AnnuAl RepoRt to membeRs | 2012 - Cornell Lab of Ornithology

Discovering birds, connecting to natureHigher EducationMentorship…pass it onLast year the Cornell Lab continued its proudrole as an academic research institution, withLab scientists advising more than 100 undergradand graduate students. Cornell Ph.D. candidateNathan Senner was one of those students, with adissertation on a multiyear research project thatbanded Hudsonian Godwits with GPS data loggersin sub-arctic Manitoba and monitored theirextraordinary 6,000-mile flights to Ecuador andChile. Senner became the first scientist to detailthis godwit’s marathon migrations, one of theLIFELONG LEARNINGBird study for everyoneCornell Lab lifelong learning programs are basedon the premise that you don’t have to be a collegebiology major to study ornithology. In 1972 theLab introduced “A Home Study Course in BirdBiology,” the first college-level correspondencecourse in ornithology. Four decades later, thecourse has enrolled more than 10,000 people in65 countries with a rigorous curriculum of birdbehavior, ecology, evolution, and more. Severalzoos across the nation have made it a requiredcourse for zookeepers in training. In 2013 thefarthest recorded travels of any bird on earth. Theproject also ignited the imagination of a teenagernamed Andy Johnson, who attended Senner’s godwitlecture at the Lab’s 2009 Young Birders Event.Johnson enrolled at Cornell as a biology undergradthe following year and became a field assistant forSenner, travelling with him from Churchill, Manitoba,to Tierra del Fuego. Now Johnson is hard atwork on his thesis project studying Whimbrels,and making plans for his own research journeys tothe Arctic and South America.latest edition of the course’s Handbook of BirdBiology will be published by Wiley-Blackwell asan official college textbook for university ornithologycourses. Another lifelong learning coursecreated by the Lab in 2009, Courtship and Rivalryin Birds, uses interactive online learning to helpindividuals around the world develop new skillsin observing and understanding bird behavior.Enrollees so far have come from 18 countries,ranging from beginning birders to park naturalistsand wildlife professionals.Hawk and Heron Reality ShowsFrom February to June 2012, more than 2 millionpeople from 176 countries watched the real-lifedrama of Great Blue Herons nesting atop a deadtree at Sapsucker Woods and Red-tailed Hawks atopa light pole on the Cornell campus, courtesy of HDweb cams installed and operated by the CornellLab. Viewers ranged from BirdSleuth schoolchildrenwho got an educational look at nesting biology toadults who found the daily drama—from fending offowl attacks on the nest to a fragile fledgling’s waveringfirst flight—as gripping as General Hospital.Three more cams launched in 2012, in partnershipwith other organizations, and broadcast nests fromelsewhere across the country: American Kestrelsin Idaho, Ospreys in Montana, and Pacific Loons inAlaska. Future cams may feature birds from moreexotic locations, such as rainforests in the Amazonand jungles in Southeast Asia, thus furtheringthe Lab’s goal to engage everyday people in thefascinating lives of birds.21