Dr. Julie Heath, a professor at Boise State University. Heath took over leadership of the project in 2006 and has continued the research with her team of students ever since. Now entering its landmark 30th season, the project stands as the longest-running kestrel nest box project in Idaho and one of the longest-running in North America.
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M214, one of 151 total nest boxes currently monitored by the BSU team in southern Idaho. Now entering its 30th season, the program is one of the largest and longest-running kestrel box monitoring programs in North America. Photo by Sadie Ranck.
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As would be expected over such a time scale, the researchers have observed some significant changes. “Land use within the study area has shifted significantly over the past 30 years as the Treasure Valley's human population has grown,” Heath notes. “Some nest boxes needed to be removed from areas where housing developments and urbanization had rendered them unusuable for kestrels."
But it’s not just the habitat that’s changing. “One of our most important observations is that American Kestrels have shifted their timing of nesting. Now, kestrels lay eggs almost three weeks earlier than they did when the study began,” Heath reports. “Earlier nesting is likely a response to warmer winter temperatures and farming practices that create earlier peaks in prey kestrels feed to their young. This observation motivated a continent-wide study on American Kestrel nesting and climate change that has improved our understanding of the role of genetic diversity and breeding ecology in avian resiliency to climate change.”
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Two BSU students band and collect morphometric data from one of the nearly 100 nestlings produced in the project's nest boxes last year. Nine graduate students and more than 100 undergraduates have received valuable conservation-focused training and experience on the kestrel project. Photo by Daniel Young.
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As influential as the team’s work has been on kestrel conservation, it has arguably had an even larger impact on conservation as a whole. “The study system provides an exceptional training site for students,” says Heath. “Since 2007, nine graduate students and more than 100 undergraduate students have learned about migratory birds, raptor biology, conservation, and field research while participating on the kestrel project.”
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"Adopting" one of the BSU team's nest boxes nets you numerous perks including an official adoption certificate, updates on the kestrel family that takes up residence in your box—and of course the good feeling that comes from helping both kestrels and tomorrow's conservation professionals. Background photo by Sadie Ranck.
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Want to learn more about the project, the team, and their fascinating findings? Right now you can “adopt” one or more of the BSU team’s kestrel boxes and get a behind-the-scenes look at their research—and of course, the kestrel family that takes up residence in your adopted box this spring. Adopters receive an official adoption certificate, mid-season updates crammed with facts and photos about your adopted kestrel family, and a host of other perks. Adoption fees provide critical financial support for the BSU project, allowing them to continue their research—and their training of tomorrow’s conservation professionals—for many years to come.
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Partner Bio: Joanie Lavigne
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AKP partners come from a wide variety of backgrounds and geographic regions and monitor anywhere from one box to hundreds, but nearly all of them can be separated into one of two categories: professional researcher or community scientist. You might have noticed we said “nearly” all—because there’s at least one AKP partner that’s both. And with that, we introduce you to Joanie Lavigne.
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Canadian falconer Joanie Lavigne pulls "double duty" as an AKP partner, helping to monitor one kestrel box network as a wildlife professional and another as a community scientist. (She's the one on the left.) Photo by Marie-Claire Bérard.
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A licensed falconer working for the wildlife management company Artémis Faune in Quebec, Lavigne first became involved with monitoring kestrel boxes in 2019. “One of my company’s clients approached us to see if we could come up with a new conservation project at their landfills to help them obtain an environmental certification,” says Lavigne. “We had frequently observed kestrels at the landfills in years past, which meant the habitat was suitable. We submitted the idea of installing and monitoring kestrel nest boxes to our client, they immediately agreed, and in the spring of 2019 we installed six boxes at two landfills in southern Quebec.”
At first glance landfills might not seem like good kestrel habitat, but Lavigne is quick to rebut this. “What people sometimes fail to realize is that most landfills, at least here in Quebec, work hard to minimize the impact of their operations on the environment,” she explains. “Large areas of their lands where trash is no longer buried are revegetated to provide new habitat for wildlife.”
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A box network installed by Lavigne and her colleagues at two landfills in southern Quebec has found early success, with 50% occupancy at one site and 42% at the other over the first three breeding seasons. Photo by Joanie Lavigne.
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The results speak for themselves: four of the project’s six boxes were occupied last year, including three that produced five fledglings apiece despite being located within 0.3 mi (500 m) of one another, significantly closer than the minimum 0.5 mi (800 m) separation typically observed. “It really surprised us,” says Lavigne. “They seemed to tolerate each other well, and prey availability must have been very high to support three couples and fifteen nestlings!”
Buoyed by the project’s success, but out of real estate at the landfills to install more boxes, Lavigne turned elsewhere in search of new land and new partners. She didn’t have to look far to find new allies: her falconry association, Association Québécoise des Fauconniers et Autoursiers (AQFA). “We build and distribute boxes to any of our members who are willing to install and monitor them. We've also had people from outside of the association ask if they can help, and so we’ve developed a small community of about 25 kestrel freaks,” Lavigne laughs.
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A team of self-described "kestrel freaks" from the Association Québécoise des Fauconniers et Autoursiers built and deployed their first twenty kestrel boxes in the spring of 2020. They've been working hard to install new boxes and increase the occupancy rate of their existing boxes ever since. Photo by Pascal Berthelot.
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With the aid of a conservation grant from the non-profit Bird Protection Quebec, the group installed their first twenty boxes in 2020 and added another thirty in 2021, making their network one of the largest monitored by AKP partners in all of Canada. They've built it, and the kestrels have come: 45% of the boxes were occupied and over 70 fledglings were produced last year. "It's really sparked the interest of our volunteers," Lavigne happily reports. "We share photos and stories on our Facebook group, and it's just been very fun all around!"
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The AQFA team is partnering with McGill University to band many of their nestlings, as well as test a promising new nest-checking method they can't discuss until the results are published. (It's not the ladder in the background of this photo. We asked.) Photo by Simon Duval.
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Lavigne’s work epitomizes the modern conservation ethos and that of the American Kestrel Partnership: disparate people, companies, and communities all working together to build a future in which both humans and wildlife can thrive. We’re inspired by the successes that Lavigne and her colleagues—and all of our AKP partners—have already accomplished, and look forward to building on these successes together in the years to come.
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Our deepest thanks to all of you for your partnership and ongoing support. We’re beyond excited to have all of you on board for another year, and look forward to a successful 2022 partnering in kestrel conservation!
With best wishes,
AKP Staff and Interns
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