ChickadeeNews

Eva and Sam participate in the UROP Sidewalk Symposium!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 20:46:44 +0000

Eva and Sam participate in the UROP Sidewalk Symposium! Scott Anthony Taylor Fri, 10/10/2025 - 14:46

Closing out the Research & Innovation week at �鶹��Ѱ��Boulder is the UROP Sidewalk Symposium. This year Sam and Eva both participated, sharing drawings of their honors thesis work, which was funded with UROP grants last summer. Awesome to see chickadees in chalk!

Sam's UROP funded honors thesis work is focused on understanding the distribution, genetics, and impacts of scaly-leg mites that we sometimes find on chickadees in Boulder County!

Eva's UROP funded honors thesis work is focused on understanding whether parental feeding behavior differs between mountain and black-capped chickadees in Boulder County.

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Kathryn's final thesis chapter is accepted in Evolution!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Mon, 29 Sep 2025 18:07:34 +0000

Kathryn's final thesis chapter is accepted in Evolution! Scott Anthony Taylor Mon, 09/29/2025 - 12:07

Congratulations to Kathryn and her co-authors for the recent acceptance of her final thesis chapter in Evolution. The manuscript, titled Extensive local introgression despite rare contemporary hybridization between two backyard songbirds, is the first manuscript about the genetic patterns we're finding among Boulder County chickadees. These samples were all collected through the Boulder Chickadee Study, a field study established by Kathryn during her time as a PhD student at Cu Boulder, that has been running for 7 years.

The main findings of the paper are summarized in the graphical abstract!

Congrats everyone!

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Olivia, Kathryn, and Carrie's work on chickadee song is featured in Living Bird magazine!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Tue, 22 Jul 2025 16:11:41 +0000

Olivia, Kathryn, and Carrie's work on chickadee song is featured in Living Bird magazine! Scott Anthony Taylor Tue, 07/22/2025 - 10:11

A recent article in Living Bird magazine featured Olivia Taylor's honors thesis work (published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology) that was a collaboration between Olivia, Kathryn, and Carrie Branch.

So awesome to see a published undergraduate honors thesis form the lab grace the pages of Living Bird! The article included a lovely descriptive graphic of some of our findings from the Boulder Chickadee Study!

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The 2025 field season has flown by!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Mon, 07 Jul 2025 14:49:18 +0000

The 2025 field season has flown by! Scott Anthony Taylor Mon, 07/07/2025 - 08:49

The 2025 summer field season has flown by with the last chickadee nests at the Mountain Research Station of the season scheduled to be banded on July 12. Folks have been busy collecting data for their individual projects along with our annual Boulder Chickadee Study data. Check out updates from the field team below!

Sam: since discovering the legs growths I'm studying are actually caused by scaly leg mites and not avian pox virus, I've been doing a lot of reading. I've also spending plenty of time in the field checking boxes, learning how to band, and taking samples!

Jenna: the field season at the MRS is going great so far, with 27 active nests and 4 hatched Mountain Chickadee nests. Nestling and adult banding is set to start this week.

Sara: the 2025 field season is off to a strong start! I’ve been busy helping with adult banding, nest box checks, and mite sampling, while also helping train the newest members of the Boulder Chickadee Study team.

Eva: this season, I’ve been working in the field doing observational studies to compare black-capped and mountain chickadees in the Boulder area as they feed and care for their young. Tracking the behaviors of these birds across a wide range of elevations has been fascinating, and I look forward to transforming the patterns I find into an honors thesis in the coming semesters!

Nate: this field season I have been collecting data about how long different mountain and black-capped chickadee females are spending incubating their eggs using temperature loggers placed in the nest. I have also been collecting those nests when the nestlings leave, as well as helping out other people with their own projects within the Boulder Chickadee Study.

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Sam, Nate, Eva, and the lab are awarded UROP funding!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 14 May 2025 00:13:26 +0000

Sam, Nate, Eva, and the lab are awarded UROP funding! Scott Anthony Taylor Tue, 05/13/2025 - 18:13

Congrats to Sam, Nate, and Eva for receiving individual UROP awards to support their summer research! All three are collecting data for their honors thesis projects. Sam will be studying pox virus in our local chickadee populations, Nate will be study incubation patterns in chickadees, and Eva will be studying variation in parental provisioning behavior. We're excited to see what they all find!

The lab also received UROP funding that will be used to continue the Boulder Chickadee Study.

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Nate, Sam, and Sara are awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Sun, 02 Mar 2025 01:11:31 +0000

Nate, Sam, and Sara are awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists! Scott Anthony Taylor Sat, 03/01/2025 - 18:11

Congrats to Nate, Sam, and Sara for being awarded research grants from the Denver Field Ornithologists! Nate will use his funds to study incubation patterns and differences between black-capped and mountain chickadees. Sam will use her funds to study avian pox virus. Sara will use hers to sequence whole genomes of black-capped chickadees as she continues to study the genetics of spatial cognition.

Thanks to the Denver Field Ornithologists for their continued support of Taylor Lab research!

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Sara and Sam are awarded Colorado Filed Ornithologists grants!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 26 Feb 2025 20:26:29 +0000

Sara and Sam are awarded Colorado Filed Ornithologists grants! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 02/26/2025 - 13:26

Congratulations to Sara and Sam for recently being awarded research grants from the Colorado Field Ornithologists!

Sara will use her funds to sequence black-capped chickadee genomes as she continues to explore the genetic basis of variation in spatial cognition in chickadees.

Sam will use her funds to sequence samples of probable avian pox infections in chickadees as part of her planned honors thesis work.

Thanks so much to the Colorado Field Ornithologists for their continued support of our research!

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Olivia and Scott talk chickadee song with in the NoCo

Scott Anthony Taylor — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 03:29:52 +0000

Olivia and Scott talk chickadee song with in the NoCo Scott Anthony Taylor Fri, 01/17/2025 - 20:29

Olivia and Scott recently chatted with in the NoCo's Erin O'toole about Olivia honor's thesis work that was recently published in the Journal of Evolutionary Biology. Listen to the episode here: https://www.kunc.org/podcast/inthenoco/2024-11-19/how-two-slightly-different-chickadee-birdsongs-show-humans-are-reshaping-colorados-ecosystems

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Amber Rice and Scott on an episode of the American Birding Association podcast!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Sat, 18 Jan 2025 03:28:13 +0000

Amber Rice and Scott on an episode of the American Birding Association podcast! Scott Anthony Taylor Fri, 01/17/2025 - 20:28

Lab collaborator Amber Rice and Scott were recently on an episode of the American Birding Association Podcast hosted by Nate Swick. Nate had lots of questions about hybridization between black-capped and Carolina chickadees as well as black-capped and mountain chickadees. Listen to the episode here: https://www.aba.org/08-45-hybrid-chickadee-challenges-with-amber-rice-and-scott-taylor/

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Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American!

Scott Anthony Taylor — Wed, 13 Nov 2024 22:19:09 +0000

Chickadee hybridization research featured in Scientific American! Scott Anthony Taylor Wed, 11/13/2024 - 15:19

The October issue of Scientific American featured a story about chickadee hybridization by Rebecca Heisman that highlighted ongoing work in the lab:

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/hybrid-chickadees-reveal-how-species-boundaries-can-shift-and-blur/

Very cool to see work from the lab and conducted by our close collaborators featured in the oldest continuously published magazine in the United States. Scientific American has been print since 1845!

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