Checking in on Lake Merced

This Thursday Pete and Linda (awesome birders and extraordinary banding assistants) and I went out birding at Lake Merced. Amongst the diverse avifauna we spotted the familiar faces, or legs rather, of our color-banded Nuttall's white-crowned sparrows.

It was much quieter with the passing of the breeding season but I was surprised to still hear some songs here and there from the local males. The songs were, however, noticeably shorter and often lacking the trill. I didn't get a good look at the singers but it's quite possible there were some hatch-year males testing out their vocal abilities for the first time. 

In total we were able to identify 10 different banded individuals. That's not to say there aren't more out there - we birded only a small segment of the lake! The breeding territories have all broken down and most of the white-crowns were spotted grouped together in foraging flocks. Below are some photos Pete was able to snap of some of the color bands:

I love this action shot:

This young bird puzzled us a little because of its plumage - it looks like it just fledged from the nest. Most of the hatch-years we saw had the same characteristic brown-and-tan crown but had gone through a molt to grow in smoother feathers. This guy/gal still has the characteristic "fluff" of a bird fresh out of the nest, which is odd given how late it is in the year.

Some other feathered friends spotted in the morning: 

 

Clark's Grebe

Fox Sparrow

Townsend's Warbler

The rest of Pete's photos from the morning can be found at his Flickr account!

And then happiness of seeing the banded white-crowns foraging about was topped off by this unexpected graduation present from Pete and Linda: 

A toast to the birds!

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!