Our next meeting will be Monday, October 15 7PM at the Caspar Community Center 15051 Caspar Rd, Caspar, CA 95420.

Our speakers will be Daniel Poleschook, Jr. and Ginger Poleschook on Status and Conservation of Common Loons in Washington

Common Loons are a charismatic species of high intrigue to many people. Like so many other birds, their reproductive success is challenged by many factors, some being natural, while many others are from anthropogenic sources. Common Loons have had their breeding range retracted from northern California to northern Washington in the previous 50 years. The location of the small population of nesting Common Loons in northeast Washington is the area where we have studied the reproductive stressors for the species at the present southwestern edge of their breeding range in North America. What subsequently turned into a large-scale conservation effort for Common Loons in northern Washington began for us as a photographic quest in 1996. Migration of Common Loons to and from our study area is a special interest of the species, as the optimum modeling of conservation efforts for the species needs to consider the inclusion of breeding, wintering and migration regions. Knowledge of migrations of Common Loons that breed in northeast Washington has recently been enhanced by observations made of a juvenile Common Loon we assisted with banding at Swan Lake, WA on July 19, 2016 that was sighted by MCAS member Becky Bowen along the Pacific coastline at Ft. Bragg, CA on June 30, 2017.

Daniel Poleschook, Jr. and Ginger Poleschook are a team that has been studying Common Loons in Washington for more than two decades. In addition to their Common Loon work, they photograph other waterbird species and provide their images to scientific journals and book publications. They have previously presented their work over 40 times to nearly all of the Audubon Societies and other conservation groups in the Pacific Northwest and in other regions.

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