Since leaving Utah in August, I’ve been working as a field assistant for graduate and post-doc researchers at Brookfield Conservation Park in South Australia. The research here is investigating cooperative breeding, mixed-species foraging flocks, and disease ecology in fairywrens, thronbills, honeyeaters, robins, babblers, and a variety of other local bird species- all under the watchful eyes of curious kangaroos and hairy-nosed wombats. I’m enjoying exploring a place so ecologically unfamiliar, as well as the interactions we’ve had with the local conservation and research groups that do work in the park. My daily schedule usually includes a mix of mist-netting and banding, resighting color-banded birds, and recording behavioral observations, followed by a run or bike ride through the mallee and bluebush and maybe some wombat spotting by moonlight. I’ll be here for another three months, wrapping up just in time to return to the US for the holidays.
