♪Music♪
NARRATOR: It's windy spring day Texas coast,
and biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and US Geological Survey are out to capture some birds.
The Buff-Breasted Sandpiper winters in Uruguay and Argentina
and migrates through the mid-continent along
the Texas coast and Nebraska.
i
result we have a western hemisphere team
on this project.
While the Buff-breasted Sandpiper may not be a well-known bird,
they have a reputation of being both beautiful and unique.
This is a really cool bird because it almost acts like, most people would be familiar with,
a prairie chicken or sage grouse,
because the males will display
and they will do this wonderful courtship display
to attract females.
So, it's just a really interesting shorebird.
Here's the bird....buff- breasted sandpiper.
Beautiful bird getting her breeding plumage.
Based on the dots on the wing, it's probably....
...a female I guess. But We'll have Rick, who's the expert on that, tell us.
They're a very unique bird. But they're part of this whole suite of species
that uses this whole migration route from South America through
Central American up to North America where they breed.
And there's just a whole suite of species that do that
and this bird is pretty unique in that it uses very distinct habitats
in that range, so, are really, um,
impacted.
NARRATOR: Seeing exactly where birds go on their migration
and how long they stay at stopover sites
is what researchers with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
and U.S. Geological Survey want to understand.
LEE: Right now we are putting some very small transmitters on these Buff-Breasted Sandpipers
so we can track them as them as they move North here from Texas
all the way to their arctic breeding area.
NARRATOR: Knowing where Buff-breasted Sandpipers stop along their migration,
and how long they stay,
and the habitats they prefer
help biologists plan for future conservation efforts.
RICK: And the hope is that
we put these tags out,
the birds migrate,
after they recover the, or get the thirty locations,
we send that data back to the folks in Texas
or the people in Nebraska or Kansas, and
we say here is the GPS locations
of where those birds were
when they migrated through,
can you go to that place
and see what it is.
In addition to learning about migration stop-over sites,
timing and other patterns,
researchers are hoping to come up with a new population estimate
r
that's spread across the landscape in low numbers, spec
it presents some challenges
and one of the big things that we're out here for is to get an accurate population estimate,
which has been difficult to do.
NARRATOR: To determine an accurate population estimate,
the project biologists and volunteers are employing a three prong approach.
KELLI: We're doing standardized surveys,
we're surveying turf farms or sod farms where we think most of the birds may be
along the Texas coast,
and we're also putting GPS units on birds.
So those three pieces of data we're hoping
will come together to help us come up with a protocol
on how to get an accurate,
or fairly accurate, population estimate.
NARRATOR: Having an accurate population estimate
and knowing what types of habitats Buff-breasted Sandpipers need
will help the Service target conservation actions and dollars
in areas likely to achieve the most success.
RICK: We call them species of conservation concern.
And, generally, the goal of the Fish and Wildlife Service
is to make sure those species don't become so rare that we have to list them.
We want to learn what's going on so we can change
habits of one sort or another.
NARRATOR: Of course, none of this work would be possible
without the help of partners.
KELLI: So the Buff-breasted Sandpiper is a species that depends on portions of the western hemisphere
to meet its life cycle needs.
And so as a result, we have a team of
partners all the way from the Arctic down to Argentina.
Fish and Wildlife Service is involved at three different regions,
several states are involved, Texas Parks and Wildlife,
University of Nebraska at Omaha,
several bird observatories here along the Gulf Coast,
Gulf Coast Joint Venture,
and National Audubon,
so, as well as some amazing volunteers.
NARRATOR: One thing is clear as you talk to people involved in the project:
Buff-breasted Sandpipers are a species worth studying,
worth admiring,
and worth saving.
KELLI: Future generations should be able to see a buff-breasted sandpiper.
It's a really neat species. And they're doing
like a lot of other long distance shorebirds,
they're migrating all the way from
South America, they'll stop once,
feed for a couple of days, we think, up to seven, we're not really sure,
potentially even double their body weight,
and then take another giant leap to the Arctic.
It's just a fantastic species.