Avian Research and Conservation Institute (ARCI) has a new website!

 

ARCI conducts tracking research on rare birds to gather information for their protection and conservation. Top left = White-crowned Pigeon, top right = Reddish Egret, bottom left = Snail Kite, bottom right = Swallow-tailed Kite

We've Moved!  As of December 2020, the ARCI blog has moved to our new website.

https://www.arcinst.org/blog/

All future content will be published there and this site will remain active with the archived blogs.

We enjoy sharing our avian research results and stories with you. Thank you for following along!

The ARCI team,

www.arcinst.org

A Farewell to Two Satellite-tracked Reddish Egrets: Ding #2 and Darling

A message from ARCI's Executive Director Dr. Ken Meyer regarding the recent Reddish Egret deaths following exposure to red tide:

"We bid farewell last week to the strikingly handsome male Reddish Egret, Ding#2. He has been an icon of the J.N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge’s Wildlife Drive for years, the last five of which while carrying one of ARCI’s tracking devices and contributing over 8,000 precise locations as he fed, rested, roosted, nested, and graced us with his presence on Sanibel. Perhaps you saw or photographed him or his mate, Ding#1, at one of the three big impoundments on the Drive. Ding#2 was one of five adult Reddish Egrets we tagged in Lee County in 2014 and 2015 with financial support from the Ding Darling Wildlife Society (the Friends of the Refuge), Sanibel-Captiva Audubon Society, and a few generous Sanibel residents; and the logistical support of the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge.

Ding #2 enjoys a freshly-caught minnow. He could often be seen foraging at one of the impoundments off the Wildlife Drive at the J.N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge.

Ding#2’s data represent a priceless conservation legacy, making his debilitation and death, almost certainly the result of yet another severe invasion of red tide, all the sadder. Although the complex interplay of all the contributing factors – biological, geochemical, meteorological, etc. – are difficult to unravel, most professionals who should know believe the increasingly destructive impacts of red tide, a natural phenomenon, are somehow related to human disruption of natural climate conditions. Like billions (hundreds of thousands… millions?) of our planet’s affected species, Sanibel’s tagged Reddish Egrets may be just a few more minuscule bits of the accelerating collateral damage the Earth is incurring as a result of the destruction human greed and corruption are imposing on our one and only home. 

When we learned last week from CROW staff that Ding#2 could not be saved, we wondered how the area’s other Reddish Egrets were faring. Was Ding#2’s fate an unusual occurrence? After all, during last year’s red tide, all our tagged birds seemed unimpaired as they weathered the outbreak. Now that all the egrets’ transmitters have reached the end of their expected life span, we are unable to direct our many friends and supporters to the birds’ last locations to determine whether they are alive, dead, or in need of care. What should we expect for Sanibel’s Reddish Egrets?

The unfortunate answer to these questions began unfolding last Saturday afternoon, November 16th, when we learned from CROW that Darling, the third of the five Reddish Egrets ARCI tagged, had been admitted that day. The circumstances and the birds’ symptoms were painfully familiar. Although this bird was alert at the time, he was not feeding on his own or able to stand. Darling remained in this condition until he died sometime the night of November 20th.

Even if Ding#2 and Darling had survived to be released back into their chosen homes, what would they have faced? We know from colleagues at the Sanibel-Captiva Conservation Foundation who track red tide levels that the 2019 outbreak exceeds the severity of 2018 conditions specifically in the areas where Sanibel’s Reddish Egrets feed the most. Red tide’s impacts vary with the volume of polluted fresh water arriving from Lake Okeechobee via the Caloosahatchie River – an abundant food source for the dinoflagellates that coalesce into the algal blooms we know as red tide. Compounding this factor, warmer Gulf water temperatures resulting from climate change are pushing more red tide blooms on shore and prolonging the duration of each invasion. For Sanibel’s animal residents that are strongly faithful to established, year-round home ranges, such as Reddish Egrets, there simply is no escape.

CROW has been doing an amazing job (please thank them) caring for not just the usual full house of sick and injured wildlife, but also the deluge of red tide victims. We are confident that Ding#2’s final days were as comfortable as possible, as for the time Darling now has while struggling to recover. We are grateful for this, as we acknowledge that there is no sign that the physical, financial, and emotional demands they are facing will soon abate.

What may be next for Reddish Egrets on Sanibel Island? Will the lost birds be replaced? Please consider that Reddish Egrets are already dangerously close to extirpation in Florida after barely showing some short-lived signs of increase following the plume-hunting destruction of 100 years ago, only to reverse course in the 1990s and begin their present downward slide.

One year of satellite data from five tracked Reddish Egrets.

Consider also the movement data our imperiled friends produced while still healthy over the last five years, plus what we acquired from tracking a larger number in the Florida Keys. Reddish Egrets in Florida rarely move from their established home ranges, and when they do, it is temporary (not really a seasonal migration). Furthermore, the few places that remain occupied by Reddish Egrets, and which are also close enough to supply re-colonizing birds for Sanibel, are themselves being subjected to red tide. A timely case in point: We just received word that an unmarked Reddish Egret was found today (November 21st) appearing ill and impaired on a Marco Island beach. Unfortunately, it evaded capture, so we may never know its fate.

What should we all do? Vote for leaders, regardless of party and at every level of government, who support a healthy environment and sustainable planet. Pure and simple. This is the most important action we can take to produce sufficient change soon enough and at an adequate scale to begin reversing the certain, deadly course we are now on.

If you need assurances, just look to the birds. They could not possibly be sending us a stronger, clearer, more life-or-death message."

