20^th Annual Birders Meeting
Program Abstracts

Plenary Sessions:

Restoring Endangered Seabirds: Lessons from Puffins and Terns
Stephen Kress

Foraging behavior of humpback whales in the Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary as revealed by synchronous motion acoustic recording tags
Dave Wiley

35 years of California Seabirding
Debi Shearwater

Epic Journeys: Tracking the Migrations of Shorebirds in the Western Hemisphere
Shawn Carey and Jim Grady

Breakout Sessions:

Sighting! Surveying Seabirds on Stellwagen Bank
Anne-Marie Runfola

Gulls of New England: their natural and “unnatural” habits
Julie C. Ellis

Red Knots in Massachusetts during southward migration -- Changes in recent decades
Brian Harrington

State of the Birds of Massachusetts
Joan Walsh

RESTORING ENDANGERED SEABIRDS: LESSONS FROM PUFFINS AND TERNS
Stephen Kress

Humans have devastated seabird colonies in many parts of the world by excessive hunting for food and feathers and by introducing mammals such as cats and rats to otherwise secure nesting islands. Worldwide, 37% of all seabird species are now globally threatened as marine pollution, coastal development and effects of global warming become growing concerns.

Although seabird nesting islands often seem safe because of their remoteness, they are intimately connected to human activities. For example, Maine seabird nesting islands are affected by large populations of Herring and Great Black-backed Gulls that benefit from garbage and fisheries waste practices lying hundreds of miles from nesting islands. As scavenging large gulls increase, they deter smaller, migratory seabirds, such as puffins and terns from nesting on many of their historic nesting islands.

And ironically, other wildlife restoration success stories such as the recovery of Bald Eagles and Peregrine Falcons now threaten rare Maine seabirds such as Great Cormorants and Roseate Terns.

Stephen Kress is Vice-President for Bird Conservation for the National Audubon Society and Manager of the Society's Maine Coast Seabird Sanctuaries. As Director of Audubon's Seabird Restoration Program, he develops techniques for managing colonial nesting seabirds. In this capacity, he has re-established seabird colonies along the Maine coast for Atlantic Puffins, Arctic, Common and Roseate Terns, and Leach's Storm-Petrel.

As manager of Audubon’s Maine Coastal Islands Sanctuary, he oversees the 13 coastal islands that span the region from Cape Elizabeth to Mount Desert Island. These islands are home to more than 42,000 seabirds of 27 species. The islands provide nesting habitat for most of Maine’s puffins, Razorbills, terns and other rare species.

The primary focus of the Seabird Restoration Program is to develop methods for re-establishing seabirds to historic nesting sites and to encourage the appreciation of the world’s seabirds. Each year his program trains about 20 interns, and hundreds of professional seabird biologists can trace their first interest in seabirds to ‘Project Puffin’ and living with seabirds off the Maine coast. Methods first developed in Maine such as chick translocations and social attraction are now standard practice worldwide.

Dr. Kress received his Ph.D. from Cornell University and his Master’s and undergraduate degrees from Ohio State University. He is currently a Visiting Fellow at the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology where he teaches a popular course in ornithology. He is also Director of the Audubon Camp in Maine on Hog Island, where he conducts programs in birding methods and field ornithology.

FORAGING BEHAVIOR OF HUMPBACK WHALES IN THE STELLWAGEN BANK NATIONAL MARINE SANCTUARY AS REVEALED BY SYNCHRONOUS MOTION ACOUSTIC RECORDING TAGS
Dave Wiley

Humpback whales employ a unique and complex foraging behavior – bubble netting – that involves expelling air underwater to form a vertical cylinder-ring of bubbles that surround prey.

Using digital suction cup tags (DTAGs) that concurrently measure pitch, roll, heading, depth, and sound, we were able to depict the underwater behaviors used by humpback whales while bubble-net feeding.

Body mechanics and swim paths were analyzed using custom visualization software that animates the underwater track of the whale and quantifies tag sensor values. Two classes of behavior (upward-spiral and double-loop) that whales used to create bubble nets were identified.

Specifically, we were able to show the actual swim path of the whales, when and where in the process bubbles were expelled, and the pattern of bubble expulsion used by the animals. Multiple animals in the same feeding group were also tagged to examine coordinated feeding behavior among humpback whales. Underwater video will show swim paths of animals apparently working together to capture sand lance when not using bubbles to assist prey capture.

Dave Wiley, Research Coordinator for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency’s (NOAA) Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, has been investigating the marine environment for over 25 years. He received his PhD in Environmental Studies from Antioch University with a focus on environmental decision-making and conservation biology.

His research has ranged from studying the reproductive and foraging ecology of endangered whales to mapping marine toxic dumpsites. He has also worked with fishermen to redesign fishing gear to reduce the risk of whale entanglement, as well as pioneering methods for successfully rescuing mass stranded whales and dolphins. Most notably Dave’s research led to the shifting of shipping lanes into the port of Boston as part of an international effort to reduce the risk of ship strikes to endangered whales.

