Awardee: Megan Gall
Semester of Award: Spring 2022
Materials Awarded: This grant allowed us to purchase automated bird feeders that have timed release of bird seed.
Project Description:
In the Gall lab we are interested in questions about the complex interactions between the environment, behavior, and the characteristics of the auditory system. Together with my undergraduate students, we have been exploring how human generated noise influences the behavior and audition of three species of resident songbirds: black-capped chickadees, tufted titmice, and white-breasted nuthatches. We study their behavior in the field at the Vassar Ecological preserve. To encourage birds to visit particular locations, we had been manually distributing bird seed to our 14 feeding platforms 2-3 times per week. This was an enormous effort, so the ability to put out automated feeders that dispense food at a specific time each day and only need to refill the feeders every few weeks has dramatically increased the time we have available to conduct our experiments. This semester we have been recording the vocalizations of these species to use in a sound propagation study. Birds become used to arriving at the platforms at regular times to feed, so we can set up our recording equipment very close to the platforms to get high quality recordings. I’ve included images of our recording equipment and a bird using the automated feeders.
We also use these feeding platforms to trap and band birds (place small colored plastic bands around their legs), so we can identify birds in the future. We have also conducted experiments in the lab with birds that we have trapped to determine how noise influences their auditory processing. We are preparing that manuscript for publication now. We did have some challenges figuring out how to secure the automated feeders above the traps that we use (an issue we are still navigating!). I imagine this particular technology is rather specialized to my research, but I can certainly say that using the Frances D. Fergusson Technology Exploration Fund to automate aspects of your research that were previously done manually can save an enormous amount of time. Using the fund creatively to purchase interesting technology can be a great way to further your research and teaching.
