Congrats to Angela and her coauthors Kathryn, Mia, and Vanessa for their recently accepted publication in Ornithology ! The lay summary of the paper, which is about avian malaria in our local Colorado chickadees, is below! Lay Summary: Haemosporidians are a diverse group of vector-transmitted parasites that infect birds and...

Abi, Sara, Ajay, Will, Peter, Georgy, and Scott recently attended the 2023 Evolution meeting in Albuquerque New Mexico. This was the first large meeting for Abi, Sara, Ajay, and Will! Sara and Ajay presented posters about their upcoming PhD work, Will gave a talk about his undergraduate work on house...

Congrats to Georgy and his coauthors Claire Curry, Michael Patten, and Jason Weir for a recent publication on titmouse hybridization in Ornithology . By studying two differently aged contact zones, Georgy found consistent hybridization dynamics between these closely related birds. Despite plumage differences, it seems that the titmouse hybrid zone...

Jay's research on sexual mimicry in hummingbirds was highlighted in a documentary from PBS Nature, "The Hummingbird Effect"! You can watch the clip here , and be sure to check out the rest of the hour-long special which covers lots of recent work on hummingbirds. As an NSF Postdoctoral Fellow...

The 5th season of the Boulder Chickadee Study is in full swing with many chickadees raising young in Boulder and eggs about to hatch the higher elevation sites! One of our landowners has set up a livestream on the black-capped chickadee nest on their property. You can view it here:...

The Great Taylor Lab Bakeoff returned to mark the end of the Spring 2023 semester and the end of the first academic year for Sara, Nikki, and Ajay! Although Scott's muffins were described as "tasting like playdough" the entries were generally delicious! Our judging panel was expanded this year to...

Congratulations to Olivia who recently defended her honors thesis! For her honors thesis Olivia studied the songs of black-capped and mountain chickadees in regions where they both occur (Boulder County, Colorado) compared to regions where they do not overlap. She found that mountain chickadees sound more different from black-capped chickadees...

Congrats to Haley and Sara who were recently awarded research grants from the Colorado Field Ornithologists! Haley will be using this funding to study the influence of color pattern differences between black-capped and mountain chickadees on aggressive interactions between them, while Sara will be using the funding to study differences...

Congratulartions to PhD student Sara Padula who is the first ever recipient of the Sarah Crump Memorial Fellowship. The fellowship was created by the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (INSTAAR) and Sarah Crump’s family in honor of Sarah Crump (pictured here), who received her PhD from INSTAAR at the...

Congratulations to Haley and Ajay who have been awarded Research, Education & Conservation grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists! Ajay will be using his award to further investigate the geographic consistency of the genetic basis of spatial cognition in mountain chickadee populations of the Colorado Rocky Mountains and the California...