Galien River IBA survey- May 1

One of the goals of the IBA program is to keep track of population trends of IBA "trigger" species. The Galien River in Berrien County is home to the state's largest known population of nesting Yellow-throated Warblers, but has never been systematically surveyed. Last April we decided to start doing such a survey. We floated several sections of this downfall-choked river by kayak in the early morning hours, counting at least 15 singing males in less than half of the available habitat. We are continuing this work on Saturday May 1 to get a complete count.

Currently we have only 2 people so we would like to get an additional person to help. Let us know if you are interested in helping!

IBA Presentations in Upper Peninsula (April 13-15)

I will be presenting on the Michigan IBA program all next week at Audubon chapters across the upper peninsula as follows:

1) Tuesday April 13 at 7:30PM in Sault Ste. Marie (Sault Naturalist's Club, at Central United Methodist Church at 111 East Spruce Street in Sault Ste Marie, MI)

2) Wednesday April 14 at 7PM at Marquette (Laughing Whitefish Audubon, Peter White Public Library Community Room at 217 North Front Street Marquette, MI)

3) Thursday April 15 at 7PM in Houghton (Copper Country Audubon, Michigan Tech school of forestry lecture hall)

Hope to see you at one of these presentations!

Michigan's IBAs are online

Michigan has 96 IBAs, all of which can be seen at :http://iba.audubon.org/iba/stateIndex.do?state=US-MI

HUGE Detroit River waterfowl flock & estimating numbers

One or Michigan's most important IBAs is the Detroit River and its adjacent open water IBAs: Lake St. Clair, and western Lake Erie basin. Up to 10% of the world's Canvasbacks have been counted within this ecosystem during fall migration and early winter, and thousands of other diving ducks, Tundra Swans, and American Coots use this area as a migration stopover each year. It is usually very difficult to photograph these huge associations, but Jerry Jourdan has produced a fine panoramic here:

http://www.pbase.com/jourdaj/image/121243816/original

In spending just 60 seconds estimating the number of individuals in the photo by groups of 100 I estimate there are at least 4,500 individuals present in this photo. This is very good practice for obtaining numerical estimates of large flocks of birds. I also recommend this very helpful counting utility and eBird's estimation tips. And as always, be sure to report your counts of all species to eBird, where the information will instantly become available to the IBA program and all conservation agencies, with the click of one button.