January 16, 2026

The William’s Avian Ecology Lab banded and nanotagged this Dark-Eyed Junco on January 21, 2023, with nanotag 69 and color band YMYA. At that time, he was recorded as a second-year bird.

We recaptured him today, making this his fourth consecutive winter returning to our field site!

December 30, 2025

In November 2025, Elizabeth (Biz) Savitski received the Provost Undergraduate Research Funds (PURF) to conduct research for her senior thesis. She will be examining the relationship between habitat structure, composition, temperature, and overwintering grassland bird communities. She will conduct habitat assessments and avian line transects across five study sites in Ohio and Indiana. Travel funds and lab equipment will be made available due to the PURF.

November 23, 2025

The Williams Avian Ecology Lab conducts a bird window collision monitoring program at Ohio University’s Athens campus. The lab walked a route of 17 buildings on campus daily and searched the perimeter of each building for dead birds or evidence of bird window collisions. Collected birds are turned into study skins for Ohio University’s Ornithology class and kept in the Museum of Zoology. Since starting the program in the fall of 2023, we recovered 75 bird carcasses across 15 different families. During our fall semesters, we recovered 56 birds, and during the spring semesters, we recovered 19 birds. Heritage Hall has the most bird-window collisions out of the 17 buildings surveyed. We will continue our study into next semester. Our work brings awareness to bird window collisions at our university and highlights the steps individuals can take to mitigate bird window collisions at small and large scales.

October 5, 2025

The Williams Lab had a successful banding day on Saturday, October 4! This misty morning brought in 17 total birds from 10 different species. Of those, 13 were newly banded, while four of them were recaptures from previous banding dates. 

This weekend served as valuable training for our undergraduate students who gained hands-on experience scribing, banding, and extracting birds from nets! We also hosted 2 student visitors.

Species Caught:

– Tennessee Warbler (Leiothlypis peregrina)

– Yellow-rumped Warbler ( Setophaga coronata)

– Ruby-crowned Kinglet (Corthylio calendula) 

– Chipping Sparrow ( Spizella passerina)

– Song Sparrow (Melospiza melodia)

– Field Sparrow (Spizella pusilla) 

– American Goldfinch (Spinus tristis)  

– Wood Thrush (Hylocichla mustelina) 

– Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis) 

– Eastern Phoebe (Sayornis phoebe)