1. Spoonies

• Spoon-billed sandpipers (AKA spoonies) = threatened migratory shorebirds
  • One of many stopping in China around Yellow Sea— red knots, great knots, godwits, other sandpipers
  • Shorebirds have a greater task than seabirds: can't land on ocean or feed during journey
  • Degradation of their feeding grounds— mud flats around the coast → failures in migration
• Chinese gov't taking some measures to preserve these grounds, banning development
• Miniaturization of geolocator, etc. making tracking and quantifying migration patterns more effective

2. Quantum Leap

• Godwits → longest nonstop migration known; go through cycles of organ compression and regrowth
  • Many variations on the "binge-bulk-shrink" theme among other migratory birds
  • Metabolisms are finely tuned for their long journeys- maintain water homeostasis, different efficiencies of breaking down fat, muscle, etc.
    • Omega-3 = important fuel
    • More efficient respiration set up to manage in hypoxic air conditions
• Attached mini EEG sensors to frigatebirds to monitor sleep!
  • Don't sleep much- hemispheric sleep, micronaps... but somehow manage
• Some birds have growth in certain brain areas (eg. hippocampus) when needed, then recedes when unnecessary to balance metabolic needs
• Magnetoreception = one of many ways birds navigate (also by stars, genetics, volatile chemicals)
  • Works by radical pairs of electrons, cryptochrome receptor Cry1a, and quantum entanglement

3. We Used to Think

• Advances in tracking technology, automation → VHF radiotelemetry is getting affordable and effective to track migratory birds
  • Motus network— towers set up for any specific project pick up signals from all tags
    • Gives us data on bird's lives previously hidden, clues to where their biggest threats are
• Shifting assumptions on whether old-growth forests are really essential/the best for birds— youngsters thrive in the dense, difficult-to-navigate, photosynthesis-rich new-growth edge areas
  • So-called "old-growth" forest really what grew back from clearcut logging centuries ago → no structure like truly old forests; margins provide those structural advantages
  • Can design logging patterns that are actually beneficial to birds, creating diversity of forest conditions
• Migratory connectivity: diff populations of same species ma take different paths, go to sites somewhat separated from each other (or vice versa, which is actually what migratory connectivity is) → implications for conservation

4. Big Data, Big Trouble

• Doppler system can pick up "bioscatter," whether it's birds or bats or insects → now getting more specific at identifying how far apart birds are flying, etc.
  • Unfortunately, taxonomically agnostic → can't tell whether constant/increasing migration numbers are from threatened species or not
• eBird: collection of tons of data from birders who had records that were going to waste; gamification helped it really take off
  • Identified trends → better use of land for farmers (ex. flooding certain land in off-season of agriculture)
• Big data → see effects of light pollution on impacting migration patterns — could also be a way to solve it, but not implemented at the moment.
  • Also just less birds now than ever before— grassland birds like sparrows, etc. most threatened

5. Hangover

• Carry-over effects: conditions in tropical lands thousands of miles away, many months earlier may predestine a bird as it flies north back to its summer grounds— better health, reproduction, etc. (not unique to birds)
  • Some exceptions to this— ex. godwits can compensate for bad luck or challenging conditions on migration (stable, predictable food at stopover points)
• How does a bird's microbiome change between its two habitats?
• How much of bird mortality is because of things that actually happen during migration (when most deaths occur) vs how good of a winter one had?

6. Tearing up the Calendar

• Climate change = affecting timing of seasons, temperature extremes, sea level (and thus tidal habitats)
  • Can't just shift habitats bc require certain kinds of forests that don't grow overnight
  • Changes winds, which are critical for migratory birds
• Phenotypic plasticity = ability for organism to adapt to different environments (not by change in genetics)— can be hard do distinguish between evolution, sometimes
• General response to climate change = smaller body size (across most animals!), longer wing length (maybe to accommodate longer migrations that are necessary)
• Hummingbirds changing migration patterns— staying in frigid weather longer! Other species also changing timing of migration → temporal isolation from other populations that can lead to speciation.

7. Aguiluchos Redux

• Aguilochos = hawks— refers to Swainson's hawks, which were being decimated in their wintering grounds in Argentina due to noxious pesticides used to kill grasshoppers
  • New efforts to colorband not just adult hawks but all chicks → created recognizable population, traceable families, etc. for the first time
  • Found that Swainson's hawks = very slow to adapt to new habitat/opportunities, even as old ones may be degrading
• Hawks dependent on agriculture: alfalfa farms → tons of squirrels → prey for hawks (and farmers like that they are killing the squirrels that are eating their alfalfa)

8. Off the Shelf

• Pelagic birds (albatrosses, petrels, etc.), Outer Banks
  • Travel much further distances than other migrants; experts at utilizing wind currents and flying very efficiently
• Rats = awful at seabird nesting sites, many initiatives to eliminate them (relatively successful)

9. To Hide from God

• Cyprus → mass killings of songbirds passing through to be eaten, served in restaurants
  • Also considered delicacies in Italy, France, most of the Mediterranean
  • Killed with nets, "lime sticks" covered in goo
• China → yellow-breasted bunting has become a delicacy; once "superabundant" species will likely soon be driven to extinction
• Songbirds also hunted and eaten in the US in early 1900s before laws passed banning it

10. Eninum

• Nagaland, Myanmar = site of biggest migratory spectacle (Amur falcons), conservation tragedy, and conservation success
  • Amur falcons called eninum, meaning "two-love"— sit side-by-side
  • Efforts to promote tourism in order to combat poaching of the birds