by Deborah Buehler originally published in Wader Study 131(2) Imagine a place where the wind feels like a hair dryer – hot and dry. A place where faces are covered to protect against sand and sun. Now imagine a coastline, the sea brilliant blue and separated from salt flats and desert by a low line of dunes. And at the interface of land and sea, shallows and intertidal flats covered with birds. This is Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania. Banc d’Arguin is one link in a chain of important habitats that migratory shorebirds depend on for their survival. It is part of the East Atlantic Flyway, one of eight major migratory routes used by birds to move between breeding and wintering grounds. In human terms, a flyway is like a string of connecting flights. A problem early in the itinerary (say an outage that shuts down check-in) could cause a series of delays and the potential of missing the purpose of the travel (say a wedding or a funeral). It is similar for the birds, but with much higher stakes. Migratory birds from the north use Banc d’Arguin as a crucial non-breeding site while resident waterbirds and migrants from the south use the area for breeding. In 1973, during a British expedition, recoveries of ringed shorebirds and terns began to establish the significance of the area and its connectivity with coastal wetlands in Europe and with tundra breeding grounds beyond. Banc d’Arguin is now recognized as a site of international importance and the entire area was designated as a National Park by the Mauritanian government in 1976. The monitoring of waterbird populations in Parc National du Banc d’Arguin (PNBA) is also decades old with the first shorebird counts conducted in January/February 1980 and six further winter counts conducted in 1997, 2000, 2001, 2006, 2014 and 2017¹. Additionally, teams from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) have conducted winter counts within the Iwik region of PNBA every year since December 2003. In this issue of Wader Study, El-Hacen and colleagues report on these two decades of annual monitoring complementing and updating larger-scale studies on long-term waterbird population trends². From December 2003 onward, the researchers conducted counts, after high spring tide in the last week of November, or in December or January. Counts were performed on a single day 1–2 hours before the predicted high tide and usually on a day when high tide fell in the early afternoon to standardize tide height and time of day as much as possible. The study area around the village of Iwik was subdivided into six counting units that covered all the roost sites (see Fig. 1 in the paper) and teams of one to two people covered each of the six units in the study area. [caption id="attachment_18558" align="aligncenter" width="699"] Shorebirds and waterbirds on intertidal flats with the village of Iwik in the background (photo: Jan van de Kam).[/caption] The Iwik region supports different waterbird groups: shellfish-eating shorebirds that breed to the north and spend the non-breeding season in PNBA, fish-eating waterbirds that breed in PNBA and are either resident or spend the non-breeding season to the south, and finally gulls and terns. The researchers analysed overall trends for these three waterbird groups and also selected the most common species within each group to assess individual trends over time (eight shorebird species, six species of large-bodied waterbirds, and six gull and tern species). In the analyses, they combined species that were difficult to distinguish in the field (e.g., small herons). To statistically analyze waterbird numbers over time, El Hacen and colleagues used generalized additive models (GAMs), which can estimate non-linear trends, identify periods and magnitudes of change, and account for the fact that the numbers one year are affected by what they were the year before (lack of independence among consecutive counts). Over two decades of study, the researchers found that waterbird numbers decreased from 120,000 to 80,000 birds in the Iwik study area. The models indicated that the decreases were non-linear and not the same across waterbird types. Shorebirds, which made up 90% of total waterbirds, declined in the first half of the study period from 2003 to 2012 and then stabilized from 2013 to 2023. Large-bodied waterbird numbers (cormorants, herons, spoonbills, flamingos and pelicans) were stable until 2012, increased to 2019 and then decreased from 2020–2023. Gull and tern numbers remained stable across both decades with no statistically significant variation. Looking at trends in the eight most common shorebirds, Red Knot Calidris canutus numbers followed the general trend, first decreasing, then stabilising after just over a decade. The decline of Red Knots in the Iwik area from 2003 to 2010 has been explained by decreases in the density of their preferred bivalve prey, which led the birds to consume