This is from our good friend Wildlife Biologist Sandy Spencer !!
From: Spencer, Sandy
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2016 12:03 PM
To: Paul Service ; Maggie Gerdts ; NNAS
Subject: Fwd: [Va-bird] Public Participation Requested for 2016 Eagle Survey
Forwarding to you for circulation among interested members of your groups. You
are in bald eagle central!
Happy winter,
Sandy
🏇
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Wilson, Michael D <mdwils@xxxxxx>
Date: Wed, Feb 10, 2016 at 11:41 AM
Subject: [Va-bird] Public Participation Requested for 2016 Eagle Survey
To: "va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx" <va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
?Countdown begins for historic 2016 eagle survey - public participation is
requested:
Incubation is underway for many bald eagle pairs throughout the commonwealth
and in just over two weeks the 2016 Virginia Bald Eagle Survey will begin. 2016
represents the 60th year of the survey initiated by Jackson Abbott and
volunteers of the Virginia Society of Ornithology. In addition to this
incredible milestone, this survey represents the 40th year of Mitchell Byrd's
tenure and the 25th year of Bryan Watts' tenure conducting the survey. The
survey is expected to take 150 hours of flying, will cover more than 1,000
nests, and is planned to be a five-year update for many areas not covered since
the 2011 survey.
The Virginia Bald Eagle Survey is a national treasure. The survey has become
one of the most significant serial data sets in the world. More than population
information alone, the effort has produced a wealth of ecological information
on a population recovering within an increasingly human-dominated landscape. It
has become one of the best records of arguably the greatest conservation
accomplishment in our nation's history. Since 2009, results of the survey have
been made available on CCB's website via an interactive mapping portal
(http://www.ccbbirds.org/maps/) where users are able to view known nest
locations throughout the state. The web application receives more than 30,000
visits per year and has become a critical resource for land planners.
We are requesting your participation in this benchmark survey. The annual
aerial survey covers the Coastal Plain including the tidal reach of the
Chesapeake Bay, the Eastern Shore, and lower Tidewater. We rely on the eyes and
ears of the public to document the distribution of breeding eagles in other
areas of the state. If you know of eagle nests in your area, please visit the
Eagle Nest Locator (http://www.ccbbirds.org/maps/#eagles) in our mapping portal
to see if they are known to the survey. If not, please report your observations
to info@xxxxxxxxxxxx and contribute to this historic survey. For more
information, visit our Report a Nest page
(http://www.ccbbirds.org/what-we-do/research/species-of-concern/virginia-eagles/report-a-nest/).
The 2016 survey is being sponsored by the Virginia Department of
Transportation, the National Park Service, Dominion, the U.S. Department of
Defense, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the Army Corps of Engineers, and
The Center for Conservation Biology. We thank all of these organizations for
their commitment to eagle conservation in Virginia.?
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--
Sandy Spencer
Supervisory Wildlife Biologist
Patuxent Research Refuge
12100 Beech Forest Road, Gabrielson 138
Laurel, MD 20708-4036
Office: 301/497-5587
Cell: 240/882-1077
Fax: 301/497-5577
"Be grateful. You are not your thoughts. You are the thinker of them. So
where are you? You reside in a quiet, still space between your thoughts. That
is you." Deepak Chopra