White-crowned Pigeon Survival Game

An adult White-crowned Pigeon sits atop a bare tree.
Copyright 2018 Flickr user cuatrok77.

Life as a White-crowned Pigeon is full of challenges. Migrating, parenting, surviving hunting season, and finding consistent food are all on a pigeon’s yearly to-do list. Trelawny, a female tagged in Jamaica over 4.5 years ago, and South Glades, a male tagged in Florida in 2015, are two White-crowned Pigeons who are persisting despite these obstacles. In fact, these two birds are the longest-tracked White-crowned Pigeons to date!

Trelawny and South Glades are being tracked with lightweight, solar-powered satellite transmitters weighing 5 grams.

White-crowned Pigeons can only be found throughout the Caribbean, in southernmost Florida, and in parts of coastal Central America. Most of the population is migratory; some pigeons travel between countries while others move to different habitats within the same island. Trelawny, an example of the latter, spends her whole year in Jamaica and moves 7-14 miles between the coast in the non-nesting season and the mountains in the nesting season. South Glades, in contrast, nests in south Florida and migrates to Cuba in the winter.

A White-crowned Pigeon amidst ripe Poisonwood fruits.
Copyright Florida Fish and Wildlife.

The timing of these migratory movements coincides with the ripening of fruit-bearing trees like Poisonwood (Metopium toxiferum), Fig (Ficus sp.), and Blolly (Guapira sp.). In Florida, Poisonwood is the most important food for nesting White-crowned Pigeons. The nutrient-rich fruits are easily digestible and give pigeons like South Glades enough energy to make daily, repeated trips between inland foraging spots and the predator-free, offshore mangrove island where he raises his young. And where the pigeons defecate, new fruit-bearing trees sprout and create more habitat for the birds.

When the flush of ripe Poisonwood fruits ceases, South Glades departs to Cuba. Every trip over water -  with no place to rest - puts a bird in danger. Last month, on 1 September, he completed his fourth migration to Matanzas, Cuba. He left just before the skies filled with hungry hawks and falcons as they too made their winter migrations. This was at least his seventh trip across the Straits of Florida!

On 1 September 2018, South Glades migrated south to Matanzas, Cuba. 

Migrating long distances over water is risky, but staying on one island has its own threats. White-crowned Pigeons are not hunted in Florida, but they are in Jamaica and many other parts of the Caribbean. Jamaica’s dove hunting season lasts about a month from August to September. There is a bag limit of 15 White-crowned Pigeons per season, but illegal take is common and hard to regulate. Thankfully, Trelawny appears to have figured out how to evade the hunters. We are excited to see how long we can track her movements in Jamaica.

ARCI has been tracking the movements of White-crowned Pigeon since 2002. We have learned a great deal about the range-wide movements the birds make between The Bahamas, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Cuba, and south Florida. The more pigeons we track, the more we will continue to learn about range-wide breeding, foraging, and wintering locations; migration timing; and longevity and survival. 

Click here to support Trelawny and South Glades. Your generous donation keeps the stream of data flowing from their transmitters to all of us.

Our first account of ARCI’s exciting new research on Mangrove Cuckoos in Florida

Mangrove Cuckoo Cross Dike with visible antenna
from a 2-gram satellite transmitter.
Photo by Aaron Kirk

ARCI’s biologists have found that many conservation-related research questions can be answered best by employing some type of tracking technology. Our study subjects, which include birds of various families, sizes, and habitat associations, have benefited from this approach. These include Swallow-tailed Kites, Short-tailed Hawks, Reddish Egrets, White-crowned Pigeons, Crested Caracaras, Great White Herons, Peregrine Falcons, Snail Kites, Southeastern American Kestrels, and Magnificent Frigatebirds. Although telemetry’s use is limited somewhat by the essential permitting requirement that the equipment not exceed 3% of a tagged bird’s body weight, there has been no shortage of imperiled birds large enough to carry the best-available tracking devices. Of course, this still leaves data needs unaddressed for the many species of smaller birds requiring conservation action. 

Fortunately, the ongoing development of smaller and more sophisticated telemetry devices has allowed us to keep gradually unraveling the behavioral secrets of smaller and smaller birds. One such species, the Mangrove Cuckoo, was of great interest to ARCI’s researchers in 2015 when Microwave Telemetry Inc. (MTI), our long-standing source for satellite-telemetry devices, asked us to test their prototype 2-gram solar-powered transmitter – the smallest satellite-tracking device ever developed. No one has ever determined the wintering destinations of Florida’s breeding Mangrove Cuckoos, or whether they migrate at all. This is vitally important information for this species, which is thought to be declining across its small global range. To make such a project possible, MTI donated four of their 2-gram transmitters to ARCI (they now sell for $4,500 each).

At the time, ARCI already had been using MTI’s larger satellite transmitters with great success to study the movements and ecology of Reddish Egrets in Florida, including a population on the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Sanibel Island, Florida. This declining species is one of the relatively few birds considered seriously threatened by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. The Ding Darling NWR has been a very receptive and supportive site for our egret studies, and they were particularly interested in seeing ARCI conduct Mangrove Cuckoo research to expand on results of prior cuckoo research and to tackle questions about seasonal movements and nesting ecology using this amazing tracking tool.

From August 2015 to February 2018, we safely deployed MTI’s four donated 2-gram satellite transmitters on Mangrove Cuckoos inhabiting Ding Darling NWR. Although transmitter lifespans have been relatively short (likely due to the vulnerability of the tiny radios and their fragile antennas), we received over 12 cumulative months of reliable data from the first three birds. Virtually all the satellite fixes for these three birds were on Sanibel Island, suggesting that long-distance migration might not be occurring.

