As regular CFZ-watchers will know, for some time Corinna has been doing a column for Animals & Men and a regular segment on On The Track... particularly about out-of-place birds and rare vagrants. There seem to be more and more bird stories from all over the world hitting the news these days so, to make room for them all - and to give them all equal and worthy coverage - she has set up this new blog to cover all things feathery and Fortean.

Friday 28 September 2012

Caribbean Seabird Tracking Pilot Study Gives Encouraging Results

Dog Island IBA is an uninhabited offshore islet lying northwest of the Caribbean UK Overseas Territory (UKOT) of Anguilla, and is considered to be the second most important individual island for seabirds in the eastern Caribbean, despite being only about 200 ha in size. It forms part of Anguilla’s Important Bird Area (IBA) network, and has globally important populations of Brown Booby Sula leucogaster and regionally important colonies of Laughing Gull Larus atricilla, Magnificent Frigatebird Fregata magnificens, Sooty Tern Sterna fuscata and Masked Booby Sula dactylatra.

In April 2012, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (BirdLife in the United Kingdom), in collaboration with the University of Liverpool and the Anguilla National Trust, conducted a Brown Booby tracking project, with the aims of determining the preferred feeding locations and foraging behaviour of this important population. Nineteen birds were successfully tracked over a period of 5-7 days using GPS data loggers. Maps of foraging flights could then be downloaded and revealed average foraging trip durations of just over 5 hours with an average distance travelled of 110km but some individuals travelling up to 300km on a round trip!

Continued: http://www.birdlife.org/community/2012/09/caribbean-seabird-tracking-pilot-study-gives-encouraging-results/

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