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!

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!

Sharing the Science!

An important part of being a scientist is disseminating your results. This happens through a variety of outlets including scientific publications, presenting at conferences, and popular science articles, among others.

While my research is still in progress I do have some preliminary results from the birds I caught and recorded in 2014. So far this year I've presented at three different conferences. These are great opportunities to not only share results but also to meet scientists - both professionals and students - in different disciplines.

Northern California Parasitologists Winter Meeting - February 2015

Depending on how you look at it my project can fall into many different categories - ornithology, conservation, bioacoustics, ecology, and in this case, parasitology. Calvin Lee (pictured at the left) and I also both won student awards! As part of this award I also won travel funds to attend the annual meeting of the American Society of Parasitologists, which will be in Nebraska this June.

San Francisco State University Graduate Student Showcase - April 2015

This showcase was an opportunity for graduate students to share the research they've been conducting with the San Francisco State community. We filled the whole gym! Immediately following the showcase there was a dinner and raffle where I luckily came away with two gift cards to Burgermeister!

16th Bay Area Conservation Biology Symposium - May 2015

This conference was a quick one-day symposium but provided the opportunity for those of us who are researching and interested in conservation biology to share are work and meet each other. I presented in the Organismal Ecology & Conservation Section along with Silas, a fellow grad student from SFSU. 

Upcoming Conferences

American Society of Parasitologists - June 2015 - Omaha, NE

This is the annual meeting of the national society and the conference I won travel funds to at the Northern California Society meeting. I've never been to Omaha so decided to travel via CouchSurfing to get a local introduction to the city.

American Ornithologists Union/Cooper Ornithological Society - July 2015 - Norman, OK

I've applied for a travel grant to present at and attend this conference so it's still a pending option but this is the BIG bird conference of the year. It's filled with all sorts of exciting ornithological talks and birding field trips!

Birds of the Day - Monday April 27, 2015

Lake Merced

Sunrise is getting earlier and earlier. Today Charlie and I got started at 6:15am at Lake Merced. My goal was to catch two birds that have been eluding me this season. Unfortunately I think it just isn't going to happen. They respond well to the playback but the net locations just aren't ideal.

The perfect situation is to set up a net between two stands of tall vegetation so that the bird gets caught flying from one stand to the next. Unfortunately at Lake Merced there are isolated clumps of low brush separated by relatively large open spaces. The birds I've been trying to catch have hopped down by the speaker but remain protected in their bushes. Alas, these two continue to be elusive.

I did, however, catch three birds this morning. Two previously unbanded individuals and one recapture from last year.

The first one was a second-year male halfway grown into his black-and-white crown. He became "RS/RY" today:

Then there was this recapture male from 2014, "S/YOB":

And in the same net we caught a female who became "OGO/S":

Banding is in Full Swing!

The 2015 banding season is off and running! (flying?)

As of today (Saturday April 25, 2015) I've processed 41 birds this season. I'm using the word "processed" instead of "banded" because some of these birds have been recaptures from last year! It's been pretty exciting to see some of 2014's birds again - both for my study and for my own personal interest in seeing them survive another year.

One thing I've noticed this year is that the birds don't seem to be responding to the playback in the same way as last year. At first I was using the same set of songs I used last year but the birds seemed much more hesitant to charge the speaker. I would get some counter-singers and some full-fledged [bird humor] abandonment. I changed up my tactic and added site-specific songs to my iPod. These were much more successful!

Another interesting difference this year is the amount of females I've been catching along with the males. Last year yielded mostly male captures but this year I'm getting a lot more pairs co-defending their territory.

I also have to take a moment to thank Charlie, Erika, Pete and Linda - thank you so much for your help so far!!

Here are some birds from my four field sites this year:

San Francisco State University

Thanks to David Emmerson (aka Dad) for help on this first bird! He's been resited and recorded.

Not too many second year (brown-and-tan crowns) this year but this male is an avid singer from South campus:

Golden Gate Park

San Francisco Zoo

This bird is a recapture of the very first bird I caught at the Zoo. Dubbed very elaborately (sarcasm) "Zoo1" or "S/WYW", this male had a brown-and-tan crown when I first caught him - now he's all grown up!

Lake Merced

I cannot make any claim to these amazing photos. They're all from Pete - check out his other amazing bird photography (including many of Lake Merced's banded white-crowns) at his Flickr.

And my personal favorite: