|
November 30 |
Max Mehlman will be
joining our research team in March. Max is a graduate of the
University of New Hampshire where, as a Presidential
Scholar, he worked in Brett Gibson's lab studying contextual
cueing in pigeons. More recently, he worked with Gerry
Borgia's lab (University of Maryland), where he studied
mating behavior and sexual selection in Spotted and Satin
bowerbirds in Australia. Welcome Max. |
|
November 18 |
Adam Cirone will be
joining our research team in March. Adam is a graduate of
Muskingum University (New Concord, Ohio), where he was the
recipient of the prestigious John Glenn Scholarship. His
undergraduate thesis examined grassland bird species in
southeastern Ohio. Welcome Adam. |
|
November 12 |
Anna Brownson will be
returning in the spring to take over from Kyle when he
switches back over to oaks. Anna will be working on the
mateguarding study with Erin in the spring. We are excited
to have so many former assistants returning. These
woodpeckers are addictive! Welcome "home" Anna. |
|
November 03 |
The NHK film crew left
this morning to return to Tokyo. They had a very successful
shoot and will be back at Hastings in May to film the
woodpecker nesting season. |
|
October 29 |
Kyle Funk will be
returning to take over the reins from Erin. Welcome
"home". |
|
October 29 |
Our senior woodpecker
assistant, Erin Spevak, left today to return to Virginia for
the winter. She plans to return in the spring to continue
with her mateguarding study. Erin is so good with
woodpeckers, she can even tell them apart by their faces! We
miss you already Erin - hurry back! |
|
October 25 |
More damage from the
wind last week - we lost two granaries: one at Arnold
Schwarz and another at Mike. |
|
October 16 |
A film crew from NHK
Japan has arrived. They will be filming the woodpeckers over
the next 3 weeks. Welcome Natsumi, Shima, and Masa. |
|
October 13 |
During the rain storm
today we lost major limbs at Black Oak (including the 2009
nest), Lower Arnold 2, and the 2007 Finch nest tree. Scary
to think that we had just climbed these trees only a few
weeks ago. |
|
October 2 |
The 2nd fall nest was
banded today. Chicks 4827 and 4828 should fledge on October
11th. |
|
September 31 |
On a day that doesn't
really exist, the 2009
California Acorn Report is released! |
|
September 22 |
Carrie and Chuck Hess
(Florida State University) visit the lab. Chuck holds the
world record for banding the most endangered Red-cockaded
Woodpeckers - he's closing in on 8,000 birds. |
|
September 20 |
Rocky Gutierrez, while
visiting, saw a
big mountain lion along the lane tonight. |
|
September 16 |
Caitlyn confirmed today
that 2056, our 17 year old male acorn woodpecker, is still
alive and well. |
|
September 15 |
Erin found our first
fall nest! This is the first fall nest found since 2004. |
|
September 14 |
Caitlyn has arrived to
begin work as one of our two woodpecker assistants. Welcome
Caitlyn! |
|
September 13 |
Kyle departs to begin a
position studying water quality back in his hometown of
Sutter Creek, CA. He has been working at Hastings for over a
year now - first with the woodpeckers and then with the
oaks. Now that Hastings is in his blood, he plans to return
in February (hopefully as part of a graduate program) to
continue with the oak phenology and other experiments. Have
fun Kyle! We'll see you back in a few months. |
|
September 09 |
Walt & Jean arrive
to begin the 2010 acorn survey. This year represents the
30th consecutive California Acorn Survey. |
|
September 02 |
Erin has returned to
begin the winter field season. |
|
August 05 |
Today was Tom's last
day. He capped his 2.5 month stay off by assisting with our
5:00 am capture. Tom was the trigger man, allowing us to
successfully capture juvenile 4824 out at Red Spring. He and
Kyle managed to get the 32 foot ladder into a perfect
position for the capture. Thanks for all of your help Tom!
And, as we say after every bird is banded, "Live
Long & Prosper..." |
|
July 20 |
Caitlyn Gillespie will
be joining us this fall / winter as our second woodpecker
assistant. Caitlyn is a graduate of Knox College in Illinois
and currently works on scrub jays at the Archbold Biological
Station in Florida. Welcome Caitlyn! |
|
July 17 |
Today was Dan's last
day. He is off to start a new chapter as a scientific writer
at UC Santa Cruz. We thank Dan for his dedication and hard
work. He did a great job for us this spring and we are going
to miss him. Good luck Dan! |
|
July 15 |
Walt heads back to
Ithaca. Overall, the breeding season wasn't so great. Over
half of the groups did not nest (as far as we know!) this
year. We're hoping for a bumper crop of acorns next month so
that perhaps some groups will attempt fall nests to make up
for the spring shortfall. |
|
July 14 |
Our latest NSF grant
proposal was funded! |
|
July 08 |
Erin has agreed to stay
on as our senior field assistant for the fall and winter.
