I spent about 3 hours yesterday driving the Explorer, following Jen, down to Ames, where I am now staying in a hotel ON campus (it's inside the Memorial Union!) for the remainder of my Iowa adventures.

Today was comprised of a lot of walking back and forth between Science I and Science II, both buildings here on campus at ISU. Jen and I got all our stuff for my bug sorting in Science II and I began to sort bugs.

I will take photos of the finished, sorted trays o' bugs tomorrow. It's very monotonous and time-consuming, but I like it better than data verification, which I did for about 40 minutes later this afternoon.

I love walking through the halls of ISU, in the science buildings. You can almost taste the academia. It makes me excited to start school at OSU. I am anxious to be at a University where I belong.

At UO at home I don't belong, and I don't quite belong here at ISU either. I'm a true Beaver, and I belong at Oregon State. I want to remember this excitement for science when I am faced with homework drudgery in a few months.

It's strange, because I could see myself getting my Master's here at ISU. It's a lot like OSU, really, very science-y. If I do go to graduate school in something life-science-y, I would consider ISU.

The campus is gorgeous, and every time I see the flash of red that is a male Northern Cardinal I feel excited.

Tonight was very surreal; I walked to the library, where I am now, to go online and stopped to try to video and take photos of fireflies. I am convinced that fireflies are one of God's most magical and amazing creatures.

I love to watch as little fluorescent dots of light smear the darkness at random increments. I like to catch them as well, and let them walk on my hands. If I am lucky, it will light up as it's walking.

I will really miss the fireflies when I am back in Oregon. Somehow fireflies make me feel at home--we don't have them in Oregon, but they are good for my soul. If I only had my friends and family here, I could almost be at home.

I just realized when I did a Google search on "firefly" that I completely forgot its other connotation: Firefly is the name of my favorite, though off-air now, TV show.

Well, it's been a while.

I ended up seeing Harry Potter on the day it opened, last Wednesday. I didn't go to the midnight showing, but went to the 7pm showing. I only got about 6 hours of sleep, but it was so worth it. :D I think I'll write a review on facebook.

Anyhow, last week was kind of rough. Somehow I pulled a muscle in my left leg, and each step, and every time I lifted the leg up, it hurt. It started on Monday, and on Tuesday, it was the worst, partly because we nest-searched a field that had TONS of thick, thick vegetation. I was so cranky and thinking, why did I sign up for this?!

But it got better later on Wednesday and Thursday, and today it doesn't hurt at all. :) Thanks for the prayers, Mom and Dad! The days seem especially long lately because we are done with the bird surveys, which had taken up to 4 hours or more from our daily schedule. This means that instead of starting nest searching at around 10, we started around 7:30. Gross.


So before I talk about what happened on Friday, let me preface it by some information. Erica has managed to find two skunks while in the field. She was lucky in that she ran the opposite direction and thus did not get sprayed. Cassandra ran into a skunk a few weeks ago as well.

She said she saw some rustling in the grass, and then saw a tail raised, and that was all she needed to see to start running in the opposite direction. She said to Erica that night, "I met your friend today. The skunk."

So a week or two ago Jen was driving and a skunk was crossing the road. She snapped a picture from the safety of the inside of the truck, and she set it as the desktop background of the computer we use here in the dining room. "Don't tell Erica," she told us. She wanted to surprise her.

So Erica saw the skunk on the desktop and she thought that was funny. Little did we know what was about to happen later....


So last Friday, Erica, Cassandra, and I went to check on our last nest of the morning before nest-searching in McBreen Old CP-2 field. Cassandra and I were a ways ahead of Erica, when we heard Erica say, "Oh shit!" Cassandra later said that after Erica said that, she saw Erica running in the opposite direction.

"What happened?" we asked her.

"A skunk," Erica said.

"Did you get sprayed?" we asked.

Erica nodded. So she called Jen, our boss, who came to pick her up. Jen later said that when she got out of the truck and Erica was standing there, and Jen was downwind of Erica, Jen got a huge whiff of the skunk and it was terrible.

So Cassandra and I checked the nest we were goign to check, and walked back to the Jeep carefully. We walked through the spot Erica had been sprayed, and it STUNK! Then Cassandra and I nest-searched while Erica and Jen went off.

