Posts by Jim Armbruster
A Second Season of Winter Raptor Research in Addison County
As we slowly transition into winter, reports of migrant birds are trickling in throughout the state. Snowy Owls have been sighted in Colchester and Waterbury and researchers from Project SNOWstorm predict a “sizeable push” of immature birds this year. Snows experienced a robust breeding season in the eastern and central Canadian Arctic this summer which may lead to more sightings as winter progresses. These young birds sometimes wind up in trouble and end up at the Center for Wild Bird Rehabilitation. This season we have already seen a young female who was in distress and emaciated. Unfortunately, the bird did not survive but samples will be sent to Project SNOWstorm in an effort to better help the species as a whole. Blood work will also be collected from any others that end up in rehab and sent to researchers in the project.
Read MoreNestWatch Season Wrap-Up 2021
This summer was once again full of baby birds! As the leaves begin to change again there are still baby birds in the care of rehab but all of our monitored nests have moved on to bigger and better bird things. Boxes were at capacity this spring and summer with several seeing multiple broods.
Read MoreTick Research Updates From the Field – Season Wrap Up
August marked the last round of mammal trapping as part of our collaborative research project with Dartmouth PhD student Kaitlin McDonald.
Read MoreAmerican Kestrel Monitoring
Our latest American Kestrel Monitoring Project is an aspect of fulfilling the VINS’ mission that utilizes our expertise in working with raptors and leverages our network of dedicated followers.
Read MoreTick Research Updates From the Field – Week 1
We had a very successful first sampling session at VINS! We sampled at three different sites, two of which are on the VINS campus. When we talk about sampling, we mean that we are observing the local fauna through a couple of different ways.
Read MoreTick Research at VINS
With the number of tick-borne disease cases increasing in the Northeast, it’s never been more important to understand the ecology of ticks and the diseases that they carry. One way to investigate this is to study the animal communities that serve as hosts to ticks. A better understanding of the animal residents in and around Vermont, their predators, and the number of ticks they have, will provide insights into the local community ecology and may help us to better understand why ticks and their diseases seem to be on the rise. A collaboration between researchers at Dartmouth College and the Vermont Institute of Natural Sciences aims to study the impact of local predators on small rodent communities and their tick burdens. This study will use a variety of field ecology methods to study small rodent communities, meso-predators, and ticks.
Read MoreWinter Raptor Research Updates From the Field – Season Wrap Up
With spring in full swing we have officially wrapped up our winter raptor field season. Both Middlebury and Goodrich have been reliably checking in and sending location data for us to analyze. So far each bird has revealed drastically different movement patterns.
Read MoreWinter Raptor Research Updates From the Field – Week 3
The last few weeks have been excellent for winter bird watching. Since our transmitters are arriving later than expected, we’ve decided to change strategies and set up standardized survey routes. While we’re mostly focusing on raptors, we love all birds and can’t help but stop and watch some of the large flocks of winter birds we’ve been seeing too.
Read MoreWinter Raptor Research Updates From the Field – Week 2
We’re still waiting for all our materials to come in, but that hasn’t stopped us from getting in the field. We went out recently for another round of trapping with our partner from Cornell, Bryce Robinson, to find another abieticola (a subspecies of red-tailed hawks).
Similar to our prior outing, we didn’t catch a bird until late in the day. Just as the sun set over the fields, our research coordinator Jim made one more attempt before we called it a day and this beautiful bird came to the trap.
Read MoreWinter Raptor Research Updates From the Field – Week 1
For the past few weeks, our research team has been searching for red-tailed hawks throughout Addison County in preparation for trapping. While this gave us a good idea of where to look, we quickly learned that it is important to stay flexible, and most of all, patient.
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