Watch Mariamar Gutierrez in a 6-minute preview of her “Young, Gifted, and Wild About Birds” presentation coming up on Thursday

February 15, 20210 — In a preview of her Thursday Zoom presentation, Mariamar Gutierrez talks about stopover ecology and “full-service hotels” for migratory birds.

Her work is simply amazing. Focusing on Swainson’s Thrush, Gray-cheeked Thrush, Northern Waterthrush, and Yellow-billed Cuckoo, she is using MRIs and Motus transmitters to assess birds’ physical condition after the ordeal of migrating across the Gulf of Mexico. Mariamar Gutierrez Ramirez, a Ph.D. candidate and a Ford Foundation fellow at UMass Amherst.

Watch the preview and then buy your ticket for her Young, Gifted, and Wild About Birds presentation on Thursday, February 18, 7 p.m.

Buy your ticket for Mariamar Gutierrez's songbird presentation on Zoom

Millions of migratory birds fly non-stop across the Gulf of Mexico from the wintering grounds in Mexico, Central, and South America to the breeding grounds in North America.

They complete their amazing journeys through a series of long flights, punctuated by stopover periods when they rest and rebuild depleted energy reserves. Birds use fat and lean mass to power migratory flight, which is especially critical during and after crossing ecological barriers, such as the Gulf of Mexico.

Researchers from the UMass Amherst Integrative Environmental Physiology Lab have been using traditional field research and state-of-the-art technology, such as the Motus Wildlife Tracking Network, to evaluate the relationship between body condition and migratory decisions of birds that have completed a trans-Gulf of Mexico flight.

During Thursday’s Zoom program, Mariamar will explore how birds fare after crossing the Gulf of Mexico in spring and how this may impact their timing and arrival to the breeding grounds in New England and beyond.