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.

first day tomorrow

Tomorrow is my first day.
I should probably be asleep already, as I have to be there at 5:40 AM.

I'm nervous but actually very excited!