Current Research Projects within the Pease Lab
The Eastern Whip-poor-will and the Chuck-will’s-widow are two well-camouflaged bird species in the Nightjar family most often recognized by their charismatic calls. In the Illinois Wildlife Action Plan, both species were identified as species of high interest for their long-term decline largely due to reductions in their prey populations (mostly moths and beetles) and habitat loss.
The southern Illinois bird monitoring project seeks to document the presence/absence of bird species throughout southern Illinois using Autonomous Recording Units (ARUs). During May - July 2022, we deployed sound recording devices at over 150 different locations spanning the 11 southernmost Illinois counties, resulting in over 2 Terabytes (about half a million minutes) of recordings.