Erica took off her rainpants and rain jacket and Jen and she drove to Wal-Mart in Spirit Lake, about 15 minutes away. I guess Jen had the windows down and Erica just about froze to death. At Wal-Mart, they had grabbed four big cans of tomato juice but then decided to check out the pet section. There they found a bottle of skunk deodorizer, and they also bought Febreze laundry odor detergent. I bet the checker was amused. :)

Cassandra and I came back to the house early to label plastic Ziploc bags for the nest Invertebrate survey we would be conducting that weekend. Erica was there at home.

She had showered twice, and was self-conscious: "Do I smell like skunk?" she asked us. We couldn't smell anything.

Later Erica said that she had heard a growl in the field, because (she had looked it up online) before they spray, the skunk bares its little teeth.

Then she saw some black fur, so matted that she said you could not have run a comb through it. She was practically standing on it. Then her nose started burning, and then her mind caught up with her and she realized what had happened.

Anyhow, that was all interesting. We sincerely hope that none of us will encounter a skunk again!!

It's been a while. Nothing new has happened, really. Yesterday we didn't work until about 10:30, and then only for less than two hours, because the weather was so bad; it was thundering and lightning(ing?) where we work in the Spring Run Complex.

I said last time that I needed to talk about helping Jen with the bird blood draws, so I'll do that now.

Jen, my boss, is looking at the Red-winged Blackbird nestlings' stress hormone. According to studies, they start producing this hormone, or at least it starts to show up in their blood, no sooner than 3 minutes after they are handled. She wants to look at their stress, not including this hormone. I.e., she wants to see how stressed they are NOT in terms of our handling them.

For example, if the birds are getting enough food, theoretically they should be less stressed. So basically, this means that I, or whoever helps her that day, needs to gather up 3 to 4 nestlings, come back a few feet to wherever she has set up all her blood-drawing stuff (needles, capillary tubes, small vials, etc.), give her the nestlings one at a time, and keep them all straight, all under 3 minutes.

The first time I helped her I wasn't fast enough getting them out of their nest. They felt sticky, and their little claws clung to their dry grass nest. "Holly, you need to be faster than that!" Jen called out to me. "It's already been thirty seconds!"

So I hurried back with the four nestlings, three of them in the bag and one in my hand. I handed her the first nestling. She poked it and took its blood in three little capillary tubes. While she did this, I carefully disentangled another nestling from the bag o' birds, and handed it to her as she handed me the poked first nestling.

I tried to put pressure with the cottonball on the first nestling's little poke to quickly stop the bleeding. Then I handed her the third nestling, etc. To keep track of which nestling is the first, second, third, and fourth, when one is done bleeding, I put him/her in the little cloth sack labeled "1", then the second in the bag marked "2", etc.

All this goes on while the parents are circling overhead or going back and forth, clucking disapprovingly. It isn't nearly as stressful as when in the Common Tern colony last summer in Maine though!!

Anyhow, it's always nice to help Jen, because that means less time spent nest-searching! :) Yesterday we got the three nestlings' blood done in less than 3 minutes, so that was good. Then Jen weighs and measures the wing and tarsus measurements of each nestling.

Last Saturday I decided to get in a few extra hours and go check on some nests. I made the bad decision to wear my jeans and hiking boots, rather than rubber boots. I was wet above my knees within minutes. I found a new bird nest as well, and I was really excited about finding it! The female flushed, and then I looked down, and there was her nest!

That's the way it's supposed to be when nest-searching....and I wasn't even nest-searching; I was just walking! Later on during the week, Erica identified the female as a Common Yellowthroat. Unfortunately, it was missing an egg when we went back to check it that week. :( So maybe a predator has found it. But it remained at that number of eggs for the rest of the week, so that's nice. Hopefully that egg just....rolled out or something....?

Anyhow, Sunday I go birding with my friend Will, so that should be fun.

In other news, I read my first book for this trip, Mission Road by Rick Riordan. I liked it so much!!! It was my friend Lydia's recommendation for an author. I go back to the library tomorrow and am hoping to get more by that author. That book kept me going till the last page; it was full of twists and turns!

That's it for now. :)

So I figure I really need to talk about my movie experience.....

Last Friday night, after showering and getting all clean, I decided I would like to go to the movies. I had some friends on facebook who had seen the new Transformers movie, and I thought I'd give it a go. I had not seen the first one, but I had a feeling that it wasn't going to be plot-intensive.... I looked up my zip code here in Estherville on fandango.com but there were no showtimes listed, so I called the number listed. A recording told me the showtimes. Transformers showed at 7 and 9. haha! Just two showings....so I decided to go!

