Urban Ecology at UMass Amherst
Senior undergraduate, Kallin Lang, holds a Wood Thrush chick that is about to be measured.
Congratulations to Kallin Lang for her Spotlight Feature on her work in the Warren Lab this summer, funded by the CAFE Summer Scholar Program.
Kallin has been working closely with Paige Warren and graduate student Kit Straley on her Honors Thesis project about the parasites that pester growing Wood Thrush chicks.
For more information, read her story here.
1: An adult Wood Thrush female, caught temporarily to measure its body and tag with identification bands.
2: Two older Wood Thrush chicks, almost old enough to fledge (leave the nest). The silver on their backs with black ‘whiskers’ are radiotelemetry tags, which will be used to track their movements once out of the nest.
3: The smallest Wood Thrush chick of the season, completely feathered but so small that we couldn’t band it because we didn’t have a smaller size of band.
4: A nest camera pointed towards the nest, used to record parental behaviors.
5: A female Wood Thrush sitting in her tall nest, brooding on top of three chicks, looking down at the observer.
6: A technician using the radiotelemetry array to search for and locate radiotagged chicks.
* All photographs provided by Kit Straley and Melanie Klein.
1: Experimental nest box in an urban Springfield, MA backyard.
2: Clutch of five House Wren eggs, view looking down into nest box.
3: Five House Wren nestlings, sleeping in the nest box.
4: Old nestling, almost ready to fledge (leave the nest), removed temporarily to measure its body.
5: Playback speaker to simulate predator presence via sound at nest box in South Deerfield, MA backyard.
*All photographs provided by Aaron Grade.