a somewhat toxic alternative³. Bar-tailed Godwit numbers dropped continuously across the study period from 2003 to 2016, mirroring declines elsewhere in the flyway suggesting that factors beyond the Banc d’Arguin region, including climate change related shifts in food peaks in the Arctic during the breeding season, contributed to the decline. On the other hand, Whimbrels showed a steady and significant local increase indicating that conditions are favourable for Whimbrels in PNBA, at least in comparison to the rest of the flyway. The remaining five most common shorebird species showed year-to-year variations, but no statistically significant trends (Common Ringed Plover Charadrius hiaticula, Grey Plover Pluvialis squatarola, Dunlin Calidris alpina, Sanderling Calidris alba and Eurasian Curlew Numenius arquata). Amongst the six most common locally breeding waterbirds, three groups showed significant trends. Reed Cormorants Microcarbo africanus and small herons increased over the entire study period. Grey Heron Ardea cinerea monicae numbers increased strongly between 2003 and 2019, but then declined until the end of the study period. Other large waterbird species such as White-breasted Cormorant Phalacrocorax lucidus, Eurasian Spoonbill Platalea leucorodia, and Greater Flamingo Phoenicopterus roseus did not show statistically significant treads over the two decades, nor did the six most common species of gulls and terns. However apparent declines over the last 2–3 years may be ecologically, if not statistically, significant. For example, recent declines of the endemic subspecies of Grey Heron, Caspian Tern Hydroprogne caspia and West African Crested Tern Thalasseus albididorsalis coincide with the incidence of Avian Influenza in breeding colonies in West Africa.⁴ El Hacen and colleagues demonstrated the utility of annual and standardized monitoring of waterbirds near Iwik. They recommend that this annual monitoring be maintained, and that similar monitoring be established in the south of the PNBA. Such continued monitoring will increase knowledge about one link in a chain of critical sites along the East Atlantic Flyway. The other day, I felt a breeze as hot as the Mauritanian wind on my face. It reminded me of my own experiences working with shorebirds near Iwik in December 2006. I benefitted from a long-term collaboration between NIOZ and PNBA that has supported far more than winter counts. My study looked at the effect of age and environment on immune function in Red Knots and found that young birds at the lower quality Baie d’Aouatif roost site had higher white blood cell counts than adults or young birds at the higher quality Ebelk Aiznay site⁵. During my recent encounter with hair dryer hot wind, I was not in Mauritania, but rather far to the north, and the air was humid as well as hot. The heat and humidity created storms that unleashed a torrent of rain causing flooding in the subway. Due to delays, I nearly missed my regional train, a delay which would have caused me to miss the last regional bus at the next interchange, leaving me stranded. On long travels, success at each interchange depends on the last and each link is of paramount importance. In a world where climate change is making the weather unpredictable and violent, I feel solidarity with the birds, never quite sure what the next stop will bring, or if they’ll make it on time, on their tenuous journey from link to link.   ¹ Oudman, T., H. Schekkerman, A. Kidé, M. van Roomen, M. Camara, C. Smit, J. ten Horn, T. Piersma & E.-H.M. El-Hacen. 2020. Changes in the waterbird community of the Parc National du Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania, 1980–2017. Bird Conservation International 30: 618–633. ² El-Hacen. E.-H.M., J. ten Horn, A. Dekinga, B. Loos & T. Piersma. 2024. Two decades of change in nonbreeding population sizes of shorebirds and other waterbirds in the Iwik area of Parc National du Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania. Wader Study 131(2): 112–121. ³ van Gils, J.A., M. van der Geest, J. Leyrer, T. Oudman, T. Lok, J. Onrust, J. de Fouw, T. van der Heide, P.J. van den Hout, B. Spaans, A. Dekinga, M. Brugge & T. Piersma. 2013. Toxin constraint explains diet choice, survival and population dynamics in a molluscivore shorebird. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 280: S 20130861. ⁴ Davis, J. (2023). Bird flu outbreak spreads across West African migratory route. Natural History Museum. Accessed 31 Oct 2023. https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/april/bird-flu-outbreak-spreads-across-west-african-migratory-route.html ⁵ Buehler, D.M., B.I. Tieleman & T. Piersma. 2009 Age and environment affect constitutive immune function in red knots (Calidris canutus). Journal of Ornithology 150: 815–825.   PDF of this article   Featured image: A large flock of shorebirds and six flamingos in Banc d’Arguin, Mauritania (photo: Jan van de Kam).  

