Just in time for fall migration, all five Motus receiver stations on the Perch River, Upper and Lower Lakes, Three Rivers, Rome, and Lake Shore Marshes Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are up and running.
In August and September, the Northeast Motus Collaboration worked with DEC to install the stations, which join a growing network of Motus receiver stations that will help researchers better understand bird, bat, and insect movements and migration by remotely tracking tagged individuals as they move across the landscape. [Read more…] about Motus Wildlife Tracking Stations Installed in Wildlife Management Areas
In 1854, Samuel H. Hammond, a prominent attorney, newspaper writer and editor, State Senator and sportsman, wrote in 
Plenty of backyard birdwatchers consider blue jays (Cyanocitta cristata) the villains of the 
Whirlwinds of feathered bodies, iridescent beetle-blue on top and snowy below, are touching down all along the eastern seaboard. Flocks move in a loose collection of tumbles and dives, sweeping across fields and swamps. They pepper the sky, often collecting over bodies of water to skim for insects and catch a drink. As the sun sets, the scattered birds pull together, gathering like a slow-building storm. 
According to a press release issued by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, on August 24th, ECO Davey received a report of an injured Great Egret on Ooms Pond in the town of Chatham. The egret reportedly had a severely broken leg tangled in discarded fishing line. 
As many birds prepare to abandon their summer ranges at this time of year, others are altering their routine to allow them to better survive winter. The regular appearance of numerous, year-round avian residents around homes and camps suggests that the behaviors of these hardy species do not change from one season to another. 
This has always been my perception of bird migration in the fall: the days grow short and cool and then, one day, I notice a v-shaped caravan of Canada geese flying southward. Then another and another. Within a few weeks of that first sighting, I hear their melancholy call one final time for the season. Then they, and all the summer birds, are gone.
This time of year is when the foliage begins to turn and when 
The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is advising waterfowl hunters that hours and sign-in procedures have changed at two Region 6 wildlife management areas (WMAs) to minimize the potential spread of COVID-19.