News Story

April 4, 2020
Ipswich sparrow on seed heads of American beach grass.

Ipswich Winter Ecology comes into Focus

By: Bryan Watts4/3/2020 There are few things in life more thrilling than solving a good mystery or finding the answers to long held questions.  For the […]
April 3, 2020
10-day-old Chuck-will’s-widow chicks on nest

U.S. Nightjar Survey Network prepares for 2020 Season

By: Laura Duval3/24/2020 As many of you read this, migrant birds, including our beloved nightjars, are on a taxing journey from their wintering grounds as far […]
April 2, 2020
Black Rail on marsh grass.

Rapid Assessment of Black Rails in South Florida

By Bryan Watts4/2/2020 In late February of this year, CCB dispatched a team of five biologists including Marie Pitts, Laura Duval, Chance Hines, Bart Paxton and […]
April 2, 2020
Christian Torres uses a dial caliper to measure the tarsus of a western sandpiper

Building Local Capacity in Panama

By Bryan Watts4/1/2020 For the fifth time in as many years, CCB biologists have traveled to Panama to train local biologists and volunteers on shorebird field […]
April 1, 2020
Social distancing is common within seabird colonies such as those of northern gannets

Social distancing in birds

By Bryan Watts 3/31/2020 One of many things that the Covid-19 pandemic will be remembered for is the introduction of the term “social distancing” to the […]
January 27, 2020
A sleepy, young male woodpecker ready to be placed in an artificial cavity after being translocated

Moving Woodpeckers 5

By Bryan Watts1/26/2020 Chance Hines and I arrived in cluster 13 of Piney Grove Preserve more than an hour before sunset.  We knew the roost cavity […]
January 23, 2020
Double-crested cormorant in the hand.

Counting Cormorants

By Bryan Watts 1/23/2020 The Center for Conservation Biology has joined forces with the North Carolina Wildlife Commission to estimate the number of cormorants that spend […]
January 23, 2020
Whimbrels and scores of other shorebirds that depend on mudflats along the northern coast of Brazil

Oil spill threatens shorebird Mecca

By Bryan Watts 1/22/2020 Since late August 2019 when the first large, black globs of crude oil began washing ashore along the coast of Brazil, the […]
January 21, 2020
Adult female peeks under a beam

Virginia peregrines produce big in 2019

By Bryan Watts 1/21/2020 By any standard 2019 was a good year for peregrine falcons in Virginia.  The breeding season was the most productive in the […]
September 30, 2019
Whimbrel AJK foraging near Santa Anna, Aruba.

Whimbrel AJK returns to Aruba

By Bryan Watts 9/30/19 Many North American residents flee their homes during the cold winter months to spend time in Aruba.  Due to its dry climate […]
September 30, 2019
David Whelan bands a young barn owl

Barn owl blues

By Bryan Watts 9/30/19 Few experiences take us back to the Halloweens of childhood like climbing up into a silo or hayloft at night and hearing […]
September 23, 2019
Group of red knots interspersed with spawning horseshoe crabs

CCB team spends fifth spring with red knots along South Atlantic Coast

By Bryan Watts 9/15/19 For the fifth spring season, Fletcher Smith led a field team working with red knots along the South Atlantic Coast.  The rufa […]
September 13, 2019

Hatching rates in Virginia red-cockaded woodpeckers

By Bryan Watts9/13/19 Woodpecker clutches are like a box of chocolates – you never know what you are going to get.  Some years are all hat […]
September 13, 2019

There are Still Wizards: A film

By Bryan Watts 9/11/19 Dolphin ecologist turned film maker Jennifer Lewis is making a new film titled “There are Still Wizards” (visit the film’s IFP site […]
July 11, 2019
Ipswich sparrow with color bands

Assateague and Sable Islands – Bookends to Ipswich conservation

By Bryan Watts | bdwatt@wm.edu | (757) 221-2247July 11, 2019 Sable Island, lying some 180 kilometers off the northeast coast of Nova Scotia, and Assateague Island, […]
July 9, 2019
Chance Hines uses a Pesola spring scale to weigh a nestling during the banding process.

Virginia woodpeckers have record year

By Bryan Watts | bdwatt@wm.edu | (757) 221-2247July 6, 2019 Red-cockaded woodpeckers in Virginia had a record-breaking breeding season in 2019, taking another step along their […]
July 9, 2019
The double-crested cormorant is one of the great winners over the past 25 years in Virginia

Waterbird winners and losers – results of the 2018 survey

By Bryan Watts | bdwatt@wm.edu | (757) 221-2247July 5, 2019 The Center for Conservation Biology has compiled the results of the 2018 colonial waterbird survey that […]
July 9, 2019
Civil War scene at Petersburg Battlefield showing scattered survivor trees.

Last of the survivor trees

By Bryan Watts | bdwatt@wm.edu | (757) 221-2247July 4, 2019 They were what remained following the devastating land clearing that ran up to and through the […]