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Bou Annual Conference 2015: Avian Tracking and Remote Sensing

The 2015 British Ornithologists’ Union annual conference focused on avian tracking and remote sensing. These techniques have revolutionised our study of the movement that underpins much of avian ecology, including foraging, habitat choice and migration. As a great deal of bird behaviour cannot be directly observed, ornithology has substantially benefited from this technology. Susanne Åkesson’s1 keynote illustrated how tracking can transform the study of species that are difficult to observe. With 54,000 Common Swifts ringed in Sweden leading to only one recovery south of the Sahara, the movements of the world’s fastest flapping flier were virtually unknown. Geolocators revealed that Common Swifts track ‘the green wave’ in vegetation to winter in sub-Saharan Africa and travel 50% farther to avoid crossing the Sahara. The conference showcased a huge diversity of applications, with presentations covering the following themes: long-distance movements, foraging strategies, competition, population dynamics, individual variation, responses to environmental change, and conservation. This report briefly overviews the trends arising from the oral presentations in the rapidly growing field of movement ecology. Bio-logging pioneer Rory Wilson2 gave an illuminating plenary on the development of avian tracking. He began with the first simple capillary tube that measured only a single data point, the maximum dive depth of an African Penguin. Since then the precision and resolution of loggers have dramatically improved. Using high-resolution GPS loggers (1 Hz), Jesús Pliego3 observed that Lesser Kestrel foraging trips differ with weather when they choose slow thermals over fast flapping flight to harness solar energy, despite not being typically adapted for soaring. High precision GPS (3 m) allowed Nathalie Gilbert4, in talk that won the student prize, to show that 90% of White Storks wintering in Portugal depend on landfills that will close by 2018 due to EU directives. Tags are also becoming ever smaller; Amy Hinks5 deployed tiny radio tags on Great Tits, revealing that they require smaller home ranges if they synchronise breeding with oak tree bud burst. These talks showed how technological advances have driven the fast growing field of avian movement. Many of the latest loggers can measure multiple variables at once. Andrea Flack6 used GPS and altimeters to investigate social migration in storks, showing that juveniles stick together by matching their nearest neighbours. Also using GPS and altimeters, Viola Ross-Smith7 revealed that Lesser Black-backed Gulls fly at wind turbine height 30% of the time; recording flight height is key to modelling collision risk as previous boat-based estimates are highly inaccurate. Using GPS and accelerometers, Roi Harel8 discovered that Griffon Vulture soaring flight performance improves with experience as they learn to exploit thermals efficiently. Rory Wilson2 explained how it is possible to track penguin beak movements to capture the moment of predation, and measure stomach temperature to record exactly when a fish is eaten. With their large size and long-distance movements, research on seabirds drove the early development of bio-logging and still plays a major role, particularly for foraging ecology. Norman Ratcliffe9 presented Annette Scheffer’s9 talk, revealing that South Georgia’s Macaroni Penguins increase their foraging trip length from 68 km in early chick-rearing to a staggering 630 km during fledging. Ana Carneiro10 compared Bird Island Brown Skuas, which have uniform foraging trip lengths over the breeding season, to King George Island Skuas, which increase trip length as their chicks grow. Steffen Oppel11 found that Masked Boobies from the larger of two colonies foraged further afield, suggesting that protected area planning should consider colony size. Seabirds were well-represented at BOU 2015, featuring in many posters and half of the oral presentations. Foraging specialisation was a recurring theme at BOU 2015. Richard Phillips’9 keynote showcased a range of seabird tracking studies and how foraging trip repeatability can differ between individuals, seasons, ages, sexes, colonies and species. José Manuel Reyes-González12 found that Cory’s Shearwaters consistently forage at dynamic oceanographic features rather than specific locations. Ewan Wakefield13 revealed that Northern Gannets show individual foraging site fidelity within and between breeding seasons, hypothesising that gannets explore and learn as juveniles. Maria Dias14 explained how foraging site fidelity is key to marine protected area design, such as Blackbrowed Albatrosses being consistent within but not between years. As multi-year data sets are rare, Maria encouraged seabird scientists to combine efforts by uploading their data to www. seabirdtracking.org. BOU ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2015: AVIAN TRACKING AND REMOTE SENSING Bethany Clark