Dispatch from the field

It’s hard to believe that the field season is now half over! After my last lab note and the full funding of my project thanks to your generous support, I spent a quick few weeks gathering supplies and making arrangements to head to the field. Together with the rest of the field crew, I arrived into Brookfield around the middle of August, and quickly settled in to camp life.

 

Willie Wagtail nest. These aerobatic flycatchers and members of the fantail family are really amazing birds. Their short, agile sallies to catch insects are punctuated by some of the most unique and beautiful sounds of the mallee. And as the name suggests, there is much wagging of the ponderously long tail.

We were surprised to find that, for many of Brookfield’s birds, the breeding season was already underway when we arrived. While most of the park’s fairywrens, honeyeaters, and larger birds were still in winter mode, several groups of thornbills, weebills, and robins already had nests. Many of those nests now have fledged young, and it’s been interesting to see how a group’s social behavior and interactions with other species changes over the course of the nesting cycle.

 

Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater. Next to Red Wattlebirds, the Spiny-cheeked Honeyeater is the largest member of the honeyeater family that regularly occurs at Brookfield. I particularly love their piercing blue eyes. This individual can be aged as 2+ (meaning that we know it was hatched at least two years ago, though it may be older) based on the color of the “spines” on its cheeks. A younger bird would have yellow bristles, but the stiff white bristles next to the base of this individual’s bill indicate that it is in its mature adult plumage.

Apart from finding nests and making behavioral observations, we’ve also been sampling a lot of birds! So far, we’ve been able to collect samples from more than 300 birds representing nearly 30 species. Many of these samples are from color-banded birds, for whom we’ve already begun to keep records of social behaviors and individual flocking preferences. These data will enable me to relate an individual’s likelihood of infection to the amount of time they spend hanging out with other birds, what species of birds they associate with, and where they forage.

Last week, I deployed insect traps for the first time. I’ll be using these samples to identify the assemblage of vectors (mosquitoes and midges) that occur in Brookfield, and to try to estimate their relative abundance. In addition, I’m hoping to be able to test the collected insects for infection by blood parasites, and to look at their blood meals as a means of identifying which hosts they’ve been feeding on. Although we’re only just now getting properly into spring here in the Southern Hemisphere, and our overnight temperatures remain a bit chilly (often just above freezing), we’ve noticed an increase in insect activity around dusk. This first round of trapping didn’t yield the number of samples I had expected, but I’m excited to see what turns up as the season progresses.

Stay tuned for more dispatches from the field!

 

Striated Pardalote.

As always, thanks so much for your interest and support.

— Ian