North American Ornithological Conference highlights

[Martin Butterfield <>]

A key difference between Australia and the US is that the US (or at least the part not in the Deep South) has a Winter.  

It is interesting that the 'official' birding bodies in the US (and Canada) support feeders in various ways.  In Ottawa much of the Christmas Bird Count is touring various feeders to count the birds thereat.  In New York one of the most popular birding sites in Central Park in Winter is feeders hung - with official approval - in the Ramble.

I suspect that the figure of 1 million tons refers only to seed such as is sold here.  In the South West significant amounts of sugar are also used in Hummingbird feeders.  One astonishing site we visited in Arizona got through a 50lb bag of sugar each day (they observed up to 24 species of Hummingbrd in a day for their efforts).

Martin

Martin Butterfield

http://franmart.blogspot.com.au/

On 14 September 2016 at 06:57, Con Boekel <> wrote:

Thank you Steve

I found the following quote from your link to be the most interesting, given that feeding birds is regarded as almost axiomatically bad in Oz.

regards

Con

'Each year, 50 million people in North America buy 1 million tons of bird food. After surveying data for 136 species, Project FeederWatch leader Emma Greig found that most feeder birds have strong populations. The flip side is that the species most in trouble—such as seabirds and shorebirds—don’t come to feeders and are declining because of other threats. Greig’s conclusion: Feeding birds may not help the hardest-hit species, but it may inspire people to support conservation, too.'

On 9/14/2016 6:58 AM, Steve Read wrote:

Hi all

 

The following link contains a very interesting set of highlights of the recent North American Ornithological Conference

https://www.allaboutbirds.org/research-highlights-from-2000-ornithologists-at-the-naoc-2016-meeting/

as assembled by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.

 

Well worth reading to see the diversity of bird research happening worldwide – and the amazingly detailed lives of birds.

 

Steve