Category: Blog
all posts except for those exclusive to other sections (e.g., Book Reviews) should be tagged with the blog category
AFO news | Flocks Project moving forward
The Flocks Team attended American Ornithological Society’s (AOS’s) 2024 Annual Meeting in Estes Park (for more information about the Flocks project, you can read this press release) to meet with ornithologists interested in founding affinity groups. An affinity group—what we are calling Flocks—is a network or community established around a shared identity, topic, or interest. At AOS 2024 our team also […] Read More
Ornithological Council bimonthly news brief: Sep-Oct 2024
The Ornithological Council’s mission is to: Over the last two months, Ornithological Council staff: 1. Met with the APHIS staff, including representatives of the Animal Products Import and Export Program, to discuss recent research on the viability of avian influenza and Newcastle Disease viruses on dried ornithological specimens and its impact on USDA treatment methods for […] Read More
AFO grants & awards | Presenting the 2024 recipients of our largest grant, the Skutch Keystone Grant
|The Association of Field Ornithologists has a fellowship program aimed at supporting field researchers at all stages of their careers, including non-professional ornithologists. The Skutch Keystone Grant is the largest grant within this program. Every year we award one or two of up to $15,000 to research projects that study the life histories (especially social […] Read More
AFO grants & awards | Meet the 2024 Skutch Research Grants recipients!
We are proud to present the winners of the 2024 Skutch Research Grants! The Association of Field Ornithologists has a fellowship program aimed at supporting field researchers at all stages of their careers, including non-professional ornithologists. Formerly the Bergstrom Grants for Latin America (a mid-year round of the Bergstrom Grants), the Skutch Research Grants are […] Read More
Journal of Field Ornithology | Translation volunteers
In an effort to make our Journal of Field Ornithology more inclusive, the abstracts of all published articles are presented in English and Spanish. At the end of 2023, we noticed we needed some extra help with the translation of the abstracts, so we put out a call for volunteers to translate. 33 people from […] Read More
Guest feature | A canopy net for Cameroon’s rainforest hornbills
Fruit-eating birds of tropical canopies are often large, garish, and loud, but just out of reach for ornithologists. In 1993, my advisor, Dr. Tom Smith, trekked through the rainforests of southern Cameroon with Baka and Badwe’e forest guides hoping to learn more about the movement patterns and diet of hornbills—large, fruit-eating birds thought to be keystone seed dispersers of Central African rainforests. Read More
Guest feature | Bird Banding in central Argentina: the first effort to establish aging criteria using molt patterns and plumages
Scientific bird banding has been paramount for the development of ornithological research. In North America and Europe, the implementation of this standardized methodology in longstanding monitoring efforts (constant-effort bird banding stations) has provided deep insights into basic life-history aspects of bird species. In contrast, the southern region of the Neotropics historically lacked such efforts. This has delayed... Read More
Ornithological Council bimonthly news brief: Jul-Aug 2024
The Ornithological Council is pleased to provide this bimonthly report covering activities in July and August 2024. Over the last two months, Ornithological Council staff: 1. Met with the Chief of the USGS Bird Banding Lab, in a quarterly meeting to discuss issues of mutual interest. 2. Met with USFWS Migratory Birds Program Headquarters Liaison to Regional Migratory Bird Permit Offices, to discuss current permitting issues. 3. Continued work on a template field study policy for IACUCs to adopt. In response to many inquiries ... Read More
