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pecies in restored areas compared to intact bogs suggest that additional factors such as residual forestry hydrological dynamics and predator activity may influence recovery continued long term monitoring is essential to track population trends and understand colonization processes over time further research into predator prey interactions hydrology and vegetation succession will help refine management strategies together these efforts will maximize the success resilience and ecological integrity of restored peatlands supporting both biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation paper colonization by peatland specialist birds following forest to bog restoration in northern scotland robert hughes chris bingham restoration ecology doi 10 1111 rec 70129 graham grahamfappleton has studied waders for over 40 years and is currently involved in wader research in the uk and in iceland he was director of communications at the british trust for ornithology until 2013 and is now a freelance writer and broadcaster making full use of tracking data may 6 2025 may 28 2025 graham appleton 1 comment this blog has two aims to share some of the important scientific and conservation stories that are being revealed through shorebird tracking work and to encourage scientists to make their data available via the global wader platform if small numbers of waders are going to be required to carry tracking devices then it can be argued that it is the duty of scientists and conservationists to make full use of the data that they collect a new international wader study group project called global wader is registering and helping to archive shorebird tracking data from around the world to make the information accessible and available to current and future generations of researchers the project is already paying dividends as you can read below carrying the load attaching a transmitter to a spoon billed sandpiper any device carried by a bird has the potential to cause problems even something as simple as a metal ring can get wool or debris caught in it increasing the very small chance that a bird will become entangled satellite tags have been refined to be as safe as possible and we know that waders can migrate and breed successfully while carrying them however the extra burden cannot be ignored which means that tracking is only undertaken to answer important questions often of conservation significance an excellent example is work to discover the migration routes and wintering areas of critically endangered spoon billed sandpipers you can read about the results of the study in track trace flyway conservation the global wader programme has the potential to map flyways in ways that were impossible using only the recoveries of ringed birds this can be achieved by swiftly bringing together data for one species collected by several researchers or by combining information from several species of wader examples of both approaches are illustrated here connectivity the tagus estuary of portugal has become a major focus for conservationists who are trying to explain the folly of building a new airport right next to mudflats used by vast numbers of birds in an inspirational project martin beal and colleagues have amalgamated tracking information of islandica and limosa black tailed godwits together with colour ring sightings and recoveries of metal ringed birds to map out the species movements within the east atlantic flyway these prove that the tagus is one of the most important nodes in the black tailed godwit network the tracking information also proved exceptionally powerful at identifying key sites used by limosa black tailed godwits in west africa mali senegal mauritania guinea bissau where hardly any marked individuals are seen or caught and where the absence of count data means these sites have not been identified as important bird areas see how are migration sites connected and the shiny app hosted by global wader threats to species a paper from the global wader team currently only available as a preprint shows that there is a particular paucity of tracking data for the west asian east african flyway in this context work by a birdlife international team to study the movements of sociable lapwing is a real gem conservation scientists have been trying to identify areas in which excess hunting is having impacts on adult survival as discussed in following sociable lapwings now add in the one tracked steppe whimbrel in search of steppe whimbrel a new project to study whimbrel in the western islands of the indian ocean together with other recent initiatives and perhaps the combined maps will pinpoint key areas for multiple species within the flyway it s going to be great if this work can highlight common threats to shorebirds so that conservation initiatives can be better targeted migrating shorebirds can compensate for cross winds during trans oceanic flights see navigating a vast ocean the red knot problem if only shorebird breeding and wintering sites were neatly connected as they are in the case of barnacle geese then conservation would be much easier red knot populations in the americas are under threat but some more so than others we know that there are strong links between some sites such as bahia lomas chile and delaware bay usa but that the annual migration patterns developed by individuals can vary significantly colour ringing has established some of the staging points for some populations but tracking is opening our eyes to the complexity of conserving this species see subspecies connectivity and conservation in shorebirds red knot are being caught in a number of countries and it s going to be helpful to bring tracking data together into one database for new analyses and to monitor how migration patterns change site based conservation curlews on the wash current conservation designations tend to be site based the wash in eastern england is a ramsar site designated as an important bird area iba and special protection area spa because of the assemblage of species that it holds especially in the wintertime one of these species is the near threatened eurasian curlew with winter counts of up to 7000 birds as for most estuaries designation stops at the high tide mark meaning that fields used for feeding and roosting are unprotected in a paper in wader study rob pell and wash wader research group colleagues show that increasing numbers of curlew use inland feeding as winter progresses possibly because of declines in prey availability on the intertidal mud individual birds feed in both tidal and agricultural habitats several kilometres inland with male curlew being more likely to feed inland than females and the longest billed birds being the least likely to leave the wash spa it seems probable that the same patterns will be found elsewhere at some stage it would be useful to analyse european tracking information in order to suggest the size of a conservation buffer zone around a tidal site when the sun set tracked black tailed godwits flew inland to feed inland pools it s not just curlew that use inland habitats black tailed godwits tracked in a french project turned out to make much more use of inland pools than had been expected especially once the hunting season had closed see inland feeding by coastal black tailed godwits detailed examination of tracks of other species may well show further blurring of intertidal and inland distinctions as far as