Okay. So the journal sucks. I even hate it. I hate writing in it every day. I do the same shit every day and it’s a chore to write down the same shit every day and then transcribe it into here (I like hard copies, what can I say). I’m also behind on my bird list, which has grown a bit! I’ll get to that later. How about I write something you guys might hate a little less than my journal. How about I actually take you through a day of banding, so you guys can get a clearer picture of what I’m doing in Indianer? Yes yes. Let’s do that.
WAKE UP! The alarm goes off anywhere between 4:20 and 5:15 every day. I jump out of bed. First thing I gotta do is open my drawer full of field clothes, put on the olive work pants I got at the army surplus store, take the belt off my shorts, put it on said work pants, and mosey to the bathroom to take a leak. After bathroom rituals, I put on the water for tea and begin preparing my lunch. The usual is a turkey sandwich decorated with spinach from Walmart, turkey from Walmart, cheddar cheese from Walmart, and wheat bread from.. IGA. I throw in two California clementines, a granola bar and set them aside. When the water is done, I put a bag of Trader Joe’s Irish breakfast tea in my thermos, fill’er up and set’er aside. Finally, I toast a bagel, put some cream cheese on it, and eat it with a glass of orange juice. I make sure to refill my waterbottle and put my gear and the bird gear in the car. If I’m driving, I’ll also bring along my iPod so I can listen to Zep, the Kinks, Muse, or Death from Above 1979 on the gooooo.
We work in pairs, sometimes assisted by our supervisor and resident biologist, James. I normally work with Catharine but I have worked with everybody by now, and all four of us have gone out together as well. There are 12 possible destinations on any particular day depending on where we are in the schedule. From our location in Bloomfield, Indiana we go to either the six stations on Navy base in Crane, or a selection of six sites in a 50 mile radius that we loosely call “Hoosier”. CRAN is quite nice. We roll up to the gate, show our base passes and ID’s, and set up shop in a nearly untouched parcel of land save a few roads. HOOS sites involve driving 30 miles up to Spencer, 50 miles down past Bedford, or two locations in between. We get paid $0.35 a mile, so driving is no biggie. It’s no coincidence that there are six stations per site and six days in our work week. We have up to four days off after that work week, but really that’s in case of a rainout during the week. If it doesn’t rain, more time off for us!
The sites are roughly 12 hectares and include the banding station and ten net lanes. The CRAN sites have already been established from previous years, and each one is set up in a very unique way. On the other hand, we created the HOOS sites from scratch and according to a set up determined by another group of researchers (wood thrush project from the Smithsonian Institute). In fact, while the CRAN sites have no pattern to them at all, the HOOS sites are rigidly defined by a 12 point grid, each point 100m apart from the next. The uniting facet of these two types of sites is that each is divided into two loops with the banding station somewhere in the middle (hopefully). When making net runs, each of us interns will follow a loop and meet back at the banding station with our quarry.
Arrive at the site before dawn. Currently, sunrise is around 6:20 AM, so we have to at the banding station about five minutes before that. We make sure to put up the thermometer and count the number of bird bags we have. Bird bags are exactly what they sound like: cloth bags that are used for carrying birds. We must be certain that we leave with as many bags as we arrived with. Missing bags can mean that somebody left a bird in a bag somewhere at the site, although more often than not a missing bag is found lying on the path sans bird after falling out of a pocket.
Once sunrise hits each intern takes a bag of five nets, which are kept in plastic grocery bags, around a loop of the site. The nets are 12m by 4m and are composed of thin thread. They each have 4 tiers, which are divided by 5 lines that run the span of the net ending in a trammel. The trammels are looped through two poles on either end, two trammels on the bottom pole and three on the top. In the middle is a connecting piece which has a length of rope tied around it in a double half hitch in order to adjust the length and therefore the resistance against the weight of the net, the other end being anchored to the ground by a piece of rebar. When the trammels are spread out, I am left with a 48 square meter area of bird trap. To close the nets, I simply group all the trammels together, collect the net from one end to the other, and deposit it in a plastic bag with the trammels looped through the handles.
Once all the nets are up, there’s usually enough time to look at my watch and realize that it’s time to go on a net run. Net runs occur every 40 minutes and take one intern over the course of one loop of the site (five nets) and end back at the banding station. In order to follow the loop, I have to keep my eye out for pieces of flagging tied around trees every 10m or so. It can get a little difficult to follow at times, but I know the courses by now, so I don’t go more than 20ft off the track, and even then I just back up to the last bit of flagging and look harder. If all goes according to plan, nets open at 6:20 AM and net runs continue from 7:00 AM, 7:40 AM… until 12:20 PM, six hours after sunup, and the nets are closed on this last run. If there aren’t any arthropod surveys or habitat structure assessments, then I can concentrate on birding by ear and extracting birds from nets.
Extracting birds from the nets can be the most difficult part of the job. It doesn’t have to be; sometimes it’s exceedingly simple, but other times a bad tangle can leave me frustrated for the rest of the day. The procedure I have adopted is such: Free one wing, unloop the head, free the other wing, free the legs. This is just a guideline; I sometimes go in a different order depending on the type of tangle or if the bird is a real biter coughcardinalscough. The wings can be tricky because I need to get them back through the square they came through and sometimes this procedure can be hampered by other parts of the net getting caught in the flight feathers or tension from another tangled part of the body like the feet. Especially the feet. The head can be tricky because it’s hard to see what loop the head went through. A general pull will usually take the head out, but sometimes the angle is messed up and you end up putting the bird’s head through another loop and have to “take his sweater off” several times before it’s completely free. Wood Thrushes have big heads too, so that can make things difficult. After these first two steps, the second wing and feet are usually a breeze. Feet are untangled by gently massaging the toes back and forth while simultaneously pulling the net off of them. The massaging motion uncurls the toes so you can pull the net right off. Once again, this can be made tricky by birds with strong, very curved toes and claws, usually things that need good grip on trees such as woodpeckers, nuthatches, and blue jays. Once the bird is free from the net, you can deposit it in a bird bag, tie the drawstring, and clip a numbered clothespin on it to denote the net you captured the bird in. I have seen nets with as few as zero birds (several runs in a row) to seven birds, and you can catch even more. When I’ve extracted all the birds from a net I’ll continue to the next nets and then back to the banding station.
