Avian Ecologist

What I’m Doing in Google Earth Engine

Right now, there’s a data set we want that’s distributed exclusively on Earth Engine. So, to break it into manageable/meaningful chunks for our analysis, we’ve created regions. We basically need to generate the raster (requires a “max” function for the time period of interest) for each year, and then clip the raster to each region […]

Bird Common Names Derived from Indigenous Languages

There are a few bird names that were given by Indigenous cultures of the Americas that have made their way to our current common names. North American dowitcher sora Nahuatl chachalaca quetzal pauraque? South American condor anhinga caracara jacana ani tanager jabiru

Yerkes Observatory Refracting Telescope

Paul & I looked through a bit of history, visiting the 40″ refracting telescope for an observing night. It was something I’d always wanted to do but never made time for when I lived in southern WI. The price to look through the old telescope is a little steep considering it’s an outdated refractor ($100/person); […]

G3 Aurora Near Autumnal Equinox

A coronal hole detected a few days ago showed up big: I’m actually still outside as I type this, in case the aurora decides to act up again! Tonight I saw the brightest sub-storm I’ve seen yet…from my deck! Before 10:30 PM I noticed a sub-storm brewing, which is a big deal if I can […]

Onomatopoeia in American Bird Names

Birds names given by the earliest cultures that encountered them were often imitations of their songs/calls. What may be surprising is how many of those names have stood the test of time! For instance, Native cultures of Central America named the “chachalaca” for its calls. Unsurprisingly though, many of our North American English common names […]

Some Processing I’ve Done in GDAL

I have GDAL installed in Linux (i.e. the easiest way to install/implement it) so the following examples represent command line usage. I have used a smattering of different GDAL utilities, and the links in the descriptions go to the manual page for the utility in each example. I have incorporated these example commands into various […]

First Meeting for MOU Young Birders’ Committee!

Today we had our 1st meeting, though with my continued west coast cold (there must be germs I’m not immune to out there) I just “typed in” while listening/watching all my other fellow committee members share thoughts, etc.! There were some pretty exciting things in the works, and diversity is a topic of great importance […]

Waterfowl & Wetlands Literature Review

Studying waterfowl with large extant datasets is intimidating because I often have the sneaking suspicion “someone has done this before.” I’m in the process of figuring out which of my suspicions are correct. Are there more ducks where there are more wetlands in the surrounding landscape? If so, what scale is relevant to predict waterfowl […]

Waterfowl & Wetland Connectivity

Our project focuses on changes to Prairie Pothole Region (PPR) connectivity due to human activities.

Learning to Identify Birds by their Vocalizations

I can’t say birding by ear was one of my natural talents: it took hard study because I wanted to learn it. Yet, with many hours, it paid off! I can’t recommend my favorite by ear guide enough: Birding by Ear: Eastern/Central (Peterson Field Guides) It taught me how to listen to bird song. I […]