For starters, they don’t even really act like ducks. Or look like the typical duck, either, with lanky legs that trail behind them in flight, a brilliant pinkish bill and an unmistakable white patch on the wings. They prefer to stand in the water rather than float. They are noisy as all get-out and will perch just about anywhere, from trees to utility poles to the roofs of houses.
“I am incredibly honored and proud of the officers and members of our student chapter,” said Rachel Ann Arias, former co-president of the chapter. “Everyone has been incredibly committed to creating a welcoming space for students interested in wildlife at UC Davis.”
In this episode of Field Notes, Dean Ashley M. Stokes visits the Putah Creek Nestbox Highway, a program run by the UC Davis Museum of Wildlife and Fish Biology. For the past 27 years, researchers and students have tracked the return of western bluebirds to Davis by banding and monitoring young birds. Have you ever spotted a banded bird around town? If so, scan the QR code in the video to contribute your sighting to their records.
Ellie Bolas, who completed her Ph.D. in ecology this spring, is this year’s recipient of the Kinsella Memorial Prize for her doctoral research on how wildfires and human activities shape wildlife behavior and predator-prey interactions between mountain lions and mule deer in the greater Los Angeles area.
After the sun sets and darkness falls over the vineyards near Lodi, American barn owls start to glide above the grapevines in search of rodents below. As the birds hunt, researchers at the University of California, Davis, and California State Polytechnic University, Humboldt, and San Luis Obispo, are paying attention to how noises echoing through the fields influence these nocturnal raptors.
