Cooperative research broadens the reach of Rouge River Bird Observatory. We have contributed data to many projects and contributed our expertise on bird conservation and management to many organizations.
Three of our major collaborative projects have their own pages: Biological inventories on the Detroit River International Wildlife Refuge, the Wayne County portion of the state Breeding Bird Atlas, and monitoring of Mute Swans on the lower Detroit River. Further contributions are listed below.
RRBO welcomes partnerships, including cross-institutional research and assisting local organizations with inventory or monitoring needs. For more information on use of our data products, please see our data sharing policy page.
Cooperative research contributions
- Birds of North America (Academy of Natural Sciences)
- Avian influenza monitoring (Landbird Monitoring Network of the Americas)
- Operation Wing Chord (Eastern Bird Banding Association)
Common Loon migration at Metro Beach Metropark (Huron-Clinton Metroparks)- Project Tanager (Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology)
- Birds of Forested Landscapes (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
- Winter finch and Red-breasted Nuthatch tracking (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
- Ovenbird aging criteria (University of Missouri – Columbia)
- Double-crested Cormorant migration (Canadian Wildlife Service)
- DNA fingerprinting to determine wintering areas of widespread breeding birds in North America (San Francisco)
- State University, Purdue University, McGill University)
- House Finch eye disease monitoring (Cornell Lab of Ornithology)
- Tracking West Nile virus via bird migration (University of Pennsylvania)
- Habitat preferences in fall migration (Valaparasio University)
- Global climate change and wintering Dark-eyed Juncos (University of Michigan)
Committee work and knowledge transfer
- Michigan Bird Conservation Initiative — Steering committee, research and Monitoring Subcommittee, 2005-present
- Mute Swan Advisory Panel — Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, 2010-2011
- Endangered and Threatened Birds Review Committee — Michigan Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, 2005
- Migratory bird stopover site attributes in the western Lake Erie Basin (The Nature Conservancy, Great Lakes program), 2004-2006
- Rouge River Remedial Action Plan Advisory Council Habitat Subcommittee, 1993-2004
- Important Bird Areas planning process (American Bird Conservancy), 1995