shorebirds are concerned bijagos each winter hundreds of thousands of waders feed in the mud around the bijagos archipelago of guinea bissau west africa the area is home to whimbrel tagged in iceland grey plover tagged in portugal bar tailed godwits tagged in several european studies etc data that were archived as part of the global wader project were used to define the key parts of this important shorebird area important evidence that supported the case for designation as a world heriage site more here on the global wader website whimbrels roosting in mangroves while the mud is covered bijagos crabs will fuel migration to iceland and northern europe see a whimbrel s year whimbrel lead the way global wader is already starting to deliver for whimbrels discussions as to how to develop the programme fostered an exchange of information about whimbrel migration an iconic species found worldwide with several subspecies populations facing dire situations but others apparently doing well as outlined here as camilo carneiro who is leading on this aspect of global wader wrote studies of single populations have allowed us to understand the distribution migration routes and behaviour of whimbrels but by examining the global picture across subspecies and populations in a comparative framework we hope to gain deeper insights and uncover new routes for research the map below summarises tracking information for 229 individuals that generated 1 4 million locations some subspecies migrate much further than others there is a clear gap in the map for whimbrel breeding in the central russian tundra which are thought to migrate to east and southern africa and the indian subcontinent as well as spatial information global whimbrel is collecting data about the timing of migratory journeys the morphometrics of individuals population trends and actual and potential threats to subspecies the project team will soon produce a global assessment of the threats that whimbrel populations face across the world unintended benefits while tracking devices are generally used to establish migration routes scientists have already realised that the information that birds collect can also provide insights into behaviour three wadertales blogs and one other study exemplify this the timing of nesting in a paper published in ibis and summarised in flexible nesting behaviour we learnt that black tailed godwits that arrive back in iceland early in spring don t necessarily breed earlier or have higher hatching success or renesting rates this is one of several papers that follow individuals back to breeding grounds allowing conservation scientists to pin point territories and even nesting sites curlew studies show that on the ground fieldwork may miss early failed nesting attempts of waders flying together it was only a matter of time until two birds carrying tracking devices were discovered to be migrating together in the blog the flock now departing there are fascinating details about curlew migration with descriptions of four occasions when two tagged birds ended up in the same migratory flock wind turbines tracking data from 143 tagged eurasian curlews from seven european countries recorded over 6 years have been used to assess individual response behaviours when approaching offshore windfarms in the north sea and baltic sea while most birds successfully avoided windfarms the study found that up to 15 8 of tracked curlew migrated at heights associated with an elevated risk of collision without showing avoidance reactions here s a link to the paper by philipp schwemmer et al in journal of environmental management individual stories following a named individual reveals insights into the life of a bird with great potential for awareness raising a norfolk curlew s summer describes the life of bowie from april to july in one summer the story includes a stoat attack the brief life of a miracle chick and autumn migration to montijo in the tagus estuary portugal a site that remains under threat from a planned new airport who knows when data will be useful data are precious and we may not appreciate their full potential until decades after they are collected modern studies using century old or older material are revealing fascinating new stories for example slender billed curlews making a contribution to conservation science long after being collected a paper by graeme buchanan et al uses stable isotope analysis to ascertain the probable breeding location of the now extinct slender billed curlew using birds that were collected as long ago as 1859 the year that charlesdarwin published on the origin of species slender billed curlew blog the concept of dna did not exist until 1869 but samples taken from much older museum specimens can help scientists understand the processes of evolution in studies of heavy metals and other pollutants eggshells record the history of how birds have been impacted during the anthropocene as illustrated in a 700 year record of mercury in avian eggshells of guangjin island south china sea if you are interested in the potential for museum specimens to answer emerging conservation questions here s a link to an upcoming bou conference at the natural history museum london a day at the museum global wader tracking shorebird tracking data josh nightingale who spearheaded the global wader project in its infancy likened the programme to saving the digital dodo as the team sought to set standards for storing and sharing tracking data electronic data need to be findable accessible understandable and usable if future generations of scientists and current conservation scientists are going to work with them for the benefits of wader species global wader operates a registry of shorebird tracking studies similar to the colour mark registry but here with the main objective of making other studies findable and to promote and foster collaboration between waderologists long distance migrations by one eurasian whimbrel tracked between july 2017 and june 2022 during this century the number of tracking studies has been doubling every few years with data for well over seventy species now available richer countries have more resources for this sort of research with very few deployments of tags in areas such as the african continent for example a 2024 global wader analysis suggested that there was no data archival for three quarters of wader tracking projects hopefully as more studies migrate to global wader more data will be archived and it should be possible to set common standards so that key information such as the age of the bird and the method of tag attachment is always captured if you are an ornithologist with shorebird tracking data you can learn more about global wader by following this link a changing world shorebirds are crossing the world s oceans and high mountain ranges they are pausing to refuel in prairies and they are spending many months of the year on remote mudflats many of these key habitats are under threat and a warming climate may have serious consequences for wind patterns across oceans in this changing world a small number of waders are collecting vast amounts of important positional and behavioural data the full value of which we cannot realise in individual projects if these pack carriers are wearing our tracking devices let s make sure that we archive their data if we don t future generations of shorebirds may be asked to wear tracking devices to collect data that already exist graham grahamfappleton has studied ...