2024 Kendeigh Grant Awardees
Eastern Whip-poor-will. Photo by Tom Murray CC BY-NC 2.0.
Every year, CCAS offers grants in honor of S. Charles Kendeigh for ornithology research in Illinois. Thanks to the generosity of our donors who make these grants possible, in 2022 we were able to raise the amount of each award from $1,000 to $2,000! We typically award up to three grants per year; this year is an exception, where our budget allowed us to fund five projects!
Congratulations to this year’s awardees: Anahit Amiri, Moshood Ayinde, Holly Coates, Dave Edlund, and Grant Witynski. Learn more about their projects below.
If you want to help support ornithology research in Illinois, our annual Kendeigh Grant fundraiser, the Spring Bird-a-Thon occurs each May! You can also donate anytime. Thank you for your support and congrats again to our awardees!
2024 Awardees
Anahit Amiri
Doctoral student
Southern Illinois University Carbondale
Project Title –– A Multidisciplinary Study of Grassland Mammalian Predators and the Community Structure Implications for Declining Grassland Birds
In the Southern Illinois grasslands, raccoons have been identified as one of the most significant bird nest predators impacting the survival and successful reproduction of grassland birds. This project will track raccoon movement behavior in relation to habitat variables and vegetation cover within grasslands, as well as evaluate the diversity and richness of vegetation, birds, arthropods, snakes, small mammals, and mesopredators, to assess the complex direct and indirect community interactions impacting grassland bird nest abundance and success.
Moshood Ayinde
Master of Science student
Western Illinois University
Project Title –– Assessing Migratory Influence: West Nile Virus Dynamics in American Robins of West Central Illinois
This project will investigate the degree to which migratory American Robins (Turdus migratorius) in West Central Illinois a) breed with resident populations and increase the genetic diversity of residents, and b) introduce West Nile Virus (WNV) to resident populations.
Holly Coates
Master of Science student
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Project Title –– Using Point-of-Care Blood Plasma Analyzers to Assess Eastern Whip-poor-will Nutritional State and Habitat Quality
The Eastern Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus) is a forest-dwelling nocturnal aerial insectivore in steep decline. Across their breeding range in the eastern half of the United States, many studies have demonstrated the viability of forest management techniques to improve and increase whip-poor-will habitat. However, no studies have documented the direct physical health of birds in differently managed forests. Many bird studies have recently demonstrated the viability of using point-of-care blood metabolite analyzers (designed for human medical usage) to measure the nutritional state of individual birds, as well as large-scale habitat quality. We plan to add these blood analyzer methods as an entirely new, complementary approach to assessing breeding habitat quality for whip-poor-wills.
Dave Edlund
Master of Science student
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Project Title –– Investigating the Wintering Ecology and Migration of Eastern Whip-poor-wills in Central Florida
To understand the ecology of migratory birds, research across the full annual cycle (reproduction, migration, and non-breeding) is needed. A number of factors have been hypothesized to contribute to the decline of Eastern Whip-poor-will (Antrostomus vociferus), including habitat loss, poor wintering ground conditions, and declining prey abundance due to pesticides and intensified agriculture. This project will study the winter ecology of whip-poor-wills in Florida and determine where they breed.
Grant Witynski
Doctoral student
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Project Title –– Developing a New Nonlethal, Labor- and Cost-Efficient Camera Trapping Method for Surveying Relative abundance and Availability of Nocturnal Insects as Prey for Aerial Insectivores
Accurate assessment of trends in insect activity and abundance has become an increasingly important goal in ecology as researchers across multiple continents have documented dramatic declines across a wide swath of insect taxa. Nocturnal groups such as moths are less visible to humans and more difficult to study; therefore less reliable estimates are available of nocturnal insect population status, pollination activity, and availability as prey items for insectivores. This project will develop a minimally invasive, cost-effective, and relatively low-effort nocturnal insect monitoring device using readily accessible structural materials and ecological equipment. The hope is that the project will be useful to future researchers interested in monitoring nocturnal insect abundance by providing temporally precise data, limiting environmental impact of sampling, and reducing human time commitment during and after sampling.