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Rachel Field '11
Chester River Field Research Center
CES Intern 2009-11
Rachel Field ’11 has worked for the Center for Environment and Society for several summers as an intern at Chino Farms. During this time she has been given the opportunity to design her own project looking at mate selection in Blue Grosbeaks. She’s also participated in an ongoing study mapping Grasshopper Sparrow territories and in nest searching for these birds, among others. As a CES intern for the Spring ’11 semester Rachel worked at Chino Farms again, this time in the Foreman’s Branch Banding Station banding migratory birds. Her work involved learning about banding birds including molt patterns in songbirds and aging techniques. Most of the banding focused on migratory passerines, but also included some shorebirds and raptors. Rachel was an Environmental Studies major with minors in English and Philosophy. She was also the president of the Wilderness Adventure Club at WC, a member of Phi Beta Kappa, and the Cater Society.
Where She Is Now
After completing my undergraduate internships with CES I was pleasantly surprised to be awarded a banding fellowship with CES at Foreman's Branch Bird Observatory for the Fall of 2011. Over the course of the fall I have been able to learn how to safely and quickly extract passerines from mist nets, as well as learning ageing and sexing techniques. When not in the banding lab, I was responsible for some data analysis. In particular I compared the data gathered over the last thirteen years for those birds who have been recovered at other locations around the world and birds that returned to Foreman's Branch Bird Observatory. I am going to continue with ornithological field work this winter in Jamaica. I will be joining Peter Marra's long term American Redstart project through the Smithsonian. After working with Redstarts I hope to attend graduate school for a degree in Environmental Theology.