Back in "the field"

In the past few weeks, I have traveled several thousand miles by land and air. I've been out of the field since mid-March and have taken the opportunity to travel to France and England, then search for (and find!) housing in Columbus, OH where I will relocate at the end of the summer in preparation for starting my PhD at The Ohio State University.
I arrived in Washington, D.C. yesterday after a two-day journey from Chicago and now I am gearing up for my latest adventure in the field: Neighborhood Nestwatch. The Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center has been running this program for about 10 years (yay long-term data sets!) that uses "citizen scientists" to monitor birds in their backyards in terms of survivorship and reproductive success. Basically, families who are interested in watching birds learn how to record data and submit it to the Smithsonian. What I will do is facilitate this by visiting families over the course of the next three months, color band the birds in their neighborhood, and teach them as much as I can during a half-day visit. One of the great pluses of citizen science is that TONS of data can be collected efficiently and cost-effectively: only four technicians are needed to assist over 200 families- quite a lot of bang for your buck!
I've been in D.C. for less than 24 hours now and am beginning to understand the number/letter street system, proliferation of one-way streets, and all of the charm associated with driving in a major city. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to using public transportation to move around once I can park my car at our field house!
I met one of my bosses today and will be helping with various aspects (i.e. net repair, everyone's favorite) of the project until the rest of the crew arrives over the weekend. Besides that, there are friends and family to visit, food to be sampled and national sights to be seen . . . I'll keep you updated!

Winding down in the Delta

Team RUBL with a juvenile female Rusty after our last, "fun" catching day at Ferry Rd.

There is no doubt that this has been the most challenging job, physically and psychologically, that I have ever performed. As I write this, we are beginning to see the end of back-to-back 13+ hour days. At our Ferry Road site, the Rusties are migrating. We count fewer birds in the evening at the night roost, and the two birds we put transmitters on most recently (Harrison Ford and Igor) have quite literally flown the coop. We still however, have Christie. She celebrated the seventh week of her transmitter over the weekend (remember, we were told that these transmitters would last 3-4 weeks). There are some signs that her batteries are beginning to run down, but we still have had her each day for day points and each evening at the night roost, so our telemetry duties continue.
Our primary responsibility for the remaining two weeks of the season is to collect habitat data. Today we will learn how to sample vegetation at our other (to date unsuccessful) catching site, Palasini. We also have two dozen sites to visit to collect twigs and leaves for tree identification in preferred habitat of the Rusties caught over the past few years. Thus far, the best part of chasing trees is that they don’t get up with the birds, so now neither do we have to! : )

Yesterday evening, after our final(?) full day of telemetry with Christie, Team RUBL headed out to visit the families of Ferry Road who have supported us in our efforts. We stopped by Barbara and John’s first to bring them cookies and a card showing the team and one of the Rusties we had caught in the area. Barbara and John were touched by our gesture- Barbara’s comment was, “All we did was invite you to dinner!” (referring to the Wildlife Banquet). In response, we shared the sentiment that without John’s help, Anne and I would likely still be trying to figure out how to get the F150 out of the ditch. (Yep, that was me, one of our first full days of telemetry two months ago . . .) We tried to express that this couple meant much more to us: they had given us permission to track birds on their land, tolerated us driving up and down the road in front of their house in all weather and at all times of day, reminded us that the fences were electric when we went to recover Frodo’s transmitter from the night roost field. And yet they were still grateful for our generosity.

We continued our rounds by driving up to the catching site, to the home of Jane and Ruben. Megan and I met this couple when catching at Ferry Road was still just an idea, and were charged with receiving permission from the appropriate homeowner to put up nets in the area where we had observed the Rusties consistently feeding. That initial encounter in December went surprisingly well, considering we had (accidentally!) woken the couple up to ask for permission. Jane’s first comment to us last night was, “Well, why haven’t you come over for coffee sooner? We were looking at you out on the bayou a couple weeks ago when it was so cold thinking, ‘Those girls have got to be dedicated to be following those birds in this weather!’” Ruben expressed that he regretted that his health issues prevented him from “bothering” us more, but he had heard his nephew, Tim, was taking care of that. We gave our cookies and cards, and listened to stories of how Ruben had to stop entering the Wildlife Banquet cooking contest because his consistent winning was discouraging the competition. Last year he received a “Master Chef” plaque instead. Also, for those of you who are more adventuresome eaters, muskrat is good fried, and bobcat works well in a tomato-onion gravy. Jane shared stories of their current dog and dogs of years past, and we learned that in Mississippi there are only two types of dogs: “indoor” dogs and “yard” dogs.

