a black-capped and a mountain chickadees

Winter fieldwork at the MRS!

Feb. 23, 2022

Mia, Maria, Georgy, and Scott recently spent some time at the MRS banding and taking blood samples from mountain and black-capped chickadees. This field work is being conducted to get an idea of chickadee populations sizes at the MRS as we prepare to install feeders that will allow us to...

mountain chickadee chicks in a nest

Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grants for Mia and Angela!

Jan. 13, 2022

Congratulations to Mia and Angela for being awarded Beverly Sears Graduate Student Grants to support their PhD research! Mia will be using her award to explore the effects of urnabization and elevation on chickadee nestling development and Angela will be using hers to expand on her recent findings that SGS1,...

biology letters

New paper in Biology Letters!

Sept. 9, 2021

Congratulations to Angela and her co-authors Kathryn and Staffan on the publication of a new paper in Biology Letters that documents the highly invasive malaria lineage SGS1 in our non-migratory chickadees in Boulder County. What this means for our local songbirds is unclear, but SGS1 has been implciated in population...

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A best talk award and an honorable mention at the 2021 AOS/SCO-SOC meeting!

Aug. 18, 2021

Last week the 2021 joint meeting of the American Ornithological Society and the Society of Canadian Ornithologists met virtually. Members of the Taylor Lab gave an array of talks throughout the meeting on topics ranging from redpoll (Erik Funk) and wagtail (Georgy Semenov) genomics to avian malaria (Angela Theodosopoulos) and...

chickadee at smart feeder

New funding from the National Science Foundation!

July 2, 2021

We just got the official word of some new funding from NSF! The newly funded work is a collaborative grant with Valdimir Pravosudov at the University of Nevada Ren o. We'll examine the genetic basis of spatial cognition in food-caching mountain chickadees and link genetic variation to natural selection using...

chickadee hatching

An update from the Boulder Chickadee Study Field Crew

June 15, 2021

2021 has been a busy and exciting year for the Boulder Chickadee Study! With COVID subsiding and vaccinations completed we've been able to operate at our normal capacity. Joining the team this summer are Mia Larrieu (PhD student), Olivia Taylor and Will Anderson (undergraduate students supported by UROP and BSI)...

mountain chickadee

Katherine's honors thesis is published in the Journal of Field Ornithology

June 13, 2021

Congratulations to Katherine Feldmann on the publication of her honors thesis in the Journal of Field Ornithology! Her paper quantifies plumage differences between and within black-capped and mountain chickadees and sets the stage for furthering our understanding of the role that plumage might play in hybridization between the two species...

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Scott will be the next Director of the Mountain Research Station and will become an INSTAAR Fellow

May 4, 2021

As of June 1, 2021 Scott will be the Director of the CU Boulder Mountain Research Station (MRS) as well as a Fellow of the Institute for Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR). Scott will be taking over from Dr. Bill Bowman who has been station Director for 31 years. Leading...

Chickadee nestling

Mia, Cori, Angela and Will received grants from CFO and/or DFO!

March 22, 2021

Mia has recently received funding from both the Denver Field Ornithologists and Colorado Field Ornithologists! She will use these grants to help set up her summer pilot project, as part of her PhD research, to explore how urbanization and elevation affects chickadee nestling development and behaviors exhibited within the nest...

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Cori and Erik gave talks for the Denver Field Ornithologists

March 8, 2021

Cori and Erik recently gave talks about their Denver Feild Ornithologists funded reseach to a packed virtual house with over 100 guests. Cori's first public talk, during which she detailed her findings from using DNA metabarcoding to determine what black-capped and mountain chickadees feed their young, was a smashing success...

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