Mangrove Cuckoo Indigo East just prior to release,
showing the 2-gram satellite transmitter.

The only exception was a movement in early April 2016, at the start of the nesting season, by Indigo East, a bird that had over-wintered on the Refuge after we tagged it the previous November (tracked birds are named after their capture location). In this case, Indigo East quickly traveled six miles north, across a wide channel, and settled in a small area within the mangrove forest along the western shore of Pine Island. Here it remained until we stopped receiving data two months later. Had it moved there to nest?

This intriguing behavior, although inconclusive, suggested that Mangrove Cuckoos wintering on Ding Darling NWR may indeed move elsewhere when it comes time to nest, but the distances may be very short. Was this a rare exception, or is such behavior the rule? Do birds that breed on the Refuge move southward off of Sanibel Island for the winter? How many Mangrove Cuckoos nest on the Refuge, and how productive are they? As is usually the case, new information led to still more questions.

We recently received our most important results to date. Cross Dike, the fourth and final Mangrove Cuckoo we tagged with a donated transmitter (last February, as a wintering bird) made a sudden move northeastward on a track similar to that taken by Indigo East two years before (see Figure 1). Furthermore, both birds moved during the same week in April. The only difference was that Cross Dike traveled an additional six miles across a second channel before settling in the broad mangrove forest on the western shore of Cape Coral - a total of 12 miles from its wintering area on Sanibel.

 

Figure 1. Early breeding-season movements of two satellite-tracked Mangrove Cuckoos from established winter ranges on Sanibel Island, Florida. Indigo East (white) moved to Pine Island on 6 April 2016 and remained at least until early June, when data transmission ceased. Cross Dike (red) moved to Cape Coral on 12 April 2018, where the bird remains as of this update.

Obviously, we are working with a small sample of tagged Mangrove Cuckoos. However, we now have highly consistent movement data, on fine time and spatial scales, from these two study birds whose tracking periods have bridged the wintering and breeding seasons. This is very exciting!

Given our very exciting recent tracking results for Mangrove Cuckoos from Ding Darling NWR, we are hoping to expand ARCI’s tracking studies of this species both in scope (to include more tracking, plus nest-finding and monitoring) and geography (to other Florida populations, and eventually to Cuba as part of our long-term collaborations with University of Havana faculty and graduate students). At the moment, we are awaiting a decision from Ding Darling NWR’s staff on a proposal they requested for expanding our current Mangrove Cuckoo research on the Refuge.

ARCI is grateful to Microwave Telemetry, Inc., and particularly to Dr. Paul Howey, for their very generous contribution of the essential transmitters for the first phase of the Mangrove Cuckoo study. We also thank Refuge Manager Paul Tritaik for permission and logistic support for conducting this work on the

Ding Darling NWR.  The Refuge staff is dedicated to carefully managing this public conservation area’s diverse and sensitive resources with the best available information. The fundraising and outreach efforts of the Ding Darling Wildlife Society (the Refuge’s illustrious “Friends” organization), and the support of Sanibel donors Judy Samelson and Bill Schawbel, have been instrumental in the project’s success. We also are grateful to ARCI’s universe of followers and supporters for their willingness to share in and support our common mission.

We look forward to updating all of you on our progress, and to sharing what we learn as this exciting project unfolds.

Happy Tracking Anniversary to a Persistent Jamaican Pigeon!

Ricardo Miller prepares to release Trelawny after a successful tagging.

WOW!  We’ve been tracking Trelawny, an adult, female, White-crowned Pigeon (Patagioenas leucocephala) for 4 years using the smallest satellite transmitter made at the time of its capture, a 5-gram solar unit made by Microwave Telemetry Inc.

A big “Thank You” to ARCI’s collaborators, the Jamaica National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), especially Ricardo Miller; and for the assistance of Susan Koenig of the Windsor Research Centre.

All of Trelawny’s days since tagging have been spent within Jamaica’s Trelawny Parrish, on the north central part of the island. She has two focal areas that are about 5 miles apart. Most of the year, she resides in Cockpit Country, inland near the town of Duanvale, where there are plenty of native fruit-bearing trees. Occasionally she comes down to the coastal lowlands to make use of different food sources and to roost near Falmouth.

This bird has persisted through four regulated hunting seasons within Jamaica. The hunting season lasts 6 weeks in August and September and is approved each year by the Prime Minister under the recommendations of the Natural Resources Conservation Authority. All hunters need to obtain a $160 (US) license from the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA).

Today we want to recognize her tenacity and all the highly informative data we received from her. Trelawny has been tracked longer than any other White-crowned Pigeon. The next longest was a bird we tracked in Florida for 2.1 years.

ARCI has now satellite tracked 16 White-crowned Pigeons throughout much of their range in the Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Bahamas, Puerto Rico and Florida for a multi-partner research project entitled “Seasonal movements of White-crowned Pigeons tracked by satellite telemetry: Identifying trans-national threats, management needs, and conservation opportunities."

Source: The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, All About Birds

The White-crowned Pigeon is widely distributed throughout the Caribbean, but the species is threatened by habitat loss, poaching, and, in some countries, harvest regulations that are not based on scientific data. With satellite telemetry, we are informing wildlife managers of seasonal changes in distribution, identifying manageable threats, and documenting the need for concerted conservation planning across national boundaries. 

You can follow the movements of the tagged White-crowned Pigeons through a link on our website: http://arcinst.org/arci-tracking-studies.

