Research experience for undergraduates (REUs)

This year we were lucky to get the funding allowing us to bring two undergraduate students to participate in the project. We are excited to welcome Christina and Tyler to our project. They will have the opportunity to work with us learning about the methods we use to address our research questions and then hopefully carving off their own research questions to answer while they are here. The REU (or USRA in Canada) is a great way for a young researcher to develop critical skills that will guide them in their future research directions. I benefited a lot from my undergraduate research experiences and would highly recommend these opportunities.

Christina studiously at work outlining a possible project.

Christina arrived yesterday after a long day of flying to reach Costa Rica and then taking a bus across the country to reach the site where we work. This is her first experience in the tropics so each minute brings many new species of birds, insects, plants and other exciting finds. As with Matt’s kids this makes many of the things we have become used to seeing over the years seem new and exciting all over again since through sharing them with somebody else. Tyler will arrive at the beginning of February.

-Adam

Traveling ‘light’

While the real fun takes place in the field, these field efforts end up being a relatively small (yet important) component of ecological research. By the time that researchers get to their field site often many months of preparation have taken place. Time is spent thinking about research questions and coming up with hypotheses and predictions stemming from these. Then methods are outlined that could provide the data necessary to answer these questions. Often at this point a researcher applies to a diverse array of funding sources to try and secure the finances necessary to conduct the research. These are typically very competitive so many project ideas will go unfunded. Provided a way is found to carry out the research then the detailed logistics of field preparation need to be undertaken. This can often be additional week/months of effort to insure that time in the field can be spent as efficiently as possible.

Detailed lists need to be prepared in advance, equipment ordered and then everything double or triple checked to insure that nothing key is missing. For example, last year we had 9 large trunks of field equipment (>600lbs!) that we took to the field. This involved equipment for essentially 4 different project questions. Many items are critical supplies that were unavailable in Costa Rica and without them the work could not be accomplished. (Amazingly we fit all this and four of us into a Nissan pathfinder –Although a lot was strapped to the roof).

Ready to leave PDX

This year we were travelling relatively light compared to last year, but as you can see from the attached photo we still had a lot of stuff!

Pushing through San Jose Airport

We brought bicycles to help with transportation to some of the closer sample sites and explore areas where the truck doesn’t go as easily. Matt’s whole family is also coming down this year so we have three ‘field technicians in training’ or small agents of chaos to ‘help out.’ We have now arrived successfully with all of our equipment in tack. So far we have not forgotten anything critical!

-Dr. Adam Hadley

We have all been back from Costa Rica for a few months it seems like quite a while since we were last in the field working with hummingbirds. However, on the weekend we started what will hopefully a long-term monitoring site collecting data as part of the Hummingbird Monitoring Network.  The Hummingbird Monitoring Network works to research, monitor, and preserve hummingbirds. We are happy to be working more closely with them. We felt that it was time to begin some long-term research here in Oregon since according to breeding bird survey data Rufous hummingbirds (Selasphorus rufus) are declining at a rate of nearly 3% per year. This is faster than the spotted owl declines for the same period! Clearly we need to take a closer look.

Sarah at the banding table

We captured hummingbirds at the H.J. Andrews experimental forest headquarters during a five-hour period beginning shortly after dawn. This first capture session was very successful despite battling a thick cloud of no-see-ums*. We were able to band 22 hummingbirds. In Oregon we don’t have nearly as many species as we do in Costa Rica and on this particular morning we only captured representatives from a single species – the Rufous hummingbird. At the site we have also seen Anna’s hummingbirds (Calypte anna) and Calliope Hummingbirds (Selasphorus calliope) so it is possible that on a future capture session we might get one of these.

A male Rufous

A female Rufous (Photos by Sarah Hadley)

Some of the females where about ready to lay. Here is a picture showing a female with an egg that is almost ready to be laid.

Photo by Adam Hadley

In addition to adding a Hummingbird Monitoring site within Oregon these capture efforts will be helpful to other research projects we have within the area. Marked birds will help us answer questions relating to phenology**, inter-annual survival rates, inter-patch movements within nearby alpine meadows, and dispersal distances. Once combined with the RFID tracking techniques and systems that we have developed in our Costa Rica efforts we hope to shed some light on important aspects of Rufous hummingbird ecology.

*no-see-ums are type of tiny biting midges in the family Ceratopogonidae.

