The Mike Madders Field Research Award projects
2011
Robert Miller with goshawk
Robert Miller
Robert Miller, a master's student at Boise State University, Boise, Idaho, USA, won the 2011 Mike Madders Field Research Award with his proposal, "Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) breeding, productivity, and sex-ratios relative to forest structure, prey abundance, and habitat change within the Sawtooth National Forest" His proposal aimed to address four research questions:
- What prey do goshawks depend upon in the South Hills of the Sawtooth National Forest?
- Does prey abundance affect goshawk site selection and/or nest productivity, and if so, which prey elements are the key determining factors?
- Do habitat structural changes and disturbance affect nest productivity?
- Does habitat structure or prey abundance affect secondary sex ratio of successfully fledged young?
Mr Miller used nest cameras to record prey deliveries, and undertook analyses aimed at relating prey abundance and habitat to occupancy and other reproductive parameters. Mr Miller presented his findings in a poster at the Boise State University Graduate Research Conference and the 2011 Raptor Research Foundation meeting held in Duluth, Minnesota, USA.
2010
Mamikon Ghasabian
Lesser kestrel
The lesser kestrel is a small falcon whose global conservation status is Vulnerable. Mamikon Ghasabian has colour ringed lesser kestrels in Armenia to better understand juvenile rate of return, turnover, recruitment and longevity. Dr Ghasabian has been studying a colony in southern Armenia, which occupies a TV broadcasting station. In recent years local school children have built artificial nest boxes for the kestrels and the Armenian Society for the Protection of Birds now rents a building where kestrels nest - a building with 30 nesting pairs of kestrels that was planned to be demolished. In total there are now 48 nest sites in the area, with 10 pairs occupying the artificial nests.
During 2010, monitoring of the lesser kestrels started in early spring. The first three birds were observed in early March. By April the entire colony had returned, and numbered 60-65 individuals (20-25 pairs) - about the same size as in 2009. The breeding success in the artificial tower was higher than in 2009: 33 eggs and 31 fledglings.
Twenty-three juveniles and 10 adults were ringed during the summer, and some nestlings fledged as early as mid-July.
The Mike Madders Field Research Award paid for ringing equipment (including colour rings) and travel.
Ivailo Angelov
Egyptian vulture
Ivailo Angelov has been carrying out research on Egyptian vultures in Bulgaria. In 2003, 57 pairs were recorded. This number dropped to 31 pairs in 2009. Despite monthly monitoring of pairs, guarding of nests, supplementary feeding and many other conservation efforts, it appears that adult mortality is increasing.
With funding from The Mike Madders Field Research Award in 2010, Mr Angelov has been piloting a method to individually identify vultures, both breeders and non-territorial floaters, using photographs of their faces. Five individuals from three pairs are currently identifiable by facial characteristics and more pictures of faces of Egyptian vultures are being collected by professional and amateur photographers that cooperate with Mr Angelov. The local communal roosting site, used by up to 26 birds in previous years, was not used in 2010 and only up to 4 territorial birds of two neighbouring pairs were observed, so no effort could be made to photograph immatures.
The main lesson learned from 2010 was that the previously planned "digiscoping" of vultures from a hide at a feeding place is very time consuming, and not always successful. To address this Mr Angelov and his team bought camera traps in 2011, which should be a much more effective way of photographing the facial characteristics of the birds. You can get more details on the work on using facial characteristics to identify identification of Egyptian vultures here: http://www.neophron.bspb.org/deinosti/ind_razpoz-en.html Mr Angelov and his team have published an article on Egyptian vultures in der Falke (2011, 58(9):372-378).
Photos by R. Miller, M. Ghasabian and I. Angelov