an update, sort of

So as earlier stated, I didn't have wireless while in Nebraska. I also did not have much time to sit down and type up journal entries, either. Last evening we got back to Illinois, and I still haven't had much time. So, sooner or later, I will get around to posting about the rest of my time in NE & here. Also, my camera battery died quickly after my last post, so I will try to upload Jeremy's pictures and share some of those.
Anyway, here is what I DO have saved from NE:

5/28/07 4:20 PM

Now that I have a few minutes free time (In most of my free time, I have been feverishly reading, and have just finished, Alive), I will try to recount the events of the past few days.

Saturday, the 26th

We arrived in Ogallala, NE, at Cedar Point Biological Station (CPBS), at around 5:45 PM (mountain time), after a 12 hour drive from IL, just in time for dinner. The CPBS is the field site for University of Nebraska Lincoln, and so along with researchers, there are other undergraduate students here for summer classes. After dinner I was shown to my cabin by the head honcho here; it is the furthest girls cabin from the lodge and the office, and is up on a rather steep incline. The cabins are not the most extravagant; they have concrete floors and the restroom/shower facilities are in a separate building, but that makes it kind of fun. The cabins don’t even have locks. Everybody just keeps all their stuff in their cabins all day, and their toiletries in the facilities, and nothing is disturbed. It’s really nice to be away from society in that way. Hopefully at some point later I will have a video of the inside of my cabin.

This whole place is very cool; it’s on the southern side of a small lake, and is among rocky hills with prairie at the tops and all around, so my surroundings are pretty awesome. And to my delight I’ve seen many pelicans around the lake, and many lizards scuttling through the grasses.

Anyway, after settling in, Jeremy and I drove around the area to stake out sites to do netting and banding and to find nests. We also went into “town” to pick up some things from the store. After that, it was dark, and hence bedtime, and I went back to my cabin where I met my roommates. Their names are Allison and Sarah, they are very friendly, and they are here doing research on cliff swallows.

I was so cold that night, I had difficulty sleeping. I had taken a shower, so I had wet hair, and CPBS does not provide linens so I only had my sheet and one small fleece blanket to use. Our cabin is rather drafty, too. I didn’t sleep for more than an hour at a time and even got up earlier than was necessary because I was so tired of laying there trying.

Sunday, the 27th

As just stated, I woke up early and was at 7:00 breakfast right on time. Unfortunately, it was only continental but I still managed to stuff myself. After breakfast Jeremy and I once again headed out to check stake out the surrounding areas; we ended up getting ourselves relatively in some pasture land with “roads” (gravel or worse) that twisted and turned in a bizarre fashion. It was rather comical, and provided me with the opportunity to see a couple jack rabbits.

We then went back to “town” and purchased some rope (to use for our rope drags, naturally), and an additional fleece blanket for each of us.

By the time we returned, it was time for noon lunch. After lunch we set up some nets around the lodge. They have a few feeders there so there are lots of birds around. In about two hours (including set-up and tear-down) time, we caught 36 birds and 8 of those were lark sparrows! (We actually had to chase away a turkey that was dangerously close to being caught in the net). The conditions were perfect: cloudy and calm. We only tore down because we were informed there was a severe thunderstorm on its way. I napped through the supposed thunderstorm that never actually came, and then it was dinner time.

After dinner, we checked out some areas for mist-netting on foot, which turned into a bit of a hike. While the hike was pretty fun, we didn’t find any really nice areas to net, and thus planned to net the next day in the same place we had earlier. After our hike I hiked up to the top of the highest cliff at CPBS to make some phone calls home and to Sam. The view was spectacular; I got to watch the sunset over the lake with the rolling hills and rocky cliffs all around me. It was a perfect temperature outside, too.

Today, again: Monday the 28th

Sleep last night was much better, as it was not quite as cold and I had an additional blanket to my name. Breakfast was also much better; eggs, bacon, hash browns, and cinnamon toast. At breakfast a wild turkey was actually standing on the feeder outside of the lodge window; that was entertaining.

