Tuesday, May 6, 2008

A Day In The Life Of A Field Tech-- Can You Find The Nest?

I'll start you out easy and they'll get progressively harder... Answers are at the very bottom.
This is the first nest I found on the project-- last we checked it has four eggs in it!







Answer key:





I'm hoping I'm not the one to climb 30 ft to check the one above!


This nest almost overhanging the street is the one that had 5 eggs in it! We missed it on the first pass, but once we realized there was a robin pair whose nest we hadn't located it only took me seconds to spot it.


OK, I'll give you a break here. There is actually no way you could pick out this nest from the photo or even in real life if you were standing on the street. This is the nest that I found the first day from behavior alone and was quite pleased with myself. I watched the female robin feeding in the dog park nearby for about twenty minutes and followed her flight when she finished feeding. Since I saw her go into this bush and not come out for a long time, I was highly suspicious that the nest was there and on close inspection (i.e. sticking your head inside the bush), it was indeed.
I really like finding nests by behavior alone, but I'm also trying to develop my ability to pick out clumps of mud and sticks in any setting. It's all about pattern recognition. My co-worker is fantastic at it, I call her Eagle Eyes because she can look at a tree and instantly spot any clumps in it.

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