Ornithology Commons^™

Remembering Paul Johnsgard, Linda R, Brown, Josef Kren

Zea E-Books Collection

Paul A. Johnsgard (1931–2021) was a friend of many, an artist, prolific author, teacher, and humble admirer of all living creatures. It was impossible to find someone at Nebraska Audubon Society or Nebraska Ornithologists’ Union meetings who did not know Paul Johnsgard. His more than 100 published books made him known not just in a community of ornithologists, birdwatchers, and bird lovers in the United States but also abroad. He was a world-renowned ornithologist and naturalist who remained deeply embedded in his local culture and its prairie environment.

We invited about 75 people to write a short memory of Paul. …

Eavesdropping On Animals: Can Bioacoustics Help Save Species?, Zoe Grueskin

Capstones

Around the world, scientists are using sound to study the natural world in a growing field called bioacoustics. Researchers are eavesdropping on frogs and fish, elephants and earthworms, and many hope what they hear can inform and inspire conservation action around the world. From the field’s auspicious beginning with accidentally-recorded whales, to researchers today listening to locations as diverse as the Arctic seafloor and India’s Western Ghats mountain range, this capstone project explores the potential — and limitations — of conservation bioacoustics. Read the story, see photos and listen to audio pieces featuring three bioacousticians and their field recordings here: …

S Is For Sandhill: A Crane Alphabet, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

This is a book of cranes, from A to Z, written and illustrated by the world’s foremost authority on the 15 species of these wonderful and ancient birds. It is a book for all ages, and for all who love and marvel at the beauty, order, and variety of the natural world.

Cranes exhibit complex behavior, pair-bonding, and fascinating social interactions. They migrate huge distances, crossing continents, oceans, and mountains between their nesting and wintering areas. Seven of the world’s 15 crane species are listed as “vulnerable,” three as “endangered,” one as “critically endangered,” and only three as of “least …

Friendship At The Feeding Station, Anisha Pokharel

Zea E-Books Collection

A young steppe eagle and his mother fly to Nepal from Mongolia, where Griffy, a Himalayan griffon, chases the hungry Steppe from the feeding station, but Garuda, a white-rumped vulture, intervenes and becomes Steppe's friend. Steppe's mother is angered at first, but learns the lesson that each species has its role to play.

Designed by Breanna Epp with Maeve Lausch

Where Birds Chill: An Assessment Of The Habitat Preferences Of Birds Overwintering In Hudson Valley Forests, Elizabeth Claire Axley

Senior Projects Spring 2019

Many avian species overwinter in eastern North America; however, studies on bird populations are rarely undertaken during this critical survival time, and little is known as to their habitat preferences and foraging behavior. In this observational study, we performed a survey of birds overwintering in the Hudson Valley’s temperate, primarily-deciduous forests, assessing avian populations’ habitat preferences through the vegetative structural variables surrounding overwintering birds as they forage. Our results suggest that high canopy cover is critically important to predicting overwintering bird occupancy on a microhabitat scale. Moreover, overwintering birds preferentially occupy forest plots not dominated by sugar maples, in spite …

Stable Isotopes Reveal Opportunistic Foraging In A Spatiotemporally Heterogeneous Environment: Bird Assemblages In Mangrove Forests, Christina Buelow, April Reside, Ronald Baker, Marcus Sheaves

University Faculty and Staff Publications

Environmental heterogeneity can foster opportunistic foraging by mobile species, resulting in generalized resource and habitat use. Determining species’ food web roles is important to fully understand how ecosystems function, and stable isotopes can provide insight into the foraging ecology of bird assemblages. We investigated flexibility of food choice in mangrove bird assemblages of northeast Australia by determining whether species’ carbon and nitrogen isotopic values corresponded to foraging group classification described in the literature, such as groups of species that are omnivorous or insectivorous. Subsequently, we evaluated foraging group isotopic niche size, overlap, degree of individual specialization, and the probable proportions …

Development Of An Avian Index Of Biological Integrity For Kentucky Wetlands, Kaitlyn Kelly

Online Theses and Dissertations

Bird communities are frequently used as bioindicators to assess environmental conditions, including in wetland habitats. I developed an avian index of biological integrity (IBI) for wetlands of Kentucky as an intensive assessment method to supplement an existing rapid assessment method used in regulatory programs. Birds are useful indicators because they are sensitive to environmental changes, abundant in various landscapes, occupy higher trophic levels, and can be sampled in a cost-effective manner. Breeding bird point count data from 103 sites were used to calculate a set of 49 avian community metrics. Avian metrics were tested for correlation with independent landscape, hydrology …