Our last stop was Roger’s. Roger introduced himself early on in the season as the go-to guy for all of our seed and grain needs (he has some fabulous John Deere green and yellow business cards). He and Tim often would stop by our trucks as we were doing telemetry in the area, and chat with us about our work or where our birds were. Roger was also the emcee for the door prize giveaway at the Wildlife Banquet, and thus responsible for our acquiring of camouflage and Mississippi Ag hats. We met Roger’s mother (who loves to fish) and chatted about how he and his wife grew up just around the corner from where Anne is living in Leland. Suzie showed us where Roger likes to shoot his bow in the house- turkey season is fast approaching!- and we heard more stories of Delta life. However, Anne noted after our visit that this stop on our journey failed. It was not because Roger was not home, or allergic to one of our kinds of cookies. It was, simply put, that we walked away with more gifts and good wishes, when our intent was to bring those as a sign of gratitude for all of the things Roger had already done for us. The kindness and generosity of these Mississippians is overwhelming in every sense of the word, and we can only hope to show a little bit of our appreciation for what they have done for us in the past few months.
Tonight we will try to visit Tim and his family. Tim is one of those nice, friendly guys who would go out of his way to come say ‘hi’ to us and would always have something interesting in his truck to show us. A conversation with Tim might open with him saying, “Hey, have you ever seen a baby feral pig? Look- this one is real little, it still has it’s umbilical cord attached!” Tim and his son have all sorts of animals, from peacocks to pigs, and recently, squirrels. It certainly broke up the long days of telemetry whenever he would stop by!



Tim also is the owner of Brodie, a very sweet but dumb and occasionally annoying black lab. (Barbara told us one of her Brodie stories: he put his paws in the window of her car, then jumped on the hood, then jumped on the roof of the car and just sat there until she got out and chased him off- him leaving big dents as he hopped down.)
I’m not sure what awaits us at Tim’s tonight, but if last night was any indication, I am sure we will have a wonderful time.

More MS photos!

It has been a busy few weeks down here in Mississippi, both in terms of work and life outside of telemetry. We put out three birds at two sites on consecutive days (it was crazy), it snowed, we saw a couple of thousand geese by the side of the highway, Megan and I started taking pictures with road kill, Tim brought us a baby squirrel, Anne and I went to a “Wildlife Banquet” where Anne sampled a lot of the local wildlife and I enjoyed the candied yams . . . Here are a few of my favorite pictures from the past few weeks!






Also, here are a couple of Rusty identification photos. You can tell the age and sex classes of these birds in the winter based the presence of white feathers around the eye (juveniles have them, adults don’t) and on color (males are much darker). Take your best guess for these three birds!




As far as my existence beyond my current job, I have been accepted to the Direct-PhD program at the School of Environment and Natural Resources at The Ohio State University (quite the mouthful!). I just received notification that I will be funded for the next four years starting this fall . . . very exciting!
My best to everyone in all of this wacky winter weather . . . I’m hoping D.C. thaws soon so I can find out about my next great adventure.

Photos from Mississippi!

I know how much my Gram and Mom enjoy seeing pictures- so here's a few recent ones!


Trailer sweet trailer: our home in Yazoo.


There is a butterfly garden/deer exclosure in our front yard . . . complete with about a dozen park benches. The fence is there to keep the butterflies in. (Just kidding!)


Sunset at a bayou near Alligator Pond.


I can't say that I am much inclined to harass alligators . . .


Anne, Megan and me freezing our butts off in 20F weather on our first day of telemetry at Ferry Road. We lost that bird for a few days but picked her up again once we found a night roost.


An adult male NOCA looking fierce, after being caught at our Palasini site.

