Surveying birds in Milne Bay Province, Papua New Guinea

We recently spent a very successful 2-month field trip in the island province of Milne Bay, Papua New Guinea surveying birds and collecting samples to screen for various avian diseases.  We had an amazing crew - collaborator David Mindell, Post-doctoral researcher Jerome Fuchs, Berkeley PhD student Zachary Hanna, San Francisco State University Masters Student Molly Dodge, PNG National Museum researcher Bulisa Iova, and the amazing artist Isabella Kirkland.  We spent two months sailing on the SV Dalai, a French-build sloop owned and operated by Bruno and Carmen Montel.

This ship was an excellent way to get around, and the crew and field team were amazing.  We departed from Alotau, Milne Bay Province in September, and returned in November after sailing to Normanby Island, the Amphlet Group, Dawson Island, BudiBudi Atoll, Woodlark Island, Ginetu Island, Gawa Island, and the Trobriand Islands, just to name a few of the key islands.

We captured and sampled over 500 birds, including this Emerald Ground Dove (Chalcophaps indica), and the Collared Kingfisher (Halcyon chloris) below.

Although it may look like I've not blogged for a while, this is not so.  We were invited by the New York Times to blog in their very excellent series, Scientist At Work, and this link should direct you to most of our posts from the recent field trip:

http://scientistatwork.blogs.nytimes.com/tag/papua-new-guinea/

Feel free to post comments or questions here, and enjoy!