Experience Reflection : Jayshaun Talbert
“I seriously cannot thank Field Inclusive enough for choosing me to be the 2023 Fall Travel Award Recipient. Because of them I was able to partake in this truly unforgettable experience to kickstart my career that would have otherwise been inaccessible to me. I know 14-year old me would be absolutely amazed with what I’ve done. I can’t wait to see what’s next for me.“
BY JAYSHAUN TALBERT
If someone told 14-year old year me that in 4 years he was invited to an international owl research conference, he’d think they were crazy. Little did he know that fact would be proven and it was even better than he could ever dream. I’m Jayshaun Talbert, a first-year Zoology student with a minor in Fisheries and Wildlife Sciences at Oregon State University. I’ve wanted to go into the field of wildlife conservation for as long as I can remember. I’ve always had a strong interest in birds, more specifically raptors, and my interest in owls specifically came as I aged. Next term, I’m doing research with a professor studying Kestrel populations in the Willamette Valley while also taking a look at how captive raptors respond to stimuli they’d only ever see in the wild. After finishing my bachelor’s degree, I’m taking a few years off to work on different
projects and do different field jobs across the country. Afterwards, I hope to attend Boise State University for a Masters in Raptor Biology with hopes of working with a colleague on Northern Hawk Owl research. Soon after that, I hope to work with a state agency for a few years before tackling my PhD and working as a biologist for the United States Fish and Wildlife Service.
I heard about the World Owl Conference while I was in Maine working for the Audubon Seabird Institute as a wildlife educator. I was listening in on a lecture being given by Scott Wiedensaul, an esteemed owl researcher. After his lecture, he and I talked about owls and my aspirations to get into the world of owl research. He brought up the conference and invited me to attend. I was over the moon with excitement and immediately began looking for grants and other funding opportunities. Through this process I found Field Inclusive. I had heard of this non-profit but I didn’t know they offered travel grants. After reading up on the criteria, I spent a week working on a writing sample to submit for the award. Once I eventually won the award I was full of so many unexplainable emotions and it really hit me. I was going to an international owl
research conference.
The World Owl Conference was a truly amazing experience. It was held at the Stony Creek Hotel in the beautiful LaCrosse, Wisconsin area, where there were open natural areas as far as the eye could see. It was also prime habitat for a couple different species of owl, so I found it ironic that this was the site of the biggest owl research conference of the last few years. When I checked in for the conference, I was given a wonderful tote bag with the World Owl Conference logo on it. Inside, I had my conference program and abstract booklet, some owl art, and most notably, my nametag, which, just like everyone else, was a tree cookie made from an 80+ year old tree in the yard of Karla Bloem, Executive Director of the International Owl Center.
The conference officially started with one of the things I was most looking forward to: the Vocal Monitoring and Analysis Workshop. It was led by representatives from Wildlife Acoustics, a company that specializes in manufacturing bioacoustic monitoring technology. Myself and the other participants got to learn about what factors need to be considered when it comes to utilizing bioacoustic technology. Afterwards, groups of us were given small autonomous recording units (ARUs) called Song Meter Micros. We were all given a chance to pair the device with our phone to get an in-depth look at how to calibrate the device to meet our
needs, depending on the project or environmental concerns. I had really appreciated this because the ARU I had worked with was an annoyance to calibrate, so this opportunity gave me a chance to see what other ARU’s are available and how easy they are to calibrate. Shortly after this we were given a flash drive full of files with owl calls on them, and together, me and the other participants got to sift through stretches of audio to look for where the owl call was. We got to work with Kaleidoscope Pro, a premium audio analysis software. We learned how to zoom into files, read spectrograms, change settings to better suit our needs, and navigate the software in order to make the sometimes tedious process of having to comb through hundreds of files easier. This was eye-opening for me because, although I had worked with Kaleidoscope before, I had never been shown all it was capable of. It was also nice to be formally shown how to do things
like read spectrograms and zoom in on the files since, when I worked on my ARU project, I had to learn everything myself. Overall, the Vocal Monitoring and Analysis Workshop was a wonderful experience, and I now feel more prepared for my future endeavors with ARUs.
The conference mostly consisted of research presentations. I was extremely surprised at the amount of species that were covered and the different parts of the world being represented through their presentations. There were researchers from over 10 different countries at this conference. It was so interesting to hear so many different research projects being done on so many different species of owl. I learned about Short-Eared owls on an island in Europe, Portugal and the United States. I got to hear from the International Snowy Owl Working Group, an international project where people from across the world report and track Snow Owl movement. I was exposed to owl projects around the world, ranging from Northern Saw-whet Owls in Oklahoma, Burrowing Owls in Brazil, all the way to Northern Hawk Owls in Manitoba. I even learned about species of owl I had never heard of before. The sheer diversity in the presentations was something truly wondrous. I especially liked the Saw-whet, Short-Eared, and Northern Hawk Owl presentations since I’d like to work with all of those species at some point in my career.