Currently he is leading a multi-organizational study using advanced telemetry and novel visualization software to explore the underwater behavior of endangered whales. The results of his research have appeared in numerous scientific journals including Animal Behaviour, Behaviour, and Biological Conservation and Conservation Biology as well as being featured on the Discovery Channel, BBC documentaries, National Geographic and National Public Television and Radio.

In 2011 he spent most of the year in New Zealand conducting research on marine protected areas as part of an Ian Axford (Fulbright) Fellowship in Public Policy. Dave has been the recipient of numerous awards including a Switzer Environmental Leadership Award, a Gulf of Maine Visionary Award, a Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ Human Hero Award, and a Society for Marine Mammalogy Award for Excellence in Scientific Communication. He also received NOAA’s Employee of the Year award for his work in science, an Office of National Marine Sanctuary’s Science Team of the Year award, and he was awarded the US Department of Commerce Individual Gold Medal for scientific leadership. The latter award is the highest award presented by the Department of Commerce. Dave is also adjunct faculty in the College of Science and Mathematics at the University of Massachusetts Boston.

Find out more about Dave Wiley and his research.

35 YEARS OF CALIFORNIA SEABIRDING
Debi Shearwater

From field guides to national marine sanctuaries to seabirds saved and seabirds on the brink, Debi Shearwater will take us on a journey covering her experiences and insights gained from over thirty-five years and thousands of days at sea off the central coast of California.

This presentation will demonstrate how changes in the way humans view seabirds has affected their lives. Debi’s illustrated presentation will also provide ways people can help save some of the most magnificent birds on Earth.

Debi Shearwater is a world traveler who has visited all seven continents, over 80 of the world's countries, many extremely remote islands, and many of Earth's seas and oceans. She is well known for establishing Shearwater Journeys, Inc., a company that has been offering pelagic trips from California since 1976.

Since her first trip, she has shared Monterey Bay with some 70,000 nature lovers. Ironically, her most favorite bird in the world is the Golden Eagle!

EPIC JOURNEYS: TRACKING THE MIGRATIONS OF SHOREBIRDS IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE
Shawn Carey and Jim Grady

Each year millions of shorebirds make an amazing round-trip journey between the Northern and Southern hemispheres. Migration Productions, newest video "Epic Journeys" looks at three shorebird species – Red Knot, Piping Plover, and Semipalmated Sandpiper – and the challenges these species face during each of their monumental annual treks.

In spring Red Knots travel from south to north, stopping and concentrating by the thousands in the Delaware Bay area in New Jersey where they fuel up on Horseshoe Crab eggs in order to complete their long final flight to the Arctic. The film examines how the decline in Horseshoe Crab populations has impacted the very survival of this species.

The cute and perky Piping Plover is a species that breeds on beaches in coastal communities in Massachusetts and is currently surviving despite heavy skunk and fox predation and invasions by beach buggies in the 1980's to the point where their breeding numbers fell to record low numbers. "Epic Journeys” shows how improved beach management programs in Massachusetts since 1992 have aided the plover’s numbers to increase and come back in the last 20 years.

Finally “Epic Jouneys” features Semipalmated Sandpipers that gather in massive and dramatic numbers in New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy in Canada before taking wing and flying 3000 thousand miles southward to South America.

Our film asks burning questions: What is being done to help protect these shorebirds and their habitat? How can the public help with their conservation? And where can one go to best see each of these species en-route to their destinations?

Shawn Carey moved from Erie, Pennsylvania to Cambridge in 1986 and started watching birds in 1988. Already having an interest in photography, he began to combine the two interests in 1991. By 1994 he and his friend Jim Grady started Migration Productions as a way to present multi-image slide presentations to live audiences.

Since then, Migration Productions has been presenting programs to numerous birding organizations, natural history events, and camera clubs. These presentations offer high quality bird/wildlife programs including stunning photographs, video, sound tracks, and interviews with people involved with bird watching.

Shawn's photographs have been published in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Mass Audubon’s Sanctuary Magazine, Science, and the journals of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary and the American Birding Association. In 1997 Shawn started teaching bird photography workshops for the Massachusetts Audubon Society.

Jim Grady, a native of central Massachusetts, attended Fitchburg State University where he studied Photography and Video Production, earning a B.S. in Communications. In 1989, he started working at the production company, Cornerstone Associates, where he created and presented multi-image shows for some of Boston’s largest companies. At Cornerstone, Jim met Shawn Carey and together they founded Migration Productions.

Jim has always had in interest in the natural world, and enjoys hiking, backpacking, kayaking and bird watching. With his love of photography, Migration Productions seemed like a natural step.

Today he shoots video, edits, creates motion graphics and handles all of the post-production work for Migration Productions.

