Hi Fairywren Followers,
Long time no talk! We last updated you in April on the results from our transect trip last December, but in the meantime Allison and I have presented our research at an ornithology conference held in Alaska, written an email and article for eBird, and processed your submission data. Look for another post detailing our conference presentation in the next week or two, but in the meantime here are some updates:
1. eBird article: We recently wrote an article for the eBird Australia homepage which you can check out here. It mostly contains information that you’ve seen before, but it does have some new nuggets of information, including new submission numbers (see below) and a discussion on the differences between Lovely Fairywren and Superb Fairywren moult schedules. Why most male Superb Fairywrens moult into dull plumage during the winter but all male Lovely Fairywrens stay in bright plumage year-round is a fascinating question.
Our best guess is that maybe rainfall amount and predictability are behind this difference. Lovely Fairywrens live in the tropical North-east of Queensland where it’s very wet, while Superb Fairywrens live along the South-east coast where rainfall is less predictable. Your data on the moult schedules of the fairywrens near you will help us learn if there’s variation among populations. If rainfall is behind it all, then maybe Superb Fairywrens in wetter habitats will be more likely to remain in bright plumage year-round than Superb Fairywrens in dry habitats. What do you think?
2. New submission numbers! Between August 2018 and April 2019, 364 participants have submitted 2,886 checklists with plumage and/or group data. We’re really happy to see these results. To think that over 350 people have participated in less than a year is incredible. Thank you for your participation!
3. We have our first five months of data (August – December) annotated! It takes a bit of work to go from the eBird comments section to actually having the data in a format we can work with. For that we have an excellent lab technician, Rachael Lehman, working with us to process the data and get it into working order. We’ll make time soon to start and play with the data and share any preliminary findings with you all. The real results will come when we can look at a whole year of data or even multiple years of data to compare how variation in rainfall across years influences group sizes and plumage.
More soon! Let us know if you have any questions or see any cool fairywrens!
Joe and Allison
