To: Barbara Singer, President

Manatee County Audubon Society

Dear Barbara,

We are writing to announce our new website for reporting the resighting of flagged shorebirds and to enlist your help in recruiting new volunteers. Over the last 15 years scientists have been banding shorebirds to study epic hemispheric journeys of migratory shorebirds. In recent years, various species have been marked with leg flags bearing three-character codes (for example, ABC, A1C) allowing identification of individuals with spotting scopes. To date, New Jersey and Delaware Divisions of Fish and Wildlife and New Jersey Audubon Society have individually marked over 35,000 red knots, ruddy turnstones, sanderlings and semipalmated sandpipers with coded leg flags during spring migration stopovers in Delaware Bay. The above organizations, with financial support from Clear into the Future: a DuPont Delaware Estuary Initiative, and US Fish and Wildlife Service, developed a web-based relational database (www.bandedbirds.org) to improve reporting and management of resighting, especially data  from the bird watching public. 

Although researchers conduct regular resighting efforts for shorebirds, usually at key breeding, migratory and wintering locations, resightings by recreational birdwatchers can contribute significantly to this effort. More than 7000 resightings have been reported by birdwatchers since last May. Use of www.bandedbirds.org allows visitors to learn resighting techniques, easily report their resightings of uniquely marked birds and upload photos to share with other users. A major feature on the website is the “Map Your Resighting” page. After an easy, one-time registration, a reporter can see a map of an individual bird’s banding and resighting history, and view any photos that have been uploaded.

We are contacting you in the hope that you will agree to place a web link to www.bandedbirds.org on the Manatee County Audubon Society website. This will help us continue reaching out to interested birders and improve our ability to conserve shorebird populations.  If you have room to include a description of the website, please consider part or all of the following: 

Banding projects designed to study epic hemispheric journeys of migratory shorebirds have been underway since the mid 1990’s. In recent years, various species have been marked with leg flags bearing three-character codes (for example, ABC, A1C) allowing identification of individuals with spotting scopes. The combination of banding and resighting data allows greater understanding of the habitat uses and needs of shorebirds, many of which are imperiled. Your resightings count! Go to www.bandedbirds.org to learn resighting techniques, and then click on Report Resighting to enter your data. These reports are added directly to an active database maintained by a consortium of research groups. Obtain immediate feedback about the known journey of the specific bird(s) you have resighted. Whether yours is the first report or one of many for a single individual, each resighting contributes to our ability to conserve these species.   

If you have further questions about this project, please feel free to contact the database administrator, Jeannine Parvin, at bandedbirds@comcast.net. Thank you in advance for your assistance in this important program.

Sincerely,

David S. Mizrahi, Ph.D.                                                  Lawrence J. Niles, Ph.D.

Vice-president, Research and Monitoring                         Conserve Wildlife Foundation of NJ