Taking the Breezy Way Out

With the ability to stay aloft over water for weeks at a time, we can assume that Magnificent Frigatebirds usually fare well when displaced by hurricanes. We observed this survival strategy with one of our own GPS/satellite-tracked Magnificent Frigatebirds in September 2017 as Hurricane Irma moved northward up peninsular Florida’s Gulf coast.

ARCI has been collaborating for seven years with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuge Complex in deploying satellite/GPS tracking units on Magnificent Frigatebirds captured at winter roosts in the Florida Keys and at the only U.S. nesting location, a colony of just 100 pairs in the Dry Tortugas. This information has helped us determine for the first time where the wintering birds breed, where the breeding birds overwinter, patterns of seasonal movements, fidelity to roost sites, and survivorship.

Dry Tortugas Male was captured on 15 May, 2013, as a breeding bird and tracked every day for the last 4.5 years!  You can follow his movements, along with those of all the other tagged birds monitored as part of ARCI’s research, by visiting this page on ARCI’s website.

Unlike the non-breeding Magnificent Frigatebirds that roost and feed within the lower Florida Keys and nest in the western Caribbean (Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico and Cuba), the breeding birds from the lone U.S. colony on the Dry Tortugas stay close to the coast of peninsular Florida when not bound by nesting obligations.

As we documented over the previous 4 years, the Dry Tortugas male had been spending the non-breeding season, since 10 June 2017, foraging out over the Gulf of Mexico from small mangrove islands that line peninsular Florida’s western coast. At 6:45 pm on 8 September, Dry Tortugas male was near the mouth of Crystal River about 38 miles north of Irma’s eye as it moved northward across the Florida Straits. About 22 hours later, Irma made landfall near Naples, Florida, and continued northward along Florida’s west coast.

By this time, the Dry Tortugas male was almost certainly being exposed to winds of at least 55 MPH.  When it became impossible to grip the vegetation in its mangrove-forest roost, this bird took to the sky to glide downwind to safety as Hurricane Irma passed.

Over the next 2.5 hours, Dry Tortugas male used Irma’s strong winds to fly almost 160 miles southwest out into the Gulf of Mexico and away from the severe winds generated close to storm’s eye. Here, he was even closer to the hurricane, 120 miles from the eye. In 6 hours, Dry Tortugas male had traveled an additional 110 miles southwest before turning eastward on favorable tailwinds that carried him to Pine Island in Lee County, Florida. His journey from Crystal River to Pine Island was completed in a little more than 9 hours. He wasted little time before heading north back to his wintering area near Crystal River.

Overall, this Magnificent Frigatebird’s hurricane detour was a 650-mile round-trip that lasted a little over 2 days.  A mere inconvenience?  A free ride?  In any case, a very different strategy for outliving a hurricane compared with the behavior of most of the other birds whose movements we have documented with remote telemetry.

Dry Tortugas Male's movements as he evaded Hurricane Irma in September 2017.

A resilient and now famous Short-tailed Hawk

ARCI has been studying Short-tailed Hawks, one of Florida’s rarest raptors, since 1999. These stunning raptors are sometimes overlooked because of their secretive behaviors. They hunt from high in the sky, often disguising themselves in a kettle of vultures before diving down to surprise avian prey. They like to nest in forested strands often associated with water; however, they have recently been nesting in more urban settings, perhaps to take advantage of often-abundant small birds on which they prey. 

Why do we study Short-tailed Hawks? Well, the species has no state or federal listing status and no monitoring program exists. In addition to their very small population size (last estimated at 250 pairs in the United States, almost all in Florida), several factors place Short-tailed Hawks at risk: a preference for nesting in large tracts of mature forest, the accelerating loss of historic nesting territories, concentrated winter distribution, specialized diet, and unusually low nesting success.

Bird by bird and nest by nest, we are gathering that information to answer these basic important questions and to help ensure that Short-tailed Hawks will persist into Florida’s future. See our website for more information on ARCI’s Short-tailed Hawk research.

For the last two years, we have been collaborating with the St. Petersburg Audubon Society as part of their “Raptors on the Move” program, which is directed by Dr. Gabe Vargo. In our first year, we tagged an adult female Swallow-tailed Kite, Sawgrass, with a GPS/GSM transmitter (GPS locations are sent to us via cell phone networks) and have been watching her migrate to Bolivia and back over the last 18 months.

Dr. Gabe Vargo, director of St. Peterburg Audubon Society's "Raptors on the Move" program, holds Dark Arrow. 
Photo by JoAnna Clayton, 2017.

In July 2016, knowing there was an active Short-tailed Hawk nesting territory at Sawgrass Lake Park in Pinellas County, Florida, we began trying to capture and tag an adult Short-tailed Hawk to add to "Raptors on the Move". After many trapping attempts with various methods that spanned 10 months, we FINALLY succeeded when a beautiful dark-morph adult flew into our net on 23 May 2017. We’ve named this bird - most likely a male based on its size - “Dark Arrow” because “Dark” is its color morph, and “Arrow” is the name of the lake closest to the capture site in Sawgrass Lake Park.

Gina Kent of ARCI fits Dark Arrow with a GPS/GSM transmitter while Dr. Gabe Vargo safely holds the raptor. This transmitter uses the cellular network to send and receive data.
Photo by JoAnna Clayton, 2017.

Dark Arrow spent the rest of the summer at Sawgrass Lake Park, where he and his dark-morph mate fledged a dark morph juvenile. Many of its foraging destinations lie about 4.5 miles east of the Weedon Island Preserve. 

When the winds picked up with oncoming Hurricane Irma, Dark Arrow returned to Sawgrass Lake Park to sit it out in a more densely forested location away from the coast. This hawk’s tracking data suggest he was restless through the stormy night, apparently moving from one wind-tossed tree to another, possibly looking for stronger branches on which to perch in the 70 mph wind gusts.

