Hey Y'all!
So, yes, Yosemite. Snow. The rumors you've heard are true. As I was driving up the 120 into Yosemite, the temperature dropped every few hundred feet, the snow on the side of the road became more profuse, and the sky looked extremely daunting. A couple inches of snow welcomed me into Hodgdon Campground, where I managed to set-up camp in one hour of decent weather (it was about 40 degrees) before it started raining/sleeting/snowing/hailing. This combination of appalling cold wetness lasted three days....needless to say I am certain now that my sleeping bag is no longer the 15 degree bag it once was. I have a sleeping bag liner and an additional exterior insulating layer, and I was still cold.... :(
We set-up a banding station in 36 degree weather with a side of pouring rain. 'Twas not pleasant. We decided to take the next rainy day off, and set-up the other sites when we were blessed with slightly better weather, which worked out wonderfully! We banded at Big Meadow (BIME), and Hodgdon Meadow (HODG - Upper and Lower) and had decent numbers given the circumstances. We had to close half of our nets at Big Meadow due to wind, so had fewer birds. HODG gave us 42 birds one day, including a Savannah Sparrow (SAVS) and Ruby-crowned Kinglet (RCKI)...I'm thinking maybe they are late migrants? Or they might be staying low for the breeding season because of the cold up north? I'm excited to see what the rest of the season brings us :) Last season's Period 3 numbers at HODG were much lower than they were this year. I'm hoping this bodes well for the season, but have no idea if this is a true precursor or just a lucky day in the field! We'll have to wait and see! We heard some Red Crossbills at HODG....I know they're up high...but MAN, would that be an awesome bird to have in hand!
We made some wonderful friends during those sad rainy days. An Interpretive Park Ranger came across my crew and I huddled under a leaky tarp, cooking dinner in the pouring rain. Taking pity on us, he invited us to his home for some homemade brewskies (which were delicious!), some warmth/shelter, and some first class socializing with his roommies. Ranger Jeff even left us some lentil stew one night, still warm, in our bear box. We have never been so grateful :) Another Park Interpretive Ranger came out to help us with set-up and is working relatively close to our campsite. Nice southern gentleman :) He will be visiting us out in the field one day this upcoming period to see what we do. The Seasonal Biologist working for the park this summer will be coming out banding with us at least one day per period and is also quite a chill bird nerd who fits in just dandy with us 'bird folk.' He's got great experience under his belt and is incredibly informative about birds and local events in and around the Park :) We have already attended a small local music festival, which was more like a hippie community jam session in someone's backyard, but it was still awesome. We also have a Black-backed Woodpecker crew we had a training and some Point-Count crews that will be coming in and out of the Park all summer. We just had a night in the Valley with them :) Fun times :) I feel like we're actually going to have a sense of community this summer :) Yes, cute.
We have a lot of net repair ahead of us this week, as our nets did not get repaired last year (I was here, I would know). Hah, so that's what we have to look forward to on our days off this period. We might do some hiking around Hetch-Hetchy as well, and hit the Valley on a hot day to hike to Yosemite Falls and get drenched, but only after we've earned it! Net repair is our priority!
Tonight, we cook a feast for Ranger Jeff and his roommies :)
Tomorrow, adventures of net repair!
Hugs,
Erin
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
Photos for Your Stalking Pleasure
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| Banding Station |
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| Male Yellow Warbler - using the leg gauge to make sure we use the correct band size! |
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| Red-Breasted Sapsucker getting a taste of an interns fingers |
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| Looking for Cloacal Protuberance, Brood Patch, and Fat! |
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| Look at that Flight Feather Wear |
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| Nice ATY (After Third Year) Red-Breasted Sapsucker Wing |
I've spent the weekend in Berkeley and have thoroughly enjoyed being on my old turf again :) I got to hang with some of my FemSexy womyn (and one FemSexy man!)...and check out my favorite view in Berkeley:
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| I like how this one turned out - nice grainy texture |
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| My new best friend |
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| Oh yeah, right there |
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| The pleasure took him to the ground |
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| ::drools:: |
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| My favorite patch of trees along this trail |
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| ...God? |
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| Banana slug! |
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| I dig it |
OK, I promise to take more pics once I'm in Yosemite! I've been terrible about charging my camera battery...
