Many birds migrate to warmer locations with more food options, they must endure long, often perilous migrations and increased competition. Some familiar feeder visitors like Black-capped Chickadees remain in northern latitudes year-round. Birds that stay north when the snow flies face 2 daily dilemmas – don’t freeze, and don’t starve. Most birds follow a simple winter survival formula: Maximize the calories of foods eaten while minimizing calories spent finding food, sheltering, and keeping from freezing in cold and even ultra-cold weather.

Small birds maintain an elevated body temperature to stay active – generally about 105°F – compared to birders who live in the north, with our 98.6°F body temperatures. Finding enough food is likewise paramount when most food supplies become greatly reduced during winter weather, just when food is required most to fuel their body and keep it warm.

Cold Feet

Black-capped Chickadees, like most birds that spend the calendar year in northern latitudes, contend with the winter with bare uninsulated legs and feet. Yet their toes remain flexible and functional at all temperatures; whereas our feet, if that small, would freeze into blocks of ice in seconds.

How do they do this? Read more

Wildlife managers have long used water, especially in the arid Southwest, as a tool to help support healthy animal populations. What began as a handful of managed water sites for quail and mule deer around 1940 blossomed into some 6,000 sites intended to increase populations and benefit overall health for dozens of mostly game species in 10 western states by the close of the 20th century. Provisional water – contained in troughs, large tires, basins, open tanks and dammed up pools – is now used to support a vast range of wildlife management and species conservation work, from increasing mule deer and other game populations to recovery efforts for endangered Sonoran pronghorn and desert bighorn sheep.

A new study, however, reveals that in some cases, use of the common wildlife management tool can be fine-tuned to optimize benefits for targeted species by reducing risk from predators that are likewise drawn to the same water sources. Published in PLOS One, the Public Library of Science’s peer-reviewed open-access scientific journal, the research represents significant implications for other like-minded wildlife management efforts.

Conducted by biologists from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Department of Defense and others, the study examined when endangered desert bighorn sheep, as well as deer, puma and coyote visit managed water sources (drinkers) in three distinct Southwestern desert ecosystems.

“Desert bighorn sheep visit water when it’s hot and dry,” says Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Grant Harris. “Mountain lions visit water year-round. Take home: Provide water only when bighorn sheep are likely to visit, which could reduce mountain lion range expansion and predation on sheep.”

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For six-and-a-half years, from July 2009 through December 2016, Harris and fellow researchers analyzed imagery from remote cameras set up at 105 drinkers throughout the Chihuahuan, Sonoran and Mojave deserts. By calculating the mean proportion of visits to water catchments per month for each site, the team was able to hone in on exactly when desert bighorn sheep, mule deer, coyote and mountain lions visited the sites.

The research revealed that in the Chihuahuan Desert, 70 percent of all desert bighorn sheep visits occurred from April through August; In the Sonoran, 85 percent of sheep visits occurred during May through August; And in the Mojave, 83 percent of sheep visits occurred from May through September. Read more

This season’s BirdSpotter contest is celebrating teachers and students who attract birds with feeders and bird baths outside their classroom windows as an impetus to learn about birds. While many schools are operating remotely this year, some students are homeschooled outside the public and private school systems with students involved in most of their education activities at home. Whether schooling remotely or homeschooling, in both cases, students are spending more time at home, and many have welcomed Project FeederWatch as part of their studies – as curriculum or extra-curricular activities. Read more

Bozeman, Montana. December 28, 2020. Today, wild sheep advocates are celebrating a successful trap and transfer and the establishment of a new bighorn population in Montana’s Little Belt Mountains, which occurred this past Tuesday and Wednesday.

The Wild Sheep Foundation (WSF), Montana WSF (its state chapter), domestic sheep producers, and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks have been working for the past several years to reintroduce bighorn sheep into new suitable habitats. Recently, fifty bighorn sheep we helicopter captured in HD482, south of the Missouri Breaks, and safely released into the Little Belts.

“In the year of Covid, wild sheep conservation doesn’t stop – nor does WSF, and now we all have something to celebrate,” said Gray N. Thornton, President, and CEO, Wild Sheep Foundation. “WSF is proud to work hand in hand with Montana Fish Wildlife and Parks, Montana Wild Sheep Foundation, Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s Outdoor Fund, and many other partners to restore bighorn sheep to an area where they have been absent since the early 20th century.

This effort showcases WSF’s successes in partnering with agencies, industry, and chapter and affiliates to help restore and manage wild sheep and other wildlife throughout the world. It is how we put and keep wild sheep on the mountain.” Read more

(Kaunakakai, Moloka‘i) – Surveys and investigations by the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW) staff suggest that recent instances of deer dying on Moloka‘i are due to severe drought conditions. DOFAW began receiving reports earlier this month of deer being found both on roadways and on private lands in West Moloka‘i.

Staff have conducted surveys and investigations to determine the causes of death. At this time, the animals appear to be dying of starvation due to the extreme drought that the island experienced over the summer. On Dec. 28, a visit by a veterinarian from the Hawai‘i Dept. of Agriculture (DOA), Division of Animal Industry, confirmed DOFAW staff observations. Read more