The Lake Michigan Bird Observatory (LMBO) welcomes Dr. Medhavi Ambardar as our new Chief Scientist. Medhavi comes to the Observatory with 15 years of experience conducting ornithological research and with deep connections to the Great Lakes region and Ozaukee County specifically. She grew up in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and conducted research on Eastern Bluebirds at Riveredge Nature Center and on golf courses near Saukville, WI for her master’s degree. Medhavi credits “her experiences in Ozaukee County to having shaped her long-term research interests.”
This January through April, Medhavi is working part-time for LMBO while she finishes her final semester of teaching at Fort Hays State University in Kansas. She will begin full-time at LMBO in mid-May. As a tenured professor, and Chair of the Biology Graduate Education Committee, Medhavi has taught a wide range of courses including Ornithology, Animal Behavior, Endocrinology, Anatomy and Physiology. She has supervised graduate student projects on Cliff Swallow coloration and habitat, Eastern Phoebe reproductive success, grassland bird abundance, and Ferruginous Hawk nesting.
Working primarily with Northern House Wrens and Cliff Swallows in her current research, Medhavi has worked toward a better understanding of relationships among parental behavior, reproductive success, and physiology in these birds. She holds a master banding permit for Northern House Wrens and Cliff Swallows in Kansas. Her deep knowledge of Northern House Wrens as a species will provide the important continuity to further the research that was initiated at the Observatory by her predecessor, Dr. Jennifer Philips Vanderberg. This LMBO project has resulted in over 100 Wren and Chickadee nest boxes being installed in parks and residential areas throughout the Port Washington area to study how nesting success correlates to available native habitat (NHIP project). A dedicated group of community volunteers, who Medhavi looks forward to meeting, help to monitor these nestboxes throughout the nesting season. The Observatory welcomes anyone who is interested in joining this volunteer opportunity to contact us.
Medhavi is intensely interested in the Observatory’s MOTUS project (begun under former Director, Bill Mueller) and is eager to provide the leadership and support to move this important pillar project of LMBO forward. Thanks to LMBO’s Motus Coordinator, Jacob Woulf, the Observatory has expanded the Motus tracking line along the shore of Lake Michigan from Door County to Kenosha. With the near completion of this line of towers, there are plans to begin an east/west line of towers that ultimately connect to the Mississippi flyway. There are already many avian researchers relying on data from Motus tracking to answer important questions about bird migration of particular species. For a look at the species that have been recorded on the Forest Beach Motus tower, click here.
Because the Observatory has monitored multiple Purple Martin colonies over the years and has conducted an annual chick banding program under the guidance of Purple Martin expert, Dick Nikolai, the Observatory is hoping to begin tagging Purple Martins with Motus tags to study their migration patterns as part of their expansion to this pillar project.
Dedication to birds extends beyond academia for Medhavi. She has played an important volunteer role with the Wilson Ornithological Society (WOS) and is a founding member of a newly-formed local Audubon group in Kansas. She is committed to making science accessible and engaging, with an awareness that part of her role as an educator and Chief Scientist at the Observatory is to communicate technical concepts in an understandable way to both students and community members.
Medhavi says, “one of the things that attracted me to the Observatory is the real-world impacts it has on local communities, and, by extension, local birds. I am very grateful to work with an organization that has strong ties to the community where I first started my professional pathway as an ornithologist.”
It seems fitting that Medhavi’s return to Wisconsin will coincide with the return of our much-anticipated spring migratory birds in May. Welcome home, Medhavi!