See below for a new scientific article focused on the Fairchild's long-term
backyard bird data. Wonderful to see their diligent home birding further
our understanding of migration timing! Congrats to everyone involved in
this project.
- Jenna
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: W. Douglas Robinson <w.douglas.robinson@xxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, Nov 7, 2019 at 12:15 PM
Congratulations to Karan and Jim Fairchild, whose diligent efforts to
tabulate the species they encountered each day on their property for nearly
30 years led to a new research article in the open-access journal PeerJ.
The article is titled "Idiosyncratic changes in spring arrival dates of
Pacific Northwest migratory birds" and can be accessed at this link:
https://peerj.com/articles/7999/
The data digitization, analysis and publication process involved many OSU
students, including one undergraduate and one graduate student (now
postdoc) as co-authors. So in addition to making their valuable data
publicly available, the process included professional development
experience for several students.
Interestingly, at their farm near Philomath, the Fairchild data show six
species advanced their spring arrival dates substantially, sometimes by as
much as 2 weeks since the mid 1980s, one species arrived much later (Willow
Flycatcher) and several showed no change at all. The reason for the word
Idiosyncratic in the title is that we were, for the most part, severely
challenged in finding any consistent predictor of why some species advanced
and others did not. But there’s more to the story you will just have to
read….
Congrats, again, to Jim and Karan!
Doug