The banding station is where the data entry occurs. To begin, we pull a band off of a thin wire with a special pair of banding pliers. The pliers have two prongs on the top lateral side that when the pliers are opened so is the band. We take a lot of standard bird measurements, like wing chord and mass, and some other fun ones. The cloacal protrusion, how much the cloaca swells up, can tell us the sex of the bird and if they are breeding. Another breeding characteristic is the brood patch which is generally a female trait, but there are exceptions. We skull the bird, meaning we push it’s head feathers away at look at the pneumatization of the skull. Most adult passerines have two layers of skull. One that is present when hatched, and another that develops after the hatch year. The defining mark are the little columns of bone that are visible under the skin. An adult bird will usually have a complete secondary skull. Anything less is a younger bird. Finally we check the fat and molt. These stats lead us into aging the bird which can be very difficult. At the beginning of the season we were mostly getting second years and after second years, but now we’re getting some hatch year birds. We enlist the help of Peter Pyle’s Identification Guide to North American Birds, which is this huge black book that looks kinda like a bible. It gives detailed information about the specific molting, plumage, sexing, and breeding characteristics of birds. We mostly use it to determine how old a bird is. The usual giveaway is the difference between the primary coverts and the secondary coverts. This is an entry all to itself so I’m just going to leave that there. At the end we yank two retrices (butt feathers) out of their ass and send them on their way. We have additional stuff to do with Wood Thrushes, since the Wood Thrush researchers are why we have funding, including color banding.
At the end of the day, we close the nets and process the rest of our birds. When all that’s done we pack up, make sure we have all the nets and bird bags (once again, failure to do so can result in bird death, so this is a critical double check), and get the hell out of there before the mosquitoes eat us to death. I hope you enjoyed this non-journal-entry and that you come away from it with a detailed knowledge of what I’m doing in Indiana. I haven’t told too many people the details because, frankly, it takes too long. Especially in passing or light conversation. This is what I do. I don’t know if I’ll do it forever, but I think I’ll probably keep it up for a bit. I’m looking at more banding jobs and am aiming for ones that will take me overseas. There are a lot of opportunities like that, but I need more (unpaid) experience so that they’ll actually want to spend money on me. If I get bored I’ll probably try to switch organisms or hell, go to grad school. Ugh. Don’t want to think about that. Keep your eyes and ears open for ze birds!
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
I took out all that nonsense bird list from the blog and just put it on a google exel doc. You can click the link to the right to check out the birds I'm catching. I know. It's so very interesting to all of you.
And here's a photo album for neato pictures. I'll probably post these to facebook sometime too.
And here's a photo album for neato pictures. I'll probably post these to facebook sometime too.
Electric Ladyland
5/21/11
First day of work! Slow set up, but everyting ran very well. I drove 105 miles so at $0.35 a mile I made about $65 yesterday! Tiring though. Wooh boy. We came back to pretty much laze around. Got a little rowboating in with Mel. The second coming of Christ didnt happen..
5/22/11
Holy crap. Busy day. Lots of birds. Especially big bitey Cardinals and fucking Empids and Empid worksheets. I got eaten alive again by mosquitoes and I got lost in the forest for a bit. Then came thunder. Then came rain. At one point I was at the banding station by myself, hunched over the worksheets and my bird, trying to keep everything dry while figuring out what kind of flycatcher I had because his stats fell into similar ranges for different spp. Closed early due to rain. We were all really tired and frustrated. Something got into our garbage last night..
5/24/11
EATEN ALIVE BY MOsQUITOEs YEsTERDAY! so I wore my rain jacket, hat, and hood even though it was hot and sunny out in order to defend against most of the parasite onslaught. The aftermath was not pretty. My face and hands are covered with bites. Just everywhere. And they itch like hell. I hope I stop reacting soon cos this sucks. We caught a whole bunch of male scarlet tanagers today. It was James' birthday today so I bet that made him happy. Festivities also included Mikes homemade sloppy joes, drinking, epic thunderstorms, asshole, and shithead.
I'm pleased to see that I'm getting use out of my cookbook. Other people are as well. It's a hit. The Joes were really good! A thunderstorm hit while I was playing guitar on the porch. All of a sudden I was blasted with a gust of wind that was quite impressive. I looked up to see the field grass blowing like crazy. soon came the rain, lightening, and thunder. The sound was so immense that the whole trailer rattled like it was going to collapse. Thats a good sign, right? Especially during a TORNADO WARNING and later TORNADO sIGHTING just down the road. We ended up getting pretty drunk. Morning was not happy, but it happened.
Today was a good day for birds. Pileated Woodpecker! IT looked like if Rufio got raped by a pteradactyl. Pecked the shit out of my hand, the bastard. Earlier in the day I cut myself on my pocketknife saw like an idiot while trying to clean up a netlane. Oh well. The cool thing about knife wounds is that it means you were playing with knives.
I've almost learned how to play classical gas. I'll give it a week before im awesome at it. =)
5/29/11
Busy end of the work week. We had to take a break from banding to do more set up. What a bitch! We couldnt finish up completely because of Navy stuff, so we'll have to get to it later. We did finish up the banding period. A little wet and cold, but we got all of our hours in.
Then it was the "weekend". And it is gooood. started the whole thing off with a BBQ and since it was my night to cook, I was the grillmaster. I made some bomb burgers and corn. Fuckin nom. Ended up playing kings and asshole and got a little drunky. We converted drunken energy into rowing power on the pond. Rowing is the shit. We just hang out and talk and sip on beer in the middle of our private lake. It's good times.