Hugs!!
whoa, Whoa, WHOA. BIRDS!! :D
Hey Y'all!!
Sorry I've been MIA. I don't even know where to start!
Training was a trip! I just assisted 2 other biologists in training a dozen interns to identify, handle, extract, band and microage birds of the Pacific Northwest. This was my first time teaching and I think in the beginning, it showed. Hah. I vacillated between lacking confidence entirely, feeling like a complete dumb-ass to feeling like I was the female equivalent of Pyle (not really). FYI for you non-birders: Peter Pyle = bird God, who wrote what we call the bird Bible, publishing it when he was only in his mid-40's.
Trying to talk someone through an extraction (untangling a bird from a net) when you haven't done one yourself in 6 months is an arduous task. It was almost as if I had forgotten the English language (i.e. the aforementioned dumb-ass moments). I literally could not find the words to explain what to do next, because extractions are intuitive for me at this point, and thoughts of "now, I should pull the net this way" don't really exist anymore. By the end of training, I at least felt competent in my ability to discuss bird Timelines and Molt Strategies, not to mention my ability to extract birds that are Houdinied, backpacked and double trammeled to boot. There's something extremely satisfying about getting a ridiculously tangled bird out of a net (a banders wet dream....let's be honest).
Now that my tangent is complete, the downside to not feeling confident as a teacher, was that it led me to be less confident socially. Boo. I admit that part of my social imcompetence is also due to the fact that for the past 6 months I've mostly been socializing with my family and a handful of adorable toddlers. So, me = a lil' socially inept at the moment with members of my own generation. Did I mention that I pretty much got the award for dorkiest bird jokes ever? Sarcasm? What's that again?
We were camping in Grants Pass, OR during training and had many mornings where we had to wait 2 hours for it to reach 40 degrees (our minimum temp for opening mist-nets). This brought back many memories of a former intern who often said, "This is stupid! Why are we down here? We're just freezing our asses off! We're not even catching birds!" Heh, oh how I miss you, former intern. 'Tis part of being a wildlife biologist. Harsh working conditions. And if you're lucky, harsh living conditions!
My crew will be camping all summer in a campground that resembles a refugee camp on a busy day (AKA every day between may and august). Sometimes you're lucky and you meet the most fascinating, kind people from parts of the world you didn't even know existed. Like Brunei...or Wyoming. But most of the time, people are noisy, hammered, and leave their fires burning all night - a tough environment for someone who has to wake up at 4am every day. We'll have access to showers a quarter mile down the road, and will have a bathroom with running water close by. We'll be equipped with bear boxes to store our food in (trust me, refrigeration is overrated until it hits 80 degrees) and a double-burner propane stove for cooking. As far as camping goes, it's a pretty sweet deal.
We'll start setting up our sites this week, but will only be able to open 3/6 due to snow. Seeing that our numbers at training were particularly low this year (only 344 birds), and the snowpack is worse than last year, I predict our numbers will be low in YOSE as well. Last year we had low capture rates compared to the previous 5 years data. I think this was due to the long, harsh winter (it was an El Nino year). Looking at the data for the last ten years, there was another significant drop in numbers due to the harsh winter brought on by the El Nino of 2002-2003. The following winter was mild however, and bird numbers bounced back with a vengeance! I'm not sure what the birds exact response is to this extreme weather: perhaps migration-exhausted adults died upon arriving to their snow-covered breeding grounds; perhaps the breeding season was cut short, so birds that usually have multiple broods only had one; maybe they just shifted their range south/lower in elevation to avoid the cold, so they simply weren't at the banding stations. Maybe something's happening on their wintering grounds - deforestation coupled with heavy rains and pesticide/fertilizer use = massive toxic runoff, not to mention a lack of good wintering habitat and food sources. I hope they bounce back the next time we have a mild winter. If we EVER have another mild winter! =\ Global Climate Change: bringing everything to the EXTREME! F$#@ YEAH!!!