The females of these little flies bite in order to consume a blood meal before laying their eggs. The intensely itchy sensation and red welts arise from an allergic reaction to proteins in their saliva. One of Sarah’s eyes nearly swelled shut!

Photo from (http://www.lepidoptera.no/en/arter/?or_id=1968)

**Phenology is the timing of plant and animal life cycle events and how these are influenced by variations in factors such as climate and habitat. The timing of hummingbird arrival in relation to plant flowering times and factors such as climate is of key interest to current research efforts at this station.

Photo by Adam Hadley

Students from eight different schools within Oregon collected data on the amount of nectar that was consumed from graduated feeders. We have all of the data back from last year’s experiments and there are some interesting trends. It looks like students who placed their feeders in locations surrounded by higher amounts of native forest tended to have more nectar consumed from their feeders. Here is the letter that Mary Grant wrote up summarizing the student’s efforts: 2012_student_project_summary

This spring new classes of students have been collecting data on consumption rates and counting hummingbird visits during 10-minute intervals. It will be interesting to see what all of this new data will reveal!

Today, I returned home to find my kids (Ava (7), Miles (5) and Anna (2)) and the rest of the ‘neighborhood gang’ having a fair to raise money for nature conservation. Sounds suspiciously like a father put them up to this doesn’t it? Well, not directly at least. Let me explain…

The core of our neighborhood gang, made up of about 12-15 kids between the ages of 3 and 11, have been playing together for the best part of the last five years. We have been lucky enough to have some remnant oak savanna behind our house. Here, the kids have played hide-and-seek, knights and princesses, and caught butterflies, snakes (one particularly large bull snake I remember), newts, and beetles -and a host of other insects. They’ve seen life (a chickadee nest in our front yard) and death (sadly, the carcass of great horned owl that turned up one day – much to many parents’ chagrin). Three species of owls live back there, and one Christmas day some bobcats wandered into our tiny postage stamp back-yard from the savanna. At night, the coyotes howl – we think to trumpet their triumphs at catching the cottontails that take refuge in the hawthorns. Of course, the land is home to many Anna’s and rufous hummingbirds.

Three weeks ago, the machines started coming to turn the oak land into a housing development. First, they cut down the trees. Now they are building a road. Before long, there will be a multitude of new houses. This is affecting my own kids far in a far more profound way than I expected – particularly in a generation growing up with iPhones and video-games. I’m not even sure that they currently know how much they will lose once the lawns start being planted.

So, this was the motivation for the fair — to raise money for nature research and conservation! They set up vinegar and baking soda volcanoes, bead necklaces, bracelets, paper cranes, sand art along with other games. The neighborhood came in droves and paid out money to the gang in 20 cent increments that totaled $9! Not exactly a hefty research budget, but the most important funding that has been raised that I can remember. A symbol of how attachment to nature can motivate kids to do amazing things. Who knows, maybe this is the beginning of a neighborhood science & nature gang. $9 should buy quite a few hummingbird feeders! Maybe that will stop them from stealing my carrots…

MGB

Photo by Sarah Hadley

Species of the day –– Three-wattled Bellbird (Procnias tricarunculatus)

This was another exciting species we saw at Las Tablas, but we have seen it at one of our sampling sites in the past. The three long, wormlike ‘wattles’ hanging near its bill and its relatively bizarre behavior make it quite remarkable. The males perch in the canopy open their bills wide (It looks like their whole head opens up!) and then make a loud BENK call. They look really funny while they do this since there appears to be so much effort involved and they open so wide. The inside of their mouth (called a ‘gape’) is black and looks rather cavernous. We saw one male come and perch on the same branch as another one and then make the call directly into its face! It must have been really loud. The females were around inspecting them while they were calling.

Photo by Sarah Hadley

Species of the day –– Slaty Flowerpiercer, (Diglossa plumbea)

Hummingbirds are not the only species of birds that feed from flowers. Many other species eat insects from flowers and several are quite specialized for drinking nectar from flowers. The flowerpiercer is one of these. They have an upturned bill with a hooked upper mandible and pointed lower mandible. They hook their upper mandible over the base of the flower’s corolla and then pierce it with the lower mandible. Through this hole they can drink the nectar. Obviously they can’t hover like a hummingbird though and need to do all of this while perched.