Dark Arrow is now back in his familiar nest-season surroundings, between Weedon Island Preserve and Sawgrass Lake Park. We are curious to see what he will do for the rest of the winter. Will he migrate to south Florida as do many Short-tailed Hawks, or will he stay in Pinellas County? Short-tailed Hawks are seen throughout the year at Sawgrass Lake Park, but most undergo a true migration within the state of Florida for the winter months. Because there is a plethora of urban birds to feed on year-round in the county and nesting conditions there appear to be ideal, he may stay put to maintain ownership of his territory. Only time will tell. We will share the tracking data with you as it accumulates. 

Go With the Wind; A Swallow-tailed Kite gets the best migration conditions

WOW! Apopka, the rehabilitated Swallow-tailed Kite with the GPS/GSM-transmitter, made it safely to Central America. Was Apopka lucky, or did it know a change in the weather loomed? We believe it was the latter. Birds detect variation in barometric pressure and other subtle weather characteristics, sensing change well before us humans. We believe Apopka was more ready than ever to begin migrating to South America, and the strong northern winds on the west side of Hurricane Irma came just at the right time.

Since 5 August, Apopka had been feeding, fattening, and preparing for 5,000 miles of migration in a remote portion of Brevard County, Florida. On 6 September, just three days before the brunt of Hurricane Irma ravaged the area, Apopka headed south. Hurricanes are low-pressure weather systems that circulate in a counter-clockwise direction. The immense size of this storm resulted in favorable winds over a large portion of Florida, and Apopka took advantage of the opportunity. 

On the first night after leaving its roosting/foraging area in Brevard County, Apopka stayed in St. Lucia County, continuing to Big Cypress National Preserve for last day and night in the United States before leaving the Everglades and heading out to sea from Florida’s southwestern shore on 8 September. The winds were definitely picking up in advance of Hurricane Irma as Apopka crossed the Straits of Florida. It only took four hours, at an average speed of 30 miles per hour, to reach the northern coast of Cuba, near the resort town of Varadero. By this time, Hurricane Irma was a Category 5 Hurricane and just 200 miles away. 

The sustained southbound winds carried Apopka across the width of Cuba to the southwestern part of the Zapata Peninsula, which is a large, protected natural area where swamp forests and wetlands meet coastal marshes. Twenty-four hours later, the eye of Irma passed over Varadero with sustained winds of  125 mph while Apopka, only 80 miles away, held tight through maximum winds of 50 mph.  Apopka stayed on the Zapata Peninsula through more stormy weather for seven days, then spent two nights on the Isle of Youth (Isla de la Juventud) off the southwestern coast gaining strength and fat reserves to complete the ocean crossing to the Yucatán Peninsula. 

Apopka made that final ocean crossing on 17 September with a safe landfall in the state of Quintana Roo, Mexico, 18 hours later. Having since followed tracks similar to all the Swallow-tailed Kites before it, it is already in Honduras.

The hard part is over for Apopka, the remaining migration is all over land. This rehabilitated bird’s survival is a true success story with or without a major hurricane (see our blog posted on 1 September 2017). We are so happy that Apopka is doing well, and grateful to the rehabilitators at Avian Reconditioning Center for investing their time, resources, and practiced care in this once-injured Swallow-tailed Kite. We particularly thank Carol McCorkle and Paula Ashby. 

Generous donations towards the cost of the tagging operation, transmitter, and data acquisition came from:

The City of Apopka - Mayor Joe Kilsheimer

Halifax Audubon - David Hartgrove

Oklawaha Audubon - Stacy Kelly

Seminole County Audubon - Lewis Gray, Margaret Terwilliger, Sarah Donlan

Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue - Barbara Walker

Clearwater Audubon - matching the challenge issued by Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue

West Volusia Audubon - Stephen Kintner

Deborah Green from Orange Audubon (personal donation)

Janet Marks from West Volusia Audubon (personal donation)

Eileen Tramontana, Director of Trout Lake Nature Center (personal donation)

Sandie Selman from West Volusia Audubon (personal donation)

Disney Volunteers from ARC, Rebecca Grimm and Alyssa Karnitz

A Snail of a Tale: radio-tagged Snail Kites and Hurricane Irma

In 2012, ARCI deployed satellite transmitters on twelve Snail Kites in peninsular Florida to study their movements in relation to habitat availability, site preferences, and use of publicly-owned conservation areas relative to unmanaged lands of various uses and conditions. Five years later, four of these birds are still providing the data that will help us inform critical management decisions for their species. These data have highlighted the Snail Kite’s refined adaptations for nomadism: we’ve seen the kites venture to other foraging or known nesting sites in a matter of hours and stay for weeks, months or, sometimes just hours.

Radio-tagged male Snail Kite on a power line.
Photo credit Jack Haxby 2017.

Because we have become so impressed with the kites’ extensive knowledge of the landscape gained from thousands of miles of traveling, we expected that these individuals had selected safe places to wait out Hurricane Irma. In fact, three of the four Snail Kites, all adult females, stayed in place as the storm came onshore in south Florida. One female, Harns hunkered down just 5 miles south of Harns Marsh in Lehigh Acres, her original capture location. The other two females, Okee Female and Citrus, chose to stay near Immokalee, Florida, a small agricultural town that was experiencing power outages, food shortages, and flooding long after the storm. Miraculously, these Snail Kites outlasted the eye of the then Category 3 hurricane, despite winds up to 129 miles an hour passing through that very area.  