I'm going to write more frequently now that training is over so my posts aren't freaksihly long and untamed, like this one. Pics are coming up next!
Cheers!
Sorry I've been MIA. I don't even know where to start!
Training was a trip! I just assisted 2 other biologists in training a dozen interns to identify, handle, extract, band and microage birds of the Pacific Northwest. This was my first time teaching and I think in the beginning, it showed. Hah. I vacillated between lacking confidence entirely, feeling like a complete dumb-ass to feeling like I was the female equivalent of Pyle (not really). FYI for you non-birders: Peter Pyle = bird God, who wrote what we call the bird Bible, publishing it when he was only in his mid-40's.
Trying to talk someone through an extraction (untangling a bird from a net) when you haven't done one yourself in 6 months is an arduous task. It was almost as if I had forgotten the English language (i.e. the aforementioned dumb-ass moments). I literally could not find the words to explain what to do next, because extractions are intuitive for me at this point, and thoughts of "now, I should pull the net this way" don't really exist anymore. By the end of training, I at least felt competent in my ability to discuss bird Timelines and Molt Strategies, not to mention my ability to extract birds that are Houdinied, backpacked and double trammeled to boot. There's something extremely satisfying about getting a ridiculously tangled bird out of a net (a banders wet dream....let's be honest).
Now that my tangent is complete, the downside to not feeling confident as a teacher, was that it led me to be less confident socially. Boo. I admit that part of my social imcompetence is also due to the fact that for the past 6 months I've mostly been socializing with my family and a handful of adorable toddlers. So, me = a lil' socially inept at the moment with members of my own generation. Did I mention that I pretty much got the award for dorkiest bird jokes ever? Sarcasm? What's that again?
We were camping in Grants Pass, OR during training and had many mornings where we had to wait 2 hours for it to reach 40 degrees (our minimum temp for opening mist-nets). This brought back many memories of a former intern who often said, "This is stupid! Why are we down here? We're just freezing our asses off! We're not even catching birds!" Heh, oh how I miss you, former intern. 'Tis part of being a wildlife biologist. Harsh working conditions. And if you're lucky, harsh living conditions!
My crew will be camping all summer in a campground that resembles a refugee camp on a busy day (AKA every day between may and august). Sometimes you're lucky and you meet the most fascinating, kind people from parts of the world you didn't even know existed. Like Brunei...or Wyoming. But most of the time, people are noisy, hammered, and leave their fires burning all night - a tough environment for someone who has to wake up at 4am every day. We'll have access to showers a quarter mile down the road, and will have a bathroom with running water close by. We'll be equipped with bear boxes to store our food in (trust me, refrigeration is overrated until it hits 80 degrees) and a double-burner propane stove for cooking. As far as camping goes, it's a pretty sweet deal.
We'll start setting up our sites this week, but will only be able to open 3/6 due to snow. Seeing that our numbers at training were particularly low this year (only 344 birds), and the snowpack is worse than last year, I predict our numbers will be low in YOSE as well. Last year we had low capture rates compared to the previous 5 years data. I think this was due to the long, harsh winter (it was an El Nino year). Looking at the data for the last ten years, there was another significant drop in numbers due to the harsh winter brought on by the El Nino of 2002-2003. The following winter was mild however, and bird numbers bounced back with a vengeance! I'm not sure what the birds exact response is to this extreme weather: perhaps migration-exhausted adults died upon arriving to their snow-covered breeding grounds; perhaps the breeding season was cut short, so birds that usually have multiple broods only had one; maybe they just shifted their range south/lower in elevation to avoid the cold, so they simply weren't at the banding stations. Maybe something's happening on their wintering grounds - deforestation coupled with heavy rains and pesticide/fertilizer use = massive toxic runoff, not to mention a lack of good wintering habitat and food sources. I hope they bounce back the next time we have a mild winter. If we EVER have another mild winter! =\ Global Climate Change: bringing everything to the EXTREME! F$#@ YEAH!!!
I'm going to write more frequently now that training is over so my posts aren't freaksihly long and untamed, like this one. Pics are coming up next!
Cheers!
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