Rob Sparks

My deep appreciation for the natural world started early in life growing up in the forests of Africa and South America. I have worked on bird monitoring and more recently movement ecology projects for 14 years. I have presented my work at many North American Ornithological Council meetings focusing on avian habitat use and distribution using hierarchical abundance and occupancy models. I am interested in understanding what factors influence species movement ecology and distribution. I analyzed the Black Swift geolocator dataset revealing the general migratory path and wintering locations which were previously unknown. In the field I have conducted hundreds of points counts, assisted with banding Black Swifts and discovered a new Black Swift nest site in western Colorado.

October 2016