Overall Project Experience + Skills Learned

Overall, even though the internship is unpaid, it is completely worth the time, hard work, and physical and mental energy that I have put into this job. I’m not quite done yet, I’ll head back to Ohio within the next couple of weeks, but I’ve been reflecting more on what I’ve taken from this internship, and how it would not have been possible without my STEP funding.

 

Important skills I learned from this job that I guarantee I’ll have to use for a future career include :

-Navigation via handheld GPS and compass

-Bird banding

-Radio telemetry

-Songbird identification practice (visual and auditory)

-Butterfly and bee identification

-Tree and plant identification

-Vegetation data collection

-Data analyzation

-Habitat management strategies for songbirds

 

Not only will these skills help me in my future wildlife and forestry classes at Ohio State, but they will also greatly give me an edge up when I apply to jobs as well as to graduate school in the future.

 

Pictured Below :

Different Oak Leaves : White Oak, Scarlet Oak, Red Oak, Chestnut Oak

Our cabins we stayed in for part of the summer, along with part of the crew.

STEP Experience – Weeks Eight through Ten + Independent Research Project

During these last few weeks, myself and another technician, Nick Christensen, began the daunting task of conducting nest vegetation surveys while the grad students and the other technicians continue with fledgling tracking as well as pollinator surveys. For every GWWA nest, a thorough vegetation survey has to be conducted, as well as a random vegetation survey for each. Each vegetation survey takes approximately thirty minutes, depending on what sorts of plants are located around the nest. There were approximately 40 GWWA nests found total, and a survey will be conducted even if they were abandoned, predated, or destroyed by the hail storm, as long as the nest had at least eggs in it.

In addition, at the beginning of the season Dr. Larkin gave myself and Nick, as well as the rest of the undergraduate crew, the opportunity / requirement to conduct our own independent research project on Field Sparrows, who also benefit from early secessional forest management practices. We have been doing a similar project thus far in comparison to the GWWAs, but passively looking for FISP nests, marking a waypoint and flagging the nest with tape, and monitoring the nests to determine nest success. Now, we are also conducting nest vegetation surveys along with the paired random vegetation surveys, for our total of 18 FISP nests. Once we have collected all of our data, we will analyze it and write a paper about their use of early secessional forests and its relation to the conservation of Golden-winged Warblers, which we hope to get published.

Pictured Below:

Field Sparrow nest with nestlings

Field Sparrow fledgling

STEP Experience – Weeks Five through Seven

During these few weeks, I assisted with nest searching in the morning, and then began pollinator surveys with another undergrad. This year is the pilot year for the pollinator surveys, to see how many bees are prevalent at fifty of the point count sites in Sproul State Forest and Black Moshannon State Forest in order to see if bees also benefit from the forest management. The Golden-winged Warblers are the priority, but other species have to be taken into account as well, especially as bee populations are rapidly declining and because of their huge importance in regards to food security.

Our surveys include a 66 meter transect that we walk in fifteen minutes and record all pollinator species that we see – bees, butterflies, moths, beetles, and flies. Many items are needed for these surveys, the most important of which include a GPS, a compass, binoculars, flagging tape, a clipboard, data sheets, a Sharpie, a pencil, and a watch. My watch is one of the most important things that I spent my STEP funding on, as I have to note at what time I begin the pollinator transect, as well as use the stopwatch and make sure the transect takes exactly fifteen minutes. We also go ten meters out from the center point in each cardinal direction and make note of the percentage and number of flowering species within a one meter square. More thorough vegetation data is taken by the point count teams, and will be used for pollinator data analysis in addition.

Learning to identify many insect species has been an incredible opportunity and will benefit me in any sort of career I end up in that’s environmentally related. Everything in an ecosystem is interconnected, so even if we think we’re only interested in saving the Golden-winged Warblers, we have to think big picture and realize that all of the other organisms in the surrounding ecosystem and beyond also impact the GWWAs, and are impacted by them.