I set out for the theatre around 6 pm. On the way I stopped at a garage sale, so the timing worked out great. At the theatre, I had this secret hope that maybe somehow a cute guy would notice I was at the theatre, alone, on a Friday night, and come sit by me! :) Details of what really happened are below...

As I went into the theatre (it was about 10 blocks' walk), I noticed, to my delight, a flyer on the door that read "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" midnight showing"!!!! I just about died. 12:01 am on Wednesday, 15 July (Tues. night). I would LOVE to see HP 6 at midnight. Unfortunately, we wake up at 4 am, so that would give me approximately an hour and a half of sleep. I would feel guilty working on that little sleep; obviously I would NOT be at my best. I asked the lady at the counter about it anyhow.

My Transformers movie ticket was four bucks. Four bucks! I paid at the front counter, then asked if I needed a receipt. "Do you want a receipt?" the older woman asked me. "You don't need it."
"Er....well, okay, sure," I said, deciding to keep it for a souvenir. :) I walked to the right and bought some popcorn and a small Cheri Pepsi. If I was going to do this, I might as well go all out. :D Then I walked into the theatre.

I counted the seats. It wasn't THAT small. six by twelve, which was 72--two of those, so about 150 seats. There were a few other people in the theatre with me (It was about 6:40 by now): a man with a little boy a few seats in front of me, and a few other people. As the theatre began to fill up, I realized that my half-hearted dream of finding some cute guy to "pick me up" was not going to happen; most of the audience were indeed male, but they were about 15 years too young. Seriously, most of the audience were little boys. And they were all white, with cute summer haircuts. Oh, actually there were three little Latino kids wandering around, and another little boy who looked Asian, but besides that, it was white-person central! And they all seemed to know each other! A couple walked past me, and the guy threw popcorn at the guy a few rows in front of me. "How old are you?" asked the guy's girlfriend/wife.
"Seven," he replied. The little boy next to him snickered.

Finally the theatre was full and the previews began. I was hoping for the Harry Potter trailer, but unfortunately I had to endure a terrible apocalypse-type movie trailer about the Mayan Calendar's prediction that the world will end in December 2012. :( But then the HP 6 trailer began!!! I watched, absolutely spellbound. I had seen it before, but not in the theatre. It was aMAZing. Afterwards I cheered and screamed. The woman in front of me covered her ears, and various people around the theatre laughed. I was unashamed though; my love for HP cannot be played down.

The movie started. It was pretty good. It had a lot of sexual crude stuff in it, which was lame, but overall, I liked it.

I walked home to the sound of Common Nighthawks "peent"-ing and fireflies blinking in front of my eyes. The first time I saw a firefly I thought I was seeing stuff, like Sam did in the movie I had just seen--symbols inside his head. But no, then I realized that it was fireflies!! I had not seen fireflies since Costa Rica! I loved it. So, so awesome. I talked to my dear friend Lydia on the phone on the walk home, and overall it was a great night. :D


Today I got to help Jen do bird stuff. I'll talk about that later......

- handing her the birds
- sticky birds, clingy claws
- nestlings pooping


I really gotta write about today. That is all for now though.