She's looking forward to the cooler weather and the
excitement that accompanies watching acorn woodpeckers
storing acorns. |
|
June 07 |
Eric delivers the
keynote address at the Woodpecker Wonderland Festival in
Camp Sherman, OR; where he got to observe 11 species of
woodpeckers (including nests for 10 of the species) in one
afternoon! This area of North America is a woodpecker
biodiversity hotspot. |
|
June 04 |
Dan spots a mountain
lion up near the Arnold Cabin, the same place Eric saw one
in 2007. The lion was probably getting a drink from the
Arnold Spring. |
|
June 02 |
Joey Haydock returns
for a week to help organize our DNA samples and help out
with field work. |
|
June 01 |
Acorn Woodpecker 2056
celebrates his 17th birthday. As the world recorder holder
for longevity, 2056 celebrated by getting a new mate this
year and producing his 45th and 46th kids! Happy Birthday
2056. |
|
May 26 |
Tom Kraft joins the
pecker / oak crew today. Tom is an undergrad at Cornell and
will be helping out with woodpecker and oak research this
summer. Welcome Tom! |
|
May 20 |
Our concealed
helper effects paper is published online. |
|
May 03 |
Our concealed helper
effects paper is
accepted to Behavioral Ecology & Sociobiology. |
|
May 01 |
Eric accepts a new
position with Cornell University in the Lab of Ornithology. |
|
April 18 |
Eric presents our
latest findings at the Cooper Ornithological Society meeting
in Tucson, AZ. |
|
April 10 |
Joey Haydock pops in
for a visit. Joey is down to pick up some more blood samples
in our never-ending quest to assign parentage to banded
birds. Now a faculty member at Gonzaga University, Joey
first started on the woodpecker project in 1993. The four of
us (Walt, Ron, Joey, and me) represent 75+ combined years of
woodpecker experience - that's a lot tree climbing. |
|
March 19 |
Ron Mumme returns.
After a brief hiatus of about 25 years, Ron Mumme has
returned to Hastings to wax poetically about his trials and
tribulations setting up the acorn woodpecker project with
Walt. Back in the mid 1970s, these two took over from
Michael MacRoberts and transformed the project into the
longest running woodpecker study in the world. We are all
very excited and anxious to hear more about Ron's mastery of
lashing extension ladders to stepladders and other dangerous
pastimes. Welcome back Ron! |
|
March 16 |
Walt returns to
Hastings after spending the winter in "freezeville" (aka
Ithaca, NY). After a quick reintroduction to what acorn
woodpeckers look like, Walt will be dividing his time
between oaks and woodpeckers. Our all-time earliest nest
occurred on March 17th so things should be heating up soon -
figuratively and literally. Many of the oaks are starting to
leaf out and a woodpecker at West Gate was acting
suspiciously yesterday as it was looking in and out of last
year's nest hole. |
|
March 15 |
Dan Strain arrives to
take over the reins as our 2nd spring field assistant. Dan
will be coordinating with Erin to conduct group censuses,
nest watches, mate guarding behavior, and other tasks over
the next 4.5 months. Welcome Dan! |
|
March 10 |
Anna took part in her
last field list party today. It is with a heavy heart that
we see her head back to Michigan to resume her studies at
Hope College. We only wish that all field assistants were as
talented and patient as Anna. She also has a potential
future as a mule racer, having honed her driving skills over
the past 7 months. And, of course, we've enjoyed her
needlework skills as she's attempted to keep our
1980s-vintage blinds in service. Thanks for all of the hard
work Anna. We're gonna miss you! |
|
March 7 |
Kyle has started work
on our oak LTREB grant. He'll be dividing his time among the
Sedgwick Reserve (UC Santa Barbara), Jasper Ridge
(Stanford), and Hastings. When he's not doing oaks, he'll be
helping out Erin & Dan with the woodpeckers. |
|
March 1 |
Erin Spevak arrives to
take over for Anna. As a spring field assistant, Erin will
be responsible for group censuses, nest watches, mate
guarding behavior, and other field-related tasks over the
next 4.5 months. Welcome Erin! |