The booklet for the 2024 edition of the IWSG Annual Conference is now finalized: note that this version does not include the list of participants (delegates, a full version has been sent to you by email)

The program for the 2024 edition of the IWSG Annual Conference is now finalized: The French Biodiversity Agency (OFB) and the LPO-BirdLife France look forward to welcoming you to Montpellier from September 20 to 24, 2024. On behalf of the IWSG 2024 Conference Team.  

by Deborah Buehler originally published in Wader Study 131(1)

Flying takes energy—a lot of it.

The airlines are certainly making this argument, as evidenced by the price of plane tickets these days. Humans can’t fly without substantial technical assistance, yet birds fly all the time. Shorebirds, for example, fly when migrating to and from breeding grounds, when moving between feeding areas, and when displaying to attract mates during the breeding season. Given that flight is costly, it makes sense that birds might try to optimize aspects of their flights to minimize energy consumption and to maximize reward. In this issue of Wader Study, Anders Hedenström reports on his investigation into how Common Redshanks Tringa totanus adjust their flight speed to optimize energy budgets in different ecological contexts.¹ How birds modify aspects of their behaviour in the context of optimization theory has fascinated shorebird researchers for decades. Flapping flight is energetically costly and studying it has led to theoretical models, that predict optimal speeds in different circumstances.² Hedenström’s study investigates whether wild Redshanks adjust their flight speeds in accordance with model predictions. [caption id="attachment_18101" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Anders Hedenström with equipment to track flight speed at the field site on the island of Öland in the southwestern Baltic Sea. (photo: Lotta Berg)[/caption] What makes flight costly? The mechanical power required to fly comes from the work done by muscles to overcome the pull of gravity and drag. To generate this power, muscles consume energy from stores of fat, protein, and carbohydrates originally ingested as food. Researchers have found that the relationship between the cost of flight and the speed of flight is U-shaped. In other words, flying takes the most energy during take-off and at very slow speeds, energy consumption decreases at moderate ‘cruising’ speeds, and then rises again at very fast speeds. Researchers use this ‘power curve’ to derive theoretical ‘optimal’ flight speeds in different circumstances including migration, foraging and displaying to attract mates. During migration, cruising speed is predicted to either optimize flight speed to minimize the time spent migrating or to minimize the total energy costs of the journey. For example, if early arrival at the breeding grounds means beating competitors to the best territories, then the first strategy of time minimization might be favoured. On the other hand, if food resources are limited, a strategy that favours energy economy might be best. A way to understand this in human terms is buying a plane ticket. If you need to arrive urgently, perhaps to visit someone who is ill, you might buy a more expensive flight to get to your destination faster. However, if money is very tight and you have time to spare, the optimum strategy might be to take a cheaper flight with several stopovers. This will allow you to make the journey with the funds you have available, but you’ll arrive three or four hours later. Birds also fly when searching for food. These foraging flights are short trips taken between local food patches. When foraging, birds usually fly faster than cruising speeds during migration, especially if the habitat provides plentiful food. How fast will depend on the rate at which the birds can lay down fat and energy reserves (fuel deposition rate). Theoretically, birds will either optimize flight speed to minimize the time spent foraging or minimize the energy expended to gather food. Perhaps there are predators in the area and the birds must forage as fast as possible before retreating to a safer place to rest. However, if food is scarce, birds might fly more slowly so that they can maximize their net energy gain by minimizing energy spent feeding. In our human analogy, foraging flight is like working to save money for the plane ticket. If you have a good job and can get long shifts, you’ll save quickly even if you need to spend a bit of money to get to work. On the other hand, if work hours are few and you have a long commute, you might skip a short shift because the pay is not worth the expense of getting there. Money saved is money earned after all. Finally, during the mating season, some birds spend a lot of energy on intricate display flights to attract mates. Because flight is costly, these displays are considered honest signals of fitness including health, good genes, and ability to provide resources. In some