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Sept 12, 2023
Speaker: Rob Furrow
Title: Flight Calls to Monitor Nocturnal Migration in the Central Valley
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Description:
Most songbird migration happens while we’re sleeping, with warblers, sparrows, and other birds passing overhead during their nocturnal flights. These migrating birds are not entirely silent during the night; many species repeatedly make short calls as they fly, referred to as nocturnal flight calls. In this presentation Rob will outline the basics of how bird migration can be monitored using audio recordings of nocturnal flight calls. Then he will describe initial results from a pilot study of nocturnal flight calls in the Central Valley, conducted with UC Davis undergraduate Cameron Tescher, as well as more recent work recording sight-verified flight calls of western migrants at ridge migration sites. Throughout, the audience will learn about when and where they might be able to hear these flight calls, and how to identify a few of the most common calls.
Speaker Bio:
Rob Furrow is an Assistant Professor of Teaching in Wildlife, Fish, and Conservation Biology at UC Davis. He has been birding since his youth and revels in early mornings with migrating songbirds. Nocturnal flight calls have long been an interest of his, so he was thrilled to take on these projects working alongside curious and dedicated UC Davis undergraduates.
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Bruce Lyon, The Breeding Biology of Coots
Description:
Reconsider the coot: the crazy reproductive antics of a common marsh denizen.
Coots are often overlooked by birders because they are so common. I have been studying the reproductive antics of American coots for the past two decades and have discovered that there is far more to this bird than meets the eye. In the talk I highlight some of our discoveries about the parental and reproductive strategies of coots, from both a natural history and scientific perspective. We all are familiar with the story of the cuckoo female that lays eggs in the nests of other species rather than raising chicks herself. Some coot females do this sort of thing, but they lay their eggs in the nests of other coot females. Why would they do this — why lay eggs elsewhere when you have your own nest? What do the birds that receive these unwanted foster eggs do? Coots are just as bizarre when it comes to raising their own kids, and there are many puzzling features of coot parental care behavior. For example, why do coots lay far more eggs than they can normally raise and why do they beat up their kids so much? And, finally, why are baby coots born with such a ridiculously fluorescent orange plumage? I will answer these questions in my talk. In addition, because our coot research was done in a wild part of central British Columbia, I will also briefly highlight a few of the special birds we encounter at our study site. Finally, the research program is expanding to ask similar questions in a mysterious coot in the High Andes of Argentina.
Bio:
Bruce Lyon is a professor of Evolutionary Ecology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. His research focuses on the evolution of reproductive strategies and mating behavior of birds. His long-term research on the adaptive basis of brood parasitism in American coots has sought to understand why parasitism within species evolves and how the behavior influences other aspects of social behavior. Dr. Lyon has also investigated the evolution of ornamental plumage signals in a variety of species, including lark buntings, lazuli buntings and the evolution of ornamental offspring plumage in the newly hatched chicks of American coots. Most recently, he has conducted a decade-long investigation into the winter social lives of migrant golden-crowned sparrows that spent their winters on the Arboretum of the University of California, Santa Cruz. He has also begun work on the horned coot, a rare and giant South American coot species with boring drab chicks.
Using technology to study courtship and conservation
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Female greater sage-grouse soliciting copulation
Description:
Animals use a dizzying array of sounds, smells, colors, dances, electrical fields and seismic vibrations to convince each other to mate. These elaborate courtship signals were a mystery until Darwin’s theory of sexual selection, which proposed that the courting sex (often, but not always the males) must be elaborate because the courted sex (often, but not always the females) demands it. But how do scientists study the conversations males and females in non-human animals have about mating? One way to do this is to participate, controlling one side of the conversation with a robot. Gail Patricelli will talk about using robotic females to study courtship behaviors in two spectacular species of birds, the satin bowerbird and the greater sage-grouse.
Bio:
Gail Patricelli is a professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology and Chair of the Animal Behavior Graduate Group at the University of California, Davis. Members of the Patricelli Lab study the evolution of courtship and other forms of communication in birds and the impact of human activities, like urban development and noise pollution, on communication, breeding ecology, and reproductive success. This research uses technology such as biomimetic robotics, microphone arrays, acoustic monitoring, and remote telemetry to study populations in the wild, from local songbirds to species of conservation concern, such as greater sage-grouse.
