Jay and Heidi recently attended the Partners in Science National Conference in San Diego, CA. We were invited to attend because of IBO’s work mentoring a Boise teacher. As part of a fellowship from the M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust, local teacher Lindsey Lockwood from Sage International School has been working with IBO to conduct scientific research. During the conference, Lindsey presented her research on songbird population trends at Lucky Peak to an audience of fellow teachers. She hopes to integrate what she has learned through this fellowship into her lessons in the classroom. Aside from watching Lindsey present (she rocked it!) we also got to network with a variety of researchers and teachers from across the US.
After the conference ended, we decided to head out into the desert toward the Salton Sea, where “Frank” one of our Long-billed Curlews has been spending the winter. With GPS coordinates in hand, we headed for the field where Frank’s most recent signal came from.
As we arrived, we saw a few curlew heads poking out of the alfalfa! We scanned the field for any signs of an antenna poking out of the vegetation, but didn’t see any birds with transmitters.
It’s possible Frank was in the field hiding, but he may have already taken off for the morning to other foraging grounds. It was fun to imagine that the curlews watching us from the field had spent the night roosting with Frank, and to think about where these birds may have come from. Were any of them also from the ACEC?
Moving on toward the Salton Sea (where Heidi’s lifer Yellow-footed Gull awaited) we ran into many fields with foraging curlews. Here’s just a sample video of what one of these fields looks like.
Video of Curlews in field
Even though we didn’t get to see Frank himself, it was amazing to see such large numbers of curlews spending time in these fields and observe some of their wintering behavior. As we left the Salton Sea area we wished them well…soon they will begin their migration north toward their breeding grounds!