DoD Partners in Flight

12/31/2024

As a follow-up to our highly successful 2024 DoD Birding Challenge (stay tuned for results), DoD PIF is hosting the 2025 DoD Birding Challenge!

What: A friendly birding competition with monthly challenges

Who: Any current or retired DoD employee or contractor

Why: DoD PIF believes that birding and bird watching promotes positive mental health. This event also assists with professional development of sight and sound bird identification skills. While not at all the singular objective, we also believe some participants will be spirited by some level of competitiveness to identify the greatest number of species for the year.

It’s never too late to sign up. If you or anyone you know is interested in participating, please send an email to [email protected]

Happy new year!

11/14/2024

Thanks to Nate Swick, and ABA, for the opportunity to talk birds, DoD Partners in Flight, and protecting the military testing and training missions through proactive conservation work on military lands. Also big thanks is to Navy's Todd Wills for helping to setup the opportunity!

Podcast Episode · The American Birding Podcast · 11/14/2024 · 37m

10/19/2024

Congratulations to Scott Somershoe on an outstanding award for his focused work on declining migratory landbirds, including direct support to DoD Partners in Flight. Scott's work with Pinyon Jays is leading the way for the conservation and recovery of a species of significant importance to DoD

Scott Somershoe, MS alumnus, is the recipient of the 2024 U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service 2024 Migratory Bird Leadership Award! Scott is the Landbird Coordinator for the Mountain-Prairie Region of the USFWS in Colorado. Congratulations Scott!

05/03/2024

DoD Partners in Flight supported the U.S. Air Force this week in Northern California, conducting breeding bird surveys at a remote installation to support their Integrated Natural Resources Management Plan. Chilly at times with subfreezing wind chills, but enough breaks in the weather to generate a great breeding bird list. ARUs are also now in place for the summer to supplement information on less common and nocturnal vocalizing species.

04/26/2024

This week DoD Partners in Flight was at Mountain Warfare Training Center in eastern CA deploying Autonomous Recording Units at high elevation to detect Pinyon Jays. Although the MWTC is close to edge of PIJA range, we saw and heard many during the week. In fact, very few Pinyon/Juniper stands didn't have jays. Our work is part of a broader DoD strategy to initially understand PIJA distribution and habitat occupancy on DoD lands. Great week at high elevation!

03/15/2024

Great week chasing Pinyon Jays in Nevada. NAS Fallon has jays, with scattered patches of Pinyon/Juniper occurring mostly above 6,000 ft. We installed ARUs as part of a larger effort to develop recommendations for how to incorporate recording units into existing monitoring protocols. We will effectively be gathering hundreds of 10-min counts at multiple locations across Fallon.

02/19/2024

This week, DoD Partners in Flight was in Hawaii and had the privilege of working with Joel Sartore and the National Geographic Photo Ark. We were capturing Hawaiian Common Gallinule for imagery and video that will be used to create a new video for the Department of Defense, to show how endangered species conservation supports the military training and testing missions. We are committed to conserving both federally listed and otherwise declining migratory bird populations. Fun week with great people!

01/18/2024

Kudos to Mr. Scott McGuire, Natural Resources Manager at Naval Air Station Corpus Christi (NASCC). With the recent cold snap, several cold-stunned Brown Bo***es and Green Sea Turtles were discovered on the NASCC beaches. Scott took swift action to recover and transport the lone surviving B***y to the Texas Sea Life Center. Three sea turtles also were recovered and transported to the Texas Sea Turtle Stranding Coordinator at Padre Island. Just another day in the life of our DoD Natural Resources Managers!

12/28/2023

Important article about imperiled birds, and in part, how the Department of Defense is assisting recovery. “It’s in the nation’s best interest that we have a prepared armed forces,’’ Ryan Orndorff, director of natural resources for the Department of Defense, told us. “It’s also in the nation’s best interest that these imperiled species remain in existence."

It’s been four years since researchers discovered that nearly a third of the breeding bird population withered away since the 1970s. Anders and Beverly Gyllenhaal detail techniques that can help save them.

12/18/2023

DoD Partners in Flight is proud to be a partner on the long-awaited video production from the DoD Legacy Resource Management Program highlighting how DoD balances our testing and training missions with the conservation of military lands, and at-risk species conservation and recovery. This monumental effort includes a partnership with narrator Mr. Joel Sartore, the world-renowned photographer with the National Geographic Photo Ark.

Filmed at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California and narrated by world-renowned photographer Joel Sartore of the National Geographic Photo Ark, this inspi...