Pledge Form Available--Just One Month!

Hi everyone.

The pledge form for this year's VII Annual SalvaNATURA Bird-A-Thon is now ready (see right side bar). If you have donated in the past, then you should be receiving an email from us. The pledge form will offer you several methods for making a donation including directly through The Resource Foundation. Directions for doing so are found at the bottom of this blog site. There are several nice supporting gifts available to donors including a t-shirt, 2010 calendar, and a CD of bird sounds from El Salvador. Or you can take the Bird-A-Thon Challenge! Please see the pledge form for more details.

So far we already have 4 teams which includes 13 or so participants. We anticipate this number to increase over the next few weeks.

Thanks again for all your support.

Jesse Fagan
heliomaster76@yahoo.com

Celebrating the Playeros of El Salvador

During this year’s bird-a-thon we will be celebrating the breeding playeros or shorebirds of El Salvador. Yes, this is a very broad term, but it signifies in this case those species that breed on or near the Pacific Coast of El Salvador. Of the 546 species of birds documented in El Salvador, over a hundred are tied directly to this 200 KM coastal region, which includes habitats ranging from black sand beaches, coastal scrub, rocky cliffs, and mangroves. This group includes everything from boobies and herons to shorebirds and terns, but also wintering visitors, migrants and resident species. Breeding in El Salvador has been confirmed for a surprising 31 species while others are suspected to breed.

So, why celebrate playeros? Traditionally, this group of birds has been greatly impacted by historical and continued human encroachment on suitable breeding sites. Swamps have been drained, mangroves cut, beaches are overpopulated with homes, tourists, and pets and coastal regions receive a large amount of pollutants from upstream dumping or runoff. With these and other problems, it is a testament to the resilience of these hardy birds that they are able to breed and raise young at all. For this year we wish to bring awareness and promote continued conservation for playeros in El Salvador.

Consider the three species you see in this year’s design by Carlos Funes of SalvaNATURA. The Chorlito Piquigrueso or Wilson’s Plover (Charadrius wilsonia) breeds on the coastal beaches of El Salvador within meters of the crashing waves of the Pacific. Its nest is a simple depression in the sand, the eggs well-camouflaged with dark markings. Nesting adults will even distract would-be predators with calls of distress and Oscar-winning performances of injured wings. The Golondrina-marina Mínima or Least Tern (Sternula antillarum) also nests in small colonies on the sandy beaches of El Salvador, often in close proximity to the plover. Their nests are susceptible to abnormal weather conditions, where for example extreme high-tides can have catastrophic consequences on annual nesting. The long-legged Policía or Black-necked Stilt (Hymantopus mexicanus) gets its Spanish name from its black-and-white plumage which resembles that of a police uniform. This species nests typically on interior salt pans or coastal flats and in El Salvador is restricted to the eastern half of the country. If an unsuspecting person should venture too close to the nest, the adults will fly up to confront the intruder with annoying calls and aerial dive-bombs. All three species are listed nationally as being “in danger of extirpation.”

What can you do to help playeros in El Salvador? First, support the 2009 SalvaNATURA bird-a-thon with a donation! The funds from this event support bird studies and monitoring in El Salvador. Second, support Birdlife International which in the past has supported shorebird studies in El Salvador. Lastly, join us in El Salvador during our bird-a-thon or as a volunteer on one of the many SalvaNATURA projects.

Thanks for you support!

Jesse Fagan

2009 Bird-A-Thon Coordinator

2009 Bird-A-Thon Dates Set!

Dear friend,

Thank you very much for your generous support in the past of the SalvaNATURA Bird-A-Thon, which supports the bird monitoring efforts at five banding stations in western El Salvador. The 2009 SalvaNATURA Bird-A-Thon will take place on October 17th and 18th. This year marks the 7th consecutive year that this event will take place. It seems each year that the bird-a-thon grows a little more and more, both in terms of donations and participation. Last year, there were 20 participants in 7 teams. Our teams set a new record of 300 species of birds recorded in two days!

Every year we strive to make this event more successful. First, it is important that we summarize to you again what we are doing within the monitoring program. We continue to carry out monthly monitoring at five sites (one in dry forest at Parque Nacional (PN) El Imposible, two sites in cloud forest and pine-oak at PN Montecristo, and two sites at PN Los Volcanes, in cloud forest and a coffee-finca), each a 12-ha parcel within core or buffer zones of a national park in El Salvador. We have banded and released over 14,000 migrant and resident birds at these sites since beginning the program in late 2003 and we share this data with the Institute for Bird Populations (IBP) for their range-wide analysis of winter bird survival. The project has recorded 5 new species for the country. During 2007/2008, two new species were recorded for the country, Dendrocolaptes picumnus (Black-banded Woodcreeper) and Vireo griseus (White-eyed Vireo). In addition, SalvaNATURA´s Conservation Science Program continues to analyze data on both resident and migratory birds. One preliminary analysis based on our data includes:

A 5-year analysis of our data detected 21 of 84 terrestial species (25%) are showing significant population declines, while only 1 species (1%) showed an increase. Further, similar proportions of resident (24%) and of migrant species (28%) are in decline. At Montecristo, 24% of resident and 18% of migrant species showed patterns of decline over the last 4 years. This data helps us to recognize which species are in trouble, to study the reasons why these species are being affected, and how to construct a management plan. As of now, we are not sure why these species are in decline, but for this reason it is important to continue with the monitoring work. One species that is showing a decline is Lampornis viridipallens, and another that is showing an increase is Turdus assimilis (both species are found at monitoring sites in Montecristo and Los Volcanes National Parks).

As you know, the key to any population analysis is long-term, continuous studies. This is exactly the purpose of the monitoring program (every month, every year), but we need your support to accomplish this! Please consider making a donation to our bird-a-thon, sponsoring us in the field on a per species pledge basis, or by directly participating yourself...in El Salvador! See the end of the blogsite on how to make a donation. We are always in need of team members to participate in the bird-a-thon. In the past, we have had team members from Massachusetts, Texas, South Carolina, England and Germany. Let us know if you are interested.

We are hoping to raise a total of $25,000 (not including institutional grant funds we expect to receive through Institute for Bird Populations). These funds will help us maintain the stations (including the mist nets), keep three full time biologists on staff, and involve more than 15 students and volunteers in the project.

Please let us now if you are able to help us reach our goal this year. We will be in contact again in September to request your pledge. Thank you very much; we greatly appreciate your support.