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Frank
retired in 2016 and the Migratory Bird Research
Group has dispersed over the years, yet this
website continues to provide information about
the work of the group, notably the ecology,
behavior and ecophysiology of migratory
songbirds during passage.
My
students, collaborators and I integrated field
and laboratory approaches to study the response
of migrants to challenges that can arise during
stopover and how events during passage are
interconnected with other phases of the annual
cycle. Why migrating birds stopover determines
in large measure what they do during stopover: A
migrant may be low on fuel stores, off course
and find it easier to correct and reorient while
on the ground, fatigued and in need of rest and
sleep after flying long hours or against
unfavorable winds, experiencing or anticipating
inclement weather, out of nighttime as a
nocturnal migrant, or maybe the endogenous time
– direction program simply dictates a pause en
route to destination.
Our first long
term study site was established in the
mid-1980s at Peveto Woods and later moved to
Johnsons Bayou, both part of a chenier
(coastal woodland) in Cameron Parish,
Louisiana. We did so with the help of my
doctoral mentor, Sidney Gauthreaux, Jr, and
the Baton Rouge Audubon Society. Radar
ornithology studies later confirmed what
birders knew for years, namely that southwest
Louisiana consistently experiences some of the
highest density of spring migration along the
northern coast of the Gulf of Mexico. It was
in Peveto Woods that I experienced my first
"fallout" of trans-gulf migrants. A short time
later, we established another long term
migration station on Ft. Morgan Peninsula, AL
(1990 – 2015). Over the years, we studied bird
migration at sites across North America as
well as Sweden, Italy and Honduras.
Last modified: 01 April 2019
Questions and Comments?
URL: http://sites.usm.edu/migratory-bird-research/index.html
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