If I survive this job, I will be invincible

There are days when this becomes my mantra. This is definitely the hardest I have ever worked either in or out of the field. Good prep for grad school, right? The combination of inconvenient internet access and long hours have taken their toll on the blog, so here’s what I’ve been up to in 2010 . . .
The goal of our research is to find out as much as we can about Rusties since they are the fastest-declining songbird species in North America. While I thoroughly enjoy the insect sampling (see previous post), the other major responsibility of my job is following Rusties. Unlike my langur following in Thailand, I won’t identify my focal animals by looking at their natural characteristics- rather, we band our birds and track them using radio telemetry. That means we have to catch these wily birds, successfully put on a transmitter, and then keep track of them!
I’m happy to say we have two active transmitters out at our Ferry Road site. After many hours of observation, we chose bait sites, cracked pecans -a favorite food- along the side of the road with our feet and the car, and came up with time-saving ways to set up nets. (When you have to be in place well before the birds wake up, you learn to be as efficient as possible, and this job is definitely challenging me to come up with creative solutions. Case in point: we now use 1” binder rings to quickly attach our nets to ropes on trees. This makes take-down much faster, which is key when we are putting out transmittered birds. Since Rusties are neophobic and sensitive to change, we also used camouflaged duct tape and nail polish to hide these shiny rings from the birds, minimizing the chances of them detecting the nets.)
Catching is incredibly stressful and testing, but ultimately rewarding. We get up ridiculously early so everything ready before the birds arrive on site. We band our birds in one of our two field trucks, a new experience for me and often awkward at best. There is never enough room in the car to have all of our necessary equipment immediately on hand, and once we decide to put a transmitter on a bird, we have to quickly change gears from banding to telemetry, with the associated negotiation of equipment. One of the hardest parts for me at this point is that I have mixed feelings about catching Rusties and putting transmitters on them because it means at least two 12+ hour days tracking our focal birds. That said, I’ve worked 40+ hours within three days twice in the past two weeks, and it is getting a little easier (at least psychologically). It didn’t help that at the same time Mississippi went into the coldest cold snap for decades and our pipes froze twice. But telemetry is what we need to do to collect the necessary data for this species. No one knows why they are declining so severely and steadily, and this winter research may highlight what Rusties need to be successful.
With two birds at Ferry Road, my days have more variability. We take at least one “day point” on each active bird every day: we try to get as close as possible without scaring the bird, take a GPS point, and record habitat data. So you don’t have any misunderstandings, I do not actually see the birds with transmitters. Once we release them, we have few opportunities for visual observations. So we listen through static for the tell-tale one second click of our birds and try to zero in on their location. In addition to the daily day points, we take one full day of telemetry on each bird each week. This involves following the bird (in our car), asking homeowers for permission to walk around their property, and GPS points/habitat data collection every five minutes. Plus we’ve still got the suite of food availability surveys, processing leaf litter samples, observing pecan orchards, and trying to figure out how to catch birds at our other site, Palasini.
Telemetry is a whole different ball game from the other research I’ve done. I’ve never done something so tech-heavy or reliant on specialized equipment. I’ve also never worked with a species so scared of people. We work in teams of two, which gives us the ability to safely track birds and drive, and have the opportunity to trade off telemetry duties to reduce fatigue (one can only listen to clicks through static for so long!). I had a gratifying experience the other day when we were attempting to follow one of our Ferry Road birds all day. At this point, we knew very little about the birds we had put out at Ferry, but I listened to our bird at the night roost before dawn, and heard her there at sunset. It didn’t matter that we had lost her multiple times during the day- what was most satisfying was that I was there when she woke up and put her to bed nine hours later.
I hope to have more illuminating experiences like that in the coming weeks . . . it makes the long hours worth it!

Happy New Year!