species, a long and drawn-out display might be preferred. In this case, the optimal flight speed would minimize the energy expenditure per unit of time. One the other hand, if acrobatics are preferred over display length, then the expected flight speed would be faster. In our human analogy, perhaps this is money spent trying to woo someone to come with you. You might spend more to convince someone who might pay for your ticket next week than on someone who might just share the costs of the hotel and rental car. In birds these predictions are fascinating, and though they have been validated in some species in wind tunnels,³ they are mainly theoretical for birds flying in the wild. Hedenström studied flight speed in several species but chose Redshanks for this investigation because they display a range of flight behaviours including long haul migrations in spring and autumn, ‘commutes’ between local feeding areas, and aerial displays to attract mates. He was able to observe all these behaviours in wild Redshanks on the island of Öland in the southwestern Baltic Sea. [caption id="attachment_18102" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Researcher tracking flight speeds. The infrared anemometer is measuring wind speed and direction in the background. (photo: Anders Hedenström)[/caption] Hedenström observed the birds at three study sites on a total of 81 days between April and October spread over the decade from 2012 and 2022. To measure flight speeds in the wild, he followed birds using an optical ranger finder, an ‘ornithodolite’, made from binoculars with built-in sensors for elevation angle and north, east, south or west bearing (azimuth). The ornithodolite is so named because it is used to study birds, ‘ornitho’, and because it works a little like a theodolite (an optical instrument, sometimes seen mounted on a tripod and used by surveyors to measure angles). ⁴ Distance from observer to bird was measured with an infrared laser. Concurrently, he measured wind speed and pressure either using an ultrasound anemometer near ground level, or the range finder to track helium filled balloons at higher altitudes. [caption id="attachment_18103" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Close up of the ornithodolite rangefinder. (photo: Anders Hedenström)[/caption] A series of time-stamped distance, elevation, and azimuth data for a bird constituted a run. Runs were classified as migratory flight, foraging flight or display flight based on flock size, time of year and flight behaviour. These were then combined with wind speed data so that airspeed could be deduced as the speed of the bird over the ground minus wind speed. These wind-corrected data yielded tracks which could be plotted on a map. Hedenström was able to analyse data from a total of 139 tracks distributed across migration (N = 84), local flights (N = 29), and display flights (N = 26). The data collected from Redshanks in the wild was compared to predictions generated by a theoretical model scripted in the R open-source programming language.⁵ The model produced a U-shaped relationship between aerodynamic power and flight speed for a bird of approximately Redshank size as determined by a sample of mass and wing measurements from Redshanks. The results indicated that airspeed differed depending on the ecological context (migration, foraging or display flight) and was influenced by flock size. During migratory flight, Redshanks flew faster than the predicted speed associated with the minimum cost of transport. This could indicate that the birds were minimizing the overall time required for migration. This is akin to opting for a faster flight which costs more rather than a slower but cheaper one. When foraging, Redshanks flew between patches of food (foraging areas) at faster airspeeds than birds during migration. This is consistent with the assumption that the birds need to save the most energy over the shortest period, just like when you work two jobs to pay for your plane ticket. Finally, when flying to perform aerial displays to attract mates, Redshanks flew at a speed predicted to use minimum power. This makes sense since the purpose of display flight is not to cover distance, but rather to spend as little energy as possible while still attracting a mate. Though Redshanks seemed to adjust their flight speeds in accordance with theoretical predictions regarding migratory, foraging and display flight, their airspeeds in relation to flock size and climbing speed were not as expected. The birds increased their airspeed with flock size rather than decreasing it as predicted, and they climbed towards cruising migration altitude at a much lower speed than the maximum possible. These results indicate that factors other than those considered by the model might be in play and more research will be required to solve these mysteries. Hedenström’s research shows that aerodynamic theory, and the models derived from it, are useful in predicting and understanding how