THIS MEETING IS CANCELED
Host:
Anne Arundel Bird Club
Contact: Pamela Kellett at 443-534-6938 or coordinator@marylandbirds.org
Description:
“The Amazing Sora and Advances in Motus Tracking” with Greg Kearns. Greg Kearns began studying the Sora rail in 1987 and has banded more than 5,000 rails as of 2019. At their peak in 1998, they banded 1,300 rails; by the year 2000, only 100. This research linked the decline of the rails to the vanishing stands of wild rice (95% decline) observed during the same period. A grant-funded study that turned into a full-scale restoration effort once the culprit was discovered—resident Canada Geese, whose population was increasing 15-20% per year during the 1990s, were grazing the wild rice. Greg coordinated a goose management plan that included the physical installation of four miles of fencing to keep geese out of wild rice plots. With the additional planting of seeds and rice plants, there has been a dramatic recovery. Today the wild rice has recovered beyond the acreage there was 30 years ago.
Now, 20 years later, Greg revived the Sora telemetry migration research with a new system called Motus, meaning “movement” in Latin. Motus is a large network of automated tracking stations all over eastern North America and beyond to detect birds with a digitally coded transmitter. Work was also done using DNA from blood samples to try and develop a method to sex the birds accurately. Greg will share his discoveries so far in the latest three seasons of field work and where it might go.
About Greg: Greg Kearns, a MNCPPC naturalist for over 35 years at Patuxent River Park in Upper Marlboro Md., is an accomplished photographer, expert birder, and a renowned authority on the Sora Rail (Porzana carolina) and wetland ecology at Jug Bay. He was named conservationist of the year by the Md. Dept. of Natural Resources in 2006 for this work and for restoration of the wild rice marshes on the river, which has been recognized as one of the best wetland restorations in Md. He also received the Jug Bay Award for significant contributions to the environment on the Patuxent and recently was awarded the 2017 National Wetlands Restoration and Conservation award from the Environmental Law Institute In Washington, DC. Jug Bay is a component of Maryland’s Chesapeake Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (CBNERR). Greg’s interest in the secret life of Soras led to ground-breaking research that found answers to migration questions through improved trapping techniques, developing some of the earliest digital sound lures for bird research, and using radio telemetry.