The fourth kite, adult male Hwy 441 1, made some last minute adjustments to his evacuation plan. On 6 September, as Hurricane Irma was wreaking havoc on the Caribbean and a mandatory evacuation was imposed on Florida Keys’ residents, he was south of Loxahatchee, Florida, near Twentymile Bend in Palm Beach County.  On 8 September, he flew southwest to a freshwater marsh that is Snail Kite habitat just north of Tamiami Trail in Conservation Area 3A. However, on 10 September, as Irma drove on to Cudjoe Key, he zipped north 37 miles to a tiny tree island standing tall amidst wide-open marsh, where he weathered the storm. After a few days, well after the rain and winds had passed, Hwy 411 1 moved to within 3 miles of Okee Female just west of Immokalee, Florida, where he remains as of 20 September.

Locations of four tagged Snail Kites when Hurricane Irma made landfall on 11 September. 

We will be monitoring the birds’ data closely over the next few weeks to see how they will respond to elevated water levels in their favorite feeding places. Of course, it’s easy to understand how low water levels reduce snail densities and abundance - and thus the presence of Snail Kites - in the wet-prairie habitats of south Florida marshes. However, too-deep water covers normally-emergent vegetation, such as Spike Rush. Apple Snails climb up the stems of such wet-prairie plants to breathe at the water’s surface, thus becoming available to foraging Snail Kites. As water levels in Florida’s unforested wetlands recede, Snail Kites will be behaving again like the nomads they are, searching for the places with just the right set of conditions that increase snail availability and the foraging success of this highly adapted aerial predator.

Typical Snail Kite habitat in Conservation Area 3A in south Florida. Apple snails can be found
using emergent aquatic plants like Spike Rush (forefront) to breathe air from the surface,
 making them available to foraging kites.
Copyright Allan Eyestone/The Palm Beach Post 2017.

To see coarse, real-time movement maps of these four Snail Kites, remember you can follow them and our other satellite-tracked birds from our Satellite Tracking page on our website.

Tree islands provide protection for coastal egrets during Hurricane Irma

What do you think Reddish Egrets living along the Gulf Coast of Florida did during Category 4 Hurricane Irma?  If you’ll recall, we have been tracking six of these birds for several years with GPS-enabled satellite transmitters. Five were outfitted with these amazing devices on and near Sanibel Island’s J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge; one was tagged near a remote shore in Dixie County, Florida.

San Carlos (left) and an unmarked Reddish Egret at San Carlos Bay -Bunche Beach Preserve.
Photo credit Teresa Hedden 2017.

Think about Reddish Egrets. Picture these one-and-a-half pound bundles of feathers bobbing and weaving in coastal shallows and lofting gently over the reclining mangrove forest. Now imagine winds that can lift roofs off houses and storm surges that can over-wash these placid mangroves. How many of these birds do you think survived Hurricane Irma? If you’re like us, you probably did not feel optimistic as Irma played out, even wondering if any of these birds could have lived to keep telling us their stories.

Well, thanks to marvelous technology and the generosity of many organizations and individuals, ARCI has the answer for you: Every one of them. That’s right. Not one of our tracked Reddish Egrets succumbed to Irma’s terrible beating.  And, they all survived while hunkering down in the places we’ve come to know as their favorite roosts, embedded within the small coastal landscape that includes all their favorite feeding places.

As Hurricane Irma approached, Ding#1 and Ding#2, tagged in June and October of 2014 respectively, were near the Wildlife Drive, J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge, on Sanibel Island. The tracking data revealed that they were using roost sites on the small islands to the east of the observation tower, plus the interior mangrove ponds that were likely granted some protection from the wind. 

Bunche Beach, ARCI's
only tagged white-morph
Reddish Egret. Photo credit
Janet Kirk 2016.

The two mainland Reddish Egrets, San Carlos and Bunche Beach tagged in January 2016, moved among the small creeks rising in the “uplands” (it’s all relative) bordering the shoreline and extensive foraging flats of the San Carlos Bay-Bunche Beach Preserve that end abruptly at the municipal boundary of densely-developed Fort Myers Beach.

Darling, tagged near the Wildlife Drive in January 2016, spent the worst part of the storm just inside the dense mangrove stand on the south end of Pine Island. Shortly after the storm abated, he flew to the east side of Sanibel, one of his typical foraging areas.

Our sixth Reddish Egret, Hagen, tagged in the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area of Dixie County in December, 2014, remained for two days on one of his habitual roosting islands, which is three miles south of his core foraging area. After the storm passed, he resumed his regular routine.

Obviously these birds endured the strong winds, heavy rains, and menacing storm surge associated with Hurricane Irma.  Their inland flights documented by telemetry early in the storm may have resulted from a storm surge forcing them to find higher ground. Foraging areas days later were in isolated ponds away from the coast, which probably were shallow enough to permit feeding. Foraging conditions may have been enhanced in such sites because over-wash would have introduced fish that became entrapped as the water receded.

We hope that other birds, including Reddish Egrets and all the other species that grace Florida’s skies, did as well as these individuals that share their secrets with us every day, teaching us – electronically – what we need to know to help protect their future.

Who stayed, who left? Where our birds are after Hurricane Irma

Were you able to catch ARCI’s Executive Director, Dr. Ken Meyer, on a panel of researchers talking about how Hurricane Irma could have affected Florida’s imperiled species? Ken was interviewed on National Public Radio’s Science Friday on 15 September.  Here’s a link to the segment, in case you missed it:

How Hurricane Irma could affect Florida's endangered species

We would like to share some great news about our remotely-tracked birds that were in the path of Hurricane Irma in Puerto Rico, Cuba, the Bahamas, Jamaica, the Florida Keys, and throughout the Florida Peninsula.   We are getting normal-looking movement data on all but a few of the birds!  Those we have not heard from include one White-crowned Pigeon on Grand Bahama and another that had just migrated to Cuba ahead of the storm.  We will keep watching for signals from these birds.

