Hatch early and eat well: Patterns of juvenile dispersal and recruitment in Mountain Chickadees from a long-term study

Being a fledgling is difficult—and dangerous. The vast majority (~80 percent) of young birds do not survive this stage, succumbing to predation or starvation. What might give a vulnerable fledgling a head start when leaving the nest? Once they leave, how far do they move between their hatch sites and first breeding sites, and why?

Finding the artist in the artwork: repeatable individual differences in the nests of a North American songbird

To the world, this work may constitute just another research paper. For me, it represents my first real step into the world of science. More than two years ago as an undergraduate at Ohio Wesleyan University, I began a summer internship in Dr. Dustin Reichard’s lab to gain research experience with wild birds.