A bird’s-eye view of Lipscomb’s summer field research program

A collaboration with Warner Parks focuses on avian ecology with hands-on field research projects for undergraduates.

Keely Hagan | 615-966-6491 | 07/20/2023

This summer at Nashville’s Warner Parks, visitors may be catching sight of more than bluebirds and purple martins. They have the opportunity to observe Lipscomb biology students conducting cutting-edge avian research through the park’s Bird Information Research and Data (BIRD) Program.

The College of Liberal Arts and Science’s biology department offers a summer research internship program that focuses on avian ecology and provides valuable field research opportunities for undergraduate students in the parks.

Launched in 2016 and led by Professor John Lewis, the nine-week program is conducted in collaboration with the BIRD Program, Metro Parks and Friends of Warner Parks, where students engage in hands-on field research projects. This is the eighth summer Lipscomb interns have been a part of the research team at Warner Parks.

One distinctive feature of this partnership is that students get to participate in several long-term research projects conducted by researchers at Warner Parks. These include various banding projects for both resident and migratory birds; MOTUS, where birds are fitted with tags that can be detected by a network of towers spanning from Canada to South America; and projects involving specific species including purple martins, barn swallows, ruby-throated hummingbirds, and eastern bluebirds.

In fact, the park’s bluebird nest box monitoring program began in 1936, making it one of the oldest in the country. Each year, interns and volunteers help to check the bluebird boxes spread across the park, count the eggs and record the number that hatch and successfully leave the nest.

Each intern also identifies a specific research question they’d like to answer by collecting more data themselves or using historical data from these longer-term projects.

Thanks to the experiences of a returning student and two students who had already gotten their feet wet through volunteering at Warner Parks during the spring semester, this year’s interns “have been able to do so much this summer,” says Lewis.

Anna Money, an honors junior with a double major in biology and mission, ministry and leadership, chose to focus on studying the declining population of barn swallows at various locations in the parks.

This was the second year Money has participated in the university’s avian ecology research program. Last year, she was asked to join the team that monitored the thousands of purple martins that had roosted in the trees at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in downtown Nashville.

“I jumped at the opportunity to get involved in research,” says Money, who was one of the youngest to participate, having just finished her freshman year. Her enthusiasm and skill set led her to writing about the work before the summer was up and presenting it at the annual international conference of the Purple Martin Conservation Association in July 2022.

Every year, interns present their research projects at the university’s Student Scholars Symposium. Most also present at regional and national conferences, such as the National Association of Biology Teachers annual conference and the Association of Southeastern Biologists meeting.

“I had a great experience last year and wanted to return this year,” Money says. Unlike when she was the only intern from Lipscomb last year, this year she is part of the ‘A team,’ the name that the three interns – Money, Anna Sawyer and Amelia Browning – gave themselves. “It’s more fun to have them here to work with every day and to talk about the research we are doing.”

Lewis says students are often surprised when they see that people working at Warner Parks have made a career out of avian research and conservation. It encourages them to pursue a career in a field that interests them and where they will enjoy their work, says Lewis.

Money says her experiences in field research have cemented her desire to pursue natural sciences.

“Tentatively, my plan is to go to graduate school for a master’s in marine biology,” Money says. “That may be surprising since I’m studying birds right now, but I’m grateful for the opportunity to get my toes in the water of doing field research on animals. It’s inspired me to follow my dream to work in marine conservation, in the area of deep-sea research.”

Sawyer, a senior majoring in biology, is interested in the technological aspect of avian research. Emerging technology in tagging devices can simultaneously track hundreds of individual migratory birds and collaborative research network systems are capable of managing data from projects worldwide. Together, these new tech tools create massive volumes of collaborative and accessible research.

“What pulled me into the technology side of the research was when we were able to track a purple martin that had been caught and banded at Warner Parks then became part of the huge roost in downtown Nashville that migrated all the way to Costa Rica, where it was detected by their bird tracking station,” says Sawyer.

Her work this summer is collecting data on the effectiveness of hand-held receivers to detect birds like wood thrushes that stay near the forest floor. Because the radio transmitters rely on solar energy to keep their batteries charged, accuracy is difficult to maintain on birds that are rarely in the full sun. 

“My goal after graduation is to work in sustainable agricultural missions,” says Sawyer. “Last year I was involved in lab research, which was interesting but the hands-on experience I’ve had this summer has taught me that I am happier doing field research.”

Sawyer has taken multiple medical mission trips with her physician father who took his family with him every summer he served. She wants to follow in his footsteps and incorporate her professional training with mission work to improve the lives and welfare of others.

“I loved going to different countries, to learn about their climate and agricultural challenges,” she says. “There were places where growing crops was really, really tough. I want to go to those areas and help teach them better techniques for sustainable agriculture.”

Browning, a junior majoring in environmental and sustainability science, is studying wood thrushes and their nesting behavior.

“I volunteered at Warner Parks last semester but I didn’t have my own specific research project,” Browning says. “I thought this internship would be similar to that but it has definitely exceeded my expectations. I am not just observing but I am holding the birds and getting real hands-on experience. I come home every day and tell my family how much I love it.

“I want to continue,” says Browning. “It would be great to work with Warner Parks after graduation. I would also be happy working in conservation biology in general, as long as it involves research outside with animals.”

For the past eight summers, the research internship has helped students discover their individual interest areas and reinforced the breadth of opportunities available within the discipline of biology.

“Partnerships are really important for getting our students field experience and the BIRD Program with Warner Parks has been the most fruitful for us,” says Lewis.

Lewis started the partnership with Sandy Bivens, who has since retired as the BIRD Program director but remains involved as a volunteer. Together with Laura Cook, BIRD Program research coordinator for Warner Parks Nature Center, Vera Roberts, director of Warner Parks Nature Center, and numerous staff and volunteers, they provide valuable experiences for students during their summer internships at the park.

“Students get to learn the processes and techniques the bird researchers at Warner use and can highlight that knowledge on their resumes. They can say, ‘I know how to document bird banding data using MAPS and other protocols and I’m familiar with how a radio transmitter is placed on a bird and how radio tracking works. I’m familiar with mist-netting and nest monitoring and other techniques as well.’”

“Students gain actual skills plus what they gain from just the experience of being out there,” says Lewis. “It’s a benefit to be around people who are excited about it and it exposes them to a field they may not have even known existed.

“These students also get to generate a research question and then see it through from data collection to presentation at a professional meeting. Not many undergraduates are afforded that opportunity and it is a very real way our students have benefitted from this partnership with Warner Parks.”