Six Gulf Coast Reddish Egrets (five in Lee County on J. N. Ding Darling National Wildlife Refuge and well north in Dixie County) stayed in place for the storm and, based on their movements compared with pre-hurricane days, appear to be doing well.  The single Magnificent Frigatebird we are tracking at this time, an adult from the only U. S. breeding colony in the Dry Tortugas that spends this part of the year off the Gulf coast of Citrus County, Florida, rode out the storm over the Gulf. He headed west and then south on the cyclonic flow that eventually carried this bird along a 600-mile loop that brought it right back to its favorite near-shore roosting island.

The four satellite-tracked Snail Kites sat tight in south Florida wetlands. The same is true for the Short-tailed Hawk we recently tagged in St. Petersburg, Florida, which promptly returned to its nesting forest at Sawgrass Lake Park.

The GSM/GPS-tracked Swallow-tailed Kite Apopka had the best migratory conditions on the north winds carried in with Irma.  She covered ground fast and got to the south coast of Cuba the night before the storm hit Cuba’s north coast.  She remains in Cuba still today.

Location of 37 remotely-tracked birds after Hurricane Irma had passed. The two yellow "Missing" markers refer to two White-crowned Pigeons from whom we have not yet received data.

We will be flying this week and again soon after to check on our VHF radio-tagged Southeastern American Kestrels, Snail Kites, and 12 more White-crowned Pigeons.  This also will be our best opportunity to assess habitat impacts on all our study populations.  We’ll also be elaborating on each species’ immediate responses to Hurricane Irma in the upcoming blog stories.  We are amazed at their resilience!  More soon.

Nowhere to go. How will our birds cope with Hurricane Irma?

In preparation for Hurricane Irma, we evacuated field sites in the Florida Keys and coastal south Florida, moved boats and field crew to northern latitudes, and fortified our homes. We know that many of our supporters and those who will read this blog have been affected by this massive storm and we hope that you stayed as safe as possible.

Of course, something we cannot personally protect from a hurricane are wild birds, including the ones we tag and study. Severe weather such as this presents us with interesting, unplanned opportunities.  With satellite, cell-phone, and old-fashioned radio tracking, ARCI is following 37 individual birds of seven species, a rare and valuable chance to learn how they weather this hurricane and respond to its profound impacts on the many habitats, special places, and landscapes that support their day-to-day lives. Some birds will perish in the extreme conditions. Some will lose resources essential in the near term, or suffer higher risks of mortality or impaired reproduction, long after the storm passes. Others may begin their seasonal migrations only to be forced to take up novel routes that prove threatening or take them to unsuitable wintering destinations.  Others may accomplish the impossible, against all odds, and survive in spite of the enormous scale of the damage, giving us some hope that wild birds will be resilient enough to cope with nature, and with all we do to jeopardize their continued existence.

The 37 birds telling us these stories are the ones we’ve carefully captured, tagged, and tracked with the support many of you have generously provided, including Swallow-tailed Kites, Snail Kites, Magnificent Frigatebirds, Reddish Egrets, Southeastern American Kestrels, White-crowned Pigeons, and a Short-tailed Hawk.

Most of our Swallow-tailed Kites are in Central and South America now, but there are some lingering in Florida, including “Apopka”, a cell phone/GPS-tracked bird that we featured in our last blog.  We hope Apopka was encouraged to begin migrating by the strong northern tailwinds on the leading edge of the advancing hurricane. We are watching closely and hope to have more for you soon.

Four of the seven species we are tracking in the Florida peninsula will not migrate: eight Snail Kites tagged in south-central Florida (satellite and VHF radio transmitters), a single Short-tailed Hawk fitted with a cell-phone/GPS device in St. Petersburg, six Reddish Egrets from coastal Lee and Dixie counties tracked with satellite/GPS technology, and four young Southeastern American Kestrels tagged with tiny VHF transmitters in Hillsborough County. We can only hope they will find a good perch and hang on, or take to the air and evade - or endure - the most extreme conditions. Although we do not know what strategies they employ, or which work best, we have learned from past experiences to expect some surprises when tracking birds that encounter exceptionally severe weather. For instance, we watched in 2016 as one of our tagged Magnificent Frigatebirds in the northern Gulf of Mexico off Citrus County, Florida, traveled very rapidly on winds generated by Hurricane Hermine to take refuge well inland in southern Georgia. We are eager to see how this same bird responded to Hurricane Irma.

Of all the birds we are presently tracking, we are most concerned about seven White-crowned Pigeons we tagged with satellite transmitters on their breeding ranges over the last three years for a range-wide study of this species of conservation concern. Two confronted Irma’s 180 mile per hour winds in Puerto Rico, two from Florida encountered the hurricane in northern Cuba, and two more had similar challenges in Jamaica and the Bahamas. The last remained in Florida. We will know soon how these birds have fared.

Just as Hurricane Irma began developing last week, we were in the process of placing small VHF transmitters (tracked by hand in real time) on 12 White-crowned Pigeons in South Florida and Keys. One purpose of this study is to link the most significant mangrove-island breeding colonies of these birds with their specific hardwood-hammock foraging destinations, thereby enabling wildlife managers to prioritize protection of the most important patches of this rapidly disappearing hardwood forest. Because these transmitters cannot be tracked remotely, the fates of these birds could remain a mystery for some time after Irma’s passage.