 

Pictured below :

Eastern Tiger Swallowtail on Mountain Laurel

Great Spangled Fritillary on Dewberry

Skipper on my clipboard during a transect survey

Equipment used each day in the field

Bumblebee on Dewberry

STEP Experience – Weeks Three and Four

During these weeks, the eggs were hatching and the nestlings started to fledge, which meant that we began to put transmitters on them so that they could be tracked with radio telemetry. They are fitted with transmitters right before we expect they’ll fledge, which is when they leave the nest. In order to know when they’ll fledge, which is typically around day 9 or 10 as a nestling, we had to actively monitor every nest and track its progress. We checked each nest every four days, so as to not disturb it too much, but to also keep track of its progress and see when the nestlings will fledge. Once the transmitters were placed on the birds, the crew began to track each fledgling every day, and survey the vegetation it was hiding out in. This aspect of the research is important, because not only does the preferred nest site vegetation matter, but the vegetation used following the nest fledge must be managed for as well, and changes as the birds age. Each transmitter costs $150 and only lasts for 30 days. It is a very small object so as to not detract from the fledgling’s ability to move and fly. It is attached to a tied piece of elastic string to form a sort of “backpack” so that the loops can be placed around each of the bird’s wings. The bird will eventually outgrow the backpack and the transmitter will die and then will naturally fall off.

 

Additionally, we began to notice many other bird species with young that were beginning to fledge, as well as other active wildlife, including Black Bears, coyotes, snakes, elk, chipmunks, porcupines, and more.

 

Pictured Below :

Fledgling Golden-winged Warbler after being fitted with its transmitter

Myself holding a Northern Flicker fledgling that we stumbled upon one day

Black Bear and Coyote paw prints

Timber Rattlesnake

STEP Experience – Weeks One and Two

My internship consists of working as a Wildlife Technician for a long-term ongoing project headed by Dr. Jeffrey Larkin of the Indiana University of Pennsylvania. There are two graduate students currently running the project, Cameron Fiss, a Master’s student at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania, as well as Darin McNeil, a PhD student at Cornell University. The research is focused on the conservation of Golden-winged Warblers, a species of songbird whose population numbers have been declining for decades. GWWAs prefer to nest in early secessional forests, and then move their fledged young into more mature forest as they age. In order to provide for the specific habitat preferred by this declining species, the forest needs to be actively and properly managed. The research study includes a large-scale set of point counts ranging five states, to get a thorough range of ideal GWWA nesting habitat – DJ’s project. Additionally, specifically in Sproul State Forest in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Cameron is finding Golden-winged Warblers, mapping out their territories and banding and color-banding the males and females if possible, actively searching for and monitoring nests, and then placing transmitters on nestlings that are about to fledge so that radio telemetry can be used to track the fledglings and analyze the vegetation being used by them. This is the project I assisted with for the first two weeks and sporadically since. I assisted in searching for nests, which is quite the job considering they are typically well concealed in vegetation, often at the base of a bundle of Goldenrod. Typically we first listened for a singing male, and watched him and scouted his territory so we could find his mate. We then watched her until we saw her building a nest, and then flagged a nest and marked a GPS waypoint in our trackers. In our biggest day, as a team we found six nests total. In the peak of the season as the females were building, finding between two and four nests a day as a team was rather typical. As the females began laying and incubating eggs, nest finding slowed down and we only found maybe one or two nests a day, or none on slow days. In total, we have found approximately forty nests, although some of those have been abandoned, predated, destroyed by a severe hailstorm, or rebuilt in a nearby location for unknown reasons. In one location, twelve nests were destroyed because of a severe hailstorm that killed two female GWWAs as well as crushed many eggs and ruined all of the vegetation in the area, making it not suitable for a renesting attempt by surviving adult pairs.

 

 

Final Reflection

The highlight of my scholars experience over the last few years includes two things : discovering and falling in love with my major, as well as meeting so many incredible people and building lasting friendships. Because of ENR, I learned about how holistic sustainability is and all that it encompasses. I gained a broad perspective of what being a true steward of the earth really means, and how I want to conduct myself to be as environmentally friendly as possible.

My spring project was the Spring break OAC sea kayaking trip in the Florida Everglades. It went very well, and I gained a lot of knowledge about myself and what I’m capable of, physically and mentally. It was not an easy trip, but I’m incredibly glad I went.

As for the next class of ENR scholars, I would suggest being as involved as you can and to not be afraid to just jump in and meet new people. I can’t imagine how college would be for me, especially the first year, if I hadn’t met so many incredible friends right off the bat because of scholars.

