{"id":7532,"date":"2019-12-14T05:57:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-14T10:57:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/?p=7532"},"modified":"2019-12-12T15:39:26","modified_gmt":"2019-12-12T20:39:26","slug":"her-beacon-of-hope","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/2019\/12\/14\/her-beacon-of-hope\/","title":{"rendered":"Her Beacon of Hope"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Why Birds Inspire Biology Major<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

An ornithology class in college transformed Corina Newsome\u2019s life. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

A junior at the time, she\u2019d always considered birds \u201cpretty mundane\u201d until a professor\u2019s passion and enthusiasm caused her to take another look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey were all just little brown birds to me,\u201d she says, \u201cand what’s exciting about that? He basically directed my attention to look closer in a way that I hadn’t before and when I did, I realized there was such a huge diversity of birds here and they’ve been here the whole time. I missed them just because I didn’t know how to look. He got me hooked, and from then on, I’ve been my own kind of crazy bird woman.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Deep Dive into the Seaside Sparrow Habitat<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Newsome, now a biology graduate student, estimates that she can identify nearly 200 birds. Most days last summer, you could find her keeping an eye on just one \u2014 the MacGillivray\u2019s seaside sparrow, which breeds in the coastal marshes of Georgia, Florida and South Carolina. The small, dusky songbird measures 5 to 6 inches with a long bill, and on average weighs about an ounce. The female lays from two to five eggs that hatch in two weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For her research project, Newsome and an assistant set up a study site in the tidal zone near Brunswick, Georgia, to investigate predation on the seaside sparrow\u2019s nest. The bird builds its nest in low marsh vegetation or just a few inches above the level of highest tide. Newsome explains this environment can hinder the sparrow\u2019s success of nesting and raising offspring.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe water rises twice a day and it\u2019s unpredictable,\u201d says Newsome, who will need two summers to complete the research. \u201cIt can rise pretty high, flood the nest and kill the offspring. Whenever that happens, they\u2019ll immediately re-nest and they\u2019ll re-nest higher to avoid the water. But when they nest higher they’re more visible to predators. So, I’m trying to see what kinds of predators they’re exposed to in their breeding habitat as well as determining the most common predators pursuing their nests.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsome received grants from the Georgia Ornithological Society and Sigma Xi to fund her purchase of monitoring equipment. The equipment included floatable and waterproof camera traps and video recorders to take pictures of all the activity around the nests. She expected to see mammal predators like rats, raccoons and mink, but Newsome was surprised by some unexpected behaviors and interactions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLittle marsh crabs tried to crack and eat the seaside sparrow eggs,\u201d she says, adding that fish turned out to be predators as well. \u201cOne nest was too low for the tide and the water rose several inches above the nest. \u2026 You could see this fish swim into the nest and just start tearing this chick apart.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

By studying where the seaside sparrows\u2019 predators are highly concentrated, she hopes her findings will be a resource for wildlife officials involved in protecting certain breeding habitats in Georgia\u2019s marshes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breaking Barriers<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Raised in Philadelphia, the former zookeeper says she saw little diversity in the animal care field. But a meeting with Steve Hein, director of Georgia Southern\u2019s Center for Wildlife Education, opened her eyes and drew her to Georgia Southern. While touring the facility, Newsome says she was surprised to see so many African American students working on the animal care and education team. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI started weeping in front of these strangers,\u201d she says. \u201cI thought, this is unreal. \u201cThese kids are working with birds of prey, owls, hawks and falcons; and flying and training these animals, and all kinds of native mammals. I had to cut through so much red tape and do years of interning before anyone would let me interact with an animal like that, and these students can come in and get that experience almost right away. I was like, \u2018I hope you all know how blessed you are.\u2019 This is a crazy opportunity. This place is a gold mine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsome adds throughout her academic life and professional career she grew used to being the only person of color in the room. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s tricky because whenever you look for a graduate school, you\u2019re really looking for a professor who studies what you want to study and you just go wherever they are,\u201d she says. \u201cThis is the first time in my life that I haven\u2019t been the only person of color in the biology department. I wept when I saw that because I couldn\u2019t believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsome says she has found extraordinary support and encouragement from the biology department faculty. She lauded Professors Ray Chandler, Ph.D., J. Checo Colon-Gaud, Ph.D., and Elizabeth Hunter, Ph.D., for their willingness to serve as advisers and mentors. While she remains unsure about her career path, Newsome says Georgia Southern has broadened her interests in blending research, education, conservation and wildlife activism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

African Americans make up nearly 14 percent of the U.S. population, but according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, barely 8 percent admit they intentionally watch birds. Newsome is aware that as a woman of color, she is breaking barriers, not only as a birder but also in the wildlife education field. She is hoping to inspire others to take a moment and observe the birds and other wildlife around them. Although many birds are lightweight and small, Newsome says they are resilient beings that \u201cmake migrations of thousands of miles without stopping over large bodies of water and survive crazy changes in temperature.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWhen I see just how resilient they are while being something that’s so fragile, it’s a beacon of hope in a way for me,\u201d she says. \u201cSeeing how birds are able to thrive in very extreme environments give hope for people like myself who feel or have been told that they aren’t built for a certain thing whether that’s academically like biology or whatever the challenge might be. Birds have somehow become this symbol to me of the fact that very few things are impossible, if anything is impossible at all.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsome will continue her research in the Georgia marsh next summer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Sandra Bennett<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why Birds Inspire Biology Major An ornithology class in college transformed Corina Newsome\u2019s life.  A junior at the time, she\u2019d always considered birds \u201cpretty mundane\u201d until a professor\u2019s passion and enthusiasm caused her to take another look. \u201cThey were all just little brown birds to me,\u201d she says, \u201cand what’s exciting about that? He basically […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":7536,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[62],"class_list":["post-7532","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-features","tag-fall-2019"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7536"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ww2.georgiasouthern.edu\/news\/magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}