The Buzz Dive

Today I am annotating the birds of Golden Gate Park. It is fascinating how each bird is just a little bit different from the last, even though they are all the same species, and within close proximity to each other too!

This bird has what I've dubbed the "buzz dive" on his second note. Whereas other birds just have a straight buzz he plunges in:

It's little nuances like this that make me love being able to look at the sonograms - the visual representation of the songs. This dip is very difficult to pick out in just the audio version of the recording. Here's the sonogram above at full speed:




It's only with the recording slowed down that the "buzz dive" is audible. Here's the same clip at 70% of it's original speed:




This song belongs to "G31" or "GS/GY"

He's being a little shy in this picture and turning his head away but you can see that he's a younger bird because of his brown and tan (as opposed to the adult black and white) crown.

I'm looking forward to comparing all the songs across my study sites and seeing how much variation there is between sites and between individuals. So far there's a TON of variation!

Audio Analysis Phase!

Had to toggle over to Blogger as I'm here in the lab analyzing these bird songs to share a weird looking sonogram:

Check out that weird buzzy ball in the middle of the trill! I like to call it the "Blender Bottle" note.

Here's what the above sonogram sounds like - you can hear the "Blender Ball" buzz in the middle of the trill:

This is from "SFSU 6" aka "GO/OS" aka this guy:

American Society of Parasitologists

Hello from Omaha, NE!

From June 25-28, 2015 I attended the annual meeting of the American Society of Parasitologists. In February I presented at the regional branch of this society, the North American Society of Parasitologists and was awarded a travel grant to attend the national meeting.

The conference was a great opportunity to meet colleagues in the same field and even catch up with some old friends! Woody and Jeff, fellow participants from the Avian Malaria Workshop, were also in attendance. Below is a photo of just some of the winners from around the United States who were able to attend this year's meeting thanks to a travel grant:

Outside of the conference I explored downtown Omaha, did some Couchsurfing, and checked out the city's burgeoning craft beer scene. I had a great time adventuring around the Heartland!:

I've been horribly slacking in this blog but I'm back in the lab after some vacation time and have set up a regular update schedule now so get ready for hot-off-the-presses (thermalcycler) results!