The 2024 summer field season comes to a close
Last week marked the final nestling banding of the 2024 Boulder Chickadee Study field season wrapping the 6th year of the study. The team of Will, Sara, Olivia, Ajay, Nikki, Blake, and Sage counted 464 eggs, banded 431 nestlings, and 98 new adults. 32 birds previously banded here in Boulder County were recaptured (with some getting new color bands this season) for a total 561 chickadees handled during the season. Nikki also monitored multiple chickadee nests with nest cams and the data from those will be examined during the fall semester.
The completion of the 6th year of the Boulder Chickadee Study makes it eligible for long-term study funding from the National Science Foundation and Scott will be working on that grant in the coming weeks.
Will also completed his first solo PhD field season sampling house wrens across Colorado and Nebraska collecting blood samples from 87 house wrens and travelling over 2000 miles as he attempts to better define the region of contact between the eastern and western subspecies. He also sampled a number of yellow breasted chats for a previous Taylor Lab undergraduate student, Johanna Beam, who is completing her PhD at Penn State University.
Congrats all on an excellent field season!