The Third Annual International Workshop on Malaria and Related Haemosporidian Parasites of Wildlife - Part 1 - Facilities

This year I've have two different but equally amazing training opportunities. The first, for the bird banding portion of my master's research, you can read about in Braddock Bay Bird Observatory Spring 2014 Bander Training.

The second, for the blood parasite portion, was a workshop organized and funded by the Malaria RCN, a collaborative network of researchers around the world all working on haemosporidian blood parasites of wildlife. This July was their annual International Workshop on Malaria and Related Haemosporidian Parasites of Wildlife.

Participants in this workshop hailed from all different parts of the world. Represented countries included Lithuania, Mexico, Brazil, Sweden, Australia, India, Bulgaria, Poland, Spain, Colombia, and all corners of the United States.

I broke this update into a couple different entries because it was such a fantastic experience and the content so rich that it deserves an extended post. Between all the people I had the wonderful opportunity to meet and the beautiful campus it was hosted at, it has been a major highlight of my graduate experience so far.

The first installment will cover the gorgeous grounds and facilities. Picture heavy!

The workshop was hosted at the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Conservation Training Center (NCTC) in Shepherstown, West Virginia. The NCTC is a network of facilities located on a 533 acre property along the Potomac River.

The grounds of the campus were beautiful. Full of wildlife and so green. Coming from California, a state in a severe drought, the green was especially noticeable.  

Some wildlife more intimidating than others. Note the pencil for scale.

The facilities themselves were also beautiful. I stayed in the Rachel Carson Lodge, where every room had a copy of Silent Spring, a seminal book in the environmental conservation movement. 

The Rachel Carson Lodge.

The view surrounding the Rachel Carson Lodge - the green!

Another building we spent a lot of time in was the Commons, where all our meals were held and the location of a beer and wine bar where we would hang out after "class."

The food was another highlight of the accommodations. Each day for both lunch and dinner the entree selection would change; at the deli you could build any desired sandwich; at the grill you could order anything from a grilled cheese to a bison burger; the salad bar was stocked with fresh veggies; and the dessert station served frozen yogurt and a rotating selection of cakes and pies. I have to say as a graduate student living in the pricey Bay Area (ie having very little money) this was a really nice break from ramen noodles and peanut butter.

Stay tuned for Part 2 - Blood Parasite Identification.

Solving the Mystery of Songbird Migration

This June I had the privilege of helping out my friend and fellow lab mate, Allison Nelson, with her research project. She's studying the migration of hermit thrushes. Described by the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology as an "unassuming bird with a lovely, melancholy song," these birds are well known for their beautiful metallic songs. Despite their popularity, the migration patterns of these birds are not well understood. Different populations with overlapping ranges travel in completely opposite directions - and we have no idea why. Allison aims to answer some of these questions.

To fund this research trip, Allison ran a successful Kickstarter campaign. Kickstarter is a crowd-funding website for creative projects where individuals donate funds at different levels in exchange for small gifts such as a picture or sound recording of a Big Basin hermit thrush.

With the money she raised through Kickstarter Allison was able to purchase 20 tiny geolocators that use light levels to determine the approximate latitude and longitude of the bird. The video below from her Kickstarter campaign describes out the aims of her study:

We spent a week in Big Basin Redwood State Park target netting hermit thrushes and harnessing them up with geolocators. Big Basin is California's oldest state park - the sites we were working in were full of lush trees and undergrowth.

The hermit thrushes here spend the summer in Big Basin and migrate south for the winter. They have high site fidelity, meaning they return to the same sites year after year. Allison color banded birds in Big Basin Park last year and we recaptured 9 of her birds from last year! That means those birds spent the summer of 2013 in Big Basin, flew all the way down to the southern United States or Mexico for winter, and then flew back to the exact same spot in Big Basin for summer of 2014.

Next year we'll return again to try to recapture the geolocator birds to download the data and see exactly where they spent the winter. Given our recapture rates from this year we're confident we'll get quite a few of the geolocators back.

We set up most nets back in the brush but in the final day when we needed to catch the last few stragglers we set up a long net lane along the path - it ended up being successful! Thrushes are ground feeders and took advantage of these walking paths - we caught five birds as they made their way onto the path.

Allison determining the age of a thrush by looking at its feathers and molt pattern.

One indicator is the shape of P10 (the 10th primary flight feather) - pointed (vs. rounded) indicates an older bird.

A geolocator and harness - the loops tucked around each leg with the geolocator extended above the feathers on the thrushs' backs. Each one weighed about a gram or less. 

Ready to go!