We hope you and yours safely endured Hurricane Irma, and that you will join us in hoping that as many birds as possible have done the same.

Finally, we are very grateful for all the generous support we have received from organizations, foundations, private individuals, and government agencies to make ARCI’s challenging and important telemetry research possible. They include: Sanibel-Captive Audubon Society; International Osprey Foundation; Felburn Foundation; St. Petersburg Audubon Society; Venice Audubon Society; The Florida Aquarium; West Volusia Audubon Society; Seminole County Audubon Society; Sarasota County Audubon Society; Bailey Wildlife Foundation; Quest Ecology, Inc., Tortuga Foundation; U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS), including the Southeast Region’s Division of Migratory Birds, Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge; Florida Keys National Wildlife Refuge Complex; Ding Darling Wildlife Society; Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission; Microwave Telemetry, Inc.; Friends of the Palmetto Bluff Conservancy (South Carolina); Palmetto Bluff Conservancy; Friends of the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge; Friends and Volunteers of the Florida Keys Refuges; U. S. Geological Survey; North Port Friends of Wildlife; Subaru of Gainesville; Disney Wildlife Conservation Fund; Avian Reconditioning Center; National Fish and Wildlife Foundation; Gulf of Mexico Institute; City of Apopka; Halifax Audubon Society; Oklawaha Audubon Society; Clearwater Audubon Society; Orange Audubon Society; Tampa Bay Raptor Rescue;  and individuals including Judy Samelson, Bill Schwabel, Jim Griffith, Margo McKnight, David Hartgrove, Deborah Green, Janet Marks, Eileen Tramontana, Barbara Walker, Joni Ellis, Tom and Laura Hansen, Barbara Brown, Paula Powell, Bill Todman Jr., Bev and Al Hansen, Fred Lohrer, Gary and Susie Zimmerman, Kathryn Palmore, Joyce King, Gary and Joanne Grunau, Tom Staley, Lucille, Lane, Deb Levine, Tim Harrell, Sandy Selman, Rebecca Grimm, and Alyssa Karnitz.

Moonlit migration on the Gulf Coast of Florida

Our celebrated migratory Reddish Egret, Ding#1, has done it again.  She left the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) on Sanibel Island, Lee County, Florida, to spend the late summer months on the Nature Coast in Dixie County, Florida, from 2 June through 17 August 2016.  In 2015 she made a similar migration to the same location at the end of May, but only stayed a few weeks.

Comparison of  the 2015 (blue) and 2016 (pink) migration tracks of Ding#1, a satellite-tagged Reddish Egret from Sanibel, Florida that migrates to Dixie County in the late summer months.

Based on her breeding-season movements relative to wading bird nesting colonies in Lee County, we do not think this female nested in the spring of 2016, or at least not successfully. This could be why she spent more time on her Dixie County range in 2016. Her northbound migration was direct and punctuated by only one over-night stop, seaward of Homosassa in Citrus County.  Once at her “winter” destination, she used a single foraging area on the coast of the Big Bend Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in Dixie County, from which she flew five miles offshore each evening to spend the night on a small island.  This pattern continued for 11 weeks.

GPS locations  of Ding#1, a satellite-tagged Reddish Egret from Sanibel, Florida that spent 11 weeks off the coast of Dixie County from early June to mid August, 2016.

On 18 August, just after midnight, Ding#1 started south by the light of the full moon.  This is the only time we’ve ever recorded a Reddish Egret embarking on a long flight at night.  We also were interested in offshore night locations, perhaps on a channel marker or stationary boat, where Ding#1 rested for at least two hours. After resuming her southbound night flight, she took one more rest just before dawn in a tree overhanging a house in a busy subdivision in Largo, Florida.  After sunrise, Ding#1 made a bee line to Pine Island and may have fished there for a few hours before returning to her favorite roost near the Wildlife Drive, on the Ding Darling NWR.  She completed her at least 230 mile southbound trip in less than 24 hours, including rest stops. Very impressive!

2016 migration track of Ding#1, a satellite-tagged Reddish Egret from Sanibel, Florida that spent 11 weeks in Dixie County.  Yellow pins highlight locations on her 24 hour southbound track back to Sanibel.

ARCI and our friends at Ding Darling NWR were not the only ones glad to know that she made it back safely.  Not even a day later, photographer Jim Bennight was on the Wildlife Drive and captured a wonderful greeting ritual between Ding#1 and her mate Ding#2.  It is worth noting that Ding#1 is the only migratory individual among the 14 Reddish Egrets we have tracked by satellite from the lower Florida Keys, Florida’s Big Bend, and on Ding Darling NWR.

Satellite-tagged Reddish Egrets Ding#1 (left) and Ding#2 (right) greeting one another at J.N "Ding" Darling NWR, Sanibel, FL, August, 2016.

Satellite-tagged Reddish Egrets Ding#1 (left) and Ding#2 (right) greeting one another at J.N "Ding" Darling NWR, Sanibel, FL, August, 2016.

Ding#1 and Ding#2 continue to grace the Refuge’s Wildlife Drive.  A few non-tagged birds also have been seen on the Refuge. We continue to track five Reddish Egrets in Lee County, plus the single bird tagged on Big Bend WMA in Dixie County. All of the tagged birds displayed their usual movement patterns during the red tide event that affected Sanibel and area waters in late November. We are monitoring them closely for any changes in behavior. You can keep up with the movements of these now-famous Reddish Egrets at: http://arcinst.org/arci-tracking-studies