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The Art of Acoustical Science

While we at Ecostudies Institute primarily work on birds, I had the opportunity to attend a week-long workshop about the other group of fascinating, flying creatures: Bats! Many of the same technical challenges of monitoring bird also aggravate and perplex bat biologists. Their flight, for example, makes them difficult to catch or track. I was [...]

By |June 27, 2017|News|

Conducting Point Counts

One of our main tasks over the past two months has been to conduct point counts for Cape Sable seaside sparrows. A point count is a survey method used to count birds, where an observer stands at a single location and records all of the birds seen and heard in a given amount of time. Through the [...]

Locating nests in the marl prairies of the Everglades

The most important cue to observe when nest-searching is bird behavior. Cape Sable seaside sparrows nest in grass cups in the marl prairies of the Everglades, so finding their nest without watching them can be nearly impossible. Nest-finding has been my favorite aspect of all of my positions as a field technician, so I want to share [...]

By |May 23, 2017|News|

Taking to the Skies in the Name of Science

Some days, it pays to be a bird biologist… …especially when you get to fly! As the biologist who is responsible for the Estuary Restoration Project surveys, I had the very great pleasure of being able to take to the skies in the name of science last week. In my day-to-day responsibilities, which are decidedly [...]

By |May 15, 2017|News|

Birding in South Florida

South Florida is considered to be one of the most interesting birding locations in the country and reasonably so. On a nice spring morning, you can see dozens of species of migratory birds flying overhead. You can also find amazing wintering birds, such as the scissor-tailed flycatcher and rufous hummingbird, or breeding birds, such as swallow-tailed [...]

By |April 24, 2017|News|

“Why should I care about this bird?”

Or – “What does it do for us?” Two questions I get asked very often, sometimes at the same time put together in one compound sentence. It is an anthropocentric question that I personally find very difficult to answer for a number of reasons. I’ve been asked this question countless times and yet I still [...]

By |March 19, 2017|News|
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