From the desert to the tropics

Post date: Jun 16, 2013 1:23:23 AM

One of the best things about this project is being able to work in a variety of different sites. After putting out our last few tags in Texas, we packed a cooler full of blood samples in dry ice and drove 900 miles to the Florida Panhandle, trading rattlesnakes and cactus groves for cabbage palmettoes and... some more cactus. I guess it's inescapable.

Our first tagging site, Smith Island in St. Mark's National Wildlife Refuge, looks from the water like the archetype of an unspoiled tropical island paradise, and over a few days of work we increased our capture total to 38 birds-- just 22 to go!

Smith Island, Oyster Bay, FL

Black-crowned Night Heron with White Ibis adults and fledgelings

A pelican with a transmitter gets its bearings after release

After we finished our adult captures, we caught and measured a sample of twenty large (4-6 week old) pelican chicks. These measurements, along with feather and diet samples, will help us relate the movements of adult birds to the condition of their offspring across capture sites.

Pelican chick, approximately 3-4 weeks old

Yvan and Stève measure the culmen length of a pelican nestling

We also sampled chicks at our second site, Audubon Island, and will return to trap adults within the next few days. Tiny, treeless, and directly offshore from a busy shipping port, the island is a great counterpoint to Smith Island and will help us to compare pelican movements at different levels of human influence. As well as pelicans at all stages of nesting, the island was full of Laughing Gulls with medium-sized chicks.

Elizabeth and a freshly-banded pelican chick

Laughing Gull adult and chick

Audubon is accessible only by kayak, which gave us a great excuse for a paddling tour of the waters around Panama City.

Kayaking near Harrison Bayou, Panama City Beach, FL

It's not all hard work...