Hosted in Montreal next spring, this congress is kind of like the Olympics of the environmental education world: held biennially, it draws together academics and practitioners from around the world. I just submitted an abstract for a paper that is largely based on my dissertation research. Here’s the 250 words-or-less abstract: Bird-watching remains one of […]
Tag: research
A way to say thanks
I’m writing this in the car in between two interviews that I’m conducting this sunny Sunday morning. What I’ve been struck with as I’ve been busy with interviews this Spring and Fall is just how generous people have been with their time and personal space–I’m visiting people in their homes as a part of my […]
Birds migrate at night in loose flocks
Birds migrate at night. Bird tend to flock together. These two disseparate facts have been recently weaved together to suggest that birds migrate at night in flocks. What I find interesting here is the suggestion that these flock are “loose”–not the tight configurations visible in the preceding video of starlings flying in a flock–birds may […]
Prairie Chickens and bird-watching
I keep an eye out for newspaper articles published on birding as I find they provide an interesting insight into the larger cultural perception of the activity. While I’m not doing a discourse analysis of this stuff, a recent article published in the New York Times (Prairie Birds Flirt, and a Town Livens Up) hits […]
Rondeau Research
So I’m well passed the halfway mark for my tenure conducting birder research here at Rondeau Provincial Park. I’ve got sixteen interviews in the hopper and could get a couple more before I leave on Saturday. While the birding hasn’t been stellar (it’s been “thin” as someone today described it), I’m really pleased with the […]
What has been happening
OK, let me do a quick re-cap. Last week? Boston for the AAG. Week before that? Austin for Leesa’s project. Up next? Two weeks at Rondeau Provincial Park, collecting data for my dissertation. I would have liked a bit more time between Boston and Rondeau, but no dice. So I’ve been spending this week getting […]
(I’m about to be) Deep in the heart of Texas
Without making this post into a reminiscence about my youth and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, I am off to Austin, Texas tomorrow with my supervisor (Dr. Leesa Fawcett) to assist with a research project on animal minds. We’re going to be interviewing Dr. Merlin Tuttle, founder of Bat Conservation International (a non-profit whose mission you […]
Acadian flycatchers prefer the country to the city to nest
Urban birds that nest in wooded areas don’t do as well (reproductively-speaking) as their non-urban counterparts. Conventional wisdom suggested that this was because of the presence of more egg-eating predators (eating bird eggs, obviously) in urban settings. New research suggests, however, that it might have more to do with fitter (larger, older) birds preferring (and […]
Boto bling
A recent article (hyperlink below) suggests that the male freshwater dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) that Heather and I got a chance to see in Peru this year (photographic evidence above) hold and thrash objects at the surface to “impress” females. What’s particularly interesting is this quote from the researcher: “It’s particularly interesting that the complexity of […]