Yesterday we were at a loss as to what to actually do on one of our first days off. What is there to do in Bloomfield, IN? Even google couldn't find anything good. I made do. I went on a run on the road by our house. 157 N has too many cars, not enough shoulder, and huger rollercoaster hills. This route (230?) ultimately leads to a Christian daycare called Tulip Church or something. I tried to head for there. It was a real change of pace, excuse the pun. Exactly what I needed to do on a boring day. I saw some cows; they're beautiful animals. The young ones run a lot and its a very interesting gait. I found a dead redheaded woodpecker on the road, but I kept going and forgot to look for it on the way back. Lotsa dogs. Guard dogs. At one point I ran past a house with 3 dogs (and two little kids) in the front yard who started barking at me. They ran alongside the fence, which wasn't very tall, to keep barking at me. Kinda scary, but at least they were behind the fence for the time being.
I stopped when I hit the train tracks about two miles from the house. I was reminded of young Mac and Charlie throwing rocks at trains. sure enough, the train passed and on the other side of the tracks were two teenagers with ripped jeans and longish hair hurling rocks at the train. Their house was about 40m from the tracks, so I dont see how they could NOT throw rocks at it. On the way back the same kids were being driven in a truck by someone who I assume was their father, and they took a curious look back at me. I dont think there are too many runners around here. Although as I'm writing (not typing) this we just passed a seasoned looking runner in Bedford. But it's close to the city center. Iono.
Finally, on the way back I passed the house with the 3 big dogs again, except this time the dogs weren't in the yard. For a moment I breathed a sigh of relief because I thought they were sniffing around in the back or maybe even inside the house. But when I looked left I noticed to my mild horror that one of the more Rottweiller lookin ones was trotting toward me from the field across the road. I know that you're not supposed to run away from dogs, but what else could I do. I was running first. Luckily he just smiled and trotted home. The little boy was on the porch. He waved to me and said hi, and I gave him a tired hi back.
At home I watched Barca stomp on ManU. Sweet. Mel and I went on a hunt for boardgames. Got apples to apples and knockoff Jenga. The pieces arent even flush! We spent the night playing "Jumbling Towers" and rowing. Right now we're on the road to Madison to visit Sam and Victor. It should be less boring than Bloomfield.
First day of work! Slow set up, but everyting ran very well. I drove 105 miles so at $0.35 a mile I made about $65 yesterday! Tiring though. Wooh boy. We came back to pretty much laze around. Got a little rowboating in with Mel. The second coming of Christ didnt happen..
5/22/11
Holy crap. Busy day. Lots of birds. Especially big bitey Cardinals and fucking Empids and Empid worksheets. I got eaten alive again by mosquitoes and I got lost in the forest for a bit. Then came thunder. Then came rain. At one point I was at the banding station by myself, hunched over the worksheets and my bird, trying to keep everything dry while figuring out what kind of flycatcher I had because his stats fell into similar ranges for different spp. Closed early due to rain. We were all really tired and frustrated. Something got into our garbage last night..
5/24/11
EATEN ALIVE BY MOsQUITOEs YEsTERDAY! so I wore my rain jacket, hat, and hood even though it was hot and sunny out in order to defend against most of the parasite onslaught. The aftermath was not pretty. My face and hands are covered with bites. Just everywhere. And they itch like hell. I hope I stop reacting soon cos this sucks. We caught a whole bunch of male scarlet tanagers today. It was James' birthday today so I bet that made him happy. Festivities also included Mikes homemade sloppy joes, drinking, epic thunderstorms, asshole, and shithead.
I'm pleased to see that I'm getting use out of my cookbook. Other people are as well. It's a hit. The Joes were really good! A thunderstorm hit while I was playing guitar on the porch. All of a sudden I was blasted with a gust of wind that was quite impressive. I looked up to see the field grass blowing like crazy. soon came the rain, lightening, and thunder. The sound was so immense that the whole trailer rattled like it was going to collapse. Thats a good sign, right? Especially during a TORNADO WARNING and later TORNADO sIGHTING just down the road. We ended up getting pretty drunk. Morning was not happy, but it happened.
Today was a good day for birds. Pileated Woodpecker! IT looked like if Rufio got raped by a pteradactyl. Pecked the shit out of my hand, the bastard. Earlier in the day I cut myself on my pocketknife saw like an idiot while trying to clean up a netlane. Oh well. The cool thing about knife wounds is that it means you were playing with knives.
I've almost learned how to play classical gas. I'll give it a week before im awesome at it. =)
5/29/11
Busy end of the work week. We had to take a break from banding to do more set up. What a bitch! We couldnt finish up completely because of Navy stuff, so we'll have to get to it later. We did finish up the banding period. A little wet and cold, but we got all of our hours in.
Then it was the "weekend". And it is gooood. started the whole thing off with a BBQ and since it was my night to cook, I was the grillmaster. I made some bomb burgers and corn. Fuckin nom. Ended up playing kings and asshole and got a little drunky. We converted drunken energy into rowing power on the pond. Rowing is the shit. We just hang out and talk and sip on beer in the middle of our private lake. It's good times.
Yesterday we were at a loss as to what to actually do on one of our first days off. What is there to do in Bloomfield, IN? Even google couldn't find anything good. I made do. I went on a run on the road by our house. 157 N has too many cars, not enough shoulder, and huger rollercoaster hills. This route (230?) ultimately leads to a Christian daycare called Tulip Church or something. I tried to head for there. It was a real change of pace, excuse the pun. Exactly what I needed to do on a boring day. I saw some cows; they're beautiful animals. The young ones run a lot and its a very interesting gait. I found a dead redheaded woodpecker on the road, but I kept going and forgot to look for it on the way back. Lotsa dogs. Guard dogs. At one point I ran past a house with 3 dogs (and two little kids) in the front yard who started barking at me. They ran alongside the fence, which wasn't very tall, to keep barking at me. Kinda scary, but at least they were behind the fence for the time being.
I stopped when I hit the train tracks about two miles from the house. I was reminded of young Mac and Charlie throwing rocks at trains. sure enough, the train passed and on the other side of the tracks were two teenagers with ripped jeans and longish hair hurling rocks at the train. Their house was about 40m from the tracks, so I dont see how they could NOT throw rocks at it. On the way back the same kids were being driven in a truck by someone who I assume was their father, and they took a curious look back at me. I dont think there are too many runners around here. Although as I'm writing (not typing) this we just passed a seasoned looking runner in Bedford. But it's close to the city center. Iono.
