This past Friday I had the opportunity to present my research proposal on the Roseate Spoonbill and whether this bird species is migrating further north.
The photo above is one I had taken this past January, in the center you can see a Roseate Spoonbill taking off mid-flight. Historically, the Roseate Spoonbill is a rare site to see north of Titusville, FL in the winter months (Dumas). Being that I had previous knowledge on this particular birds migratory range, I was pretty surprised to see them flying around the Ormond beach area in the middle of the winter.
One method of collecting data for this type of research will be the utilization of bird surveys from the Nation Audubon Society. A bird survey is a record of how many times a certain bird was sited in a specific location. The majority of my research will be pulled out of the Audubon's Christmas bird surveys. This survey has been conducted for 100 years on every December 14th - January 5th. Since I can not find published research on this bird's migratory range after the year 1996, I will be pulling surveys from the years 1996-2017, and looking to see if there has been more sightings in northern locations in the past ten years than previous years.
One thing I would like to include in my research is a graph of the average temperature in winter months for the years 1996-2017, to see if there is any correlation between rising temperatures and the Roseate Spoonbill's dispersal north.
Dumas, J.V.2000. Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A.F. Poole and F.B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA, Retrieved from https://doi.org./10.2173/bna.490
Sarah sec. 101 Have you gone back to determine what the temperature was the day you took that picture? What is their preferred temperature range?
ReplyDeleteGood question! I am not sure what the temperature was for that day, my memory fails me. However, I do know from the NOAA website that the average temperature for Daytona Beach, in January was actually 3 degrees below average, at 55 degrees Fahrenheit. The Roseate Spoonbill is a neotropical bird species that prefers warmer temperatures (Dumas 2000). Most of their population resides in Cuba, but they are commonly seen in the Florida everglades as it is a great foraging and nesting habitat for them.
ReplyDeleteDumas, J. V.. 2000. Roseate Spoonbill (Platalea ajaja), version 2.0. In The Birds of North America (A. F. Poole and F. B. Gill, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. Retrieved from https://doi.org/10.2173/bna.490
NOAA National Centers for Environmental information, Climate at a Glance: Statewide Time Series, published April 2018, retrieved on May 2, 2018 from http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/cag/