Today started out crappy, but ended great!!
So you know how I said the field was gonna be mowed in my other entry? Well, it was mowed yesterday, and today I was assigned to bird survey there. It was so sad, seeing the confused adult Red-winged Blackbirds flying around and clucking, looking for their nest that had been destroyed. Yesterday when we were there, reflagging the field, it made me want to cry. Today I was super tired, and was feeling rather depressed. I had hardly any birds during my survey, and they were all Red-wingeds (later on, Erica told me that there had been Clay-colored and Grasshopper Sparrows there before it was mowed). Once I finished the transects, I went to check on three Red-winged nests. One I couldn't find; I went to where it was supposed to be, based on the GPS coordinates on its nest card, but there was only one flag (we mark each nest with two flagging tape, tied nearby the nest, with the nest in between them) and no nest. But on my second and third nests, the nests were still there! What's more, one of the nests had nestlings in it!! I was happy, and as I drove back to meet up with CAssandra and Erica, I reflected on God's faithfulness. It's hard, though, because I know that even if all the nests had been mowed down, God is still faithful. That's hard for me, and hard for me to believe. But anyhow, those nests were still there, which made me happy. I delivered the nest card of the nest with nestlings to Jen, then met up with ERica and CAssandra. WE did the usual nest checks. I got to check the Song Sparrow nest; the nestlings were so small!! Then, because we had only each surveyed one field this morning, we were able to start nest-searching by 9:45. Ugh. We walked up and down the field, sweeping our bamboo poles back and forth. Erica found one Red-winged nest, but Cassandra and I didn't find anything. CAssandra was really lagging behind. Erica and I thought she just wasn't into nest-searching, but then, after about 45 minutes, Erica asked if Cassandra felt all right, and she said no, that her head was spinning and that she had pressure in her head as well. :( So I drove CAssandra back home to recooperate, and then drove back out there to meet up with ERica and do more nest-searching. Luckily it was almost noon, so we only had an hour to go. We started in Lair Old CP-2. Erica said that there would hopefully be a lot of nests, that it would be like "finding candy in a candy store."
She was right!! We waded through the horse-tails and then through this really, really tall grass that was taller than we were--it felt like we were in a jungle! Then I found my second Red-winged nest ever. It had one egg in it, and we didn't know if that meant it was an old egg, a dud, or if the female was just getting started laying. ERica found a few nests, and then I found my another nest, this one with four eggs in it! I candled them, which means I held one egg up to the light and looked at it through a styrofoam tube with holes at either end, to see how far along the chicks were. The egg I candled was almost all dark, with an air pocket at the top. I was excited! That meant the eggs were 7-8 days old, ERica told me.
Then I found my first nest with nestlings in it!!!! I was so excited. I took pictures. :)
Nest-searching was exciting when we actually found nests!! Then Jen came out, and ERica and I stayed to help her gather, color, and measure the nestlings. They were all very small, with bulbous eyes and pitiful little mouths that opened and closed when you reached into the nest to grab them. We brought them in a little cloth bag to Jen, and she weighed them on the scale and measured them as well. We marked their head feathers with a colored sharpie so that Jen could tell them apart (red chick, green chick, blue chick, etc).

It was so neat!! :) I drove home, listening to The Refuge, the radio station I found the other day, and feeling happy. It is now the weekend, and I am happy about it. :D Oh, and I got a card from Lis and Sam today! I was so happy.

I gotta write about one more thing: yesterday I checked my favorite nest, the SEdge Wren nest. I had a hard time finding it, but once I did, I peeked inside to count the nestlings. There were supposed to be 4-6 (it's hard to count with Sedge WRens, because their nest is a grapefruit-sized ball of grass that is hard to see into. I couldn't count the nestlings, so I poked my finger in there to feel around their tiny bodies. One of the nestlings poked his/her head out. It was so cute, with little white eyebrows. Then, to my surprise, it hopped out of the nest into the grass below! (the nest was only less than a foot off the ground) I started to try to pick him up and put him back in the nest, but then, to my horror, the other nestlings started hopping out, popping out of the nest like popcorn out of an auto popper! There were four or five of them, and they were quick!! There was no way I could find them in the grass, so I just circled back (we can't just turn around and go back, because that way predators would be able to find the nest easily from our scent) and went back to the jeep. Cassandra and ERica figured that the birds were fledgling age, so it was okay that they hopped out. I mean, it's not like I could do anything about it. The fledglings were about 10 days old, which is when they start to fledge (fly). So. That was my funny experience with the Sedge Wrens. :)

I don't think I have ever been so excited to do laundry as I am today. My socks are disGUSting!!!! And I'm also excited to shower, which is what I'm going to do now!!

Talk to you all later!

Today was fine...it got super hot in the afternoon. We nest-searched, but only for like half an hour. We really gotta nest-search more. I guess Jen is not happy that there are still some fields that we haven't even STARTED nest-searching yet. I dunno; that's just what Erica said. Cassandra really didn't even want to nest-search today, since we had to come home and do invert sorting anyhow. But we decided we would. AFter all, as ERica said to me quietly, that's what we signed up to do....So we nest-searched for like half an hour. Cassandra found one nest, a Red-winged Blackbird nest.

