Bird Protection Quebec monthly meeting / lecture

Monday 2 April

Time: 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm Location: Knox Crescent Kensington and First Presbyterian Church 625 Godfrey Avenue, NDG

Tracking Bird Movement Locally, Regionally, and Continentally

With Jean-François Giroux, Professeur titulaire, Département des sciences biologiques, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and board member of Société Duvetnor.

Ornithologists have always been fascinated by bird movement and have thus developed different devices for marking individuals to understand the where, when and why of bird movement. During this talk, we will concentrate on three species studied by our group: Canada Geese, Common Eiders and Ring-billed Gulls. We have used several techniques including some recently developed miniature GPS loggers to track the local, regional and long-distance movements of these birds during different parts of their annual cycle. We will compare the advantages and disadvantages of the various markers and give examples of how the data obtained from these programs can be used to study the ecology and behaviour of these species. Some techniques rely mostly on the work of students and technicians, but others greatly depend on public participation including bird watchers and hunters. Citizen Science has become increasingly important in recent years and has been facilitated by the power of the Internet. You will learn how you can participate in these research programs.