“What’s our time?” Logan asks moving along the rock paths that crisscross the roof of the CAS.
“Two minutes.” Ore, a graduate student, checks his stopwatch. It’s raining and cold and my second bird survey experience has been unexpectedly lucrative.
Half an hour earlier, winding our way through the halls of the research department, I was expecting ...
Well, it’s a sunny Sunday in Golden Gate Park. The weather was warm and pleasant, and the winter birds were active. My wife Tiffany and I took a stroll up the hill and into the park near Lloyd Lake, where there are often plenty of ducks, gulls, coots, and even a grebe or two. I ...
We recently spent a very successful 2-month field trip in the island province of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea surveying birds and collecting samples to screen for various avian diseases. We had an amazing crew - collaborator David Mindell, Post-doctoral researcher Jerome Fuchs, Berkeley PhD student Zachary Hanna, San Francisco State University Masters Student Molly ...
A couple weeks ago, I got a call because there was a gopher outside staggering around, obviously disoriented, even falling over onto its side. When I found it, it was lethargic and easy to approach and I picked it up and carried it inside without any struggle or fight. It was loaded with fleas. The ...
Diseases can have significant effects on bird populations, especially populations that have never been exposed to them. Avian pox is a disease that was presumably moved around by humans, and has been introduced to Galapagos – as well as Hawaii – where the disease has had a significant effect on birds.
Recent work by Patty ...
Traditional sailing proas still sail around remote Milne Bay, much as they have for centuries. I’ve heard about this from colleagues and have seen some small sailing canoes off Normanby Island on previous trips, but I was dying to see some of these boats up close and learn more about the traditional sailors. ...
EVER SINCE I was an student working in PNG, I’ve dreamed of surveying and studying birds in the outer most remote islands of Papua New Guinea and the western Pacific. These places seem elusive - they are difficult to get to, poorly known, and only a few of the largest and most significant islands have ...
We’ve come to Milne Bay to scout out places for future work, meet officials, talk about permits, learn our way around this province of islands, and learn the birds and bird calls of the area. In our short time here (less than two weeks), we’ve been on the move, and stayed in eight different places. ...
Our last couple days in the camp were productive, and we went to one final cave to look for swifts, bats, and cave fish. We found Glossy Swiftlets (Collocalia esculenta), two species of horseshoe bat (Hipposideros cervus and Rhinolophus euryotis), and a couple fish. This was also the only place where we found leeches, and ...
Here is the entrance to Warofeni Cave, near Fogomai’u Village. The entrance is quite large, and a decent-sized stream flows out from the cave. You can see our local naturalist, Albert, standing on some breakdown just across the creek. When we arrived the water level was down low enough that we could wade in, and ...
