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Ornithology Commons

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Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

2018

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Ornithology

Prevalent Transoceanic Fall Migration By A 30-Gram Songbird, The Bobolink, Noah G. Perlut Aug 2018

Prevalent Transoceanic Fall Migration By A 30-Gram Songbird, The Bobolink, Noah G. Perlut

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Three North American passerines are known to perform transoceanic flights during their fall migration, with open-water flights ranging in length from 1,700 to 3,400 km. However, little is known about within-population variation of these flights. From 2013 to 2017, I used geolocators to study variation in the fall migratory track of the Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) from a population that bred in agricultural grasslands of Vermont, USA. Thirteen of seventeen birds took transoceanic flights during fall migration, ranging in length from 1,098 to 3,536 km (mean ± SD = 1,969 ± 640); five of these flights were nonstop from …


Age-Specific Differences In Fat Reserves And Migratory Passage Of Setophaga Striata (Blackpoll Warbler), Emily N. Filiberti, Noah G. Perlut Aug 2018

Age-Specific Differences In Fat Reserves And Migratory Passage Of Setophaga Striata (Blackpoll Warbler), Emily N. Filiberti, Noah G. Perlut

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Adequate fat reserves are vital for long non-stop transatlantic avian-migration movements, such as those made by Setophaga striata (Blackpoll Warbler). Over a 5-y period, we studied differences in preparedness (determined by presence of fat content and arrival time at stopover locations) between hatch-year (HY) and after hatch-year (AHY) Blackpoll Warblers at 3 stopover sites (Hancock and York counties in Maine, and Plymouth County in Massachusetts) covering 2.65° latitude along the Gulf of Maine. Migration timing varied across a latitudinal gradient and between age classes. In September, AHY Blackpoll Warblers were more abundant in the northern and central counties, but HY …


Haemosporidian Parasite Community In Migrating Bobolinks On The Galapagos Islands, Noah G. Perlut, Patricia G. Parker, Rosalind B. Renfrew, Maricruz Jaramillo Aug 2018

Haemosporidian Parasite Community In Migrating Bobolinks On The Galapagos Islands, Noah G. Perlut, Patricia G. Parker, Rosalind B. Renfrew, Maricruz Jaramillo

Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Bobolinks (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) migrate from their breeding grounds in North America to their wintering grounds in South America during the fall each year. A small number of Bobolinks stop temporarily in Galapagos, and potentially carry parasites. On the North American breeding grounds, Bobolinks carry a least two of the four Plasmodium lineages recently detected in resident Galapagos birds. We hypothesized that Bobolinks carried these parasites to Galapagos, where they were bitten by mosquitoes that then transmitted the parasites to resident birds. The haemosporidian parasite community in 44% of the Bobolinks we captured was consistent with those on their …