Editor's Pick
Volume 96, Issue 1
March 2025
Fernando Faria, Joaquín Aldabe, Juliana Bosi de Almeida, Juan Bonanno, Leandro Bugoni, Robert Clay, Julian Garcia-Walther, Agustina González, Arne Lesterhuis, Guilherme Tavares Nunes, Nathan Senner (2025, Issue 1, JFO): Population estimates of shorebirds on the Atlantic Coast of southern South America generated from large-scale, simultaneous, volunteer-led surveys
Figure featuring a map of South America, with the partial coasts of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil enlarged.
Caption below says: "Fig. 1. Map of southeastern South America where simultaneous shorebird surveys were conducted from 20 to 29 January 2019. Distinct colors indicate division of coastal regions used in the sampling design."
Headshot of JFO's co-EIC Dr. Mark E. Hauber with dialogue box that says: "Surveying highly mobile animals, including migratory or vagrant shorebirds, to estimate their population sizes, becomes even more difficult when the distribution of those species is highly clumped. "
Headshot of JFO's co-EIC Dr. Mark E. Hauber with dialogue box that says: "Faria et al. (JFO 2025) capitalizes on a volunteer-based, quasi-simultaneous survey design along the Atlantic coast of South America, to estimate both Nearctic migrant and Neotropical resident breeding shorebirds' population sizes. The results are complex, with the former species having decreased in numbers, while the latter showing a robust first-ever estimate of population sizes. Community and volunteer-based science, once again, serves field ornithology well in this study. "
4 by 4 grid of maps of the coasts of Argentina, Uruguay and Brazil, with highlighted areas where each of the following birds were sighthed: American Golden-Plover; Semipalmated Plover; Two-banded Plover; American Oystercatcher; Magellanic Oystercatcher; Black-necked Stilt; Hudsonian Godwit; Red Knot; Sanderling; White-rumped Sandpiper; Buff-breasted Sandpiper; Lesser Yellowlegs.
Caption below reads: Fig. 2. Relative abundance and distribution of Neotropical (blue) and Nearctic (red) shorebirds counted during the simultaneous surveys conducted between 20 and 29 January 2019.
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The overall goal of this collaborative project is to find valid indicators of welfare in a common wild bird [House Sparrow].
[...] After a few months, House Sparrows were reliably coming to the feeders, so we thought trapping them would be relatively easy. We were wrong.
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Pictures: a male House Sparrow perched atop a nest box, and a small flock of House Sparrows eating seeds on a feeder.](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:shqfdbfnatpauthx64gv6ln3/bafkreiea6bd4rpkopvq7oni6qbn372fp4hl6utiodvwvw7foe66i3jn7uu)
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Eastern bluebirds willingly breed in nest boxes located in noisy areas, despite it being detrimental to their reproductive success. We hypothesized that this decrease in reproductive success is due to anthropogenic noise pollution disrupting typical incubation and nest attendance behaviors in Eastern bluebird pairs...](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:shqfdbfnatpauthx64gv6ln3/bafkreibem2tjnqhj4rr3eff7oyn5vt54ibader4xppdw26g5tk3xgv3mvi)
