The British Ornithologists’ Union (BOU) will hold a Scientific Meeting in Peterborough, UK on the subject Advances in avian tracking and remote sensing: methods and applications on 12 October 2016.

“Recent technological advances have revolutionised our ability to follow the movements of birds, particularly smaller species, across all spatial scales.  The burgeoning use of tracking devices has seen increases not only in the range of species tracked, particularly for migratory movements, but also wider integration with behavioural and movement ecology and other fields.

Building on the success of the 2015 BOU Avian Tracking conference, this one-day conference will specifically focus on new avenues for ornithological research opened by the latest technologies and developments and consider the consequent prospects for research and conservation.”

Grey Petrel on Marion Island, photograph by Peter Ryan

The conference aims to:

highlight the most recent and forthcoming advances in avian tracking systems and methods,
discuss their applications for the study of avian biology, across all taxonomic groups,
examine new research questions that these advances present across numerous disciplines, and
consider new developments in the storage, sharing and analysis of tracking data and how these can benefit research and conservation.

The Conference programme will be available from 1 April 2016; bookings open 1 July 2016.

Read more here.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 21 January 2016

Registration is now open for the Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research (SCAR) 2016 Open Science Conference.  The conference will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia over 22-26 August 2016.  Its focus is on Antarctica in the Global Earth System: from the Poles to the Tropics and how the changes that we are currently seeing in Antarctica will affect the rest of the world.

Early bird registration is available at a reduced rate until 5 May.

Read about sessions of relevance to the Albatross and Petrel Agreement here.

Abstracts are due by 14 February and early submission is encouraged.  The conference programme, including sessions and descriptions, is available on the conference website.

Light-mantled Sooty Albatrosses in Antarctic waters, photograph by John Chardine 

The SCAR Conference is sponsored by the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, Malaysia together with the Sultan Mizan Antarctic Research Foundation and the National Antarctic Research Centre, together with SCAR.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 20 January 2016

An international workshop on Marine Important Bird Areas in Malta and the Mediterranean was held in November last year. The meeting was organized by the LIFE+Malta Seabird Project and BirdLife International and held in Gozo, Malta (click here).

A report on the workshop and a list of presentations made is now available.

A presentation made at the meeting by Thierry Micol and Bernard Deceuninck (LPO, France) discussed progress, including forming an international working group, towards a Species Action Plan (SAP) for the Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan, a seabird endemic to the Mediterranean and Black Seas.  It is intended to hold a workshop in France this year, from which an SAP will be produced by 2017.

Yelkouan Shearwater

The Yelkouan Shearwater has been identified by ACAP’s Advisory Committee as a potential candidate for listing within the Agreement.  The closely-related Balearic Shearwater P. mauretanicus, endemic to the Mediterranean, is an ACAP-listed species.

Reference:

Micol, T. & Deceuninck, B. 2016.  LIFE Euro SAP Yelkouan Shearwater Puffinus yelkouan.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 19 January 2016

Short-tailed Albatrosses Phoebastria albatrus have successfully hatched an egg for the first time on the island of Mukojima in the Ogasawara Islands.  Researchers discovered the chick when they visited the island on 9 January this year.  It appeared to have hatched out five to 10 days earlier (click here).

Mukojima's first Short-tailed Albatross chick gets some attention, photograph by the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology

Two previous breeding attempts on the island, it appears by the same pair, have failed due to the eggs laid being infertile.

There are two main breeding localities for Short-tailed Albatrosses: the volcanic island of Torishima in the Japanese Izu Islands, where there are a total of around 3900 birds, as well as around 200 birds in the disputed Senkaku Islands.  The Japanese Environment Ministry anlong with the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology moved 70 chicks from Torishima to Mukojima for hand rearing until fledging over the five-year period 2007-2011.  Around 10 of these translocated birds on Mukojima have returned after fledging, raising hopes they would commence to breed on the island.  The parents of the 2016 chick are a translocated male from the 2008 translocated cohort and a female that is believed to have fledged from the Senkaku Islands.

"If more than 10 pairs of the birds can successfully hatch an egg, we will be able to regard (Mukojima) as a stable breeding location," commented Kiyoaki Ozaki, who works with the Yamashina Institute for Ornithology.

A single pair (of which the female was translocated to Mukojima in 2009) had bred on nearby Nakodojima Island in the last two years (click here).

View a video clip of the Mukojima hatchling.

John Cooper, ACAP Information Officer, 18 January 2016