Finally, on the way back I passed the house with the 3 big dogs again, except this time the dogs weren't in the yard. For a moment I breathed a sigh of relief because I thought they were sniffing around in the back or maybe even inside the house. But when I looked left I noticed to my mild horror that one of the more Rottweiller lookin ones was trotting toward me from the field across the road. I know that you're not supposed to run away from dogs, but what else could I do. I was running first. Luckily he just smiled and trotted home. The little boy was on the porch. He waved to me and said hi, and I gave him a tired hi back.
At home I watched Barca stomp on ManU. Sweet. Mel and I went on a hunt for boardgames. Got apples to apples and knockoff Jenga. The pieces arent even flush! We spent the night playing "Jumbling Towers" and rowing. Right now we're on the road to Madison to visit Sam and Victor. It should be less boring than Bloomfield.
Saturday, May 21, 2011
Dramatic Eagles
Weds
5/11/11
Had a bonfire after work two days ago. Used some of the wood that was already there by the lake. I played my geet. Good times.
Next day drove to Ft. Knox with James to pick up gear at the old sites and at storage. It was a fun ride over. James went to the hospital the day before because of a kidney stone, so I had to drive his car for him. He puked out the car door because of the pain and later on peed out the stone into the sieve that the doctor gave him. Ft. Knox is huge! It's like 20 miles across. We went to 3 sites to find 10 sets of poles each. They were well marked for the most part, but they were buried under 2 years of detritus. I got sweaty, dirty, wet, tired, and covered with ticks. srs like 20 or more. Fuuuuck! We rewarded ourselves with BBQ, thanks to a recommendation from a gas station attendant. We each got a sandwich that had 1 lb of pork in it. I saved most of it for later. I had a good time and had fun going to KY. Bubblegoose from the Chef Aid CD. I haven't heard that in a while. We got back from our trip at 1030 pm. That's late nowadays.
The next morning i was covcered with mosuito bireds. Lack o f sleem from phantom ticks and ants. Caught a new, rare warbler today, the Blackburnian Warbler. It was even an ASY male. Very handsome. I made some bomb pasghetti carbonara with Mel. Joe bird lecture, itchy bites. CAW CAW! Bonnaroo?
5/12/11
It had bad day untangling birds. That's why I have so few bands. Sad dog.
TOTAL BIRDS BANDED DURING TRAINING: 30
Sun
5/15/11
Yesterday and today we hacked a bunch of shit on CRAN. We're setting up all the sites. It's been fun work with the machetes, hatchets, and loppers.
On Friday we went to Kentucky again to see the horse races at Churchill Downs. Catharine is a good horse race bettor. Or whatever that's called. Point is she makes money at the track and that's pretty cool to see and learn about. While she watched the last 4 or 5 races, Mel, Kaitlin, and I looked for some fried chicken because we were in Kentucky, yknow? We ended up getting wings at the Hooters across the Ohio ricer in Indiana. Close enough.
Indiana, a counting game for the car:
Church - 1 point
Big iron star on a house - 1 point
Bird, cowboy, stagecoach, camel (camel?) sillouette - 1 point
Hair salon - 1 point
Anti abortion sign/billboard - 2 points
"Pregnant and scared?" billboard - 1 point (it's less in your face that the others)
Wagon wheels on driveway entrance - 1 point each
There were over 35 churches on the way to Kentucky (120 something miles)
5/19/11
Been setting up sites for the last 6 days or so. We get 1 to 2 done per day. Lotsof hacking and whackinig. Trudging, lots of that. I've done got learned in GPS navigation by James, which is useful. Our completely new sites (not the ones that are re-set up from last year; these be brand-spankin-new) are grids of 3x4 with each point on the grid about 100m apart. That fits 10 lanes and a banding station, and a little wiggle room in case of geographical difficulty. Easy, right? Not when the GPS changes its mind every ten steps. 2m away with 6m accuracy becomes 50m away, still with 6m accuracy. ORLY?
Fuckin tired. Each whole site takes from 3-5 hours. My hands are cut, bruise, and blistered from rose thorns and machete wielding. At least I get to destroy some rosebushes and tulip saplings (the latter being totally satisfying to fell in one swipe). I guess I shouldn't enjoy destroying nature, but A) it's really fun and B) fuck rose bushes and their fucking thorns.
We met up with another IBP group based in Bloomington the other day. They're studying Wood Thrushes. They're nest searching and target netting. They're funding allows us to band here =). We went to get pizza with them. They were about 12 people deep. We learned that as a college town, Bloomington is pretty cool. Lots of natural food stores, good restaurants (Indian, Thai, Tibetan, etc), and hippy shit.
Today I signed up to volunteer at Bonnaroo! Yay! And Paco chilled with me today. Yelling "ANDREW!" every 5 seconds until I let him out. He does this weird squeak when I sing around him.
5/11/11
Had a bonfire after work two days ago. Used some of the wood that was already there by the lake. I played my geet. Good times.
Next day drove to Ft. Knox with James to pick up gear at the old sites and at storage. It was a fun ride over. James went to the hospital the day before because of a kidney stone, so I had to drive his car for him. He puked out the car door because of the pain and later on peed out the stone into the sieve that the doctor gave him. Ft. Knox is huge! It's like 20 miles across. We went to 3 sites to find 10 sets of poles each. They were well marked for the most part, but they were buried under 2 years of detritus. I got sweaty, dirty, wet, tired, and covered with ticks. srs like 20 or more. Fuuuuck! We rewarded ourselves with BBQ, thanks to a recommendation from a gas station attendant. We each got a sandwich that had 1 lb of pork in it. I saved most of it for later. I had a good time and had fun going to KY. Bubblegoose from the Chef Aid CD. I haven't heard that in a while. We got back from our trip at 1030 pm. That's late nowadays.
