PELLSTON — Students at the University of Michigan Biological Station in northern Michigan just south of the Mackinac Bridge set camera traps in July to identify nest-raiding predators.
As part of the wildlife experiment, the students craft artificial nests and use modeling clay to mimic bird eggs.
“I have done this before in Costa Rica and we had monkeys coming to the nest putting all of the eggs in their mouth and running around,” said Dr. Mariano Rodriguez-Cabal, research assistant professor at the University of Vermont and instructor of the UMBS general ecology course. “It’s super fun and it gives you this idea of how the population of birds is regulated in this forest.”
Naomy Diake, a senior at U-M and a UMBS student, sits along Douglas Lake gathering grass to build a safe structure like a nesting bird protecting eggs.
“It’s helping us put our minds into what we’re actually studying and seeing how they would interact with things,” Diake said. “And it’s making us think a little deeper about organisms that aren’t humans. It’s a very nice interactive way of combining science and art.”
Kelsey Walworth, a junior at U-M and a UMBS student, works to weave plants through a wire frame, but needs to go back for something sturdier, like pine needles.
“This isn’t easy,” Walworth said. “Once we finish, we’re going to take them out to the field and set them up with some quail eggs and mimic eggs and put trail cameras on them to see what kind of predators come and try to take the eggs from nests.”
“I actually think that is super interesting,” said Landon Rambadt, a sophomore at U-M and a UMBS student. “I am curious to know the results because I can’t really think of any organisms that would attack eggs in this kind of situation in an environment like this. So I’m actually really curious.”
The goal is to reveal how nest predation impacts the population of forest birds throughout UMBS, the more than 10,000-acre research and teaching campus in operation since 1909.
“The students are building artificial nests like you can find in nature. And then they’re going to put a quail egg inside and two modeling clays,” Rodriguez-Cabal said. “By the mark left on the modeling clay left by the predator, we can know if it’s a bird, marsupial or a mammal.”
After powering up the cameras and adjusting the menu settings, the class spreads out across the field station to set the traps.
Did they find a predator in the carnivorous act? Watch the video to see the evidence of a red-bellied woodpecker caught red-handed.
Rodriguez-Cabal believes the class didn’t catch a large number of predators this time because the weather became rainy and windy.