birds optimize flight speeds in the wild. Though the data presented are limited to a single species and study area, they provide a tantalizing glimpse into how a seemingly simple behaviour, adjusting flight speed to balance energy budget, can be a rather complex exercise in optimization. Budgeting to buy a plane ticket provides an analogy for understanding the physiological optimization that goes into the lives of migratory birds. However, many people fortunate enough to afford recreational air travel do not have to think about how best to budget energy for survival. This study reminds us that organisms living in the wild are constantly balancing their energy budget. Anyone who has needed to fight for survival under conditions of restricted food, water or shelter knows this intimately. There is a link between energy and flight in humans too. The number of people on the brink of starvation rose from 80 million in 2017 to 350 million in 2023 in part due to the COVID-19 pandemic, climate shocks, and ongoing conflicts, yet there is $400 trillion worth of wealth on the planet.⁶ The coming decades could bring unprecedented human migration as people flee from unlivable circumstances. Perhaps we can learn something about the optimal distribution of resources from birds.   ¹ Hedenström, A. 2024. Adaptive flight speeds in the Common Redshank Tringa totanus. Wader Study 131(1): X–X. ² Hedenström, A. & T. Alerstam. 1995. Optimal flight speed of birds. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 348: 471–487. ³ Tobalske, B.W., T.L. Hedrick, K.P. Dial, & A.A. Biewener. 2003. Comparative power curves in bird flight. Nature 421: 363–366. ⁴ Pennycuick, C.J. 1982. The ornithodolite: An instrument for collecting large samples of bird speed measurements. Phil. Trans. Roy. Soc. B300: 61–73. ⁵ KleinHeerenbrink, M. & A. Hedenström. 2023. Tools for modelling of animal flight performance. R package version 1.1.0.3. Accessed at: https://github.com/MarcoKlH/afpt-r/ ⁶ Lederer, E.M. (2023). UN food chief: Billions needed to avert unrest, starvation. AP News. Associated Press. Accessed 13 Mar 2024. https://apnews.com/article/world-food-beasley-migration-starving-a88ae85e6fc5c2ecf7ddd6a9a6249aff   PDF of this article   Featured image: (c)Global Flyway Ecology

20 September — 24 September 2024

[embed]https://www.waderstudygroup.org/conferences/2024-montpellier-france/[/embed]   Featured image: ©Christoph Müller

by Deborah Buehler originally published in Wader Study 130(3) How do you count something you cannot see? How do you even know what you are missing? Researchers in conservation and ecology are often faced with these questions because they need to count species and individuals in challenging terrain. Even relatively flat environments like coastal mudflats can be challenging. For example, researchers counting shorebirds from dry land might miss birds tucked in behind elevated ground or just below the horizon of a slanting shoreline. In this issue of Wader Study, Castenschiold and colleagues report on how they confronted the task of counting birds in such blind zones in the Danish Wadden Sea.¹ They used drones as their “eyes in the sky” and aimed to: (1) predict, map and validate the locations of the blind zones, (2) use drones to peer into blind zones and determine how many birds were missed from the shore, and (3) examine whether differences between species affected the extent of the problem. Before drones, the only “eyes in the sky” were those of trained researchers, who were flown over mudflats by fearless pilots, and were tasked with counting birds as they flew up when disturbed by the plane. Those who have performed such counts know that it is exhilarating, but also that counting large numbers of birds from the window of a moving plane is rather difficult. Furthermore, flying low and slow as birds fly up beneath and around the aircraft is dangerous. Pilots must sometimes take evasive measures to avoid collisions with larger birds and there is little room for error when flying so low to the ground. Indeed, such flights carry an unfortunately high risk of mortality for the birds and the people.² In contrast to planes, drones are small and can fly slowly and safely at lower altitudes. This causes far less disturbance, is safer, and has a much lower cost. Additionally, drone cameras can take pictures, which become a permanent record of the flight. [caption id="attachment_17695" align="aligncenter" width="330"] The UAS platform (drone), DJI Phantom 4 Pro (DJI Technology Co. Ltd, Shenzhen, China), used to survey birds occurring in blind zones on the intertidal flats (photo: Johan H. F. Castenschiold).[/caption] The Wadden Sea is the largest unbroken system of coastal sand and mud flats in the world, and borders the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.