The rest of today, however, has been discouraging and frustrating. After breakfast we set up our nets in the same place as yesterday; around the feeders outside the lodge. However, in three hours time, we only caught 5 birds, only 1 of them a lark sparrow. The conditions weren’t right; it was so sunny and windy that the birds could see the nets.

Then we had lunch, and after lunch hiked up to the top of the hill I hiked up yesterday to do some rope drags, hoping to find a few nests. The habitat seemed just right, but I don’t know if it was the wind or just our bad luck, but after about an hour and a half of rope dragging, we gave up for the day. I did come away with a nice sunburn, however. It just sucks that the conditions were today were so bad when they were perfect yesterday but we had to tear down because of a thunderstorm that never came.

I am beginning to get a bit worried because as my project deals with the sex ratio of the baby chicks, we have to find nests with chicks from which I can draw some blood, or I’m screwed.

So the rest of this afternoon has been free. After dinner, we’re going to a bar to try and convince them to put on the hockey game for us. That should be fun.

Other than today’s bad luck, I am having a good time in Nebraska, and meeting some very friendly, interesting people here. Looks like a storm is on the way, so I am heading to the lodge early.

5/29/07 6:49 PM

We did succeed in finding a bar that would put the hockey game on for us, first try. They were very accommodating and I had a delightful time because the other customers were so hilariously country. A few other students/employees at CPBS came to meet us, and there actually was one other person with us who’s under 21 so I didn’t feel too out of place ordering coffee. We had a good time, but the way home was definitely the best. There was a storm a few miles away, and we were up on the dam crossing the lake(s), and the lightning in the distance was insane. There were too many strikes per second to even count, and it was almost completely surrounding us. Deciding it was like a light show, we put on the radio and “Frankenstein” accompanied our light(ning) show for us. It was so so cool.

Today I woke up at 4:30 AM, and Jeremy and I were off to work by 5:00 AM. We netted in a location about 2 miles southwest of the CPBS headquarters, amidst some minimal rain showers. It wasn’t a very fruitful morning, but we were able to catch three lark sparrows. These three we kept to use for the psychology professor’s work.

At around 9:00 we heard some thunder pretty close (consistent with the forecast) and took down the nets as quickly as possible, and got out of there. We were back at the station by 10:00 where we got some quick breakfast (toast and refrigerated apples and oranges are available all the time) and he set off for the Denver airport to pick up the psychology professor, whose flight miraculously made it to Denver all the time, even with all the storms. They won’t be back in time for dinner, though, so I’m going to have to find a way to save them some food and put it in the fridge in Jeremy’s cabin (which is naturally far fancier than mine).

So today I have been basically hanging out in Jeremy’s cabin all day, babysitting the three lark sparrows we caught this morning, hiding from the scattered thunderstorms. I took a shower and managed a nap (though this was difficult because the birds are almost constantly rustling in their little cage thing) and had lunch. I also did a little reading and now here I am ‘blogging.’

Let me try to explain the work the psychology professor will be doing. He and Jeremy have also been to Texas to sample lark sparrow populations there, where the birds are sedentary, as opposed to here and further north and east, where they are migratory. The two have hypothesized that because the birds here must migrate, they have need for a better visual/spatial skills and memory. The area of the brain responsible for these skills is the hippocampus, so the professor is examining the brains to determine whether birds here have a larger, denser hippocampus than birds in Texas. The two populations were chosen because they are close enough that there is a theoretical possibility of interbreeding and this closeness best eliminates other factors that could lead to differences in brain structure. So, that’s a pretty interesting hypothesis, and the reason we kept the three lark sparrows we caught today.

Jeremy has been telling me this psychology professor is a very interesting character, so I am excited to meet him. I am also excited but also quite a bit nervous to see the actually slaughtering procedure. Apparently it is optimal to inject the birds with the lethal injection, and then open their chest cavity open while the heart is still beating. Wow.

