🚀 go-pugleaf

Volunteers Needed in Field Study with Birds
    During Summer of 1998

Duration:  May 2- ~July 31, 1998
Location: Rose Lake and Dansville State Game Areas, Michigan.

    A research project is under way to study the combined influence of nest
predators and brood parasitism by the Brown-headed Cowbird on breeding
productivity of songbirds. This study will focus on the nesting activity of
Yellow Warblers and Common Yellowthroats with some emphasis on Swamp Sparrows,
all of which nest in high densities in shrub swamps found in mid-Michigan.
Field sites have been established at two State Game Area, near the MSU campus.
Volunteers will be trained and given a field site in which they will spend
most, if not all of there time at during the summer.  They will be responsible
for locating all nests of the designated species and monitoring their activity
and locate all re-nest attempts in the event that first nesting attempts fail.
The field assistants will become very familiar with their field site and the
locations of all nests as well as territories of each breeding pair.  Some
vegetation analysis and evaluation of adult behavior for each nesting pair will
also be performed by the assistants.  Volunteers must be reliably available
every other day and for the entire season (May-July or August-the end date will
depend on when the final nest has completed on the field site) to check nests
on their field site.  All nest searching and monitoring will be carried out
from sunrise (5:30 am) until about 1 p.m. in the afternoon.  Afternoons and
evenings will be open, as will odd days when the site is not visited.  No
housing or stipends are available at present. Transportation to and from
sites will be available.
    Volunteers must be able to work alone in sometimes adverse conditions and
capable of reliably reporting for work at an early hour. These, often remote,
swamp habitats can be thick with vegetation in some areas, and mosquitoes and
deer-flies are common.  Therefore, volunteers should be in good physical
condition to hike through such habitat and in some cases, hike to the field
site from the road.  Volunteers should be familiar with bird identification and
common wetland plants, or capable of quickly learning such identification
skills.  One must also have acute observational skills and considerable
patience, required when nest searching. There will also be opportunities to
assist in mist-net and banding efforts and to perform their own research
projects (senior projects, internships).  There will also be opportunitieed
from such an experience can be very valuable for those interested in pursuing
careers in ecology and environmental science, and are impressive on resumes and
graduate school applications.  It should promise to be a memorable experience.

Requirements:

    Nest Searching and monitoring on designated field site(s).
    Vegetation analysis on terminated nests
    Assessment of adult behavior
    Mist-netting and banding (optional)
    Able to assist for the duration of the project.
    Strong observational skills.
    Good physical condition.
    Capable of reporting to work at sunrise on designated days.
    Capable of working alone in sometimes adverse habitat and weather.
    Volunteers will need their own binoculars.
    Access to hip-waders, though a limited number may be available.
    Support for own living expenses (there will by time for other employment).
      (I can assist in finding a cheap apartment)


Send letters of interest to: Steven Vieira,  Dept. of Zoology, Michigan State
University, East Lansing, MI  48824.  Or email me at: vieirast@pilot.msu.edu

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===============================================================================
Steven Vieira
Dept. of Zoology
Michigan State University
East Lansing  MI  48824
Email: vieirast@pilot.msu.edu
Office: 517-353-4575
Home:  517-484-8198

"We end...at what might be called the standard paradox of the 20th century: Our
tools are better than we are, and grow better than we do.  They suffice to
crack the atom, to command the tides, but they do not suffice for the oldest
task in human history to live on a piece of land with out spoiling it"

                                                    -Aldo Leopold