Fern Davies

The Ornithological Council and the North American Banding Council were among the organizations represented on a federal advisory committee appointed by the U.S. Geological Survey to “ensure the BBL was guided by a clear vision for the future.” The Directors requested that the Secretary of the Department of the Interior establish a Federal Advisory Committee composed of representatives from the broad bird-banding community, from both public and private sectors, to define a vision for the BBL and to identify priority actions that should be taken to ensure BBL excellence into the 21st century. The committee report, published in 2008 http://pubs.usgs.gov/circ/circ1320/>, set out guidance for a BBL that would facilitate banding and the archiving and use of banding data. Encompassed in the report were a number of strong recommendations regarding the BBL’s routine functions, such as the issuance of permits. Our organizations would now like your assistance in helping us to determine the extent to which the BBL is achieving the recommendations made by the federal advisory committee. Please take a moment to visit our Survey Monkey to answer a few brief questions. You need not provide your name or any other identifying information unless you wish to do so. All specific answers will be held strictly confidential. a.btnBlue{ background:#36518f; background:-moz-linear-gradient(top,#8c9cbf 0%,#546a9e 50%,#36518f 50%,#3d5691 100%); background:-webkit-gradient(linear,0 0,0 100%,color-stop(0,#8c9cbf),color-stop(0.5,#546a9e),color-stop(0.5,#36518f),color-stop(1,#3d5691)); border:1px solid #172d6e; border-bottom:1px solid #0e1d45; -moz-border-radius:5px; -webkit-border-radius:5px; border-radius:5px; -moz-box-shadow:inset 0 1px 0 0 #b1b9cb; -webkit-box-shadow:inset 0 1px 0 0 #b1b9cb; box-shadow:inset 0 1px 0 0 #b1b9cb; color:#fff; font-family:"helvetica neue",helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:16px; font-weight:bold; padding:7px 10px 8px 10px; text-decoration:none !important; text-align:center; text-shadow:0 -1px 1px #000f4d; width:150px}a.btnBlue:hover{ background:#2f477d; background:-moz-linear-gradient(top,#7f8dad 0%,#4a5e8c 50%,#2f477d 50%,#364c80 100%); background:-webkit-gradient(linear,0 0,0 100%,color-stop(0,#7f8dad),color-stop(0.5,#4a5e8c),color-stop(0.5,#2f477d),color-stop(1,#364c80)); cursor:pointer; text-decoration:none !important}a.btnBlue:active{ -moz-box-shadow:inset 0 0 20px 0 #1d2845,0 1px 0 #fff; -webkit-box-shadow:inset 0 0 20px 0 #1d2845,0 1px 0 #fff; box-shadow:inset 0 0 20px 0 #1d2845,0 1px 0 #fff; cursor:pointer; text-decoration:none !important}Take the Survey If you have any questions please feel free to follow-up with the following with us directly. Ellen Paul (Executive Director, Ornithological Council): ellen.paul@verizon.net John Alexander (Chair, North American Banding Council): jda@klamathbird.org CJ Ralph (Vice-chair, North American Banding Council): cjralph@humboldt1.com

Most of you are probably just settling into the spring semester, and you've only barely started to look at the data you collected in your most recent field season. May seems a long way off.... Reality: Federal and state permitting agencies are short-staffed. They simply do not have enough staff to process permit applications as quickly as they would like, or as quickly as you would like. If you wait until March or April, you could very well find that you don't get your permit/renewal in time for the start of your field season. Apply now and avoid the stress of worrying about getting your permit in time. Remember - under Migratory Bird Treaty Act permits (including banding permits), you can continue your work under an expired permit so long as you have applied for renewal before the permit expired. That is NOT true of Endangered Species Act or CITES permits. It may or may not be true of your state permit - be sure to check. USDA permits (needed for imports) do not allow the continuance of work after expiration, even if a renewal application is pending. If you have any questions about what permits you need, how to get them, or any other questions about permits, please contact the Ornithological Council [ellen.paul *** verizon.net]