(Side note: I realize that I have not yet explained my independent project in detail, and I intend to do so at some point).

Well, I’m off to dinner again. By myself tonight. :-/

so here's the deal.

Yesterday it took approximately 12 hours to drive from IL to Cedar Point Biological Station in Ogallala, Nebraska. So far it's been pretty cool. Wish I could provide more details now, but I have to run to lunch.

Here, there is no wireless internet and I don't have much time to come into the office which is where I am currently logged in, so my plan is to write my blog entries on my lap top, save them as a word document, and upload them once I get to IL where I have wireless. We are leaving here on the 4th. Until then.

day 3

So I didn't get as much sleep as I intended last night; I had some trouble getting to sleep. However, I am feeling a bit better today, so that's good news.

Early day today. We got up at 4:00 and were out by about 5:00. So we drove to our selected site and got started setting up the mist nets about 5:30. The sun was already rising at this point, and let me tell you, there's nothing like a sunrise over and abandoned bunker. :-) Really though, it was really foggy this morning so it made for a rather beautiful scene. I have a few pictures of it that and plenty of other things, but it's difficult to upload and post pictures with only the trackpad on my laptop, so I will post a photo summary of my travels sometime after I get home.

Anyway, a very productive morning. We "threw" up 7 different nets of Jeremy's and the main guy here at Lost Mound along with the grad student working for him came out to help as well, so they set up a few. Overall I think we caught/banded/bleeded 35 birds by noon, which is pretty good. And it was an absolutely beautiful day. Low wind, high 60's/low 70's. Perfect. Except for those fricking prickly pair cacti. Not only do they have large pokers, but they also have really tiny, short, almost fibrous pokers that easily get stuck in everything. I made the mistake of kneeling while removing a meadowlark from a net, and got about a trillion of them stuck in my knee for awhile. Seriously irritating. Speaking of meadowlarks, they're pretty huge as far as mist-netting goes, and they have really long, sharp talons. That one got me pretty badly. Had to physically pry the talons from my fingers, whereas when smaller birds grip you, it's usually possible to just slide your fingers out of their grip.

Speaking of birds, we caught a pair of blackbilled cuckoos. They made the most hilarious noises I just had to record one of them squawking a bit. Sorry about the background noise.



So, lunch was at around 1:15 and at 2:00 I took a nap that ended up lasting until 5:45. I ate again (reheated leftover pizza!) after I got up and then Jeremy went out and did some more rope drags, which ended up yielding absolutely nothing. What a disappointment. Got back here around 8:30, and here I am now.

Tomorrow our drive to the site in Nebraska is going to take about 10 hours, so we're getting up and heading straight there. That'll be a blast, I'm sure.

Until then.

another day.

So, the night wasn't too bad. I slept fairly well, if only for around 7 hours. We got up at 5:20, ate some breakfast and headed out to work by 6:00. We started off the day attempting to locate some nests through observation with spotting scopes. We went to a prime location but because of the intense wind, it wasn't very productive. Jeremy was able to peg a few nests currently being built and I was able to locate one with four eggs. I was also able to hang out atop an abandoned bunker to get a good view of the field in which we were searching, and it was pretty stellar up there on such a windy day. However, relatively speaking, the few hours we spent in the morning weren't very fruitful so we chose to head back to the office for some coffee.

We took about an hour break for coffee and some small talk with a couple of the guys that work here, and headed back out to do some "rope drags," which are just as they sound. We take a fairly heavy rope, each hold one end, stretch out, and drag it over the ground to flush out any female birds on nests. We found three of for more this way in the location that had previously been a bit of a bust, so we were satisfied with that. Once again, extremely exhausted, we headed out to lunch.

