Eric L. Walters

Postdoctoral Associate

Lab of Ornithology, Cornell University

 

 

 


Current Lab News - 2010

August 6 Caroline left today to return to her studies at Cornell University. She was a phenomenal asset to the project and was primarily working with the woodpeckers but she also completed a photo-documentation study of morphological changes in granaries over the past 17 years, documentation of vegetation changes at Hastings over the past century, and she assisted Tom with some aspects of the herbivory study. Even though she has left Hastings, she will be continuing with a project on vagrancy in cooperative breeders for us back in Ithaca. The hardest part of our job is saying goodbye to outstanding assistants when they finish their tenure at Hastings. We hope we can get her back in the future - she is certainly one of the top undergraduates, let alone a sophomore, that we have ever had on the project. We miss you already Caroline!
July 21 Tom Kraft arrives to take over where he left off last year. He will be completing a study of herbivory on valley oak leaves and will be helping Caroline with woodpecker censusing. Welcome back Tom!
July 17 Kathryn left today to begin her new studies in veterinary school at Kansas State. She did a great job of collecting herbivory data on the valley oaks and initiating a new vegetation study examining tree richness in grazed and ungrazed areas of Hastings. Good luck Kathryn.
July 17 Kyle left today for graduate school in Jean Knop's lab at the University of Nebraska. He will be returning in September to complete his study of phenology and flowering on acorn production in valley oaks. He has also initiated several other studies examining non-structural carbohydrates in both blue and valley oaks and pollination mechanisms in tan oaks. Much of this research will form the basis of his dissertation work. He's come a long way from his days as a woodpecker field assistant. Congratulations Kyle! We'll see you again soon.
July 16 Anna departed today on a road trip back to Michigan. She is taking a small respite before taking over the reins as our sole winter field assistant in September. Anna is so good that she will be doing the work of two field assistants. We are excited to have her back for a second winter field season. As our ACWO crew leader this spring, she did a fantastic job of collecting mateguarding data and helping supervise the assistants in their quest to find over half of the nests this year, an astounding feat in itself. We're looking forward to your return Anna.
July 16 Adam departs to begin graduate school at Kansas State University in the With Lab. Adam brought much comic relief to the crew this spring. He was famous for coming up with novel approaches to some of our academic pursuits. Most famously, he was a strong proponent of trading in our off road vehicles for real mules. He was also the king of excel spreadsheet color coding. We thank you too Adam for all of the hard work. Good luck with graduate school!
July 15 Max departs to head off to a new position as an instructor at the Shoals Marine Lab (Cornell University) in Maine. Max's encounter with the sheriff's deputies this season will go down as one of the most-talked about stories in Hastings folk lore for years to come. Max culminated the season by retrofitting all 46 artificial cavities we have spread out over Hastings' 2,500 acres. Thanks for all of the hard work Max - we are going to miss you!
July 13 Walt left today for Ithaca but will return in September for the annual acorn survey. Overall we had a pretty good year. Most of the groups nested. Because of the cool wet spring, it looked like overall productivity (fledglings per nest) was lower this year - but still much better than last year. We've banded 195 birds to date this year, ranking #9 among 36 years. But, assuming we can band at least another 4 birds over the next 5 months, this year should be about the 6th or 7th best year.
June 14 Walt & Eric banded acorn woodpecker #5000 today at 1800. Bird #4000 was banded 04 June 2004, #3000 on 29 May 1998, #2000 on 18 June 1991, #1000 on 15 May 1985, and bird #1 on 19 October 1971. The first recognizable woodpecker was observed back in 1968, a leucistic bird (almost all white) named Miss Bianca.
June 04 Kathryn Francis arrive today to begin work on the oaks. Kathryn is a senior at Cornell and is another of our REUs. Welcome Kathryn!
June 02 Caroline Rusk arrived today to begin work on the woodpeckers. Caroline is a sophomore at Cornell and is taking part in the National Science Foundation's Research Experience for Undergraduates program. Welcome Caroline!
May 23 Max was apprehended at gunpoint today when 3 sheriff's deputies responded to a call from a cyclist claiming that a sniper was lurking about in a blind along Carmel Valley road. Max was conducting a census at Wolfpack when he was ordered from the blind and interrogated with 3 loaded guns pointed at his head. Never a dull moment when conducting woodpecker research!
May 22 The film crew from NHK Japan have arrived to finish off the filming they started last fall. Welcome back Natsumi, Shima, & Masa.
May 17 Erin returned for a quick visit to say hello to the woodpeckers. We had a potluck party in her honor, complete with cake. She hopes to be back next year to resume her studies of mateguarding in the woodpeckers. See you soon, Erin!
May 09 Anna, Max, & Adam continue to set records. Today they found a new nest at Finch, marking their combined 16th nest of the year, eclipsing the total for  Walt & Eric combined. At this pace, we're going to have to buy several cases of It's-Its - the reward for finding a nest. To put this in perspective, in most years the assistants find 1 or 2 nests. We are astounded at their success!
April 15 The official 2010 Spring FA photo was released today.
April 09 Max has finished building our new cavity camera. In his honor, we're naming it the "Max Cam". We used it to check 11 cavities in about 30 mins - something that would have taken several hours if we had to climb to each of the holes.
April 07 The first nests of the year were found today - Lambert and West Gate both have full clutches. We enter the 2010 field season with the most groups ever recorded at Hastings - we're monitoring over 70 groups this year.
April 02 Joey Haydock (Gonzaga University) made his annual pilgrimage down to Hastings today. Joey will be here for the next 4 days and hopefully will help us find the first nest of 2010.
March 15 Adam Cirone (Muskingum College) and Max Mehlman (University of New Hampshire) have arrived. They will be working with Anna on our Acorn Woodpecker mate guarding and reproductive skew study over the next 4 months. Welcome Adam & Max.
March 12 Today was Caitlyn's last day. She is off to Jeff Hoover's lab (Illinois Natural History Survey) to work with forest birds of the midwest. Thanks for all of your hard work Caitlyn!
February 24 Sadly, one of three killer whales that Eric trained from 1987 to 1989 was involved in another human death. Tilikum, the largest captive killer whale in the world, is currently housed in Orlando at the Sea World facility where he apparently drowned a whale trainer today. The 3 whales that Eric worked with were also involved in the death of a trainer in 1991. Haida died in 2001 at Sea World Texas, Nootka died in 1994 at Sea World Florida.
February 16 Anna saw acorn woodpecker 2056 today. He is now 17 years, 260 days old and is the oldest known woodpecker in the world. Interestingly, he was having difficulty holding on to the tree today while storing acorns.
February 13 Anna has returned. She will be leading a study of mate guarding as part of our newly funding NSF grant examining reproductive skew in acorn woodpeckers. Kyle has switched over to studying oak trees as part of our LTREB grant examining spatial synchrony in valley oaks.
February 08 Eric presents at the AOU/COS/SCO meetings in San Diego on our recent work on the effect of gypsy moth outbreaks on populations of North American woodpeckers.
January 27 Our Red-cockaded Woodpecker - Red-bellied Woodpecker competition paper was accepted to Conservation Biology.


 

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