³ The area is of international importance for migratory shorebirds, which have been monitored there for decades. The researchers worked along the west-facing shore of the Danish Wadden Sea, in the intertidal area where sea and land meet between high and low tides. Their study site encompassed the intertidal area visible from five ground-based vantage points on the Ribe, Rejsby and Ballum seawalls. This site provided high numbers of birds and a topography that made it possible to map blind zones and then use drones to peer within them. [caption id="attachment_17696" align="aligncenter" width="330"] The coast of the Danish Wadden Sea, showing how birds standing close to elevated forelands may be hidden from an inland observer (photo: Johan H.F. Castenschiold).[/caption]  Castenschiold and colleagues began by using a visibility simulation tool in Geographic Information System (GIS) software to predict the location of blind zones. This produced a file with elevation measurements plotted on an evenly spaced grid called a raster. Using this raster and the location of the five observation points on the seawall, the researchers could calculate the vertical distance below the observational line of sight for every given point on the mudflats. This was referred to as vertical invisibility (VI). The next step was to verify the blind zones predicted by simulation with data from the field. To do this, the researchers had to get out onto the mud. They set up dummy birds, approximating the heights of the most common shorebirds in the area (12, 20, 30 and 40 cm tall), along lines of sight between the mudflats and the vantage points. One observer looked out from the seawall through a telescope, while another moved the dummy bird on the mudflat away from the foreland until only the top 5–10 cm of the dummy was visible to the observer. Because of the way line-of-sight works looking down an uneven slope, the tallest dummy birds were set closer to the obstructing foreland and the smallest were set further out onto the mudflat (Figure 2a from the paper¹ is reprinted below for a visualization of how these blind zones work). The blind zone stretched from the edge of the foreland to the 12-cm silhouette. [caption id="attachment_17697" align="aligncenter" width="330"] Illustration of the line-of-sight originating from a vantage point on top of the seawall, moving past the edge of the foreland, and onto the intertidal flats (illustration: Johan H.F. Castenschiold).[/caption] The blind zones mapped using dummy birds in the field closely matched those simulated using the GIS software. Thus, the visibility simulations proved a reliable tool for finding blind zones, and with those areas mapped, the researchers knew where to conduct the drone surveys. They conducted 22 successful flights between 25 September and 15 November 2019, primarily around high tide. The drone was flown within a “green zone” altitude where the minimum flight height did not cause disturbance to the birds and the maximum flight height still allowed for reliable species identification from the pictures and video taken by the onboard camera. Using images taken from the drones, the researchers manually identified birds from more than 120,000 positions on the mudflat. These data were manually entered into the map produced by the GIS software, which already contained the simulated VIs for positions on the mudflat. Roosting birds were mainly detected within 300–450 m and 600–750 m from the foreland, likely because sandbanks at these distances provided ideal resting areas during the study period. There were 14 species with numbers exceeding 100 individuals present on three or more of the surveyed high tide roosts, and these species became the focal species for the study. With birds identified to species, the researchers could estimate the standing height of most of the birds using the average height for the species. This allowed them to determine whether the bird, detected by the drone, would have been visible to an observer on the seawall. A bird was deemed visible if VI was less than standing height and invisible if VI was greater than standing height. Because species differ in their size, habitat preference, and preferred position on the mudflat, some were more likely to go undetected than others. Take the example of Bar-tailed Godwits Limosa lapponica and Eurasian Curlews Numenius arquata, both large species, but one far more visible from the seawall than the other. Because godwits did not roost in areas affected by blind zones, all of the godwits detected in drone images were also deemed visible from the seawall. In contrast, 90.4% of the curlews detected in drone images were not visible from the seawall because they tended to roost close to the foreland. Dunlins Calidris alpina are a smaller species with individuals detected by drone both within and outside blind zones and 78.5% deemed not visible from the seawall. These numbers make it clear that a considerable number of birds go undetected during traditional ground-based counts—indeed some 51 to 61% of all roosting birds in this study. After more than a decade of civilian use, the idea of drones watching like “unblinking eyes in the sky”⁴ remains unnerving to some. Indeed, the surveillance of human behaviour has increased with technological advances, and not only from above but also through our devices and data.