So what I really need to write about today is this. One of the RW Blackbird nests that I checked today had three fuzzy little scrawny pink chickies in it!!! I was so excited. Later, Erica found nestlings in another nest as well. Later, back at home, Jen said something about how they were gonna die. I was like, "what?"
She told me that the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) are going to mow that one field tomorrow because of the thistles. So the little chickies are going to get mowed.....I can't stand to think of their tiny pink bodies, so vulnerable, getting killed. I guess the thing is that if the DNR lets the thistles keep growing, then they'll grow so tall that the Redwings won't even want to nest there. So it's lose a few, save many......it reminded me of the "greater good" that young Dumbledore and Grindelwald talked about in Harry Potter 7. :( It also reminded me of how, in Maine, we used an herbicide on the roots of bittersweet and purple loosestrife in order to keep them in check. Some people didn't agree with the use of herbicides. But these non-native plants were literally pulling down old apple trees in the heronry, where ibises, herons, and egrets nested. Again, it was choosing the lesser of the two evils.

But I still hate to think of the poor tiny little nestlings, awaiting their fate as the female beds them down for the night..... gosh.

Gotta write about something else.

I went to the store today. I needed milk, and some other necessities. First I went to Pamida, which is a drugstore chain. When you walk in the door, a sign greets you and displays a photograph of the store manager, Steve Something-or-other. Well, I have been in that store about three times, and each time, he is at the cash register!! It's weird because I hardly ever see the managers of stores back home, out and about in the store. Just interesting. I was also wanting post cards, and so I checked Pamida, Alco (which is just a few stores away from Pamida; it's practically the same thing, and they're so close together; it's odd), and Hallmark, but none of them had postcards. I'm gonna get some over the next few days. Should be interesting....I mean, what will it have on it? A cornfield and then "Scenic Iowa" scrawled across the front in neon orange writing? haha

Oh, I forgot to talk about Molly. Molly is Jen's little dog. I forget what type she is, but she's super small. Now, in general, I am not a big fan of small dogs. However, I make exceptions. Molly is one of those exceptions. She is kind of ridiculous looking, with fluffy little ears that stick up like pigtails on top of her head. She is only here for about two weeks; Jen's husband is going out of town, so Jen took her. Molly's favorite thing to do in this house is lick the walls. Yes, really. It's so gross. But this house is kind of gross in general....I can't imagine the kinds of things that could be lurking on the walls. So tonight, Cassandra was on the phone with her airline, after being on hold for like twenty minutes. We were eating dinner in the living room, and Jen called out at Molly, "Molly, stop licking the walls!"
And Erica pointed out how funny that would sound to the person on the other end of the line....ha!

Anyhow, today was my first day doing a transect survey on my own. I did pretty well. Unfortunately I took forever. Cassandra came and waited for me for like 45 minutes while I finished the 2nd field. I think it's partly because I birded in between transects (gosh, I feel so guilty writing that!! I didn't really bird THAT much, just, when I saw a bird perched on the tree, I'd look at it; that's all; and that wasn't that often, either), and partly because I'm new to the whole thing; like I said, this was the first time I had done it alone.

Well, I think that's enough semicolons for now.......

Here's to a Henslow's Sparrow tomorrow!!! I saw a Clay-colored Sparrow, and two male Dickcissels, today. :)

OH! I forgot to say this: I drove the Explorer this afternoon to the store, and was searching for Air1, or a similar radio station, and I found a great one! And on the way back home, they played Switchfoot! Horray!!

First of all, Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there! Especially my dad, and my brother, who is celebrating his first Father's Day with Valerie and little Charlie. :)

It's hard to know what to do here on the weekend. I guess what makes my days off so special at home is having my good friends (Julie, Lindsey, Tommy, etc.) to hang out with. But I don't have them here. So I slept a lot this weekend. I'd get up, eat something, then go back to bed. I need a hobby. HA!
But Holly, you might say, you HAVE a hobby--birding!!!.

Indeed, I do. Luckily, the pest control guy came yesterday around 12:30 to spray the house for cockroaches (GROSS) and we all had to leave the house for about half an hour. This made me get out and do some birding. It wasn't quite the best time of the day for birding, but I was determined. I took my backpack with good ol' Sibley, my binoculars, mosquito repellent and sunscreen, my camera, and my wallet, and set off for the river downtown. I walked and walked, seeing a few Chipping Sparrows and a lot of Robins along the way. The Robins are spread all over the city, with juveniles hanging out along with their parents. They hop around and sing all over. Anyhow, I really should have put on sunscreen, as it was the worst time of the day to be out, or at LEAST put on my hat, but I didn't feel like it. Instead I tried to stay in shady areas.

