RADAR ORNITHOLOGY AND BIOLOGICAL CONSERVATION

Abstract

IN THE APPROXIMATELY 60 years since the dis- covery that birds were responsible for some of the puzzling radar echoes dubbed “angels” by the British (Lack and Varley 1945, Buss 1946), radar has proven to be a useful tool for the de- tection, monitoring, and quantifi cation of bird movements in the atmosphere (Eastwood 1967; Richardson 1979; Vaughn 1985; Bruderer 1997a, b). Radar has been a particularly valuable tool for descriptive studies of daily and seasonal patterns of bird migration, but the technique has also been used to answer important ques- tions about how birds orient during migration and the role of atmospheric structure in shaping fl ight strategies of birds. Within the last two de- cades, radar ornithology has played an increas- ingly important role in conservation of species that are migratory, endangered, threatened, or of special concern