Science takes place in all sorts of circumstances, and for me, those circumstances are usually inside of a lab. They are also often spread across multiple facilities and at very odd hours of the day (or night), and those are entire research stories of their own. Nonetheless, one of my favorite things about research is…
Category: Field Notes
Field Notes: Urban Cat-astrophes
Many of my colleagues have lived alongside nature since birth, but I grew up in Seoul, Korea, where people rarely pass a tree on their way to work, and their exposure to nature generally begins and ends with household pets. Although I came to grad school thinking that my interest in animals and nature might…
Field Notes: Why are some cows horny? The structure and function of horns
If you’re driving through the foothills of California, you will likely see lush rolling hills speckled with lots of cows! If we look closely at these cows, we can see physical differences between individuals. They may be a different size, or color, or they may have horns while others do not. While most people may…
Field Notes: Bird Brains and Behavioral Flexibility
Flexibility is the cornerstone of any PhD – whether it be recovering from failed experiments or tumultuous unproductive field seasons. One of the most useful skills to learn as a doctoral student is how to adapt and be flexible within your program or institution such that you can navigate all the inevitable obstacles along your…
Field notes: Diary at a Dairy
ABGG student Isabelle tells us all about her research on dairy cows and their abnormal behaviors.
Field Notes: Peru Pilot Trip
During the COVID-19 pandemic, a good deal of research was put on pause to protect the health of our global community and the animals we work with. While the pandemic is still an ongoing threat, some researchers have been able to safely resume data collection. The field notes shared here are from my September 2021 pilot field…
Field Notes: Diary from a First Field Season
Hi there! Jessica here. I’m starting this diary to log the tribulations and triumphs of my PhD research on shorebirds in the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Always exciting, grueling, and full of surprises, field season is my favorite part of the year . . . however, the first field season of a new project can be…
Field Notes: It takes a village
After last year’s field season was canceled because of the pandemic followed by a full year of virtual meetings, conferences, socializing, and the never-ending pinging of emails in my inbox, sitting at my laptop was about the very last place I wanted to be at the start of summer. Contrarily, being in the fog of the Marin Headlands,…
Field Notes: A Life-or-Death Game of Musical Chairs: How Do Baboons Choose Where to Sleep at Night?
Let’s take a little journey back in time. Remember when you walked into a classroom on the first day of school in, say, 8th grade? If you lucked out and your teacher let you choose where to sit, you had a pretty challenging decision ahead of you, whether you recognized it at the time or not….
Field (Lab) Notes: Do pigeon parents get better with practice?
What can pigeons teach us about the parental brain? What do COVID-19 testing and animal behavior analyses have in common? Read more about Victoria’s Ph.D. research to find out!
theethogram.com 