⁵ The ethics of technology use are complicated, but when it comes to drones, Castenschiold and colleagues’ work points to their usefulness as relatively safe and low-cost tools for aerial wildlife observation.   ¹ Castenschiold, J. H. F., D. Bruhn, C. Pertoldi and T. Bregnballe. 2023. Monitoring roosting waterbirds: The use of drones to overcome the challenge of hidden individuals in blind zones on intertidal flats. Wader Study 130(3): 239–253. ² Sasse, D.B. 2003. Job-related mortality of wildlife workers in the United States, 1937–2000. Wildlife Society Bulletin 31: 1015–1020. ³ UNESCO World Heritage Centre (2023) Wadden Sea. Accessed 29 Oct 2023 at: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/1314/. ⁴ Unblinking eyes in the sky (2012) The Economist [US] 3 Mar 2012: 12. Accessed 31 Oct 2023 at: http://www.economist.com/node/21548485. ⁵ Laidler, J. (2019). High tech is watching you (interview with Shoshana Zuboff author of Surveillance Capitalism). Harvard Gazette. Accessed 21 Nov 2023 https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/03/harvard-professor-says-surveillance-capitalism-is-undermining-democracy/   PDF of this article

We are pleased to announce the winning and runner up designs from the second IWSG T-shirt competition - youth edition - are online at our Teemill store! The designs can be found on kids, slim fit and standard t-shirts as well as on a tote bag via the web pages here and all the colours were chosen by the artists. The winners and runner ups will be getting a copy of one of these t-shirts (or bags) themselves but you can now wear one too! Many thanks to all who entered the competition, there were lots of great designs and the results were close! In case you didn't see our notices on social media the winning design for the older age category was "Lapwing family" by Réka with a well deserved runner up in "Black-tailed Godwits" by Leni. In the younger age category, "Wuli" by Milou was closely followed by "Hummingbird godwit" by Skye.   Please visit our Teemill website to see the final designs and we hope you are tempted to buy one (or two!): https://waderstudygroup.teemill.com/collection/iwsg-t-shirt-competition-2023-youth-kids/  

Deadline for IWSG Small Projects Grant fast approaching: 1st December is the last chance to apply for a IWSG Small Projects Grant! Projects run by IWSG members can be supported with up to 1500 euros. Describe your project, the relevance, the timeline and the budget, and submit it. Then we will read it and get back to you no later than 1st May 2024. Since 2016, the International Wader Study Group annually funds small projects to support wader studies that otherwise will not go ahead. visit the IWSG Small Projects Grants pages: https://www.waderstudygroup.org/projects/small-grants/ Regards IWSG Small Project Grant committee [caption id="attachment_17579" align="aligncenter" width="330"] The grant is ideal for supporting small fieldwork projects. Ten grants have been awarded since 2016. Explore them here : https://www.waderstudygroup.org/projects/small-grants/.[/caption]   Featured image: Field work in Venezuela, ©Carolina Davila.

The IWSG is happy to announce the winner of IWSG competition for tracking studies which took place during our 2023 annual conference (Sylt, Germany 29/09/23 — 03/10/23). Dr Afonso Rocha, from the University of Extremadura, Spain, won 15 GSM MINI 4G Druid Trackers to study "Temperature Exodus" using Black-winged Stilt in the Tagus estuary, Portugal. read more about the project "Temperature Exodus" of Alfonso Rocha here: Temperature_Exodus_AR - Afonso Rocha. [caption id="attachment_17562" align="aligncenter" width="330"] "Black-winged-stilt is an excellent model species to investigate the effects of temperature on avian decisions as they breed across a vast range of habitats from freshwater to hypersaline environments" explains Dr Afonso Rocha from the University of Extremadura, Spain.[/caption] The Price is funded by Druid Technology Co., Ltd. It includes one year of free data service.   Congrats to Alfonso Rocha!   Featured image: Dr. Alfonso Rocha from the University of Extremadura, Spain.

IWSG is happy to draw your attention to this new project: The Global Wader Tracking Data Project. The GWTDP is intended to work as a directory of tracking studies. Details from the field are recorded: which species, sexes, ages; where and when, using a uniform data format across contributing studies. We encourage users to store their data in a repository such as Movebank, and can help with uploading historical data. The GWTDP is a new, community-led initiative aiming to become a definitive register of all wader/shorebird tracking projects currently underway or completed. Read more on the project website here.   Featured image: Sat-tagged Red Knot ©Rob Buiter