Wintering the Animals

Aspergillosis in wintering mallards.

Ducks change wintering patterns due to changing climate in the important wintering waters of the Odra River Estuary

Some species of birds react to climate change by reducing the distance they travel during migration. The Odra River Estuary in the Baltic Sea is important for wintering waterfowl and is where we investigated how waterbirds respond to freezing surface waters. The most abundant birds here comprise two ecological groups: bottom-feeders and piscivores. Numbers of all bottom-feeders, but not piscivo...

Fidelity and over-wintering of sea turtles.

While fidelity to breeding sites is well demonstrated in marine turtles, emerging knowledge of migratory routes and key foraging sites is of limited conservation value unless levels of fidelity can be established. We tracked green (Chelonia mydas, n=10) and loggerhead (Caretta caretta, n=10) turtles during their post-nesting migration from the island of Cyprus to their foraging grounds. After i...

Local Survival of Dunlin Wintering in California’

We estimated local annual survival of 1,051 individually color-banded Dunlin (Calidris alpina) at Bolinas Lagoon, California from 1979 to 1992. Resighting rates for birds banded as adults varied significantly among years, and resighting rates for first-year birds varied by sex and year. No significant differences in local survival rates were found between males and females in any age classes. F...

Seed Preferences of Wintering Henslow’s Sparrows

The Henslow’s Sparrow (Ammodramus henslowii), a species of conservation concern, winters primarily in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forest ecosystems in the southeastern U.S. These pine savannas have been reduced to 5% of their former range, with remaining patches requiring active management with fire to maintain characteristic structure and plant diversity. Wintering Henslow’s Sparrow abunda...