Finally I reached the river. However, to my disappointment, there was no river path like there is back home. I did find some new Iowa birds: Black-capped Chickadees and Cedar Waxwings. :) I also saw an adult Chipping Sparrow feeding a young Chipping Sparrow.
I walked and walked. There were trees planted all over, rising tall into the sky. But the grass was mowed and the real habitat for birds was along the river. I could get within about 10 feet of it, but then there was a lot of brushy stuff, and a steep slope down to the actual river. I walked and walked. I'll have to take pictures next time. Anyhow, then I saw a bird across the river fly into a tree. It looked light it was reddish, which made me automatically think, "Cardinal". I like Cardinals; we don't have them in Oregon, and they are so cheery and bright. Anyway, I looked at this bird, and saw that it was no Cardinal; it was a flycatcher! A Myarchus flycatcher, to be exact. I wondered what kinds they had here. I looked it up in my book and determined that the only species of Myarchus flycatcher here would be a LIFE bird for me: Great Crested Flycatcher. But I had not gotten a good look. Not a life look, at least. I noticed that on the other side of the river, there seemed to be more brushy stuff, more bird habitat. I decided to go over there. So I did, and I found the best birding habitat ever!!! Oh, I forgot to mention, I was hearing a "suh-REE-yer" call that I suspected was that of the flycatcher, from across the river, and I really, really wanted a better look.

Across the river it was brushy, and a small path wound through the woods. I knew my mom would not think it was safe for me, a single woman, to be birding here alone. But it was such good habitat! Here's what I saw:

Gray Catbird
Downy Woodpeckers (lots of them!)
White-breasted Nuthatch
heard Common Yellowthroat
heard Song Sparrow
Baltimore Oriole
singing Indigo Bunting; I got to see his beak move as he sang his "fire, fire, where, where?" song--so cool!!!!
Common Grackles
Robins up the wazoo

but no flycatcher.

I did have to apply mosquito repellent though, as the little black flies were really getting to me. It was really humid in the forest. I walked back out of the forest, to a more open area, and looked up. There was my Myarchus flycatcher! I knew I shouldn't take my bins off of him, but I wanted a better look. I slowly walked over to the grass and sat down, looking up with my elbows propped up on my knees. There he was! I had prayed for this. He was quite yellow underneath. But he wasn't so dark rufous as the book said in his tail... Then, to my delight, he fluttered from the branch high in the tree across the path, showing rich rufous in his tail, and alighted not fifteen feet above me, giving his distinctive "que-EEP!" call that I had looked up in the book (I still don't know who was making the other call). I noticed another Great Crested Flycatcher nearby him, with something in his mouth. It looked like part of a small brushy stick. Then, making me even happier, the 2nd flycatcher hopped inside a hollow in an old snag in the tree. They must be nesting there! I took lots of pictures, which I unfortunately cannot post until I get home, because my camera cord is there.

It was so, so awesome!! I was so excited. Then I went to Casey's general store and bought a Gatorade, and walked home.

So exciting! I didn't do much the rest of the day, or today, really. But I had to write about my birding adventure. :D Thanks, God!!!! I had prayed I would see that Myarchus again, and I got amazing looks at him!

Hello all,
Well, my first week is over. I have the weekend off. Thank goodness! Today we worked over 10 hours, and I'm really tired. I wish so much that I could kick back with my friends back home and watch Harry Potter at my house. But for now I'm in Iowa, watching America's Funniest Home Videos with my three housemates and coworkers. :)

Today started out similar to yesterday. The sky looked very menacing, and sure enough, as Erica and I approached our field where we were to conduct our first bird transect, she saw lightning flash across the sky in the south. Erica called Jen, and she said to let the sky lighten (it was only a bit after 5, and the sun had not yet risen) and we'd access the weather conditions then. Well, I saw more lightning in the south. It was spectacular, lighting up the whole southern sky. It would have been neat if we weren't supposed to be out in it, in a flat field. We called Jen again, and she said not to go out if we weren't comfortable. So I sat in the Explorer for about ten minutes waiting to see if I saw more lightning. Meanwhile, Erica set out to do the transect. After I saw no more lightning for about ten minutes, I hesitantly joined her. The mosquitoes were awful. It was so warm and humid outside, but there was a lovely breeze. Unfortunately, it did not keep the mosquitoes at bay, even though it wasn't even 6 in the morning!