The American Institute of Biological Sciences has issued the following legislative alert: Protect the Integrity of Federally Funded Scientific Research Ask Your Representative to Sign the Holt-Price Dear Colleague Letter Legislation is pending in the House of Representatives that would require the public release of sensitive information regarding peer review of federal grants. As it is currently drafted, the Grant Reform and New Transparency (GRANT) Act, HR 3433, would require that the government publish online grant proposals funded by federal agencies. Unlike the current government practice of releasing abstracts, this new requirement would include potentially proprietary intellectual information related to the applicant's hypotheses, novel methodology, and preliminary research findings. Moreover, the GRANT Act would require the public disclosure of the names of the peer reviewers for each federally funded grant. Removing the anonymity of peer review would open the process to real or perceived fear of repercussions for reviewers, and could result in self-censoring by reviewers. Please stand up for the integrity of the scientific process by asking your Representative to voice his/her disapproval of these provisions in the GRANT Act by signing a Dear Colleague letter being circulated by Representatives Rush Holt (D-NJ) and David Price (D-NC). The Holt-Price letter urges Speaker Boehner and Minority Leader Pelosi to remove these provisions from the GRANT Act before it is further considered in the House. It's not too late to take action! The deadline for members of Congress to sign the letter has been extended to Friday, 20 January 2012. CLICK HERE TO SEND A LETTER TO YOUR MEMBER OF CONGRESS: http://capwiz.com/ai...lertid=59657501

12/1/2011 - Adoption and Implementation of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals: Eighth Edition The NIH has issued a Federal Register Notice (PDF) announcing its adoption of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals: Eighth Edition (Guide) effective January 1, 2012. The notice: provides the adoption and implementation plan for the 8th Edition of the Guide; provides Position Statements to clarify how the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (OLAW) expects Assured institutions to implement the Guide and announces a comment period for the public to comment on their understanding of the Position Statements; and announces that public comments on the 8th Edition of the Guide collected in spring 2011 and OLAW’s analysis of those comments are available on the OLAW website. OLAW has developed the Adoption of the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals: Eighth Edition webpage that provides the Position Statements (with links to comment), resources for implementing the Guide, and listing of public comments on adoption of the Guide all in one location. For questions, suggestions or comments, e-mail to olaw@od.nih.gov. Explanatory note from the Ornithological Council: Despite the title, the Guide for the Care and Use Of Laboratory Animals is critically important to all wildlife biologists because it is the primary guidance document for the Animal Care and Use Committees that approve your research protocols. The Public Health Service (National Institutes of Health) requires compliance with this Guide as a condition of grant eligibility not just for you but for your entire institution. Therefore, your university regards the Guide as a bible. Other federal grant-making agencies, including the National Science Foundation, follow this same policy, known formally as the Public Health Service Policy on Humane Care and Use of Laboratory Animals: http://grants.nih.go...nces/phspol.htm There is very, very little information in the Guide that pertains directly to wildlife research conducted in the field. In fact, it is about only four paragraphs. However, when the draft version was released, these four short paragraphs contained several major errors and there were other errors pertaining to birds elsewhere in the draft. Together with the American Society of Mammalogists (ASM), OC submitted extensive comments and succeeded in having this problematic information removed or corrected. These comments were also submitted to NIH along with comments raising concerns about the process by which the Guide was revised. Therefore, the OC did not submit additional comments to the NIH when the NIH issued the notice stating that it proposed to adopt this new edition. The OC and the ASM are taking additional steps to assure that Animal Care and Use Committees know that they are not only permitted to use the taxon-specific standards issued by our societies, but that in fact it is more appropriate to use these standards than it is to use the Guide insofar as research pertaining to wildlife (in the field and in captivity) is concerned. Please comment or ask question by replying to this article or contact Executive Director @Ellen Paul (ellen.paul@verizon.net) if you have any questions.

Three researchers from the University of Granada have questioned the long-standing assumption that investigator presence negatively impacts breeding success. Juan D. Ibáñez-Álamo, Olivia Sanllorente, and Manual Soler conducted a meta-analysis on 18 studies of investigator impact on natural nests. Of the 101 papers they found on this subject, only these 18 were experimental and met the criteria for the meta-analysis. Even with current technology such as remote cameras, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to study breeding success without any investigator presence, but this meta-analysis considered observations through binoculars to be the equivalent of a non-visit. In addition, this meta-analysis used the extent of disturbance as the measure of the impact of investigator presence. When a causal relationship exists, there should be an exposure-response such that increased exposure produces an increased response. Therefore, if investigator presence affects breeding success, increased presence should have greater impact than does less frequent presence or presence of shorter duration. The meta-analysis looked at the extent of the impact by as reflected by the number of depredated and successful nests under a high perturbation treatment vs. low perturbation and non-perturbation treatments, habitat type, and the study methods (frequency of visits, visit v. non-visit, touched vs. untouched). Overall, Passeriformes showed a marginally significant effect of researcher disturbance in that researcher presence was associated with a reduction in nest predation. However, there was no significant effect (positive or negative) for Charadriiformes. Sample size for the other four orders was not sufficient for the analysis. As to some aspects of avian traits, researcher presence actually had a positive effect. For ground-nesting birds, researcher presence apparently had a negative effect on predators, resulting in greater breeding success. However, no difference was seen on colonially nesting species. The negative impact on predators was found for coastal species but not for grassland birds. The depression of predation rates was not found in studies measuring visit vs. non-visit, perhaps because even with binoculars, the researcher is still physically present at a distance close enough to assess breeding success, which is still relatively close to the nest. The negative effect on nest predation was strong enough that the authors caution those studying nest predation rates to take into account the impact of their own presence on the results. This article summarizes information in this publication: Ibáñez-Álamo, Juan D., Olivia Sanllorente, and Manual Soler. 2011. The impact of researcher disturbance on nest predation rates: a meta-analysis. Ibis (pre-publication version first published online on 7 November 2011). http://ornithologyexchange.org/files/file/7-%7B%3F%7D/ Photo credits: Black rat snake predation event by @Andrew Cox. Great Tit nestling by jamesmorton on Flickr, used here under license CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.