My favorite part of the conference was networking with the other owl researchers. It was an absolute privilege to be able to talk to all the wonderful men and women there. Thanks to Scott Weidensaul I was introduced to David Johnson, head of the Global Owl Project in Central Oregon. Thanks to chatting with him I was offered a chance to come down to his research depo during spring break to get hands-on experience working with burrowing owls. I was also given a chance to be introduced to Denver Holt, executive director and founder of the Owl Research Institute.
The Owl Research Institute(ORI) is what got me interested in owl research in the first place. I not only was able to get introduced to him but I was able to talk intricately about his work and my research aspirations. He took interest in a study I would like to do on Short-Eared Owl breeding in Eastern Oregon so he and another researcher at ORI got a chance to talk about that. Denver and I had a really nice conversation about diversity in the field which I was one of my favorite parts of the conference. It was such a pleasure getting to know the ORI team throughout the week and I look forward to working with them in the future.
Other than meeting Dener Holt and the ORI staff I was really excited to meet Hannah Toutonghi, a former grad student from University of Minnesota – Duluth. She did her Master’s thesis on Northern Hawk Owls in southern Manitoba and Minnesota. I’ve read her research on Northern Hawk Owls since she started and read her final results when she defended earlier this year. To say I was a fan of her work was an understatement. When I met her she and I had a really friendly conversation and she was incredibly flattered when I told her how much I loved her work. We talked about not only her story and how she got into hawk owl research but we also discussed my research goals and how I want to work with hawk owls in the future. Upon hearing this we had a more in-depth formal discussion about what specific hawk owl trait I wanted to study and the conversation ended with the possibility of us collaborating on a study in the future.
Through networking at this conference I was able to foster new collaborations and partnerships with the people I met while also opening doors for myself to collaborate with people in the future. One of the projects I’m able to work on as a result of the conference is a study on barred owl prey genomics with Emily Fountain, Molecular Laboratory Manager at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was able to foster this collaboration on this study because in her presentation she mentioned she had a gap in the amount of genetic samples she’s gotten from amphibians, a relatively frequent prey item of Barred Owls. After her presentation I introduced myself to her and explained that because I’m coordinating a reptile population study with Oregon State’s Herpetology Club I would be happy to take some genetic samples for her if she needs them. She was thrilled to hear this and offered to send me a sample kit for the study. I also had
the pleasure of getting connected with someone from a different country. The Head Keeper of the
Scottish Owl Centre, Trystan Williams was interested in the work I will be doing with a professor this upcoming winter term on the captive birds of prey and how they respond to stimuli they’d only see in the wild. He told me some observations noticed in the owls he cares for and offered to give me advice if I ever needed it throughout the study. Other notable people I was able to meet because of this conference include a Wildlife Biologist with U.S Fish and Wildlife Services from Minnesota, a Great Grey Owl researcher from Norway, a Snowy Owl researcher also from Norway, an Aviation Wildlife Biologist from Seattle, Washington, and an Eastern Screech Owl researcher from British Columbia, and Short-Eared Owl researchers from both Manitoba and Portugal. That’s not even an exhaustive list; one of my keepsakes from the conference is copy of What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic
Birds by Jennifer Ankerman and it’s signed not only by the author herself but several of the owl researchers I met during my time at the conference.
I was able to accomplish so much as a result of this conference, all of which would not have happened without the Field Inclusive Travel Award. The award was able to cover all of my travel costs, including roundtrip flight, hotel, luggage, and Lyfts. It was also able to cover all of my conference fees including the Vocal Monitoring and Analysis Workshop. It also covered a day-trip to the International Owl Center but since I was unable to go (I woke up feeling ill), I was able to use the funds to cover my copy of the What an Owl Knows: The New Science of the World’s Most Enigmatic Birds and a World Owl Conference sweatshirt and hoodie. Both of which are wonderful reminders of the best week of my life. I seriously cannot thank Field Inclusive enough for choosing me to be the 2023 Fall Travel Award Recipient. Because of them I
was able to partake in this truly unforgettable experience to kickstart my career that would have
otherwise been inaccessible to me. I know 14-year old me would be absolutely amazed with
what I’ve done. I can’t wait to see what’s next for me.
Jayshaun Talbert (he/him) is an undergraduate student at Oregon State University and was the recipient of Field Inclusive’s 2023 Fall Travel Award, sponsored by Wilson Ornithological Society (WOS).