Thesis

My thesis is now available electronically from the library at the University of Western Australia. Happy reading.

Short films

Whilst undertaking field work for my PhD I took videos of the cockatoos whenever an opportunity arose to record interesting behaviours. I mostly tried to capture my study birds doing 'normal' cockatoo behaviours or wild birds doing unusual things. I have put together two short films from the videos. I hope you enjoy watching them.

Unusual Behaviours of Carnaby's Cockatoos

In the Wild: Rehabilitated Carnaby's Cockatoos

This film was too big for me to upload here but is available on Vimeo.

Talks

Now that my PhD is completed the next task is to share what I have found. That's what science is all about: building and sharing knowledge.

I will be giving two talks on the results of my PhD in the coming months.

The first is at Birdlife Western Australia's monthly meeting titled "Carnaby's cockatoo in the urban landscape: how they use the landscape and how we can help ensure they keep visiting". It will be at the Bold Park Eco Centre, Perry Lake Dr, Floreat at 7.30pm on the 26th October.

The second will be at the Australasian Wildlife Management Society Conference that is being held in Perth in November. The talk is titled "Working towards conserving a threatened species in an increasingly urbanised environment".

Graduation

Back on the 17th September I finally got to wear the gown and 'mortar board' complete with tassel to officially graduate. The evening was a fitting finale for my PhD journey.

PhinisheD

I handed in my thesis back in January for examination, waited patiently for the examiners reports to come back, and finally on the 8th July I submitted the corrected version of my thesis. Yippee!

In UWA tradition I am also now the proud owner of a famous red mug.

Rock star

The 2014 Great Cocky Count Report  was released in June and reports a concerning declining trend in both the number of Carnaby's cockatoos using roosts and the number of roosts occupied in the greater Perth region.

This has attracted quite a bit of attention including the following Podcast called How to Save a Rock Star from Extinction which you can listen to and hear Marc Wohling speaking with BirdLife Australia's Samantha Vine and Jess Lee.

Time is flying by

I know it has been a while since I last added a post to my blog. Time has really flown by this year!

I have been very busy entering, analysing and writing up the results of my project. In the last few months I have also been giving presentations at conferences.

Back in August I gave a presentation at the Combined Biological Sciences Meeting that was hosted at the University of Western Australia. My presentation was titled "Studying the spatial ecology of a highly mobile species using three complimentary techniques". As a huge bonus I was awarded the New Investigator Award for my presentation. The award will help me travel to another conference in the coming year to present the results of my study.

In September I presented at the Sustainable City Conference in Siena, Italy. The reason I was interested in this particular conference (apart from the amazing scenery of the location) was the opportunity to meet landscape planners, urban designers and architects. One of the keys to conserving Carnaby's cockatoo in Perth is going to be making the urban landscape as cockatoo friendly as possible and to do that we are going to need to make changes to how we design, develop and manage the urban landscape.

Certosa di Pontignano - Sustainable City 2014 conference

Certosa di Pontignano - Sustainable City 2014 conference