Wings that “sing” are nothing new to ornithologists. The American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) circles upward in a breeding display. When the bird has climbed to 200-300 feet above the ground, it breaks into a kamikaze flight to the ground. The wing feathers twitter. Club-winged Manakins (Machaeropterus deliciosus) use their secondary remiges (the flight feathers) to communicate in courtship displays. When they head for the avian version of a singles bar, known as a lek, they raise their wings over their backs, shaking them back-and-forth 100 times a second (twice the speed of hummingbird wing strokes), producing a high-pitched sound. Other manakins make wing sounds in other ways. When it launches into its song-and-dance displays, the Red-capped Manakin (Pipra mentalis) slaps its flight feather against its sides. Slow though they may be by comparison to manakins, the 35 species of “bee” hummingbirds have some talking feathers of their own. In a 2011 paper published in SCIENCE, Yale ornithologist Chris Clark and coauthors Damian Elias and Rick Prum found that the tonal sounds produced during dive displays emanate from the rapid spreading and closing of the tail feathers. An earlier study showed that clipping the tail feathers silenced the dive sound. Now, by putting the tail feathers of a number of hummingbird species in a wind tunnel and using a scanning laser doppler vibrometer, Clark and colleagues have actually measured the fluttering of the tail feathers. They determined that the feathers produce sounds in four different modes of vibration. Air flowing across the transverse edge of the vane (the flat parts of the feather that are attached to the central feather shaft which is known as a rachis) is one of the two most common modes of sound-producing vibration. This mode generally occurs in feathers of uniform width. For tapering feathers, a combination of torsional (twisting) and transverse airflow around the tip of the feather produces sound. In some species, the vibration is entirely torsional and in one species, the entire feather bends. And, it turns out, adjacent feathers oscillate in response to these vibrations and amplify the sound. Some species have mastered three-part harmony. The Allen’s Hummingbird (Salasphorus sasin) produces two tones with its tail feathers and another with its wings. Calling this sound-producing property “aeroelastic flutter,” the authors of the paper note that tonal flight sounds occur in many bird species that do not have modified feathers, probably because probably because all flight feathers are stiff, flat airfoils that are prone to aeroelastic flutter above certain speeds, regardless of the feather shape and structure. In hummingbirds, they propose, this inherent property became selected for through sexual selection. The tail feathers are sexually dimorphic (differ between males and females) and the feathers of each species differ from those of other species, producing a sound unique to each species. And so, a feature that might be catastrophic in an airplane – would you like to look at the window and see the wings vibrating and twisting? – turned out for many species of birds to be a characteristic that gave them the ability to communicate with the ladies. This article summarizes information in this publication: Clark, Christopher J., Damian O. Elias, and Richard O. Prum. 2011. Aeroelastic flutter produces hummingbird feather songs. Science 333:1430-1433. doi:10.1126/science.1205222 http://ornithologyexchange.org/files/file/6-%7B%3F%7D/ Photo: Volcano Hummingbird, captured from YouTube video, included in video courtesy of Anand Varma, www.varmaphoto.com (see video for description)

