Lipscomb students advancing avian research, conservation through partnership with Warner Parks

A highlight of this summer's research is a wide-range Motus-tagging project spearheaded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Keely Hagan | 615-966-6491 | 02/27/2024

Lipscomb’s College of Liberal Arts and Science is partnering with Warner Parks again this summer to advance avian research and conservation. Established in 2016 and led by Professor John Lewis, this will be the ninth summer Lipscomb interns have been a part of the research team at Warner Parks.

Through the nine-week program, conducted in collaboration with the park’s Bird Information Research and Data (BIRD) Program, Metro Parks and Friends of Warner Parks, Lipscomb students have facilitated numerous hands-on, long-term research projects focusing on avian ecology, including banding projects, radio-tagging initiatives and species-specific studies.

“Working alongside the ornithologists at the park instills a passion with our students,” says Lewis. They get hooked by the excitement for the work that is shared and spread so easily.

“This type of research experience can set students apart when they are applying for a graduate program or a job,” says Lewis. “They have proven experience in taking an idea, doing the field work, writing it up and going all the way to presenting their research at a professional conference. They also gain tangible skills through their experience in putting a band or a radio tag on a bird and knowing how to use the tracking equipment.

A highlight of this summer's research agenda is the involvement in an international Motus-tagging project studying the Wood Thrush, spearheaded by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Working with Laura Cook, bird research coordinator at Warner Park Nature Center, Lipscomb student interns will be able to contribute valuable data to this hemispheric and collaborative effort that currently involves bird-conservation partners in 19 states and Ontario, Canada, Mexico, Belize, Guatemala, Honduras Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

“This project is a really big collaborative effort across multiple continents,” says Cook. It’s an opportunity for the BIRD program to share the research they have done for the past two summers, with the help of Lipscomb interns, and will continue this summer, with a much larger research project.  Cook says the summer interns will be an integral part of this project.

“I am putting them in charge of finding the Wood Thrushes breeding territories in the park, within range of a Motus station,” says Cook. “They will need to listen for the males’ songs, take time to observe their locations and document any consistency they find. They will then assist me in playing back vocalizations that will get the Wood Thrush to come down into the netting so we can capture them, put on transmitters and deploy them. The interns will then monitor the area with handheld receivers in order to do health checks to be sure they are healthy and to document their behavior. We will share this data about their nesting behavior, and the success of their nesting, with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service project.

The goal of the international project is to deploy 600 radio transmitters whose information will be collected by a program called Motus. The Motus Wildlife Tracking System is an international collaborative network of researchers that use automated radio telemetry to simultaneously track hundreds of individuals of numerous species of birds, bats, and insects. The system enables a community of researchers, educators, organizations, and citizens to undertake impactful research and education on the ecology and conservation of migratory animals. When compared to other technologies, automated radio telemetry currently allows researchers to track the smallest animals possible, with high temporal and geographic precision, over great distances. This Wood Thrush project will help to better understand migratory connections, routes, timing and survival across the full life cycle to improve understanding and better plan for and address the conservation needs of the Wood Thrush, a U.S. Geological Survey-designated Species of Greatest Conservation Need. 

The radio-telemetry technology is one of the first such technologies light enough to use on small songbirds, says Lewis. Radio tags are tracked by receiver stations nationwide, including 26 in Tennessee (two of which are in Warner Park). The goal for Tennessee is to tag 25 birds, in May through July.

“This is a fabulous partnership,” says Cook. “Having this long-term partnership with Lipscomb and with Dr. Lewis has been something that I think we’re all very proud of. In one sense, the interns are extra hands, helping us out with summer bird banding and monitoring the Barn Swallow nests, in addition to their individual research. The bigger part to me is watching them learn how to observe the world differently, understand it differently and opening up their senses to nature that’s all around them. They experience hands-on the things they’ve been learning about in the classroom and labs. 

“We help them go through the scientific process of observing and noticing things in nature, learning what questions can be scientifically tested, in the timeframe that they have and trying to answer that question. It’s a really fun process.”

Building upon the successes of previous years, Amelia Browning, junior, biology, and Alexandra “Lexi” Price, junior, biology, will be the student researchers this summer. This will be the second year for Browning, having studied Wood Thrush nesting behavior last year. She and Price are both current volunteers at the park and thanks to their experience, they are eager for a summer of scientific inquiry and exploration.

“When I started last year, I had no idea that we would do so much like learn how to band baby birds, and I thought that was the coolest thing ever,” says Browning. “At the steeplechase barn, there's a big population of Barn Swallows that have built their nests on top of lights and stalls, so we got this big ladder to reach the little babies and take them out of the nests to band them. 

“It was just incredible. I was exposed to so many things. Last summer we interacted with the state ornithologist. I never thought I’d get to do any of that as a then-sophomore in college.” 

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.

“When I started out I wasn’t interested in research because I thought it meant a lot of lab work and I just wanted to be outside,” says Browning. “Once I started the internship program, I realized how great hands-on research could be, and so now I would love to go into ornithology research.

“For this summer, we’ve already discussed our research plans and we’re going to hit the ground running as soon as the internship starts in the middle of May,” says Browning. “We hope that since we’re starting earlier and we know a little bit more, we’ll be able to find more nests and more birds. Also this year, I’m planning on expanding my research site to Timberland Park on the Natchez Trace. It’s less trafficked so I want to compare the two for the thrush’s nesting behavior. Typically their nests are around our eye level but in areas with a lot of human activity, the nests are much higher.”

Through the summer internship program, students select their own research question and see it through from data collection to presentation at a professional meeting, says Lewis. “Not many undergraduates are afforded that opportunity and it is a very real way our students have benefitted from this partnership with Warner Parks,” he says.

The experience offers a majority of the interns more than academic learning opportunities as well. Lewis and Cook noted that in male-dominated wildlife sciences, this internship in ornithology research most often attracts and inspires female students and a majority of the staff at the Warner Parks Nature Center and the BIRD program are women. “There’s a long legacy of women mentoring other women here,” says Cook. “It’s a really cool thing to see women being supportive and encouraging other women. It’s a really positive experience.”

Every year, interns present their research projects at the university’s Student Scholars Symposium. Most also present at regional and national conferences. Senior Anna Money presented her research at the Purple Martin Conservation Association’s Purple Martin Conference 2022. Last fall, interns Browning and Anna Sawyer presented their research projects at the national conference of the Inland Bird Banding Association, which was held at Warner Parks in 2023. 

“It was a lot of fun,” says Browning. “I presented my research on a poster. It was the first time I had done my own research and the first time I had presented my own research. I’d never been in such a big group of people with the same interest. It was just so fascinating for people to come up to me and ask questions about the poster and be able to have a conversation with them on a different level because they knew what I was talking about. They know about thrushes, and they know the importance of the research.”

In addition to studying the Wood Thrush, ongoing research of Lipscomb students in the Warner Parks project includes tracking a colony of about 30 Barn Swallows that nest in the Steeplechase stalls. Students also study other species including Purple Martins, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds and Eastern Bluebirds. 

The park’s research and Motus towers have also opened doors to connect Warner and Lipscomb with other groups working on tracking and conservation, including a special project two years ago when Purple Martins had roosted in the trees at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center in downtown Nashville. During that time, Lipscomb students 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 and migrated all the way to Costa Rica.

Lipscomb students continue to make significant contributions to avian research and conservation efforts through the partnership with Warner Parks. Lewis says that providing undergraduates with opportunities for hands-on experiential learning and for contributing to environmental stewardship and scientific inquiry, they learn earlier about professions in ecology and conservation initiatives that benefit both local and global ecosystems.