Capstone Research (Our Big Project) has been in session. People had to propose ideas, get support, and if the project was feasible, we were given permission for our projects.
My project is wicked awesome. I will be looking at ecto, haemo, and intestinal parasites in avian species here in South Africa. Birds will be captured with a mist-net, we will tag each bird, collect blood samples from the wing vein, collect a cloacal sample for fecal testing, and lastly, collect a teriary wing, back, and breast feather for microscope analysis.
I will be capturing birds in the boundaries of the Kruger National Park and outside the park for comparison. I will also potentially compare parasite load between migratory and non-migratory birds. Lastly, I will be trying to identify where the highest abundance of ectoparasites are present on my plethora of bird species.
(Yes, that picture shows an ecto-parasite we found!)