We drove to "town," which is seriously po-dunk and has more bars per area than downtown Bowling Green. The name of the town is Savanna, Illinois, and it is right on the Mississippi. Pretty cool views, and I find it so exciting to finally get to see the Mississippi, a river that has been such a significant part of our nation's history, but I digress. Anyway, we dined on some ever-tasty Pizza Hut, while watching the radar on the TV there. Inclement weather was headed our way (actually, more like the entire country's way). We finished up and went to a grocery store, because I, being the genius I am, forgot my toothbrush and toothpaste at home. (At least that means I brushed my teeth before leaving home yesterday morning!) So, I purchased those necessary items and also grabbed some "Tylenol Congestion," because, ever so fortunately, I am also in the beginning stages of a cold in these hard, outside work, travel, long hours, and sleep deprived circumstances. I am trying my hardest to fight it off, but I imagine it will only get worse given my current circumstances. Hopefully it will only make this trip mildly, and not incredibly miserable. :-) And hopefully my prediction is incorrect and it gets better instead of worse.

Anyway, we came back from Savanna to the Lost Mound Unit, but didn't go back outside right away because it was sprinkling and still seriously windy. I was granted the opportunity to take a nap, which I jumped on. Jeremy woke me up a little more than an hour later, at 5:00, but we realized after a few minutes of planning for tomorrow that the slight rain had not abated, and decided to wait it out a bit longer. Both of us then took up a book (I am reading Alive, which is horrifically fascinating), and read until 7:00, when Jeremy decided today was a lost cause. So, here I am now.

Because we have not been able to do any mist-netting as of yet due to wind, tomorrow we are getting up quite early (4:00!) to start mist-netting by 5:00. We are hoping that once the storms of the evening are through, the wind will have died down. We need to have a productive day of mist-netting tomorrow because it will be our last day here this round. Saturday morning we will be traveling to the site in Nebraska, staying there for about a week, and then heading back here for a few more days.

Well, I think that's it for now. Now, it is time for sleep. I am going to try to get as much as possible, to fight off my extreme exhaustion and irritating cold which combine to form a lovely general feeling of badness. :-) Plus, it's darn hot, dirty, and there are no showers here, so that doesn't help.

Despite all of those circumstances, I cannot say I am having a bad time. So far, days are passing rather quickly and I am attempting to retain my optimism.

I saw a couple of cute little lizards scuttling around today while I was looking for nests.
And fragile prickly pear cacti might be state-endangered, but I still curse them when they stick in the back of my ankles and calves.

Anyway, that is all, except this video of the sunset taken from the window right next to where I sleep.

"business trip" has begun

So, we made the drive to Illinois starting at 7 this morning.
Got here around 2:00 Illinois time.
Not much work done today, it's really windy here so we couldn't set up the nets.
However, we were able to drive around the refuge, which is actually an old army base/depot that closed in 2000. So there are a bunch of old, abandoned bunkers and warehouses and stuff. It is seriously creepy. The base is right one the Mississippi, though, and we took a drive through the base. I saw quite a few bald eagles with was exciting.

Sorry this post is kind of random. We are currently watching Lost on the TV here, through a fuzzy connection we achieved with Jeremy's portable antenna. Yay for season finales.

More later, if I get a quiet moment alone to concentrate on posting. :)

So it continues...

This past weekend, Sam came to visit and yesterday I took him to show him where I work. I took him to see the first lark sparrow nest I found, and delightfully, the eggs had hatched! Little teeny tiny birdies. When they are between 6 and 9 days old is when it's most advantageous to bleed them, so soon that will be occurring!

Today, I worked 6:30 AM - 3:30 PM today. Yipes. Today we only did observations, so no nets or banding or bleeding, but lots of walking around with spotting scopes trying to find nests and ID the parents birds that they belong too. We found 5 today, though one had been destroyed and the eggs were gone. :-( Fun fact: Some nests are parisitized by cowbirds, meaning cowbirds lay one of their eggs in another species' nest so that the lark sparrow will watch after the cowbird egg and raise the baby cowbird as their own. Kind of irritating for my purposes, but a pretty neat adaptation for the cowbirds, eh? Also, apparently cowbirds in Illinois have eggs that look more like lark sparrow eggs, because lark sparrows are more common there, whereas cowbird eggs here look more like field sparrow eggs, because field sparrows are more common here. Adaptation is cool.

