I have a goal to create two blog posts each month, but I fell behind in August (whoops!). It was a busy month, finishing up the 2019 purple martin field season, hosting visits in Winnipeg of family and friends, and preparing for & attending the SCO-SOC (Society of Canadian Ornithologists) conference in Quebec City.
The recent trip to Quebec was my first time attending and presenting at a scientific conference. I felt honoured to be among so many ornithologists with similar interests and to listen to so many great talks about current research. Making new connections from meeting other students and researchers was definitely the highlight of this trip. I traveled with my labmate Saeedeh Bani Assadi, and we stayed at a nice airbnb in the city, just about a 20-minute walk from the conference location at Hotel Chateau Laurier. Though I took French classes ages ago in high school and my speaking skills are quite rusty, it was nice to practice a little with the locals (French is the dominant language in Quebec). It was also neat to see how French was incorporated in some of the presentations (either spoken with English powerpoint slides, or vice versa). The wealth of research and topics on tools for avian conservation inspired me to continue working hard in ornithology and in my studies.
I think I may have to take another trip to Quebec sometime to explore the city some more (and birds). A conference-packed few days didn’t leave a lot of free time. I got to see some of the downtown or old city area, which was very beautiful. It was also nice to see mountains again (big contrast to Winnipeg in the prairies), a sight I haven’t seen in a year since I moved to Manitoba from California. I was fortunate to be a part of a guided morning bird walk, and though it was a slow-ish morning I did get a lifer bird, a Black-throated Green Warbler!
Since the genomic data from my MSc is still in the early stages, I presented on longitudinal migration data in Purple Martins from light-level geolocators. This type of repeat data is super rare (where individuals are tracked for multiple years), and it was a pleasure to share interesting results from this data set. The 33 individuals in our study showed that the martins have quite a bit of individual variation in their migration timing, and that could explain a long-term trend of their timing advancements. The official publication of this paper (lead by my advisor Dr. Kevin Fraser) was actually just two days ago! https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2019.00324/full This is the first time I have been a part of a publication. 🙂 It was pretty exciting to have the timing of the conference talk and paper publication line up so well. Also on a side note, I drew the Purple Martin cartoon in this paper, one of the first artsy birds I started drawing digitally using the inkscape program.
I had to leave Quebec before the final social (closing cocktail) of the conference to catch my return flight back to Winnipeg. On my way home I was surprised to receive the news that my talk won first place for best student presentation! I felt very lucky to have such great support and I hope to continue going to conferences like this one.
-Evelien
eveliendegreef.com 