Second Semester Project Proposal

For my second semester second year project, I will be traveling to the Everglades in Florida for a sea kayaking trip over Spring Break with the Outdoor Adventure Center. The other students on the trip will benefit from this project, as they will see my passion and my excitement for the environment, birds and nature come through. I will benefit from the project by challenging myself physically, mentally, and emotionally on such a difficult trip as it is. I will benefit by becoming adjusted to hard work outside in less than desirable weather conditions, which will help to prepare me for a future career of outdoor field work. Additionally, I will benefit by being able to practice my birding skills with new species that I’ll have never seen in person before, while trying to identify them mostly from memory as I’m kayaking and trying to use my binoculars at the same time, as I’ll most likely be unable to pull out my birding field guide books. I would like to work on this project because I’ve never done something this challenging and hard core before – my first camping experience had been when we went to Hocking Hills last autumn, and that was only for one night, let alone five nights, fewer people, living out of whatever gear can fit in a kayak, and the possibility of alligators. I hope to learn about birds and gain experience in identifying them, primarily from sight and sound from memory. As well, I hope to learn about myself and determine what type of person I can be when facing adversity, and also excited to see how my friends and peers handle the difficulty of our trip. I’m excited for the experience and the chance to bond closely with my friends and future roommates, as well as the others who will be on the trip.

 

Pictured above : Roseate Spoonbills – one of many species of birds I hope to see over the course of the trip.

Project Final Reflection

This semester I did complete my second year project of mentor council, with approximately 20 hours committed. I went about completing my project by making myself available to my saplings and letting them know that I was there for them if they needed help scheduling classes for second semester or with anything else at all, meeting with them when requested. As well, I went to all of the Tuesday seminar meetings and engaged with the first year students there in addition to outside of class time and the camping trip. I definitely found my project to be rather rewarding as it was exciting to see my first years become adjusted to college as the semester progressed, and to be able to help them along the way, even if just a little. I enjoyed spending time with and getting to know my saplings and finding things that we have in common. If I could start my project over, I would have reached out to my saplings more often at the very beginning of the semester, simply to hang out and get food or to go climbing or to spend time at Morrill. That way a deeper connection and friendship could have been built early on and so they would feel more comfortable reaching out to me or viewing me as a friend and not just as a mentor. I learned a lot about what it means to be in a leadership position, as well as learning how to communicate. I gained leadership experience from this project, as well as gaining experience with communication and public speaking skills which will help me in future leadership positions as well as one day in my career position.img_9234

Mid-Semester Check-In

Yes, I have started work on my project in that I have invested time and energy into attending the bi-weekly ENR meetings and interacting with my saplings in that setting, as well as attending the Hocking Hills camping trip, commenting on blog posts, and also meeting with four of our seven saplings for the Mentor Interview Assignment. The events and the one-on-one meetings went well and gave me the opportunity to get to know each student more and get an idea for how their semesters have been going so far and how they want the rest of this year and their next few years at Ohio State to be like. Going forward, I want to invest more time into hanging out with them outside of the required class settings, such as getting them all together to go climbing at the OAC, or going to the Short North or German Village to explore or get dinner. That way it seems less like a requirement I have or they have to the class, or more like I actually do want to spend time with each of them and get to know them as a person, outside of a classroom setting. I think I’m a little behind in this, in that I wanted to have  initiated some sort of group hangout with all of them sooner in the semester. So far this project is meeting the expectations that I set in my proposal, as in it is giving me leadership experience but also adhering to my empathetic and friendly side in wanting to get to know and help these first year students. The only change I want to make to this plan is to put more of an effort in hanging out with our saplings either as a group or individually just for fun- not as a class requirement. I foresee this being difficult because it will be hard to find a time when everyone is not busy, myself and Connor included. As well, each of our saplings seems rather independent and has made friends and seems to be doing well from what we can see, so they might not be interested in forming friendships with either myself or Connor as they might think that they do not need our help, which is totally fine and up to them. file-2

Second Year Project Proposal

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I plan to use my position as a mentor and my full year of experience working with my saplings as my second year project. My mentor partner as well as my seven saplings will benefit from this project. Helping Connor keep an eye out for all of them as well as answering any questions they might have will benefit Connor in that he will not feel as if he is solely responsible for adjusting these first years to their new lives at Ohio State. As well, my saplings will benefit by having two second year students with additional knowledge available to them in order to answer questions or to give any advice about how to succeed, and just to have me as a resource or as a friend if needed. This project will benefit me because it gives me the chance to get to know new people, not only as friends but also as a leader to them. Having this leadership practice and the practice of instructing younger students as they adjust to college will be useful as experience for a future career. As well, this project will benefit me in allowing me to learn new things about myself as I get to know my saplings. I would like to work on this project because I think some students look at mentor council as just another thing that they have to do in order to build up their resume. However, I’m excited to be using this as my project because I hope it will help me to invest additional time than the bare minimum necessary and to help me deeply care for my saplings and want to get to know each of them on a personal level.