I’m writing this post offline on the first and hoping that I’ll get the chance to put it up in the next few days. I hope everyone had a great evening of revelry. Megan and I went to a dinner party with some other Forest Service employees near Greenville, but left well before midnight because we had an hour drive home and work this morning. Lucky for us, this morning went splendidly, and our boss gave us the rest of the day off (which means we had the chance to go back to bed around 9:30 am!). I’m by writing this on the steps of our trailer- the day is clear and the sun is great! We work long hours and spend a lot of time in the car driving and observing, so it is nice to have a chance to be outside during the day, epecially when the weather is nice.
We’ve been pretty busy since I came back from Chicago last weekend. We sample “food availability” at 15 or 20 sites in this area. These are places where my boss has caught Rusties in previous years, so we know that at least at one time they were good habitat for the species. While our food availability surveys involve A LOT of driving and several days to complete because some of the sites are so far apart, I really enjoy it. We go out to a site and count pecans and acorns, plus we take leaf litter samples.
Processing has two parts: finding the food and identifying it. First, we go through the leaves, turning them over “just like a Rusty” as my boss would say, and pick out all of the invertebrates. Important note: spiders run really, really fast. But I guess I would too if I had 8 legs and someone was chasing me with a pair of forceps! After dropping all of the insects, spiders, snails, worms, ticks, etc. into alcohol (sorry, Evan!), we look at each individual under a microscope to identify it to species. We have a working “library” of every invertebrate we’ve found, but it is growing significantly considering this is only the second year of this sampling method. Getting the samples from a bag of leaves to an Excel file of invertebrates can take two hours or more, and considering we sample the sites every 10 days, this occupies a good chunk of our time. We can “pre-process” the dead inverts at the trailer with a small dissecting microscope, but we need the big ‘scope at Stoneville to identify some of the smaller stuff and to take pictures to add to the library if we find something new.
All in all, though, I have a secret love of processing the leaf litter sampling. For one thing, I really enjoy catching animals of any kind, and fast-moving insects in a plastic tub are no exception. I never know what we are going to find in any given sample, and it probably is influenced by time of day and local weather, so even knowing what might be a site from previous experience doesn’t guarantee that you won’t find something new. I’m also excited too see all of these tiny critters under a ‘scope. They look completely different up close, and the high-resolution equipment with the camera up at Stoneville is incredible. What looks like a speck with some antennae to the naked eye reveals itself to be an awesome collembolan (springtail) . . . yeah, I’m a science nerd. It’s great to be able to develop insect identification skills, though, and since the whole team has a history of invertebrate sampling from school and other jobs, I think we’ll be able to improve the library and the sorting protocol.
Besides the “bugs” we’ve still got some wily Rusties to contend with. At this stage in the season, we are searching for sites to catch Rusties, and have found three that we feed daily. This morning Megan and I were observing at the Ferry Road site, where we know Rusties are present, but where they haven’t been eating the bait. Rusties are known to be one of the more neophobic species of blackbirds- they are afraid of new things- but they can also be pretty curious. By observing them in the mornings, we can figure out where they like to feed and what their flight paths are, giving us a better idea of possible net locations. They are certainly tricky to catch as we learned earlier this week at Anguilla! Plus, we need calm days for netting because wind catches the mist nets so easily, and, naturally, once the Rusties realize the net is there they won’t go in it.
Megan and I had a great morning at Ferry Road with a couple of dozen Rusties present and feeding. We’ve got some new ideas of where to bait and put up nets, and if the weather cooperates we should be able to try to catch some birds later this week. At Anne’s suggestion, Megan and I are also trying to read the significance of our first bird of the new year. What does it mean that we saw a female Rusty first? With Rusties being the fastest declining songbird species on this continent, is the year all downhill from here? Will our year be characterized by neophobia and inquisitiveness? These might be hard traits to maintain as a field technician . . . but I’ll keep you updated!

A little more info on Rusties

(This photo is from the Fish and Wildlife Service.)

Below is a link to an article written by my boss. It should give you a good idea of what it will be like for me to track Rusties.

http://nationalzoo.si.edu/ConservationAndScience/MigratoryBirds/Science_Article/default.cfm?id=25

So far my experience has been pretty positive. I came down here via Nashville on Monday, and have spent the last few days getting to know the rest of the team and training. Turns out the other field tech, Megan, was on OTS South Africa in the spring of '07, the semester after I was there! The world certainly seems smaller.

Yazoo is a very beautiful refuge, established in 1936. It is also very remote, and there are only 2 other people in the refuge! I had a chance to take a walk yesterday afternoon, and there is plenty of wildlife around. This week we've seen deer, alligators, a whole lot of birds, and my boss even spotted a bobcat the other night. There is a lot of hunting in the area (a whole other story), but we've been pretty safe in our orange.

I hope to get the chance to update this blog about once a week, but there's no internet nearby to where we live so forgive me if my posts are few and far between! I'm headed back home for a few days for Christmas and will post some more information then when I have more time with internet access.