Volunteer field assistant on Bowerbird signal function and evolution (Australia)

I am looking for an experienced female field worker to help my female Ph.D. student doing field work on Great Bowerbirds, approximate dates October through to mid December 2014.  (Female because the field house offers little privacy). Ideally the volunteer should have extensive experience with birds. The volunteer should also know how to drive a 4WD vehicle in easy to moderate conditions (we almost never have to shift into 4WD) and not mind living in fieldwork conditions.


Duties generally involve helping to drive to bower sites, walking between
bowers (up to 4km), carrying equipment and helping to check/maintain the
camera equipment at bowers on a regular basis, as well as the initial
set up and final taking down of the camera systems, solar panels and
batteries used to run the cameras. Other duties will include sound
recording, backing up video onto USB disk drives, some analysis of the
video recordings collected, and helping to do two object presentation
experiments.

This field work takes place on a remote cattle station (Ranch in North
American parlance) in Queensland, so it is hot and dry.  This will
involve a fair amount of walking in these conditions so the volunteer
should be reasonably fit. Transportation will be provided to/from the
field station from Townsville (the nearest airport). The successful
applicant will have to share a simple house with the PhD student and
help with the day to day aspects of fieldwork as well as cooking and
keeping the house tidy.  This cattle station is full of wildlife (the
owners really know how to care for the land) so expect to see lots of
kangaroos, emus and bustards, among other animals.  It is well into
the outback so internet connections are weak and absent in some days;
this is not something a city-type would enjoy.

If you are interested, please e-mail me directly,
John.Endler@deakin.edu.au John A. Endler, Centre for Integrative Ecology,
Deakin University, Australia.


Prof. John A. Endler. FAA, FAAAS
Alfred Deakin Professor
Editor-in-Chief, Evolutionary Ecology
Centre for Integrative Ecology
School of Life & Environmental Sciences
Deakin University, Waurn Ponds Campus
75 Pigdons Road
Waurn Ponds, VIC 3216, Australia
email: John.Endler@deakin.edu.au
tel: 03 5227 1313, or +61 3 5227 1313
mob: 0488 255 712
Deakin University CRICOS Provider Code 00113B