Current Raptor Biology Student Projects

My research focuses on behavioral variation in Prairie Falcons in the sagebrush habitats of southwestern Idaho. I am studying how differences in foraging and breeding behavior influence their demography. This work is critical as sagebrush ecosystems face threats from habitat loss, invasive species, and climate change, and behavioral diversity can enhance population-level resilience to these changes.

My research focuses on a local burrowing owl population in portions of the Morley Nelson Snake River Birds of Prey National Conservation Area within southwestern Idaho in which I am exploring how kinship is structured in the population, developing a better understanding of population dynamics, and determining what factors influence lifetime reproductive success.

My research is focused on understanding the relationship between weather and avian mortality at wind energy facilities in southern Spain. The Strait of Gibraltar is a critical bottleneck for bird movement between Europe and Africa, while also having a high density of wind turbines along the Spanish coastline. This combination of high bird and high turbine density can be used as a template for inference in other such bottlenecks to mitigate potential negative impacts of wind energy on wildlife populations.

My research will assess how weather in wintering and breeding grounds impacts Western Burrowing Owl demography. I will be using more than 10 years of banding and nest monitoring data from the Global Owl Project in northern Oregon to assess the direct and indirect effects of weather on nesting productivity and on adult survival.

Golden Eagles build large stick nests on cliff ledges that may be used as habitat or a source of food by other cliff-dwelling organisms. My research investigates the effects of eagle nest use and ectoparasite treatments on insects, arachnids, and other terrestrial invertebrates living in eagle nests across southwestern Idaho.