The next morning i was covcered with mosuito bireds. Lack o f sleem from phantom ticks and ants. Caught a new, rare warbler today, the Blackburnian Warbler. It was even an ASY male. Very handsome. I made some bomb pasghetti carbonara with Mel. Joe bird lecture, itchy bites. CAW CAW! Bonnaroo?
5/12/11
It had bad day untangling birds. That's why I have so few bands. Sad dog.
TOTAL BIRDS BANDED DURING TRAINING: 30
Sun
5/15/11
Yesterday and today we hacked a bunch of shit on CRAN. We're setting up all the sites. It's been fun work with the machetes, hatchets, and loppers.
On Friday we went to Kentucky again to see the horse races at Churchill Downs. Catharine is a good horse race bettor. Or whatever that's called. Point is she makes money at the track and that's pretty cool to see and learn about. While she watched the last 4 or 5 races, Mel, Kaitlin, and I looked for some fried chicken because we were in Kentucky, yknow? We ended up getting wings at the Hooters across the Ohio ricer in Indiana. Close enough.
Indiana, a counting game for the car:
Church - 1 point
Big iron star on a house - 1 point
Bird, cowboy, stagecoach, camel (camel?) sillouette - 1 point
Hair salon - 1 point
Anti abortion sign/billboard - 2 points
"Pregnant and scared?" billboard - 1 point (it's less in your face that the others)
Wagon wheels on driveway entrance - 1 point each
There were over 35 churches on the way to Kentucky (120 something miles)
5/19/11
Been setting up sites for the last 6 days or so. We get 1 to 2 done per day. Lotsof hacking and whackinig. Trudging, lots of that. I've done got learned in GPS navigation by James, which is useful. Our completely new sites (not the ones that are re-set up from last year; these be brand-spankin-new) are grids of 3x4 with each point on the grid about 100m apart. That fits 10 lanes and a banding station, and a little wiggle room in case of geographical difficulty. Easy, right? Not when the GPS changes its mind every ten steps. 2m away with 6m accuracy becomes 50m away, still with 6m accuracy. ORLY?
Fuckin tired. Each whole site takes from 3-5 hours. My hands are cut, bruise, and blistered from rose thorns and machete wielding. At least I get to destroy some rosebushes and tulip saplings (the latter being totally satisfying to fell in one swipe). I guess I shouldn't enjoy destroying nature, but A) it's really fun and B) fuck rose bushes and their fucking thorns.
We met up with another IBP group based in Bloomington the other day. They're studying Wood Thrushes. They're nest searching and target netting. They're funding allows us to band here =). We went to get pizza with them. They were about 12 people deep. We learned that as a college town, Bloomington is pretty cool. Lots of natural food stores, good restaurants (Indian, Thai, Tibetan, etc), and hippy shit.
Today I signed up to volunteer at Bonnaroo! Yay! And Paco chilled with me today. Yelling "ANDREW!" every 5 seconds until I let him out. He does this weird squeak when I sing around him.
Teh Birdhouse
Fri
5/6/11
I swear there was another one. Went out for Cinco de Drinko yesterday. We went to a Mexican Restaurant called El Ranchito. I had left my ID in my jacket, so I had to order a water, drink it, and pour myself some margarita from the pitcher. I got a huge burrito mojado. Leftovers made good breakfast.
I'm getting the hang of aging birds. Mold sequence still does not roll off the tongue. The Tanager felt like a present for my patience. Fuckin had to move all the nets today on account of the poor capture rate at our old site. Just for the record, there are usually 2 loops of 5 net lanes, each net is 3m by 12m. Moved up the road a bit. It's a fun drive to get there. The old location had tall trees spaced far apart. The birds were probably in the treetops and not flying low enough to be caught i our nets. The new lanes are in dense, dry vegetation. Very thorny and sharp. And lots of poison ivy. My first encounter with it. As we mentioned today "Leaves of 3, let it be. Leaves of 4, eat some more!" And ticks! Errr. Ticks. I've been well defended, but it got hot and before I knew it I was macheting thorns, trees, and grass in a tshirt in what I tried not to imagine as a constant waterfall of ticks. Great fun though, setting nets up. I like the smell of the rope.
Played catch with sam, which I assume is short for samantha or something. I brought my mitt to Indiana in good faith that I would use it sure enough it came through! She's got quite an arm.
5/8/11
Yesterday we got rained out of birds early, so we spent the rest of the day doing whatever. I read a bit more of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, had a few beers and a smoke. Made fish tacos with yummy guac. Mel was my cooking partner. Closed out the night with some music and Kings cup. Nothing serious (except for Victor), but it was a good bonding experience.
Early up as usual the next day. Victor didn't feel so well. As you can see, the nets rang off the hook! We caught 11 different species of warbler and 4 spp. of Catharsus thrushes. James said it was due to thunderstorms last night. Migrating birds who would normally cruise over had to hunker down for the night. Good day. Lots of practice, and lots of practice to come. Two ticks today. Tweezered out and chopped in half.
sam is making a bat from a fallen branch. Its looking really good. The barrel is neat, the handle is coming along well. There are carpenter bees all around the house. They're going at each other persistently. They'll challenge one another and force the loser into the grass and the winner of the confrontation will hover there and say "You dont want to get up, pikey" Had a lecture on bird injuries and euthanasia. Heavy stuff. We learned how to amputate a leg. Holy crap dude.
Paco. He's our parrot. Haven't gotten him to say Pacos Tacos yet, but i have all smmer to befriend him. This is going to be a good summer. As long as I dont have to pop a bird spinal cord (to euthanize it) There I go again with the bad notes.
5/6/11
I swear there was another one. Went out for Cinco de Drinko yesterday. We went to a Mexican Restaurant called El Ranchito. I had left my ID in my jacket, so I had to order a water, drink it, and pour myself some margarita from the pitcher. I got a huge burrito mojado. Leftovers made good breakfast.
