For the past few weeks, we’ve delved into a little of my backstory, life in Riga and a quick trip to Georgia. I figured this week, I would like to tip the scales a bit towards the research aspect of my Fulbright grant. Specifically, there are two current projects that I’m working on with my advisor Dr. Indrikis Krams. Hopefully, I can paint a more concise picture than just the summary that “he’s studying bird behavior in Latvia”!
Project 1: Mobbing call utilization as a function of vegetation density
Background: The vocal repertoires of Parids, the family of birds that we are studying, are incredibly complex. In other words, the types of calls they make vary significantly under different environmental contexts. Parids (like the tits we study) elicit alarm, territorial, food recruitment, mating and more vocalizations, all of which serve a unique purpose. The mobbing call is primarily used to intimidate and expose potential predators to the birds. However, it is not known the extent to which vegetation (plant-life) density affects an individual’s mobbing behavior.
