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We Are Biodiversity
This article was included in our Summer 2019 issue of Manomet Magazine. In March 1932, despite conservation efforts, “Booming Ben,” the single surviving Heath Hen, a grouse-like bird, was seen for the last time on Martha’s Vineyard. A year later, Henry Beetle Hough posed a rhetorical question in the Vineyard Gazette ‘Is nothing to follow the extinction of this bird except one more lesson in conservation for school books, and a sentimental mourning?’ Indeed, the extinction of the Heath Hen was nothing more—another lesson for school books. Many such lessons have since followed, avian and otherwise. A species winks out. The earth rotates just the same, unencumbered by the loss. Every two years since 1998 The World Wildlife Fund publishes...
Building Bridges To The Future: Looking back from 1995–present day and making plans for Manomet’s next 50 years.
Materials (content and images) taken from the Manomet archives. Manomet’s work over its first 25 years expanded organically from landbirds, shorebirds, and forests and opened the door to a broader understanding of the world around us. This understanding of how the many facets of our world are connected—and a belief that we cannot solve the complex challenges that we are facing by ourselves—is integral to understanding our most recent past and how we are preparing to lead in our next half-century. When Manomet’s banding program celebrated its unofficial 30th anniversary in the fall of 1996, Linda Leddy, then President, shared in her cover letter of the spring 1997 issue of Conservation Sciences, that, “Bird populations are in trouble; the causes...
To Expand Beyond Banding: Looking back at the years 1969-1994 in Manomet’s history
Materials (content and photos) for this article were pulled from the Manomet archives. August 4, 1969, dawned in Plymouth, Massachusetts; warm and overcast and seemingly average. But excitement was in the air! Thanks to a driven board of directors, one full-time employee, nearly 450 members from 27 states, and a core group of volunteers, the newly formed Manomet Bird Observatory opened its doors on that first Monday in August—just in time for the first migrants to arrive for fall banding. “Manomet Bird Observatory has become a reality, the first of its kind on the Atlantic Coast of North America,” wrote Kathleen ‘Betty’ Anderson, Manomet’s first Executive Director, in the first-ever edition of the Manomet newsletter. “The value of the data...
Spring 2019 Banding Season
The Manomet Banding Lab is open for the 2019 spring season! Here, you can find weekly updates from the lab including species caught, as well as other nature updates throughout Manomet's 40-acre headquarters. You can also read more about this season's banding staff, what brought them to Manomet, and their diverse backgrounds. For more than 50 years, Manomet has maintained a spring and fall migration banding program. Bird Banding is an effective method of research that helps answer important questions in issues from conservation to climate change. Check back every week for a new post, and don't forget to follow the lab on Instagram and Twitter for even more content!
Linking tourism, heritage, and traditional cuisine with bird-watching
Hudsonian Godwit at Refugio Pullao (credit: Monica Iglecia) The island of Chiloé, in southern Chile, is one of the most important wintering sites for Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa haemastica) and Whimbrel (Numenius phaeopus). The bays, wetlands, and coasts of Chiloé support 21,000 Hudsonian Godwit—27% of their global population, and 99% of their Pacific Coast population. The wetlands also sustain a significant proportion of the Pacific Coast population of Whimbrel. Both species are considered of “high conservation concern” in the Americas, as outlined in the U.S. Shorebird Conservation Plan. In January 2011, the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network (WHSRN) Hemispheric Council designated Humedales Orientales de Chiloé (the eastern wetlands of Chiloé) as a WHSRN site of Hemispheric Importance. The dozen wetlands that...
Supporting Shorebirds at Their Summer Home in the Southern Hemisphere
The base of their long, slender bills appeared even pinker in the soft orange light of sunset. A sun that set so late we were often still searching for shorebirds at half past nine at night. In the coastal wetlands of Chiloé Island, Chile, we were sitting on a rocky beach at 41.9 degrees south, the latitude almost exactly inverse to Plymouth, Massachusetts. But while the shores of Cape Cod Bay were locked in ice, we were locked in wonder – watching in silence as a flock of Hudsonian Godwits gathered to roost for the night. This group of godwits breeds during the Boreal summer in Alaska, more than 10,000 miles to the north. Chiloé Island is the nonbreeding destination...
Exploring the diverse natural resources of the Taunton Watershed
What do you get when you mix a beautiful late summer day, kayaks and canoes, a scenic location, and a great group of folks? The answer is the most recent addition to the ‘Manomet in the Field’ series, a kayak tour of the lower Taunton River. Eric Walberg and Jennifer Hushaw of Manomet’s Climate Services program led the September 9 tour out of Dighton Rock State Park. We launched on an incoming tide allowing for an easy paddle upstream, transitioning from the broad, estuary-like section of the river adjacent to the park to the comparatively narrow upper reaches of the river. This stretch of the river has a rural feel with long sections of intact riparian forest. These forested areas...
Scientists Solve The Mystery Of Why These Yellow Woodpeckers Got Red Wings
Scientific detective work reveals that yellow woodpeckers with unusual red wing feathers are not the result of genes borrowed from their red-pigmented cousins, but instead, they are the product of eating the berries of introduced invasive plants. Birders and ornithologists have long been baffled by the unexpected presence of red feathers on a yellow woodpecker that lives in North America: where did these red feathers come from? Might they result from red pigment genes borrowed from a red cousin? The enigmatic bird is the yellow-shafted form of the northern flicker, Colaptes auratus, a medium-sized woodpecker that lives throughout North America. The northern flicker comprises nine visually distinct subspecies including the yellow-shafted flicker, C. a. auratus, which lives east of Rocky...
Wanted!! Shorebird Enthusiasts
This article was written by Lisa Sorenson and originally published by BirdsCaribbean October 28, 2016. See the original article here. Are you a shorebird fan and want to support their conservation? Do you already carry out counts for the Caribbean Waterbird Census? Then join the International Shorebird Survey (ISS). Lisa Sorenson explains how to participate. It’s that time of year when our islands are inundated with avian visitors —a great variety of delightful birds that have winged their way south to escape the soon-to-be-frozen north and take refuge in our sunny isles. They brighten our backyards, parks and ponds, and make birding ventures much more fun and interesting – what new migrant might surprise us today? I have had the...
Breaking Records with Manomet’s 38th Annual Bird-a-Thon
Current and former banders from around North America came together to identify 399+ species during the 48 hours of this year’s Bird-a-Thon! Black-bellied Whistling-Duck, Vitambi Springs, FL—Storm Water Treatment Area 5, a little after dawn”. Photo credit: Evan Dalton, Lead Instructor, Landbird Conservation Manomet’s 38th Annual Bird-a-Thon consisted of 48 hours of birding delight on the weekend of September 17-18. Birding participants identified as many species as they could see or hear during that time. Supporters made (and are making) donations, and for an extra element of fun, some pledged per species; there’s a little more math involved in the latter, but we think it’s worth it. Funds raised from Bird-a-Thon benefit Manomet’s Landbird Conservation Program, which includes Climate...