The next in the series: Plate-billed Mountain-Toucan. I've seen the other three; this one I haven't (but would looove to). Some day 🤞

Okay what do I do? Do I just keep painting all the toucans or is it time to move on to another group of birds? (Or other animals?!)

Find good mentors (not juat your supervisors) & peer support. Use your advisory committee (I wish I'd done this more). Get your comps/qualifying exams out of the way asap.

I've grown so much as a scientist through this PhD because I challenged myself to complete a diverse, multidisciplinary thesis & because I worked with amazing mentors, peers, and junior scientists. I was also supported by so many orgs, esp. Ducks Unlimited Canada & @nserc-resnet.bsky.social.

And I got to teach it this year! 🥳

Thanks to @halibirdnerd.bsky.social for trusting me with her course 🙏✨

This was Dalhousie University's SEASIDE Ornithology, a 17-day intensive field course. Very hands-on, very fun, and introduces students to bird behaviour, anatomy, physiology, conservation, and common field methods.

Ugh I was hoping to hear this was not a common occurrence. I'm just really glad that the editor didn't accept it.

3/4 reviewers were either not qualified to review or they did not bother to actually look at the paper in detail and just blindly accepted it.

Is the #peer-review process broken? Is there a better way?

I keep thinking about the three reviewers who accepted it on the first pass when it was fatally flawed. The peer-review process is supposed to ensure that scientific research is held to a high standard and only published when it means those high standards.

Months later the paper was rejected by the editor after two rounds of revisions because the author failed to address the flaws that both the editor and myself pointed out. The paper was eventually rejected without further opportunity to resubmit.

Bat detectors**