Hello everyone, I am Brett Stevenson, from team SPAW. I am from Seattle Wa, but I have been living in Montana for this whole past school year as a student at Salish Kootenai College, as a Wildlife and Fisheries major. My main passion is ornithology, I have been working on a waterbird (shorebirds/waterfowl) for the past few months. This survey (which I am continuing through the REU internship) is what lead to my research question. I am investigating what species of macro invertebrates are present/abundance at the same sites that Black-necked Stilts have been seen foraging. I really am just trying to see if more birds are in one area more than another due to macro invertebrate food supply. There are many variables that could be the cause, I just wanted to see if this could be part of it.

Today I did a test run of my protocol that I drafted for sampling. I ran into a few hick-ups, but I am quite sure I’ll be able to easily figure them out, just a little different equipment for getting a better view of the invertebrates.  I also had a heck of a time walking through the deep mud in the waders, I think I gave the Stilts someone to laugh at.

I’m pretty happy with my progress this far in. I should be collecting some usable data by the end of this week. I have all kinds of things I will probably posting on here so that you can all get to know me a little better, stay posted for more. For now here is a picture of a tray of macro invertebrates that I collected during my test run today. (they all got put back in their home, this is just to ID and measure size).