To whom it may concern at the Stone Center,

My name is Maggie MacPherson and I was a recipient of the Stone Center

Summer Field Research Grant in the summer of 2013. In my application I explained that I would be returning to northern South America in an effort to study the physiology of a migrant bird: The Fork-tailed Flycatcher (Tyrannus savana). This year I traveled to the Southern Rupununi grassland in southern . The short trip began in Georgetown, the capitol of Guyana, where I obtained my research permits and arranged meetings with the local university and avian research group

Guyana Feathered Friends (GFF). Once my research permits were obtained I flew, with my field assistant into the interior of the country, to Lethem, on the border. In Lethem we met with the daughter (Kayla) of the ranch manager (Duane) where I will conduct the remainder of my research for my dissertation. Her and her husband (Leeroy) drove us the lengthy journey into , deep inside the Southern Rupununi grassland.

Once arrived in Dadanawa we quickly became friends with the local ranch hands, cowboys, and the ranch manager’s family. We caught Fork-tailed Flycatchers in the morning around feeding trees and discovered that the birds in Guyana were feeding on a plant unique to the area. The plant (shown below) is used to make a drink called “para kari” or just “kari”, a fermented cassava wine or beer. Local

Amerindian people use the leaves of this plant as a source of yeast for their traditional drink. We suspect that this results in flycatchers reaching higher numbers in the areas surrounding villages due to the abundance of these plants near human habitation.

The local tree referred to as “beshawud” in the local native language of Wapishan. This tree is cultivated near people on the Rupununi savannah and the leaves are used as a source of yeast for fermentation of the local cassava wine or beer called ”kari”.

During our field expedition I was able to catch 23 individual Fork-tailed

Flycatchers from both resident and migrant subspecies of Fork-tailed Flycatcher. I took feather, claw, and blood samples from every individual and measured morphometrics. As a stipulation with the Guyanese governing body for environmental research, I hired a local counterpart to be my field assistant while in the field. Kooldeep Looknauth (below) is a member of the Southern Rupununi

Conservation Society (SRCS), a group responsible for the stewardship of a recently discovered remnant population of a bird commonly used in the pet trade out of

Venezuela and Guyana called the Red Siskin. I trained Kooldeep to capture, mark and take samples from wild birds safely and efficiently with the hopes that he will be able to share his experience with other local individuals working to study the annual habits of the Red Siskin.

Kooldeep (affectionately called ‘General’) using my binoculars to watch Fork-tailed Flycatchers fly into roost near to our mist nets.

In addition to working with the SRCS and my local counterpart, Kooldeep, I also tried to work with local Amerindian children to encourage them not to kill migrant birds with their homemade slingshots for sport. Shown below is a picture of me teaching the son of a ranch cowboy how to safely hold a passerine bird, and another photo bird watching with a boy from a nearby village. There is a strong desire within the local Amerindian villages to preserve wildlife from new mining and ranching development and so it is my hope that the people I spend time with in

Guyana will gain meaningful skills to help them in their pursuit to preserve their land.

Teaching local boys how to safely hold passerine birds (left). Birdwatching with a local Wapishani boy to teach him how to use binoculars (right).

The field season has ended in a success I didn’t think could have been possible. I have reservations to continue this research in Guyana at Dadawana ranch in the Southern Rupununi savannah. This pilot season was an enormous success in allowing me to make personal contacts with the governing body for research permits (EPA Guyana), researchers and undergraduate researchers looking for honors thesis projects at the University of Guyana, and find local conservation groups with motivated individuals. I will be working with the SRCS and GFF to promote bird conservation in the only South American country where it is still legal to trade parrots and toucans. I am confident in the bright future I will have working in Guyana, and thank the Stone Center for helping me achieve this opportunity!!

Sincerely,

Maggie MacPherson