I'm getting the hang of aging birds. Mold sequence still does not roll off the tongue. The Tanager felt like a present for my patience. Fuckin had to move all the nets today on account of the poor capture rate at our old site. Just for the record, there are usually 2 loops of 5 net lanes, each net is 3m by 12m. Moved up the road a bit. It's a fun drive to get there. The old location had tall trees spaced far apart. The birds were probably in the treetops and not flying low enough to be caught i our nets. The new lanes are in dense, dry vegetation. Very thorny and sharp. And lots of poison ivy. My first encounter with it. As we mentioned today "Leaves of 3, let it be. Leaves of 4, eat some more!" And ticks! Errr. Ticks. I've been well defended, but it got hot and before I knew it I was macheting thorns, trees, and grass in a tshirt in what I tried not to imagine as a constant waterfall of ticks. Great fun though, setting nets up. I like the smell of the rope.
Played catch with sam, which I assume is short for samantha or something. I brought my mitt to Indiana in good faith that I would use it sure enough it came through! She's got quite an arm.
5/8/11
Yesterday we got rained out of birds early, so we spent the rest of the day doing whatever. I read a bit more of Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, had a few beers and a smoke. Made fish tacos with yummy guac. Mel was my cooking partner. Closed out the night with some music and Kings cup. Nothing serious (except for Victor), but it was a good bonding experience.
Early up as usual the next day. Victor didn't feel so well. As you can see, the nets rang off the hook! We caught 11 different species of warbler and 4 spp. of Catharsus thrushes. James said it was due to thunderstorms last night. Migrating birds who would normally cruise over had to hunker down for the night. Good day. Lots of practice, and lots of practice to come. Two ticks today. Tweezered out and chopped in half.
sam is making a bat from a fallen branch. Its looking really good. The barrel is neat, the handle is coming along well. There are carpenter bees all around the house. They're going at each other persistently. They'll challenge one another and force the loser into the grass and the winner of the confrontation will hover there and say "You dont want to get up, pikey" Had a lecture on bird injuries and euthanasia. Heavy stuff. We learned how to amputate a leg. Holy crap dude.
Paco. He's our parrot. Haven't gotten him to say Pacos Tacos yet, but i have all smmer to befriend him. This is going to be a good summer. As long as I dont have to pop a bird spinal cord (to euthanize it) There I go again with the bad notes.
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Going to Indianer
Late April
4/25/11 - I made sure to post something I thought was clever as my facebook status. Ynitsed Tsefinam. After seeing Wiz & JK one last time at teh park, I redid my iPod playlists and hit the sack. I woke up when I wanted to, but it was still later than I should have. Whatever. Last minute packing, breakfast, and I was out the door. with my new car radio and it's useful USB port. I was ready for the long haul.
Got to Reno without a hitch. I HAD to get a last meal at Innout because I won't be seeing it for a long time. I called the Basterd, put on my cheap, gas station sunglasses and went in. As I was making my traditional Innout Arnold Palmer, a sqaut, greyhaired lady said "Crazy, huh?"
"No. Not really," I said. Long drive? Busy joint? Good burgers? Apparenlty the last two.
"Are you from around here?" She continued. I said no. I'm from San Francisco.
"So you don't ahve any of these there?" We have lots in California. "Oh, we're from Oklahoma. We got hooked on these when we visited Vegas." Yes. Vegas, very good.
"It's the tomatoes you know," I ventured. "They're fresher because they're grown nearby. She internalized the information and went and ate. I was surprised. Only in Reno and the people are already acting differently that what I'm used to. I usually try to avoid people at Innout.
U.S. Route 50, the Loneliest Road in America. It was very pretty. Bristlecones and desert and mountains and snow and space and dust. My face turned red from the 5 Hour Energy drink I got when I filled up in Reno. Niacin reaction. On an unrelated note, I downloaded an audiobook for the car ride. World War Z, an Oral History of the Zombie War. Max Brooks strikes again! I didn't want to hear it all on the first day. I'm saving it for Kansas. The drive won't be as pretty as it was today. 550 miles today. Not too shabby. Ely, NV. Kinda shabby. Naw jk. I'm getting a burger and a beer now, then I'm passing the FUCK OUT.
Note: Went to a Mexican restaurant instead. Forgot the leftovers on the roof of the car..
4/28/11 - Wow the driving. It is alot. But surprisingly bearable with thta new radio. Drive thru Utah was WINDY. That whole state is nothing but wind if you ask me. The rock formations were gorgeous. Green River was disappointing. Once in Grand Junction I went to Brad and Torri Junge's place to deliver condolences about Cherri. I found Brad outside playing with his dog. We chatted for a bit, I gave him the two cards and he invided me in for dinner with his family. I met Torri and the kids, all very sweet. The kids go to a Spanish immersion school and Torri teaches the "English dominat" side of the same school. Awesome! The kids didn't even have accents. AND they have a field trip to Limon, CR in the summer. Radical. Brad had actually read WWZ and is into zombies. Surprising, but great! Nice to know that I'm not a crazy. They fed me and gave me food and beer for the road. I stayed in a hotel that night. Begin time zone confusion.
Next day drove to Boulder, CO up highway 70. Holy crap. There was snow and sleet and that made my windshield really dirty. Freakin scary. Boulder - isolated, pretty, happy. Lotsa barefooters. Went with Leah Merony to a pizza/beer place. The waitress was cute, she skipped in and out of the kitchen. Thankfully not with my pizza. Leah had an extra ticket to see Rodrigo y Gabriela. FUCKIN AWESOME! Turns out the learned English in Ireland, so they said "fookin terrible" all the time. Rodrigo assumed a metal powerstance while playing his classical guitar while Gabriela jumped and skipped. Lotsa WAH! Afterwards I jammed on geetar with Leah and here "heterosexual life partner" (roommate, former Bruin, labmate, sing together, jam together. Leah played played the geet too while Danielle (?) played the uke. Great singers the both of them.