We finished that field and started the next. The sky had cleared, but then it started to sprinkle on us. In doing the transect, it's 100 meters long, with flags every 20 meters marked B1 F1, B1 F2, etc. (bird one [transect one], flag one; bird two, flag two). You walk slowly along the transect and listen and look for birds. If you hear a bird singing, you can either go and flush it so that you can see where it came from, or you can just try to spot it. You can only write down birds that you can see, because once you find a bird, you must get its degrees and its distance from where you are with the Rangefinder binoculars (which are Leupolds, by the way--made in Beaverton, Oregon!). Each transect should take at least 6-8 minutes. This makes for slow going! Anyhow, it started to sprinkle on us. Then we heard a loud blaring horn. I stared at Erica, horrified. "Was that the tornado siren?!" I exclaimed. Erica stared back at me, then, as the horn blew again, then stopped, she said,
"No. Just a truck horn. Gosh that scared me so bad!!!!"
She said a few minutes later that her heart was going so fast. If it had been a tornado, we had no basement to escape into. Later on during the transect, we were close to a house, and I suggested that, in case the tornado siren were to go off, we could bang on the farmhouse door and ask to be let inside. Luckily, it thundered but did not do anything worse than that; we couldn't even see any lightning.

Next we met up with the others, took a bird quiz, then did inverts and nest checks. I got lost in a field trying to find Veg 3. I practically was in the wetland. I also flushed a female pheasant, who scared me half to death and she fluttered up a few feet in front of me.

Anyhow, then we came back home, drove the cars through the carwash on the way, and then we were finally home, at about 2:30. But we still were not done, even though we had worked 9.5 hours! Then we had to sort the inverts from the day before, and go through the vegetation and pick out any and all leftover inverts with needle-nosed tweezers. This took over an hour. Finally we were done, and we all got to shower. After having DEET and sunscreen, and dirt, all over me, it felt so good to be clean!

Oh, I forgot to say: I got to check the Sedge Wren nest today! It is a large ball of grass, about the size of a large grapefruit, with a hole in its side. It is about half a foot off the ground, and when I peered inside, I could see three tiny bright-yellow mouths inside, plus a lumpy form that looked like a fourth chick. So cute. I took some photos, while the adult wren chided me from the reeds about 10 feet away.

I talked to my mom tonight about being a field biologist. I am still gathering up my data. Even if I get through this whole summer and still don't really like it that much, I can still be a field biologist. We will just have to see. It's great that I can explore different options and get paid for it!! It was also nice to talk to my mom, lying in the backyard on the grass, with Chimney Swifts chittering overhead and a Northern Cardinal singing from the tree nearby.

Well, I'm off now. Horray for the weekend!

ps: I have really missed my music. In the Jeep, the radio is set to classic rock, which is all rather depressing and sounds alike. I'm listening to some classic Elms now. :)

Well, today was the 4th day. It was rough. And it was LONG. We started off at 5, as usual, and Cassandra and I headed for the field we were supposed to do bird surveys in yesterday, but couldn't because of the fog. We began, and found a Red-winged Blackbird nest when it started to lightning and thunder. We had known it would come, because it was supposed to storm yesterday night, but didn't. The skies this morning were very, very dark. So it thundered and lightninged, and so we booked it to the jeep and Cassandra called Jen. She said we should head back home and see what happened, weatherwise.

Once home, I took a nap and Cassandra hung out on her laptop while the storm passed over us. It was SO dark outside! Once the storm passed, Cassandra talked to Jen again, and we headed out. Now it was about 10:30. We worked on nest checks. I got to see a Song Sparrow nest, which was cool. Then we met up with Jen and Erica again, and continued working, doing invertebrate sweeps. It was about 1:30. Normally we finish up around 1, because, after starting at 5am, that's 8 hours. Because of today's storm, though, we had only worked about 4 hours so far. To our horror, Jen suggested we work the rest of our 8 hours, which meant we would be working until 5pm. Cassandra and I grit our teeth and began our invert sweeps. We covered four fields, and we were SO hot, and sweaty, and feeling flushed and exhausted. Around 3:40 we decided that we could just call it a day. We headed home and put the bugs in their respective tubes, then showered. I just finished eating dinner. It was a LONG day, and I have to get up in 10 hours. :(
Thank goodness tomorrow is Friday, and we don't work this weekend! Horray!!!

p.s.: I found out we are working the weekend that Harry Potter comes out. Sad. Oh well, I'll see it AS SOON as I can. :)


Oh, I forgot to say that yesterday I saw my first ever Dickcissel!!!!! Such a beautiful bird. He was perched on some wild parsnip, singing his little heart out.