Anyway, one more day here and then I leave for Illinois & Nebraska. I will no doubt be busy making sure I'm all set to go.

my first week

So, 800 mosquito bites later, my first week is over, and it was pretty crazy.
I feel the need to apologize in advance because this post will be all over the place.

I worked Monday through Saturday, 5:30 AM - around 1:00 PM every day. Wow, what a schedule. Anyway, overall it was a good time and I think, once I adjust to the time schedule, I'm going to enjoy it.

I became familiarized with the different areas of Oak Openings in which we do field research. Basically, my job is help the PhD student (whose website is linked in a previous post) I am working for set up mist nets, remove the birds from the nets once they are caught, help band them, take a blood sample, and record measurements. In addition to that, I used the spotting scope to find lark sparrows, the target species for both Jeremy's research and my independent project. Caught lark sparrows are marked with color bands as well as band numbers so they can be identified from afar, using the spotting scope. I have helped Jeremy color-band new lark sparrows and I have also located previously banded lark sparrows with the spotting scope. I have to admit, though, using the scope is very frustrating and while my skills are improving, the improvement is slow going. Yesterday, I found my first lark sparrow nest! (The birds nest on the ground in fields, but they are well hidden). It takes a certain technique to locate the nests and I did it for the first time, so that was exciting. The nest had 6 eggs in it and while I couldn't identify the female, the male's color bands were "red over dark blue."

All week I have been pretty exhausted and hungry after work so I have been taking serious naps during the day and still going to bed around 10:00 PM. The areas we work in are very mucky and wet in the morning and get pretty hot when the sun comes up. Plus, as earlier mentioned, the mosquitoes are seriously vicious.

So far I am really enjoying the people I work with. Mainly, I work with Jeremy, but there is another grad student who is involved with the project and sometimes she, her husband, and their baby come out to help. :-) There are also a couple volunteers, but so far I have only met one. She's very cool as well.

I have also seen and learned about many different species of bird this week, and I am working to memorize them all. It's pretty difficult when you're starting from a pretty blank birdie knowledge base.

Random "highlights" of the work week:
-Dead, skinned snake on the side of the road. I've never seen a skinless snake before.
-Two birds were so strong they broke their legs struggling in the nets. This is a rare, gruesome occurrence.
-Lots and lots of deer, a few out in front of "my" car
-A shrew siting. Ugly little buggers.
-A newly learned skill: the woodland pee. (still working to perfect this one).
-Caught a few hummingbirds. They are so tiny and cute, and their heartbeat is more like a vibration it's so rapid.
-Caught a few red-headed woodpeckers. They are SO loud and don't stop screaming.
-Making good friends with a number of pricker/thorn bushes.
-Finding a tick in my hair last night before I took a shower. Thankfully, it had not had the chance to bite me yet, but I still have the heebie-jeebies from it.

Today, I helped out for Blue Weekend at Kitty Todd Nature Preserve (only about 15 minutes from my house). As you can see from the link, we gave bird banding demonstrations this morning. It was pretty cool to be able to show interested people the techniques we use to catch the birds and to band and bleed them, and for them to get to see all kinds of different species up close.

Moving on, I also found out this week that I'll be traveling for my job, and very soon!
Next Wednesday, May 23rd, through June 8th I will be traveling to Illinois & Nebraska to assist with field research. All expenses are paid through the $900 allotted for research through my Undergraduate Student Research Scholar program. Supposedly there will be internet available in at least Nebraska, so hopefully I can bring my computer and blog it up.

Yay.