Research TopicsWildlife & Fish: Bird Monitoring
Costa Rica Bird Communities: Neotropical Migrants and Resident Birds
Since 1994, we have conducted research at Tortuguero, Costa Rica, in association
with the Caribbean Conservation
Corporation, Partners
in Flight-Costa Rica, and other cooperators. Our primary objective is to
help establish a long-term monitoring site for the study of
neotropical migrant and resident landbirds with the collaboration
of Costa Ricans to further the knowledge and understanding of Costa Rican birds.
When the station was begun, it was the only operation to our knowledge regularly
monitoring the landbirds of the country on a consistent basis. We have now been
in operation for over a decade and have expanded to five monitoring stations.
We presented some of our findings at the 2002 International Partners
in Flight Conference held in Asilomar, California. The links to our presentation
and resulting publication are below, along with some additional information
on bird monitoring.
Internships available: If you are
interested in being an intern for our project, please read our
information for interns for dates and requirements.
Costa Rica Birds
Costa Rica has a wealth of resident birds, along with seasonal migrants from
North America that either migrate through or stay the winter in Tortuguero.
"Checklist to the birds of Tortuguero"
is a compiled listing of birds seen or banded at our station. One intern wrote
about his experiences at the banding station in "A
season of bird monitoring in Costa Rica."
In November 2008, Jared Wolfe and the interns participated in a Bird-a-Thon
in and around the Tortuguero station, including a trip to the Tortuguero National
Park. His account, "Tortuguero
Integrated Bird Monitoring Project Bird-a-Thon", also contains a list
of the species observed during the trip.
Presentation
Publications
- Elizondo, P., C.J. Ralph, J.D. Wolfe, y A.O. Ramírez. 2009. Está
la proporción de sexos de una población relacionada con el decrecimiento
de la capturabilidad? Mesoamericana 13(2): 101 pág.
- Maglianesi, M.A. 2004. Caracterización
de la comunidad de aves de un bosque tropical muy húmedo en el Caribe
norte de Costa Rica. M.S. Thesis, Universidad Nacional, Heredia, Costa
Rica.
- Maglianesi, M. A. 2007. Aves y características de hábitat
en un bosque tropical muy húmedo en el Caribe costarricense. Amientales
33: 2-12. Available at: http://www.ambientico.una.ac.cr/A33.pdf.
- Ralph, C.J., M.J. Widowson, R.I. Frey, P.A. Herrera, and B.P. O'Donnell.
2005. An
Overview of a Landbird Monitoring Program at Tortuguero, on the Caribbean
Coast of Costa Rica. pp. 831-838 in C. John Ralph and Terrell D. Rich,
editors. Bird Conservation Implementation and Integration in the Americas:
Proceedings of the Third International Partners in Flight Conference. 2002
March 20-24; Asilomar, California; Volume 2. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-191.
Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department
of Agriculture.
- Solano, A., C.J. Ralph, and P.A. Herrera. 2005. El
Proyecto Integrado de Monitoreo de Aves de Tortuguero: más de 10 años
en el estudio y conservación de aves migratorias y residentes neotropicales.
Zeledonia 9(2)76-82.
- Wolfe, J.D. and C.J. Ralph. 2008. Catorce años de anillamiento de
aves en Costa Rica: una visión general del Proyecto Integral de Monitoreo
de Aves de Tortuguero. Mesoamericana 12(3):171.
- Wolfe, J.D. 2009. Diet
of some spring migrant landbirds on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.
Journal of Caribbean Ornithology 22:37-40.
- Wolfe, J.D. 2009. Habitat use of Nearctic-Neotropic migrant birds in northeastern
Costa Rica. Arcata, CA: Humboldt State University; M.Sc. Thesis.
- Wolfe, J.D., Chandler, R.B., and D.I. King. 2009. Molt
Patterns, age, and sex criteria for selected highland Costa Rican resident
landbirds. Ornitologia Neotropical 20: 451-459.
- Wolfe J.D., Pyle, P. and C.J. Ralph. 2009. Breeding
seasons, molt patterns, and gender and age criteria for selected northeastern
Costa Rican resident landbirds. The Wilson Journal of Ornithology 121(3):556–567.
- Wolfe, J.D. and C.J. Ralph. 2009. Correlations
between El Niño-Southern Oscillation and changes in nearctic-neotropic
migrant condition in Central America. The Auk 126(4):809-814.
Monitoring protocols
- C. John Ralph, Geoffrey Geupel, Peter Pyle, Thomas Martin, and David
DeSante. 1993. Handbook
of Field Methods for Monitoring Landbirds. PSW-GTR-144.
- Ralph, C.J., M. Widdowson, B. Widdowson, B. O’Donnell, and R.I.
Frey. 2008. Tortuguero
Bird Monitoring Station Protocol for the Tortuguero Integrated Bird
Monitoring Program. U.S. Forest Service, Redwood Sciences Laboratory,
Arcata, California. 61 pp.
"And the turtles of course...all the turtles
are free.
As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should
be." - Dr. Seuss
Last modified by L.L. Long
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