The North American Quails, Partridges, And Pheasants, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

This book documents the biology of six species of New World quails that are native to North America north of Mexico (mountain, scaled, Gambel’s, California, and Montezuma quails, and the northern bobwhite), three introduced Old World partridges (chukar, Himalayan snowcock, and gray partridge), and the introduced common (ring-necked) pheasant. Collectively, quails, partridges, and pheasants range throughout all of the continental United States and the Canadian provinces. Two of the species, the northern bobwhite and ring-necked pheasant, are the most economically important of all North American upland game birds. All of the species are hunted extensively for sport and are highly …

The North American Geese: Their Biology And Behavior, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

The eight currently recognized species of North American geese are part of a familiar group of birds collectively called waterfowl, all of which are smaller than swans and generally larger than ducks. They include the most popular of our aquatic gamebirds, with several million shot each year by sport hunters. Our two most abundant waterfowl, the Canada goose and snow goose, have populations collectively totaling about 15 million individuals. Like swans, the lifelong pairbonding of geese, their familial care, and prolonged social attachment to their offspring are legendary. Their seasonal migratory flights sometimes span thousands of miles, and the sight …

The North American Grouse: Their Biology And Behavior, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

The ten currently recognized species of grouse in North America have played an important role in America’s history, from the famous but ill-fated heath hen, a primary source of meat for the earliest New England immigrants, to the ruffed grouse, currently one of the most abundant and soughtafter upland game birds in more than 40 states and provinces. This book summarizes the ecology, reproductive biology, and social behavior of all ten of the extant North American grouse species. It also describes the current status of grouse populations, some of which are perilously close to extinction. The social behavior of grouse …

At Home And At Large In The Great Plains: Essays And Memories, Paul A. Johnsgard

Zea E-Books Collection

This volume presents fourteen essays (some updated) that originally appeared in Prairie Fire, a monthly free newspaper that for seven years (as of 2015) has carried important messages of social, environmental, and economic issues in a mature and nonpartisan manner to tens of thousands of residents of Nebraska, western Iowa, eastern Colorado, and southern South Dakota, and by mail to subscribers in the rest of the world. These essays discuss the North American east-west ecological boundaries, spring migration events, birds at the bird feeder, feathered survivors of a glacial past, the threatened sharp-tailed grouse of Nebraska and South Dakota, and …

Brown-Headed Cowbird (Molothrus Ater) Range Expansion Into The Southeast: Effects On The Passerine Populations Using North American Breeding Bird Survey Data, Elizabeth Pruitt Henderson

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

North American Breeding Bird Survey data that were collected from 1971-1992 in Virginia, North Carolina, south Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama and Tennessee were used in this analysis of the impact of Brown-headed Cowbird range expansion on four warbler and four vireo host species.

Maps of mean cowbird abundances were produced using kriging for the periods 1971-1975, 1976-1980, 1981-1985, 1986-1990 and 1991-1992. These maps illustrated a complex invasion of the southeastern United States by Brown-headed Cowbird.

Linear regression analyses of host and cowbird abundances within physiographic strata, showed no species to be in decline or increasing in abundance over the entire …

Determinants Of Variation In Avian Mobbing Behavior, Charles Ray Chandler Jr.

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Using three combinations of two experimental stimuli, I initiated mobbing behavior in various species of birds. The objectives of this research were to test the effects of stimuli on mobbing, the predictions of the hypothesis that mobbing functions to drive a predator away, and the effect of other species and individuals on the mobbing behavior of a bird. Mobbing experiments were conducted in a variety of habitats and locations from January 1983 through February 1984.

Only 6.5% of all trials with the mount-only stimulus were successful in attracting birds. Tape-only and mount-and-tape stimuli were equally effective in attracting birds, but …

Muscongus Bay, Marine Wildlife Inventory And Evaluation, Alan E. Hutchinson, Sandra J. Lovett

Maine Collection

Muscongus Bay, Marine Wildlife Inventory and Evaluation

by Alan E. Hutchinson and Sandra J. Lovett

Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife

Augusta, Maine, February, 1984.

Contents: Preface / Acknowledgment / List of Tables / List of Figures / Introduction / Resource Inventory / Resource Evaluation / Resource Impact Assessment / Conclusions and Recommendations / References / Appendix