Oregon Vesper Sparrows are a declining and at-risk subspecies unique to the Pacific Northwest. This June, KBO staff spent time in the field placing miniature GPS tags on Oregon Vesper Sparrows to discover their migratory routes and wintering grounds. We thought you might be interested in the process!
Plucky, beautiful and declining in numbers at about a 2% annual rate, the Rufous Hummingbird makes its long annual migration in different timing and route patterns based the birds’ age and sex, new research by Oregon State University shows. The findings, published in the journal Avian Conservation & Ecology, are important because the more that is known about how Rufous Hummingbirds migrate, the more that can be done to ensure birds of each age and sex category have the resources they need each year on their journey up and down the western part of North America.
July is an excellent time to look for breeding birds at higher elevations, like Mountain Bluebirds, Sandhill Cranes, Lazuli Buntings, various Warblers, and even… possibly… Great Gray Owls. On July 6th from 9am to 2pm, Harry Fuller will lead a small bird watching trip in and around the Howard Prairie and Hyatt Lake area. For more information about Harry, our world renowned trip leader, see below. Please join us for this safety-first outing; we will spend the morning seeking connection and rejuvenation from the wonder and beauty of our shared birds.
In a new publication selected as “editor’s choice” in the journal Landscape Ecology, researchers from Oregon State University’s Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society and Klamath Bird Observatory tested a novel species-centered technique for quantifying the influence of habitat amount and fragmentation on a community of 48 common bird species in Oregon’s Rogue Basin, including 25 oak-woodland specialists. Rather than using human-classified land-cover data, the species-centered technique uses stacked species-distribution models to quantify habitat amount and configuration. The results suggest that using this species-centered approach to define habitat for entire bird communities reveals relationships between fragmentation and bird diversity that would otherwise be obscured by the use of classified land-cover.
From a hummingbird’s point of view, wildfire can be good or bad. With support from the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and WHP, Dr. Deborah M. Finch from the Research Station collaborated with Dr. Alexander and his research team at Klamath Bird Observatory in Oregon and with Dr. Sarahy Contreras from the University of Guadalajara – CUCSUR to complete a literature review about the effects of wildfire on hummingbird habitat, how restoration actions including prescribed fire affect those habitats, and how hummingbirds respond.
Join us Wednesday, June 3rd from 6:30-8:00pm for KBO’s first virtual community education program, presented by Shannon Rio via Zoom. This visual and auditory presentation teaches about local birds while exploring how they got their common and Latin names. For example, why is a Killdeer called a Killdeer and what does its scientific name tell us? Using stories, scientific facts, photography, bird sounds and poetry, this is a fun opportunity to learn about the birds that live all around us. No birding knowledge is necessary, however curiosity and humor are welcome prerequisites for joining this virtual class.
While we miss being in the field with all of our partners, this year KBO is honoring our long-standing WMBD connections in this new virtual way. Here, our staff share […]
World Migratory Bird Day (WMBD) is an annual awareness-raising campaign highlighting the need for the conservation of migratory birds and their habitats. WMBD is global in reach and serves as […]
We hope that this message finds you, our community, in good health and in safe places during this unprecedented time of Covid-19. We are happy to report that we remain […]
Thursday, January 23, 6:00 – 7:15 p.mGrape Street Bar and Grill, 31 South Grape Street, Medford Come discover a glimpse of the natural history of our region. The focus will […]
