On Golden Eagles

GBBO is continuing to work with the Nevada Department of Wildlife and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) to better understand the habitat requirements of Golden Eagles, and to generate guidance on how to best avoid and mitigate the potential impacts of renewable energy development.  

In 2015, GBBO will be collecting data to support a major habitat-quality modeling project overseen by FWS.  More specifically, we will be comparing the results of different nest survey types to generate “calibration factors” that will enable data from many different field projects to be more consistently and effectively integrated and analyzed. Additionally, we will be collecting data on nest distribution in previously unsurveyed parts of the state to validate predictions generated by the FWS model.  

In the near future, this work should allow land management agencies to make more informed decisions about the parts of the Nevada landscape that are especially important to Golden Eagles.

- John

Migration: A Yellow-rumped Tale

"Myrtle Warbler" male banded on the same day

One of the great joys in any bird banding project is getting recaptures, and gaining that extra piece of insight into the lives of those individuals and species.  

I just heard the details about one of our recaptured birds from last spring’s banding efforts at The Nature Conservancy’s McCarran Ranch – a Yellow-rumped (Myrtle) Warbler.  Ken Voget, who was banding, found her in a mixed flock of Myrtle and Audubon-type Yellow-rumped Warblers – it turns out she had been banded in late September 2012, near Imperial, Saskatchewan … and a year and a half later, stopped over in Nevada on her way north!

Happy travels,

Jen