Thanks to everyone who sent a contribution either via PayPal, or physical check- you are awesome! Tonight I paid the bill, and we’re good for another year. Any more money that comes in will be split between myself and Mariel and Angel Abreu to put toward running our two radar/migration websites into the future. So the plan now is to have Angel and Mariel permanently take over Badbirdz-Reloaded, and for me to focus solely on Woodcreeper.com, so that we can each do the best work possible without spreading ourselves too thin. Eventually I hope to collaborate with some other like-minded individuals so we can establish a network of radar/migration websites across the country. If you think you fit the bill, send me an email and we can discuss it further.

After receiving my PhD this January, I’ll be heading south to start my new job at New Jersey Audubon Society, where I’ll be (amongst other things) writing up the results from a long-term radar analysis used to quantify stopover habitat of nocturnal migrants. I can’t wait to dive into some real radar data, as opposed to simply looking at the post-processed data available from weather websites. This has been a long-term goal for me up until now, and being able to realize it down in Cape May will be an excellent experience. I plan to use this experience as a jumping-off point for developing a more sophisticated radar-based migration forecasting tool.

At the very least, though, I’ll be able to ground-truth some of my forecasts in one of the hottest migrant traps on the east coast… and that alone is very exciting!

Thank you again for your support, and I hope to see you in the field sometime soon!

Good Birding,

David