Woke up, headed to Lincoln, NE. Lotsa sky. Lotsa sky. Had a smoke break in front of a correctional facility. I got through a lot of artists on my trip. Lotta songs that had Midwest towns for titles. Maybe I'll make one about Bloomfield when I get there. I met up with my cousin Devin and his HUGE mutt, Taft. He's like a giant, yet mellow, Charlie. Devin took me out to Five Guys burgers and then for ice cream. He showed me around town and the campus of UNL. They have a HUGE MASTADON STATUE in front of their museum.
Fri
4/29/11
Easy day. Woke up and hit the dog park with Devin and Taft. Then we went to the natural history museum on campus. Lots of mammoth bones. Poor farmers, finding that shit in their yards and probably thinking that monsters lived around their homes. Devin let me borrow his bike so I took it down this apparently endless (60 miles?) bike path. That was cool, but it was super windy. I guess I'm surprised that Lincoln has a bike path, especially one so well maintained. I saw two people fucking on a park bench. Chick in a neon green shirt with really torn jeans around her ankles. She was sitting on his lap. It took me a second to process this, then I gave the dude the "rock on" horns. The girl responded by pulling up her pants. Hey, it's not my fault they were on the bike path.
I got some food at Grateful Bred. Hippeh. We saw Source Code later that night. It was like a lamer Inception. Taco tent! One of the chicks tending it wav a dude. Maybe there's a little SF in every city..
Sun
5/1 - Left Devins and didn't go back for the sandwiches and salsa I left in his refrigerator. I spent most of the ride to Greenup, IL listening to World War Z. Brilliant. Brooks covered probably everything I've thought about zombies plus a little extra. He really outdid himself by covering the geopolitical consequences of a zombie breakout. I passed through Kansas City as Mr. Brooks was discussing the regrouping west of the Rockies as told by a guy who sounded like Hawkeye from MASH. Looked cool. I saw a billboard for the Qizards. Passed thru St. Louis too. I even jumped out of the car for a bit to check out the Arch. It was like 4 blocks from the freeway. It was pretty... pretty.. ah. pretty big!. And right on the Mississippi, no less. Didn't ahve time to wait in line to go up top. Too many baby cheerleaders. Gross. My daughter will not be allowed to be a cheerleader. Especially when she's seven. Who the fuck would she be cheering for? Dora the Explora?
I stopped at a Comfort Value inn for hella cheap. Right next to a Dairy Queen! I got a spice DQ number and watched the latest South Park, The Human Centipad. Poor Kyle. Cuttlefish and asparagus.
Next Morning I took off at an easy pace for Indiana, not knowing about the time change 30 miles away from where I was. srs? Eastern Time, IN? srs? So I ended up arriving on time instead of an hour early.
The trailer is, well, standing, but spacious and heavily furnished! Even has a big TV and internet. I get my own small room too! Good thing I packed light. I'll apparently be living with 3 girls. I guess that's cool. They all have boyfriends too, so it should be easy going. The rest of the chicks in the Midwest are, uh, beat.
Lotsa birds though. Lotsa birds. Some unlucky mouse went for the peanutbutter in the trap. Destoryed his snout. Terrible. Fookin terrible.. that was a bad note to end on.
Tues
5/3 - Just looking back at that, yea that was a horrible note to end on. You can start an entry on a horrible note, to grasp the readers attention you see. You can say something like "the dead rat is still outside below the porch where I dropped him and now I have a true sense of the phrase 'looks like a drowned rat'." Oh. That actually happened.
We set nets up today. I learned some knots.
Here come the field notes! The number is the amount we caught that day. Each @ represents a bird that I personally banded. R is for recapture and is included in the total for the day. U is a bird that did not receive a band.
Early up tomorrow. Sleep now.
5/4 - May the fourth be with you =)
We were out the door at 6am. New setup was quick. lots of loops past the net lanes. It was fun. I'm slowly learning about molting and feather development. Today was pretty indicative of our summer. Great! When we got back, we spent some time in our extensive backyard. We have two rowboats and a pedal boat and possibly a party boat at our disposal on our quaint little pond. There are some Bobwhites around, but I haven't gotten a clear view of them yet.
Walmart gave us a million bags for a small amount of groceries. Why do I need to put a bag of chips in its own bag? BTW Walmart is hella hitech. TVs in the aisles, a bagging machine (explains the bags), but they still have a greeter!
4/25/11 - I made sure to post something I thought was clever as my facebook status. Ynitsed Tsefinam. After seeing Wiz & JK one last time at teh park, I redid my iPod playlists and hit the sack. I woke up when I wanted to, but it was still later than I should have. Whatever. Last minute packing, breakfast, and I was out the door. with my new car radio and it's useful USB port. I was ready for the long haul.
Got to Reno without a hitch. I HAD to get a last meal at Innout because I won't be seeing it for a long time. I called the Basterd, put on my cheap, gas station sunglasses and went in. As I was making my traditional Innout Arnold Palmer, a sqaut, greyhaired lady said "Crazy, huh?"
"No. Not really," I said. Long drive? Busy joint? Good burgers? Apparenlty the last two.
"Are you from around here?" She continued. I said no. I'm from San Francisco.
"So you don't ahve any of these there?" We have lots in California. "Oh, we're from Oklahoma. We got hooked on these when we visited Vegas." Yes. Vegas, very good.
"It's the tomatoes you know," I ventured. "They're fresher because they're grown nearby. She internalized the information and went and ate. I was surprised. Only in Reno and the people are already acting differently that what I'm used to. I usually try to avoid people at Innout.
U.S. Route 50, the Loneliest Road in America. It was very pretty. Bristlecones and desert and mountains and snow and space and dust. My face turned red from the 5 Hour Energy drink I got when I filled up in Reno. Niacin reaction. On an unrelated note, I downloaded an audiobook for the car ride. World War Z, an Oral History of the Zombie War. Max Brooks strikes again! I didn't want to hear it all on the first day. I'm saving it for Kansas. The drive won't be as pretty as it was today. 550 miles today. Not too shabby. Ely, NV. Kinda shabby. Naw jk. I'm getting a burger and a beer now, then I'm passing the FUCK OUT.
Note: Went to a Mexican restaurant instead. Forgot the leftovers on the roof of the car..
