First month

my field research this go-round has been really hectic and my computer died about the 2nd week that i was here, so i apologize for the lag in the posts! the first month was quite a whirlwind! the undergraduate students were here – so we had a full house of 6 people. it was a challenge to get the research started, the equipment squared away, and make sure everyone was fed and up and out on time. not to mention, cleaning the house and doing dishes…wow.

our old 70s land-rover broke down every other day…sometimes we could pop-start it (a new term for me) which means 5 of us pushing this tank of car and one person trying to pop it into gear once it gains enough speed. not the best way to start off the morning heading to the field! sometimes it took us 4 or 5 tries to get it started. when that didn’t work, i was constantly scrambling trying to find transportation for the group. the offices on campus open early and close early – and we are in the field all day, so trying to get things accomplished during the week can be a little trying. luckily the administrative assistant is really nice and helpful, but sometimes there isn’t a car available to rent or anyone to drive us to the site so we either have to walk or take a taxi or a bus. i hope those days are behind us (knock on wood). after about $650 of work, the land rover finally passed inspection – third time’s a charm.

we had a chance to go birding with my advisor here on his research project. they set up mist nets to capture the birds super early in the morning. they then weigh them and band certain species to be able to track them. i got to release a humming bird after they took its measurements. they are a little stunned afterwards, so sometime they sit in your hand before taking off. it was really pretty amazing. the other picture is of a bird’s nest that one of my field assistants found.

the mammal research is moving along – some of the sites have much higher capture rates than others. the three sites are all very different, which is nice to mix it up a bit. we will be surveying each of them 4 times total for this study. at one of the study sites, we captured a total of 4 baby possums – one of them we actually recaptured- in the small mammal traps. we tag their ear with a small metal tag so we can tell if it is a different individual coming back. i really don’t know how those little guys fit in there. the trap would be closed when we went to check the traps in the morning and it would be really heavy! we would have to take the whole trap apart to get them out. when we opened the trap, the little possum would be all curled up in a little ball looking out at you. they are actually pretty cute. all the ones we captured were about the same age, so they might all be from the same litter. my field assistants and i were joking that the mom possum would be mad that they didn’t come home until early morning and would yell “you got your ear pierced too!!!"