Nazca Boobies on the Galapagos Islands leave their chicks to forage for food. During this time, other adults may approach unrelated chicks and their conduct may be aggressive or sexual in nature. After studying these birds over three breeding seasons, David Anderson (Wake Forest University) and his colleagues observed that the chicks that had experienced this conduct grew into adults that engaged in the same kind of behavior to other chicks. And, in fact, they found high correlations between the amount of aggressive behavior demonstrated by the adults and the amount of abuse they had endured as nestlings. The observers who assessed the behavior of these adults were unaware of the experiences of those birds as chicks; they didn't know that these birds had themselves been the victims of "bullying." A BBC Nature article about this research quoted Dr. Anderson as saying, "The link we found indicates that nestling experience, and not genetics, influences adult behaviour." He suspects that being a victim of abuse raises levels of stress hormones, and these hormonal levels later trigger aggressive behaviour, completing the cycle of violence. The New York Times carried a feature about this paper on 10 October 2011: http://www.nytimes.c...r=1&ref=science The full text of the paper has been made available courtesy of UC Press for a limited time: http://www.jstor.org...full?tokenKey= and subsequently will be available in The Auk 128:4 (coming this fall). Photograph: Nazca Booby (Sula granti) with its chick and egg. Photographed by Ernie Lo in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador, 2007. Obtained from WikiCommons under license CC-BY.

A tool to measure stress hormone in birds -- feathers Tufts-led research underscores link between elevated hormone MEDFORD/SOMERVILLE, Mass.--When faced with environmental threats like bad weather, predators or oil spills, wild birds secrete a hormone called corticosterone. Traditionally, researchers have analyzed blood samples to detect corticosterone levels in wild birds. But recently, scientists have shown that corticosterone spikes can also be detected by analyzing bird feathers. A Tufts University study published in the May 11 online edition of "Journal of Avian Biology" confirmed the new technique as a useful way to determine avian stress response not only to sudden natural threats but also to human-caused activities that have a long-term impact on the environment, such as large construction projects or oil spills. L. Michael Romero, professor of biology in the School of Arts and Sciences at Tufts, says the findings will be useful to conservationists. "There is a fair bit of public interest in whether human activities create stress in wildlife," says Romero, who directed the study that was led by doctoral student Christine R. Lattin. "The idea is that we can determine whether human changes will leave a record of stress in birds' feathers." Feathers Offer Advantages Over Blood Sampling For researchers studying stress in birds, feathers present significant advantages over blood sampling. Scientists can obtain feather samples by collecting naturally-molted feathers from the nest without having to handle birds. Also, blood samples provide only a snapshot of corticosterone in the blood at the moment the blood sample is drawn. Feathers, however, reflect hormone levels during the time it takes feathers to grow, says Lattin. "This is important in understanding the long-term impacts of stressors on animals, because stress hormones are mostly beneficial in the short term, and only become a problem when they are at high levels for a sustained period of time," Lattin says. To test the hypothesis that corticosterone levels in birds' feathers correspond to levels in birds' tissues, the researchers collected feathers from captive European starlings and compared the feather cortisone levels of starlings with and without experimentally-elevated cortisone (via a small capsule implant)They also collected blood samples from each bird three times during the experiment: before implantation and three and five days after implantation. The researchers analyzed the feathers in two ways. They divided one batch into subgroups that differentiated three stages of growth—before, during and after implantation. In the second part of the study, the scientists wanted to determine if feathers from the same bird would have similar corticosterone levels. To do this, they selected two feathers from the same bird. An analysis of the feathers yielded several findings. The nine starlings implanted with corticosterone had significantly higher levels of the hormone in their feathers during the study period than the other birds. Also, the scientists found no difference in corticosterone levels between feathers taken from the same bird, indicating a consistency in feathers grown at the same time. Romero and Lattin are collaborating with other researchers to see if this technique can be applied to preserved bird specimens at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, D.C. Feathers may be a way to determine whether birds that lived in the wild decades ago lived in stressful environments. "This opens up the possibility to use museum specimens to look at how changes in the environment may have affected the birds," says Romero. Elevated Corticosterone is Related to Deformities in Feathers In previous experiments, the scientists found that feathers from birds implanted with corticosterone in had lighter, weaker feathers. Lattin says that the results suggest that elevated corticosterone levels could impact birds' health. ### The research was funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Christine R. Lattin, J. Michael Reed, David W. DesRochers and L. Michael Romero Article first published online: 11 MAY 2011 | DOI: 10.1111/j.1600-048X.2010.05310.x Tufts University, located on three Massachusetts campuses in Boston, Medford/Somerville, and Grafton, and in Talloires, France, is recognized among the premier research universities in the United States. Tufts enjoys a global reputation for academic excellence and for the preparation of students as leaders in a wide range of professions. A growing number of innovative teaching and research initiatives span all Tufts campuses, and collaboration among the faculty and students in the undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across the university's schools is widely encouraged.

