story of my field season, v. 2010

May 16, 2010 4:10 p.m.

I'm curled up on a couch nursing a hot water and listening to a wind so strong it shakes our little house. It's chilly over here in Washington. What?

Okay, so here's what happened last semester:
-Prelims: I dove post-Taiwan into six weeks of essay-writing, stopping occasionally to change out of my PJs. It all came together in a long proposal, discussed with five extremely smart professors in February when I took my prelims. I actually recall a good portion of it, foremost the memories of (a) attempting not to show the committee how much I was sweating, (b) listening to myself utter the words "wanton duck insemination" as part of a serious answer, and (c) hearing my advisor say that 15 minutes remained before the officially imposed 3-hour limit, so could I please step outside?

Then I celebrated with my lab, went out with friends, and spent the next two days in bed with the flu. And that was how I became a Ph.D. candidate.

-Field plans: By mid-March I was set to spend a few weeks in the Bahamas again. But, because I don't want to be in grad school forever, I decided to collect an extra data point by squeezing an earlier-breeding, second population before taking off for the Bahamas. I got in touch with the founding father of blackbird research (my academic great-uncle), somehow received all the permits in time, flew over and now am in Washington's Columbia National Wildlife Refuge, home of the classic behavioral ecology studies involving redwings and other marsh-nesting birds.

The first two days I camped out at a state park with lab-borrowed equipment. Then I was told I was allowed to stay at the volunteer bunkhouse unless a fire starts and the crew needs to be called in. Fortunately that hasn't happened, so I'm savoring the use of electricity and free hot showers. The icing on the cake is definitely the TV, but Internet access is hidden five miles away in the tiny town library and local pizza joint.

I'll post more photos in a future entry, but I just want to point out that I have never seen a place on earth like this before. It's an bizarre, ancient moonscape with flat-topped plateaus and canyons and craters, all painted with a color palette that doesn't exist in the east. In fact, all I could think of when I first drove past it were the Spaceman Spiff comics from Calvin and Hobbes. And there's something about looking up at long horizontal hills with reddish-green grass, scattered embedded rock and sagebrush shrubs that makes you expect a pterodactyl to soar over your head. Turns out the area was actually covered in lava 10 million years ago, which crystallized into basalt and was then repeatedly gouged out 16,000 years ago by massive floods of water that had been backed up for centuries by glaciers. The remaining basalt became the towering cliffs that stretch into the horizon in every direction. And in the valleys below, lakes formed, cattails blossomed, and redwings came to call.

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Some fun field facts:
-I will never grow tired of finding nests. It's just a really cool feeling to watch and tell from a bird's behavior whether there's a nest in the area and whether it has eggs. And it is very gratifying to know that four years of experience have given me a nearly foolproof search image and strategy. (Foolproof, because I'll never know about the nests I didn't find...)
-This is the first time I've seen yellow-headed blackbirds, distant cousins to the redwings, nesting in the marsh. I have to say, only a yellow-head's mother could love this bird. The females haven't arrived yet, so the males are basically shifty-eyed squatters fighting over the cattails and annoying the redwings. Males have this ridiculous territorial behavior where they face away from each other, bend down as though they're about to get spanked, and take turns looking over their left shoulder and braying like donkeys. The first time I saw it, I wondered if they were actually taking each other seriously. Redwings, on the other hand, look sleek and elegant when they're facing off.
-Yesterday I was rattled at by an invisible rattlesnake. (Dad, if you're reading this, I moved away immediately. Everyone else: Couldn't find it.) Today I nearly stepped on one when entering the lake. Suddenly it seems very wise to watch where I'm putting my feet.
-The delphinium and phlox are all in bloom, and the air is clear with a hint of sage.
-White pelicans have a special way of mooning you when they feed.

Okay, time for bed. It's going to be a tight three weeks, but I can't wait to hold a bird in my hand again.

Photobucket

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