I am realizing that you guys cannot comment on here, which makes me very sad. I'm thinking about getting a livejournal account so that y'all can comment.....

Ciao for now!

My 3rd day in the field

Yesterday I was reconsidering whether or not I wanted to be a field biologist. Today I am thinking I'll give it some more time before deciding. :)



Today started out optimistically. I woke up at 4, rather than 4:15 like I did yesterday. I thought a whole hour's worth of time to get ready would allow me to make a breakfast, and wash and put in my contacts, and get ready for a day's work. It worked out pretty well today; everyone waited for me, like usual, in the living room, but I was not late, and we left at 5am. The drive was foggy, and Cassandra, who I was riding with, had a hard time seeing the turn onto 270th (yes, really) street. We drove to our field we were supposed to survey, but it was really still very foggy. Cassandra called Jen, our boss, and she said to wait and see if it cleared. We waited twenty minutes. I settled back and fell asleep. After twenty minutes, it was still foggy, and after various calls back and forth from Jen and Cassandra, we ended up waiting there in the Jeep about an hour and a half (so it was roughly 7am when we left). The reason we cannot do bird surveys when it's foggy is that you must be able to see the transects, which are 100 meters long total, divided into five 20-meter increments, from end to end to orient the rangefinder binoculars. Anyhow it was pretty boring, but I was happy because I got to get some more sleep.



Around 7 or so, we met up with Erica, and set off to do nest checks. This is fun; I really like doing nest checks. We get a stack of pink nest cards, and are to go check each nest. So we'll do one field at a time. If there are three nests in Meinkein Primo field, we'll check that field for its three nests first, then move on to another nearby field if we have nests there to check. Each nest is flagged on either side with pink flag tape tied onto vegetation, and each nest card has GPS coordinates written on it as well, to make sure you are at the correct nest. Then you find the nest. Most of them are Red-winged Blackbird nests. They are a cute little cup of woven grass, with two to four small, sky-blue eggs with black splotches lying there. If you're lucky, the male RW Blackbird won't dive-bomb you. If you're not lucky, it really isn't nearly as bad as the terns were last summer in Maine. I shouldn't really say that, because I haven't been dive-bombed by a blackbird yet. Still, although Jen said that The Aggressive Male Red-winged Blackbird hit her 87 times once, I still think it doesn't sound as bad as the terns. Anyhow, sometimes there will be nestlings. Jen pokes them and takes their blood. I got to hold one on Monday. It was so small, with bulgy eyes and funny little holes behind its eyes where its ears are. Its feet were overly big for it, and it rolls around in your hand a little bit with its feet sticking out strangely.

So later on today we did nest checks. In one field, Erica, Cassandra, and I each took three nest cards and went to find Red-winged Blackbird nests. The nests were in a bunch of horse-tails, and it was squelchy and wet underfoot. We had to go through spiderwebs and tromp around looking for the nests we had cards for. I liked it. Sometimes it seems that the more adverse the conditions, the more I feel like a "real" biologist. On the other hand, sometimes the exact opposite is true.

Anyhow, the worst part of the job is nest-searching. Nest-searching is not nearly as adventurous and exciting as it sounded to me when I signed up for this job. It mostly involves walking, walking, walking, and more walking, through fields, as we swing long skinny bamboo sticks (about 4 feet long) back and forth to flush any females off of her nest. If we do flush a female, we try to find the nest in the area which she flushed from. Most of the time we just tromp back and forth wearily in our boots, getting sweaty and miserable. My right foot is starting to develop a blister from walking around in rubber boots that have hardly any support.

Luckily, today we only started to nest search, then switched to invertebrate sweeps. This involved sweeping a long-handled net back and forth twenty-five times over one of the vegetation transects. We got a bunch of insects, and then we put them in the cooler, then at home, we put each bag into its respective tubes, and filled up another little bag with alcohol at the other end of the tube. The idea is that the insects crawl out towards the light and then fall into the alcohol bags and die. Then they get sent back to Ames, the city that the university is, to be identified and weighed.

Anyhow, right now, the landlord, Loren, is here fixing a lightswitch. He's a character. I guess he came in once time hollering, "Woman? Where you at?" He was talking to Jen, my boss.


Other things I need to write about:

- at airport: man with overalls, boy with curly eyelashes

- Molly

- grocery store, finding happy eggs, happy meat, no happy other stuff

- horizontal traffic lights

That's it for now.