Audubon Biologists Bring Hemispheric Experience to Protect Florida’s Birds and the Places They Need

The Audubon Florida team goes above and beyond to protect sea, shore, and wading birds around the state’s vast coastline. Many team members bring years of hands-on experience studying a variety of bird species near and far. Applying their collective knowledge and dedication, the team partners with volunteers and other organizations to protect Florida's iconic and imperiled species, including American Oystercatchers, Least Terns, Roseate Spoonbills, and Reddish Egrets.

Meet the biologists: 

The life of a biologist often entails working in some very unusual and remote locations. Our team has many bird hotspots on their resumes, starting along the rocky coast of Maine, where Brian and Col spent time working for Audubon’s Project Puffin to study Common Terns, Roseate Terns, and Arctic Terns. Col banded Puffins and guillemots there and on Machias Seal Island, in the gray zone between the U.S and Canada and participated in the deployment of geolocators on Atlantic Puffins and Razorbills.

Along the Eastern Seaboard, Audrey studied how Piping Plovers in New York responded to storms. She monitored birds that breed in the Arctic, such as Red Knots and Ruddy Turnstones, at Delaware Bay, measuring weight gain to assess their readiness for the final leg of their northward migration. In North Carolina, she studied Wilson's Plovers’ response to “overflights” by aircraft, including jets, helicopters, and small planes.

Down to the remote islands of the Dry Tortugas National Park, Erika banded Sooty Terns and Kaliegh monitored Magnificent Frigatebirds, Brown Noddies, and Roseate Terns, to name a few.

Farther south, toward the Equator, Jeff worked for the Peregrine Fund in Panama, tracking captive-reared Harpy Eagles after their release.

Moving west to Texas, Aaron was part of a Reddish Egret graduate research project for Texas State University near Corpus Christi. Also in Texas, at Sul Ross State University, Col worked with graduate students to mist net, band, and attach transmitters to Grasshopper and Baird’s sparrows, and used radio telemetry and vegetation sampling to determine their survivorship and wintering habitat use.

In Missouri’s remnant prairie ecosystem, Audrey gained experience studying grassland birds (Dickcissel and Eastern Meadowlarks) and migrating neotropical warblers in oak savannahs of Wisconsin. At Linwood Springs Research Station (also in Wisconsin), Zach banded Northern Saw-whet Owls and aged the birds using UV lights to help better understand the age classes of the population.

In the eastern Great Plains of Montana, Brian nest-searched and monitored threatened grassland songbirds such as Chestnut-collared Longspur, Thick-billed Longspur, Sprague’s Pipit, and Baird’s Sparrow.

Near Klamath Falls, Oregon, Col managed colonies of Caspian Terns and used audio lures and decoys to attract birds to new nesting locations after they had been displaced from their original nesting grounds in the Columbia River Gorge.

Way out west, on a remote island in the Pacific, Alie spent seven months on Palmyra Atoll conducting studies on Red-footed, Brown, and Masked boobies, satellite-tagged Red-footed Boobies as part of a foraging study, and was part of the Sihek (Guam Kingfisher) reintroduction program.

And halfway across the Pacific Ocean, Zach banded Laysan Albatrosses and White Terns at Midway Atoll.

The aggregation of experience and knowledge in our team is a tremendous resource, bringing dedication and innovative ideas to the Sunshine State. They are what hope looks like to birds! Note: All birds were handled during the course of  research activities permitted under proper state and federal banding permits.