I loved being involved in a bird banding station and will definitely be looking into internships in this field after graduation to gain more experience! Bob Isenberg and Eva Moylan at Morro Rockįrom a young age, scientific illustration has played a large role in my interest in birds so I hope to incorporate it into my future career as well. I gained experience using mist nets and handling birds as well as learning what and how data are taken during this process. I’m excited to continue working on this project as a senior project! Additionally, this summer I was able to volunteer the Powell II MAPS banding station in Los Osos. This dataset currently includes North American bird capture data spanning from 1989-2018 and our goal is to determine if species-specific productivity and abundance trends can be connected to environmental change across the continent.

This summer through the Frost Summer Undergraduate Research Program, I’ve had the opportunity to work on a project using MAPS banding station data with Dr. Two other students and I visited Berkeley’s Museum of Invertebrate Zoology this August to get measurements for species not currently in the dataset and we are looking forward to visiting the Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles later next week. These data are used to determine how different species may be evolving over time in response to increasing light pollution.

Additionally, we have begun incorporating telephoto imaging of Black Oystercatcher eyes to discern if pupil irregularities can be used to identify individuals since our local population isn’t banded.Īnother ongoing project in this lab involves visiting museum skeleton collections to take orbital, sclerotic ring, and tarsus measurements to calculate light-gathering ability of the eye. Locally, the project was taken over from California State Parks by Cal Poly in 2022, and we are continuing breeding season monitoring efforts. This project was originally a 10-year, Audubon funded, citizen science study with the goal of collecting nest monitoring data on Black Oystercatcher reproductive success along the West Coast. Since 2021, I have been involved in the Black Oystercatcher Monitoring Project in SLO County. “I am currently going into my fourth year in Biological Science at Cal Poly and for the past few years I have been part of the Francis Ecology Lab, which focuses on evolutionary ecology, community ecology and conservation. All of your donations made this possible! THANK YOU! Eva Moylan with male American Kestrel 2011).This past week we met with our most recent CalPoly Scholarship student, Eva Moylan. 2012).Īlthough this species is increasing across many lowland areas of the UK, actions to reduce persecution are required to reverse recent declines in the uplands, where illegal persecution is believed to limit the population (see Causes of Change section).Įlsewhere, there are possible concerns about the risk of genetic introgression from escaped falcons following increases in the numbers of Peregrines and hybrid falcons in captivity ( Fleming et al. In northern England, breeding productivity on grouse moors has been 50% lower than at nests in other habitats, indicating that illegal persecution on land managed for Red Grouse shooting remains an important pressure on the population ( Amar et al.

This could at least partly reflect the distributional changes: urban Peregrines have a higher number of fledglings per breeding attempt than rural birds, possibly linked at least in part to higher prey availability ( Kettel et al. Nest record information for the UK as a whole shows a significant rise in the number of fledglings per breeding attempt. Illegal persecution continues to limit numbers in the uplands, and food supply may also be a limiting factor in some areas however persecution in lowland areas decreased during the 20th century, allowing numbers to benefit from the ban on organochlorine agrochemicals and from increased use of human structures as nest sites ( Wilson et al. 2018) and towards lowland regions and the coast Peregrine pairs in England have increased fivefold since 1981 and now, for the first time, outnumber those in Scotland ( Wilson et al. The overall increase between the 20 surveys masks a major distributional shift away from the uplands ( North East Scotland Raptor Study Group 2015, Wilson et al. Populations and breeding performance have declined, however, in northwest Scotland and the Northern Isles ( Crick & Ratcliffe 1995). Illegal persecution continues to limit numbers in the uplands, and food supply may also be a limiting factor in some areas. The UK population size, distribution and breeding performance have all largely recovered from the poisonous effects of organochlorine pesticides in the 1950s and 1960s ( Newton 2013).

Peregrine falcon scientific name