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May 2012

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From:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Bill Whan <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Thu, 31 May 2012 11:13:30 -0400
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Shorebird numbers and variety have been not been great statewide this 
spring, though there have been some hot spots. Here is an inspirational 
story from the folks who study red knots, courtesy of Lucy Miller of 
Florida's The Nature Conservancy...

May 29, 2012, 4:19 pm
A Red-Knot Celebrity Is Back in Town
By GLENN SWAIN <http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/author/glenn-swain/>

On Monday morning, Patricia M. Gonzalez, an Argentine biologist, was 
standing on the balcony of a house in Reeds Beach, N.J., peering through 
a telescope at shorebirds. She spotted a bird with an orange band around 
its leg, possibly suggesting that it had been tagged in South America.
        It was then that she realized that B95 
<http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/regions/northamerica/canada/b95-the-toughest-four-ounces-of-life.xml?s_intc=tab1p2>, 
a legendary red knot 
<http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/red_knot/lifehistory>, was walking 
across the sand in front of her. "My hands were shaking and my heart was 
beating fast," said Dr. Gonzalez, who works for the Global Flyway 
Network and the Fundación Inalafquen in Rio Negro, Argentina, and is 
collaborating with a local conservation group in Delaware Bay.
She rushed for her camera and pressed it against the telescope lens, 
snapping 10 photos in the hope that at least one would capture B95. One 
shot showed it skittering across the sand.
        For Ms. Gonzalez, it brought back memories from February 1995, when she 
first placed the orange band on the bird in Rio Grande, Argentina. At 
the time research had recently begun on the plight of the red knot, 
whose survival was threatened by the harvesting of the fatty horseshoe 
crab eggs around Delaware Bay. Every May the red knot makes a crucial 
refueling stop, feasting on the eggs around the bay, on its 9,300-mile 
migration route from Tierra del Fuego in Argentina to the Canadian Arctic.
        Dr. Gonzalez last saw B95 in December when she was in Argentina, where 
it was easier to spot because there are fewer red knots there and 
because they like to return to the same wintering areas. The last time 
she saw it in the United States was in May 2009 at Moores Beach on 
Delaware Bay.
        B95 has become somewhat of a celebrity bird. Thought to be at least 19, 
it is assumed to be the oldest rufa red knot on record. The writer and 
conservationist Phillip Hoose <http://philliphoose.wordpress.com/>, who 
has monitored the bird's movements for three years, wrote a book about 
it titled "Moonbird: On the Wind with the Great Survivor 
B95,"<http://philliphoose.wordpress.com/books/%E2%80%A2-moonbird/> which 
is due in July.
        "I was looking for a single individual creature to illustrate the 
tragedy of extinction," Hoose said. "B95 allowed me to celebrate the 
entire life form by celebrating an individual. He is the most inspiring 
creature I know of."
        Given its estimated age and migration cycle, B95 is thought to have 
flown more than 350,000 miles, about the average distance from the Earth 
to the moon.
        Charles D. 
Duncan<http://www.manomet.org/about/people/staff-members/charles-duncan>, director 
of the Manomet Center for Conservation Sciences' Shorebird Recovery 
Project<http://www.manomet.org/program/shorebird-conservation>, said 
that the resightings of B95 were important because the bird "has come to 
be an inspiration and symbol of hope for the recovery of his kind and 
the coastlines they depend on."
On Tuesday, Dr. Gonzalez was on the lookout for B95, through trying to 
keep her excitement in check as she worked on her broader observations. 
"As researchers we must remain objective, but researchers have emotions, 
too," she said.
Bill Whan
Columbus

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