Texas

Hello. I have been living in Texas for the past three months. Although I am employed by the University of Illinois, my work takes place on Ft. Hood Army Base. My efforts help to monitor the breeding success of the federally endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler, a small songbird that nests primarily in Juniper and Oak woodlands.

I have been rather selfish with my journal entries, which I write into my moleskine notebook, but rarely take the effort to transcribe to here. My journal is more personal than the scope of this blog should include, so I take the serious work stuff, edit it a bit, and post it here. My current hope is that my friend who works at the Naturalist Center of the California Academy of Sciences will be able to convince his bosses to pick up these entries and post them on the Academy's website. They have other blogs from their actually researchers, but since I worked there I hope they'll appreciate my stories. It's a longshot, but I figure the NC is a place for aspiring biologists of all ages, so they may welcome a first-hand view inside the nitty gritty world of field biology.

My employment here ends in June. Almost immediately afterward I will travel to Blythe, CA to start another seasonal biology position with the Southern Sierra Research Institute. The work is similar to what I am doing now, but will focus on the Yellow-billed Cuckoos. Hopefully I will be posting enough to keep you informed throughout that whole experience, rather than post everything at the end like I'm doing now. So here's what I've been doing. Sorry in advance for the copy+paste you'll run into immediately. Remember, it's what I'm putting together for another audience.