If you’ve ever seen Jack DeLap lead a bird walk, you can’t help but feel his passion for everything avian.

Watch him parse the sounds of the forest – bending his ear for the beat of a wing, squinting for each feathered clue – and it’s impossible to tell a line between work and play for him.

DeLap, a University of Washington doctoral candidate at the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, has been working with Professor John Marzluff for the past few years, and his dissertation research focuses on changes in Western Washington bird communities because of localized deforestation and suburban development.

Read more on UW Today.

European Jay
Jack DeLap