Diet and Nomadic Migration in Red Crossbills

Presented by Konshau Duman

Konshau’s research is on the relationship between diet and nomadic migration in the Red Crossbill. He spent his first season studying their migration diet by observing them in the field during the period when most of them are on the move in early summer, and his continuing work will have to do with more intensive study of their fattening and energetics. Konshau is especially interested in the differences in movement strategies across the call types to figure out how far they have to go and why. In this talk, Konshau will cover the Red Crossbill annual cycle, how these questions fit into it, and how eBird and iNaturalist users can make this and other research possible.

Konshau is a second year PhD student at UC Davis studying diet and movement in birds, with a focus on the Red Crossbills. He is an avid birder and field naturalist with a passion for identifying everything, and he enjoys thinking about the life histories of birds, insects, plants, fishes, and more. Natural history has been his passion since he was a child growing up in the Western Mojave Desert. He got his BS from UC Davis in 2020 and since then he and his wife Lynette have worked several bird survey field jobs in Montana, SE California, and the Central Valley. The thing he really loves about birds is that they are so good at flying and how that really sets them apart from other living things in terms of their habitat use and adaptations.