Sooner or later, it happens to every ornithologist. A routine research protocol for a common practice such as mist-netting has sailed through review by the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) dozens of times. This time, however, they ask you about the potential for injury and mortality. Oh, you respond, it is extremely low. The mortality rate for passerines caught by mist-netting under one per cent. “Really?” they say. “Can you provide any peer-reviewed literature to support that statement?” Now, you can, thanks to biologist Erica Spotswood at U.C. Berkeley. Erica wanted to study seed dispersal ecology and plant invasions in French Polynesia. She used mist nets to capture birds to obtain fecal samples to characterize and quantify diets. The government of French Polynesia denied her permit request to capture fruit doves, which are a protected species in that country. She was told that the government wildlife agency was concerned that mist netting would injure or kill birds. She told him that the risk is very low, but he asked to see the study. Erica soon found that the study did not exist, so she decided to do that study herself. She persuaded 22 banding organisations across the United States and Canada to share their injury and mortality data so she could assess the risk factors which could increase rates of injury or mortality including bird size, age, frequency of capture and the role of predators. Now you can tell your IACUC that an analysis of 345,752 birds capture in mist nets found that "the average rate of injury was 0·59%, while mortality was 0·23%." Is that all you need to know? Definitely not. As low as these rates are, it is still important to take all reasonable measures to reduce the rates of injury and mortality. As responsible researchers who care about the impact of research on the birds we study, you should pay close attention to the recommendations that followed the analysis: vulnerable species and individuals captured for the first time should be prioritized banders should identify which species are most vulnerable at their own sites. Personnel should pay attention to stress by using cues such as panting, lethargy, raising of feathers and closing eyes, and they should be particularly careful in recognizing stress cues for smaller birds. Banders should also watch for signs of wing strain and tangling in smaller birds and internal injuries, leg injuries, cuts and predation in larger birds. Training, training, and more training is key As Spotswood said, “A lot of wildlife research requires that animals are captured and handled in order to study populations, demographics, behaviour or movement, yet the process can be stressful to animals. For both ethical reasons and the sake of the research, it is important to make absolutely sure any risks are minimized.” “Our study fills in an important gap in understanding by evaluating one of the most commonly used methods in ornithological research. We have shown that when banders follow good practices, incidents are rare. We hope that the results of this paper will be widely read by the banding community and that it will help researchers minimize any risk of incident.” The paper is available online: E. N. Spotswood, K. Roesch Goodman, J. Carlisle, R. L. Cormier, D. L. Humple, J. Rousseau, S. L. Guers, G. G. Barton, How safe is mist netting? Evaluating the risk of injury and mortality to birds, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Wiley-Blackwell, June 2011, DOI: 10.1111/j.2041-210X.2011.00123.x

Mr. Brad Bortner has been selected as the new Chief for the Division of Migratory Bird Management. Brad currently serves as Chief of the Division of Migratory Birds and Habitat Programs in Region 1. During his tenure, Brad has been involved with numerous partnership efforts to further migratory bird conservation. Most recently Brad served as Management Board Chair of the Intermountain West Joint Venture from 2009-2011 and lead the 2010 State of the Birds team. In 2007, Brad was acting Center Director for the USGS National Wildlife Health Center in Madison for a month and eight months as acting Assistant Regional Director for External Affairs in Region 1. From 1987-1992 Brad worked for the Office of Migratory Bird Management at Patuxent Wildlife Research Center as Chief of Population Assessment and several staff positions. Prior to joining the Fish and Wildlife Service, Brad spent 1.5 years working for the Office of Hydropower Licensing with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission in Washington, D.C. Brad considers Annapolis, Maryland to be his hometown. Brad attended the University of Vermont where he received B.S. degrees in Wildlife Biology and Forestry. Brad’s Master of Science degree was from the University of Maryland-College Park. He is also a graduate of the Fish and Wildlife Service's Advanced Leadership Development Program. Brad is married to Sandra Staples-Bortner. Sandra is the Executive Director of the Great Peninsula Conservancy in Bremerton, Washington. Sandra and Brad have two sons, Ben and Jeff. Ben is an investment research analyst in Bellingham Washington. Jeff is a wildland firefighter for Mid-Columbia National Wildlife Refuge Complex and a senior paramedic student at Central Washington University in Ellensburg. Brad has more hobbies than weekends, but he is an avid waterfowl hunter, fisherman, mountaineer, backpacker, skier, and white-water rafter.