4/28/11 - Wow the driving. It is alot. But surprisingly bearable with thta new radio. Drive thru Utah was WINDY. That whole state is nothing but wind if you ask me. The rock formations were gorgeous. Green River was disappointing. Once in Grand Junction I went to Brad and Torri Junge's place to deliver condolences about Cherri. I found Brad outside playing with his dog. We chatted for a bit, I gave him the two cards and he invided me in for dinner with his family. I met Torri and the kids, all very sweet. The kids go to a Spanish immersion school and Torri teaches the "English dominat" side of the same school. Awesome! The kids didn't even have accents. AND they have a field trip to Limon, CR in the summer. Radical. Brad had actually read WWZ and is into zombies. Surprising, but great! Nice to know that I'm not a crazy. They fed me and gave me food and beer for the road. I stayed in a hotel that night. Begin time zone confusion.
Next day drove to Boulder, CO up highway 70. Holy crap. There was snow and sleet and that made my windshield really dirty. Freakin scary. Boulder - isolated, pretty, happy. Lotsa barefooters. Went with Leah Merony to a pizza/beer place. The waitress was cute, she skipped in and out of the kitchen. Thankfully not with my pizza. Leah had an extra ticket to see Rodrigo y Gabriela. FUCKIN AWESOME! Turns out the learned English in Ireland, so they said "fookin terrible" all the time. Rodrigo assumed a metal powerstance while playing his classical guitar while Gabriela jumped and skipped. Lotsa WAH! Afterwards I jammed on geetar with Leah and here "heterosexual life partner" (roommate, former Bruin, labmate, sing together, jam together. Leah played played the geet too while Danielle (?) played the uke. Great singers the both of them.
Woke up, headed to Lincoln, NE. Lotsa sky. Lotsa sky. Had a smoke break in front of a correctional facility. I got through a lot of artists on my trip. Lotta songs that had Midwest towns for titles. Maybe I'll make one about Bloomfield when I get there. I met up with my cousin Devin and his HUGE mutt, Taft. He's like a giant, yet mellow, Charlie. Devin took me out to Five Guys burgers and then for ice cream. He showed me around town and the campus of UNL. They have a HUGE MASTADON STATUE in front of their museum.
Fri
4/29/11
Easy day. Woke up and hit the dog park with Devin and Taft. Then we went to the natural history museum on campus. Lots of mammoth bones. Poor farmers, finding that shit in their yards and probably thinking that monsters lived around their homes. Devin let me borrow his bike so I took it down this apparently endless (60 miles?) bike path. That was cool, but it was super windy. I guess I'm surprised that Lincoln has a bike path, especially one so well maintained. I saw two people fucking on a park bench. Chick in a neon green shirt with really torn jeans around her ankles. She was sitting on his lap. It took me a second to process this, then I gave the dude the "rock on" horns. The girl responded by pulling up her pants. Hey, it's not my fault they were on the bike path.
I got some food at Grateful Bred. Hippeh. We saw Source Code later that night. It was like a lamer Inception. Taco tent! One of the chicks tending it wav a dude. Maybe there's a little SF in every city..
Sun
5/1 - Left Devins and didn't go back for the sandwiches and salsa I left in his refrigerator. I spent most of the ride to Greenup, IL listening to World War Z. Brilliant. Brooks covered probably everything I've thought about zombies plus a little extra. He really outdid himself by covering the geopolitical consequences of a zombie breakout. I passed through Kansas City as Mr. Brooks was discussing the regrouping west of the Rockies as told by a guy who sounded like Hawkeye from MASH. Looked cool. I saw a billboard for the Qizards. Passed thru St. Louis too. I even jumped out of the car for a bit to check out the Arch. It was like 4 blocks from the freeway. It was pretty... pretty.. ah. pretty big!. And right on the Mississippi, no less. Didn't ahve time to wait in line to go up top. Too many baby cheerleaders. Gross. My daughter will not be allowed to be a cheerleader. Especially when she's seven. Who the fuck would she be cheering for? Dora the Explora?
I stopped at a Comfort Value inn for hella cheap. Right next to a Dairy Queen! I got a spice DQ number and watched the latest South Park, The Human Centipad. Poor Kyle. Cuttlefish and asparagus.
Next Morning I took off at an easy pace for Indiana, not knowing about the time change 30 miles away from where I was. srs? Eastern Time, IN? srs? So I ended up arriving on time instead of an hour early.
The trailer is, well, standing, but spacious and heavily furnished! Even has a big TV and internet. I get my own small room too! Good thing I packed light. I'll apparently be living with 3 girls. I guess that's cool. They all have boyfriends too, so it should be easy going. The rest of the chicks in the Midwest are, uh, beat.
Lotsa birds though. Lotsa birds. Some unlucky mouse went for the peanutbutter in the trap. Destoryed his snout. Terrible. Fookin terrible.. that was a bad note to end on.
Tues
5/3 - Just looking back at that, yea that was a horrible note to end on. You can start an entry on a horrible note, to grasp the readers attention you see. You can say something like "the dead rat is still outside below the porch where I dropped him and now I have a true sense of the phrase 'looks like a drowned rat'." Oh. That actually happened.
We set nets up today. I learned some knots.
Here come the field notes! The number is the amount we caught that day. Each @ represents a bird that I personally banded. R is for recapture and is included in the total for the day. U is a bird that did not receive a band.
Early up tomorrow. Sleep now.
5/4 - May the fourth be with you =)
We were out the door at 6am. New setup was quick. lots of loops past the net lanes. It was fun. I'm slowly learning about molting and feather development. Today was pretty indicative of our summer. Great! When we got back, we spent some time in our extensive backyard. We have two rowboats and a pedal boat and possibly a party boat at our disposal on our quaint little pond. There are some Bobwhites around, but I haven't gotten a clear view of them yet.
Walmart gave us a million bags for a small amount of groceries. Why do I need to put a bag of chips in its own bag? BTW Walmart is hella hitech. TVs in the aisles, a bagging machine (explains the bags), but they still have a greeter!
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