The medical journal The Lancet's new report: "Countdown on health and climate change: health at the mercy of fossil fuels"

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(22)01540-9/fulltext "The 2022 report of the Lancet Countdown is published as the world confronts profound and concurrent systemic shocks. Countries and health systems continue to contend with the health, social, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, while Russia's invasion of Ukraine and a persistent fossil fuel overdependence has pushed the world into global energy and cost-of-living crises. As these crises unfold, climate change escalates unabated. Its worsening impacts are increasingly affecting the foundations of human health and wellbeing, exacerbating the vulnerability of the world's populations to concurrent health threats."

new research on bird migration

New frontiers in bird migration research https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0960982222013057 "Bird migrations are impressive behavioral phenomena, representing complex spatiotemporal strategies to balance costs of living while maximizing fitness. The field of bird migration research has made great strides over the past decades, yet fundamental gaps remain. "

raptor watch

Time to watch for, and count raptors: The next 3 months are the time to watch the skies for migrating raptors. Depending on where you live, there's probably a good raptor watch location not far away. There are a number of well-known locations in Wisconsin where raptors have been known to concentrate during migration, with long-term data still being collected at most of them. See the map reproduced here at left, for approximate locations in eastern, western, and northern Wisconsin.

September and October are peak months for Sharp-shinned and Cooper's Hawks, Merlin, Northern Harrier, Red-tailed, Red-shouldered, and Broad-winged Hawks. Bald Eagles, American Kestrels, and Turkey Vultures are also fairly numerous, with Peregrine Falcons, Northern Goshawks less so. On the Lake Michigan shoreline sites, the best days are those with west and northwest winds.

New Wader Quest Newsletter

https://www.waderquest.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Summer-2022-newsletter.pdfR_.pdf

Wader Conservation World Watch

See the 2021 report at: https://www.waderquest.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/WCWW8.5..pdf

seabird news: 2022

Albatrosses, Ph. by J.J. Harrison

 

Seabird conservation is a major focus around the world; learn about some recent efforts, and offshoots of others, below: 

Saving Seabirds - The Bottom Line:

 https://www.audubon.org/conservation/project/saving-seabirds

 Seabird Conservation:

 https://www.birdnote.org/seabird-conservation

 How we recruited albatrosses to patrol the high seas for illegal fishers:

 https://theconversation.com/how-we-recruited-albatrosses-to-patrol-the-high-seas-for-illegal-fishers-130621

Sitting Ducks: Why Millions of Arctic Seabirds Are in Danger

 https://www.audubon.org/magazine/january-february-2016/sitting-ducks-why-millions-arctic

 Seabirds in danger in updated Red List 

 https://geographical.co.uk/nature/wildlife/item/2549-seabirds-in-danger-in-updated-red-list

Ongoing Bobwhite declines

Ph. by Andy Reago & Chrissy McClarren

 The Northern Bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) continues its population decline across its geographic range. 

 "In 2007, the National Audubon Society (BirdLife in the US) published the results of the first-ever analysis of combined annual sighting data from the two major censuses of bird populations in North America—the Christmas Bird Count (CBC) and the Breeding Bird Survey (BBS) (Butcher and Niven 2007, Butcher 2007). The analysis highlighted the plight of 20 common bird species, all of which have lost over half of their continental population since 1967. Common birds are defined here as species with a global population of over 500,000 and with a range of one million square kilometres or more."

 "Northern Bobwhite Colinus virginianus has declined the most dramatically, with population reductions of 82% occurring over the past 40 years. Consequently this species has been uplisted from the Least Concern category to Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List (BirdLife International 2008)." 

  http://datazone.birdlife.org/sowb/casestudy/common-birds-are-declining-in-north-america

There are many regional and state-level bobwhite conservation initiatives:

 National Bobwhite Conservation Initiative: https://bringbackbobwhites.org/

 "Wildlife biologists know more about the biology, life history, habitat requirements, and management of the northern bobwhite quail than probably any other species in North America. Yet bobwhites, and the suite of wildlife that claims the same habitat, have been declining virtually range-wide for at least 40 years, approaching extirpation in some regions and states."