A Weekend at the Cornell Ornithological Lab
By Joe Zabransky
Change has been a part of Dorian Seel’s life since she was interviewed three years ago (see The Echo Oct. 2020) but the one constant that has remained is her passion for birds.
Dorian’s family planned to move from Olympia to Fort Collins, CO during her junior year (2022-23) of high school. As part of that process, she went to Hawaii where her grandparents lived and spent her junior year there. While there, she wrote a paper for her science class about the endangered Hawaiian Crow or Alala which will be printed in a forthcoming Hawaii Audubon newsletter.
She was also selected to participate in the Young Birders Event at the Cornell Ornithological Lab in June of this year. The annual Young Birders Event is a weekend of field trips, lectures, workshops and tours open to high school students from around the world interested in making birds a focus in their careers. For Dorian it was especially exciting because she not only wants to become an ornithologist but she has her sights on Cornell as her first choice for college. In addition, she had not been to the East before, and she was eager to add to her life list of birds.
The following account was summarized from Dorian’s journal of three days jammed full of activities for the students.
DAY 1
After arriving the evening before and spending her first morning in Ithaca having breakfast in a park subjected to heavy smoke from the many Canadian wildfires, Dorian arrived on the Cornell campus in the early afternoon and met the other participating students (16 in all from 4 different countries). Executive Director, Ian Owens, welcomed them and presented a history of the Cornell Ornithological Lab focusing on the life of Arthur Allen, ornithologist and founder of the Laboratory. In so doing, Owens indicated the influence that Allen had made in his own life growing up in the U.K. and “discovering” birds at the age of 15 while working at a wildlife refuge.
Jesse Barry and Chris Wood, leaders of the event, presented all the students with a pair of binoculars after a “surprisingly delicious dinner”! Then one lab scientist gave a talk on the polymorphism of Red-tailed Hawks, and another presented two videos of some 20,000 roosting Whimbrels on Deveaux Bank off the South Carolina coast during migration. This number is estimated to be half the Atlantic coast population.
DAY 2
Dorian spent the first part of the day with a sound recording group in the field. Using both shotgun and parabolic microphone recorders, the group recorded as many bird songs as possible. This was a challenge because the microphones needed to be directed right at the bird to get a quality recording. Frequently it was difficult to ascertain a bird’s location in a tree or in bramble when it was only heard but not seen. Following their acoustic sampling of bird songs and calls, her group went on a short birding field trip which yielded a variety of warblers and an Indigo Bunting, almost all of which were life birds for Dorian.
Back at the lab, they heard more talks, one of which involved using Merlin. Students also had a chance to ask a number of faculty about their careers and college experiences. Members of Dorian’s team then examined the field recordings made earlier in the day. With the assistance of Merlin specialists Taylor Long and Jay McGowan they learned how to edit the recordings and upload them to eBird. They next annotated different sections of the sonograms by highlighting where different species would begin and end their singing. The process followed by the group is the very method used by lab instructors to teach college students bird songs.
DAY 3
Today the students visited the area around the Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Montezuma, NY, 60 miles north of Cornell. Dorian’s birding highlights for the day were Black Terns and a Cerulean Warbler.
The young birders had dinner with some current Cornell undergraduate students who later gave presentations on their experience at Cornell as well as the undergraduate research they are currently doing. This was followed by a special opportunity to see the avian collection at the Macaulay Library. They were essentially “let loose” to roam the collection and then led to see some of the extinct birds within the collection. It was both amazing and sad to see birds such as the Carolina Parakeet, Passenger Pigeon and Ivory-billed Woodpecker (see photo).
DAY 4
On her last day Dorian spent the morning birding around the Ithaca area with the group. Great views of various songbirds were had, especially Scarlet Tanagers and the Tufted Titmouse. After lunch, parents came and joined the students, and they all got a tour of the Cornell campus before leaving. Dorian ended her visit with a whopping 48 new species for her life list. Her only regret was that the zoom feature in her camera was being repaired while at Cornell, so she wasn’t able to photograph many of the new birds she saw.
Internships and similar experiences can be life-changing. The Young Birders Event at Cornell was such an experience for Dorian. She got to meet and make connections with other like-minded students from around the country and the world (an online group chat is used by all to stay in touch). The professionals she met have provided her connections with people in Colorado where she is now going to finish her senior year of high school.
The Young Birders Event, however, was not the only birding activity that Dorian participated in this past summer. After being energized at Cornell, she returned home and attended the 2023 annual conference of the Western Field Ornithologists which was jointly held with the Colorado Field Ornithologists at Copper Mountain in Colorado. In August, Dorian’s summer birding was topped off by attending the week-long ABA Young Birders Camp in Delaware. Altogether, the opportunities for great birding, making connections and participating in a variety of avian activities were fabulous. It was a summer to remember!