Sometimes I wonder how I got here. I made decent grades throughout elementary and middle school, placed into honors classes in high school and performed well enough despite not really connecting with most of the material, and found myself daunted by the burden of choice when it was made clear to me by my parents and teachers that I was socially expected to pursue higher education. I considered whether I was cut out for such things. Many of my more ambitious classmates had been working towards this goal for years: already planning out programs of study, scholarship opportunities, and prospective career paths before we had finished junior year. I decided that when in doubt, it’s best to stick with what you know.
Wildlife has always been a significant part of my life. I grew up fishing, hunting, and observing wildlife near my home in southeastern Massachusetts. I heard that all my childhood log flipping and frog catching might translate well to a career as a ‘wildlife research technician’ and set to work looking for an undergraduate program that could equip me for such things. I’d like to say that UNE came to my attention for its reputation as a research institution, its chronic recognition for increasing student earning potential, or the myriad academic and extracurricular opportunities it provides, but as previously mentioned: I had no idea what I was doing. Realistically, I picked it because the dorms had free laundry, the program of study looked interesting, and it was close to the beach.
At an admissions event during my senior year of high school, accepted but not yet committed to UNE, Pam Morgan inquired about my academic goals. I hadn’t thought much about them yet, and in something of a panic I told her I was basically looking to hassle as many animals as possible. She remarked that I ought to meet “the squirrel guy”. Thus began my experience with the Perlut Lab.
I think I took most of Noah’s classes during my time at UNE. I got my first professional research experience working on his campus mosquito control project the summer after my freshman year and spent two seasons with the bobolinks in Vermont. I wanted as much hands-on experience as possible and was so fortunate to have stumbled upon a mentor so committed to providing these experiences to his students. “Experiential learning” was so frequently discussed on campus that it felt like a buzzword, but every time I tell a colleague that I learned telemetry on real live squirrels I am reminded of the tremendous value of my experiential education. Still, when I graduated, I felt a bit directionless once again. I had substantial experience with the wildlife of New England but had never traveled further than Pennsylvania. I wasn’t sure if any of my knowledge would translate, and the enormous geographic scale of birds’ full annual cycle boggled my mind. I felt that to truly consider myself an expert in the ecology of North American birds, I needed to see North America.
In nearly seven years since graduating from UNE, I’ve worked in eight states and visited 35. I’ve found elk, lizards, tarantulas, and more in the wild. I’ve worked with suburban deer, caught whippoorwills in backcountry Missouri, and spot mapped Kirtland’s warblers just after they came off the endangered species list. I’m finally starting to feel like I have my feet under me. I’ve learned, as the birds do, to arrive in new territory and take quick stock of the available resources. I can find my niche in a new ecosystem. I look forward to returning to my wintering grounds each fall, rejoining a restaurant community that has welcomed me back with open arms for going on four years now. I used to wonder about a bird’s sense of place: when your full annual cycle takes place over thousands of miles, where is home? Is it the place you were born or the place you return to when seasonal resources dry up? For me at least, life is in the journey. It takes gumption to leave a comfortable place, but the optimistic few who dare to chase new horizons are often richly rewarded. The impermanence of this lifestyle gives everything new meaning and makes me all the more grateful for the social connections I can draw on when things get tough. I could never have imagined the adventure I was getting myself into when I committed myself to a career in ornithology, but I’m so happy with where it’s taken me, and I can’t wait to see where I end up next.