{"id":206998,"date":"2019-02-25T08:00:56","date_gmt":"2019-02-25T13:00:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/?p=206998"},"modified":"2019-02-22T16:25:59","modified_gmt":"2019-02-22T21:25:59","slug":"fascination-with-birds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/2019\/02\/25\/fascination-with-birds\/","title":{"rendered":"Fascination with birds leads to research opportunity at Montclair State"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Montclair State\u2019s designation as a national research university has provided opportunities for students like Luttman to participate in a wide variety of absorbing projects. Luttman, who is working on her master\u2019s in biology with a concentration in ecology and evolution, says she is grateful for the chance to engage in the study of ornithology, a field she is passionate about.<\/p>\n<p><iframe title=\"Video: Graduate student spreads her wings with research opportunity at Montclair State\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/l-4L-YGDsAo?feature=oembed\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen style=\"width: 500px; height: 281px; border: 0px solid #000;\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Since 1990, John Smallwood, associate professor of biology, has been studying populations of kestrels that breed in nest boxes he erects in New Jersey and Florida. In early March, Luttman will help him clean out the nest boxes before the birds\u2019 arrival across the rural portions of Sussex and Warren counties in northwestern New Jersey. They will continue to monitor the boxes through the breeding season and hatching of the clutch of eggs.<\/p>\n<p>The kestrel\u2019s habitats are considered threatened, likely by a combination of multiple factors, including pesticides, rodenticides, habitat fragmentation and climate change, Luttman says. \u201cThere\u2019s been some evidence to suggest that climate change is actually shifting their breeding season earlier and earlier, which of course could be detrimental if there\u2019s some sort of extreme weather event that could impact the rest of their breeding season.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Luttman has cared for penguins at Jenkinson\u2019s Aquarium at the Jersey Shore, monitored the\u00a0<em>Piping<\/em>\u00a0Plover of Sandy Hook, and watched the hawks over Montclair and the ravens on campus. Until the research opportunity, the American kestrel was new to her.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSomething about their tenacity and determination against the odds really was just something that really drew me to them,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Emilie Luttman is spreading her wings as a graduate student at Montclair State University, contributing to the research of the endangered American kestrel, the smallest bird of prey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":34,"featured_media":206999,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-206998","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206998","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/34"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=206998"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206998\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":207003,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/206998\/revisions\/207003"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/206999"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=206998"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=206998"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.montclair.edu\/biology\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=206998"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}