The ability to navigate in space is present in all animals. They need to learn about locations in their natural environment to forage, avoid predators as well as to find their way back home. Spatial cognition has long been studied but most of the studies lacked the ecological context. Almost all we know about navigation comes from experiments done with captive rats and pigeons. Furthermore few studies have tried to investigate how do animals use the 3 dimensions in navigation. Experiments on free birds can help us to understand how animals perceive and learn about their environment.

During my PhD I will study spatial cognition in Rufous hummingbirds in the Canadian Rocky Mountains during their breeding period. I will perform behavioural experiments with individually identified hummingbirds to understand how they use the 3 dimensions to navigate efficiently.

I am CONACyT funded and supervised by Dr. Sue Healy.