Idaho Falls

Gray cotton candy coats short, caramel-colored stems. It's snow mold revealing as winter recedes. Beyond the last drift of stale white, there's a vast meadow of flat pocked with ponds. Pronghorn ante- lope graze in the foreground. Franklin's gulls swoop in the background. Both are easy to see. Curlews are not. Long-billed curlews are the kings of camo. They hold low and still in shallow cover not flushing until they're nearly stepped on. "Finding an American robin nest is fun when they're nesting in your garage or on your porch, but it's not hard to find. The challenge isn't there," says Jay Carlisle, Intermountain Bird Observatory research director. "These guys challenge me. They make me work to find their nest even 10 years in. I'm still surprised by their behavior." Carlisle is the brains behind curlew con- servation research. Based at Boise State University, he's tracked long-billed curlews wearing tiny transmitters for a decade at more than 10 nesting sites in the West including The Nature Conservancy's Flat Ranch Preserve in Island Park, Idaho. "You have this awesome grassland habi- tat that's wet and productive," Carlisle says. "Birds eating worms and getting them at a pretty fast rate so they're fairly able to get enough food. We have a high density of birds here." The ranch hosts up to 300 cows annu- ally. Curlews use the place for nesting April through July. On the eastern side of the state, where the ranch is, curlews do well during nesting season. Curlews nesting on the other side of the state, the western side, don't do well. Six out of 17 birds wearing transmitters died. The birds are shot on an annual basis. "We've had issues with people shooting curlews. Most of the people are shooting what they're allowed to shoot. Shooting ground squirrels is legal. Shooting badgers is legal. Shooting coyotes is legal," Carlisle says. "Shooting curlews, or raptors, or other migratory birds and protected species is not legal." Carlisle keeps track of the unexpected mortality, but his real research intentions lean toward migration. He wants to know where curlews go and what obstacles they face when they leave the nest. Attaching trinket-sized transmitters, costing $3,050 each, to adults tells him. "Just the outreach value alone of being 34 IDAHO FALLS MAGAZINE APRIL 2019 KRIS MILLGATE PHOTOS Curlews for Conservation Tracking birds with transmitters BY KRIS MILLGATE

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