SIGHTING! SURVEYING SEABIRDS ON STELLWAGEN BANK
Anne-Marie Runfola

Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, a wild area teeming with life, rich in history, and lying just off the coast of Massachusetts between Cape Ann and Cape Cod supports 575 known species, including 53 species of summering, wintering, or migrating seabirds.

Due to its significance as a feeding ground, the sanctuary’s central feature—Stellwagen Bank—was designated an Important Bird Area by Mass Audubon in 2001.

Despite the variety and numbers of seabirds present in the sanctuary, our knowledge of their lives is at best fragmentary. In 2011 staff and volunteers set out to uncover more about the sanctuary’s seabirds by studying them where they spend most of their lives — at sea. This presentation will provide results from this year’s pilot survey and will describe how local citizens can contribute significantly to scientific research.

Anne-Marie Runfola, Volunteer Coordinator for NOAA/Stellwagen Bank National Marine Sanctuary, was responsible for developing the organization's first comprehensive volunteer program, including the Stellwagen Sanctuary Seabird Stewards (S4) initiative.

Before moving to Cape Cod in 2010, Anne-Marie served for more than seven years as Education Director, then overall Deputy Director, of the Bronx River Alliance in New York City where she helped the community use the river as a living classroom, ran a citizen science monitoring program, and oversaw the development of an organization-wide volunteer program.

Anne-Marie holds a B.S. in Corporate/Organizational Communications with a focus on instructional design and media from Ithaca College, and an M.A. in educational and cognitive psychology and instructional technology from Columbia University, Teachers College, with a focus on science education. Anne-Marie serves on the boards of several different organizations, including the Coonamessett River Trust in Falmouth, MA.

GULLS OF NEW ENGLAND: THEIR NATURAL AND “UNNATURAL” HABITS
Julie C. Ellis

Herring and Great Black-backed gulls are conspicuous constituents of the New England coastline; yet, how much do we really know about them?

In this presentation, Julie will describe findings from an ongoing study of the two species at the Isles of Shoals (NH/ME). Topics will include population trends, effects of gulls on biological communities on islands, and preliminary results from banding these two species.

Julie C. Ellis is a Research Assistant Professor at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University. She is Executive Director of the Seabird Ecological Assessment Network (SEANET), a citizen science project through which trained volunteers collect data on seabird mortality along the Atlantic coast (http://www.tufts.edu/vet/seanet/).

Julie earned her PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University where she studied ecology of seabirds and biological communities on coastal islands.

RED KNOTS IN MASSACHUSETTS DURING SOUTHWARD MIGRATION -- CHANGES IN RECENT DECADES
Brian Harrington

This presentation will focus on the changing status of Red Knots in Massachusetts, drawing on information collected in the Commonwealth since the 1970's, with focus principally on 3 issues – the changing distribution of Massachusetts stopover places, the falling numbers of knots on the Massachusetts coast in recent decades, and new information on the migration timing and destinations of knots that pass southwards through Massachusetts.

Brian Harrington is a biologist with emeritus status at the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences where he worked with shorebirds since1971. During his tenure, most of his work focused on shorebirds and their migrations, and especially on conservation issues associated with the long-hop migration strategies that many shorebird species employ. His research has been conducted throughout North and South America.

He has especially focused on the Red Knot because it illustrates many of the conservation issues he has documented. Much of his research is described in a popular book, The Flight of the Red Knot .

Brian is an advisor to the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, a program focused on implementing projects directed at the conservation of shorebirds and their migration/wintering habitats throughout the Americas. He has also worked through the National Conservation Training Center of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to train professional wildlife managers throughout North America in methods of wetland management for shorebirds and waterfowl. Brian is also the coordinator of the International Shorebird Surveys, a project that has enlisted more than 1000 volunteers to collect counts of shorebirds throughout North and South America. Observations from this innovative project have been extensively used in developing the United States Shorebird Conservation Plan.

Since his retirement Brian has continued his work with knots with a focus on Massachusetts. This research has shown how the Massachusetts coast continues to be a major migration stopover site for this species which, sadly, has become a highly threatened bird since beginning his research nearly 40 years ago. He is quick to point out, however, that there is no connection!

STATE OF THE BIRDS OF MASSACHUSETTS
Joan Walsh

From 2007-201,1 Mass Audubon collected breeding bird distribution data for the Breeding Bird Atlas 2 project. These and other long-term bird monitoring data were summarized in the State of the Birds publication in 2011.

This presentation will demonstrate the results of both increasing and decreasing species, evaluate changes of species by habitat, and discuss results relevant to the management of declining species in Massachusetts. These data are notable as they represent the first comprehensive evaluation of the trends of breeding and wintering birds in the Commonwealth, and can help to inform many conservation communities including land protection, land management, land acquisition and conservation planning.

Joan Walsh is Director of Bird Monitoring at Mass Audubon, and Coordinator of the Massachusetts Breeding Bird Atlas 2.