Emily Shertzer

Graduate Advisor: Anna Chalfoun

Department of Zoology and Physiology

Wyoming Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

Ph.D. Student

Sagebrush songbirds only spend about a quarter of the year on their breeding grounds in Wyoming. However, even though the non-breeding period makes up most of their annual cycle, we still don’t know where these small songbirds migrate, overwinter, or grow in their new set of feathers each year (a process called molting). In addition, we don’t know how flexible those migratory strategies are; for example, do birds in the same breeding population migrate to the same wintering areas? Are individuals themselves flexible across years? My research aims to answer these questions. I am using very small tags (0.29 g) called light-level geolocators to track the migratory routes and overwintering movements of Brewer’s sparrows, sagebrush sparrows, and sage thrashers that breed in the Greater Yellowstone Area, and to identify where along these routes the birds are molting.