millbrook, new york; bacon flats lodge day 6
getting up the second day in a row was definitely much much much more difficult. luckily it was pouring rain and i received a phonecall telling me i could go back to sleep for a couple hours.
i'm scared to see the state i'll be in when i've done this for 5 days in a row.
my mentor was telling me about this crazy field assistant job she did one semester of college. she was responsible for driving this 6 hr loop to survey bald eagle nests in the area, but because she had to pick up the truck she used from far away and needed to be out there at dawn, she had to get up at 2:30. and being a college student, there were some days she only got 2 hrs of sleep. she told me there was this one time she actually remembers having a dream when she was driving on the road.
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sitting in an office (though the field office- the modular- probably doesn't qualify as a office under most definitions) at a desk with other people around is an amazing way to be productive. i can't believe i worked so consistently without distractions. my methods section is pretty much written, i have 3 or 4 backup plans in place in case certain things don't work, and i also read like 5 or 6 different papers and requested a bunch more.
now it's time for round two!
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there are several different playback experiments going on with the veery crew right now, which involves a lot of going out to playback stations and setting up recordings that are left going until they're collected again. the playback tapes are actually played from i-pods. so there are dozens of little brightly colored i-pod shuffles lying around the lab in the morning before everyone leaves. it looks kinda funny.
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when you have to check yourself for ticks several times a day, you develop a really good understanding of where all your moles and birthmarks are...
on this project i keep alternating between overwhelmed and excited. today's a little more excited. it was really nice to hear my mentor say she thinks i'm definitely in the spot where i can write my proposal without any more of her input. though it is stretching not being able to ask any more questions.
tonight i'm being loaned out to help with the owl playback experiment. then on monday morning i get to join the bird banders. this summer is certainly going to be very full.
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ha. so i left about a half an hour ago to help kara set up the owl playback experiment for tonight. it was kinda drizzly but the radar predicted that it would stop before we had to start (our recording equipment is sensitive to rain so if it's too wet we can't do experiments). we drove all the way out to where we needed to be and it was raining lightly. we got out of the car and stood there for a couple of minutes trying to decide if it was going to stop or not. we decided to get back into the car and wait. the minute we did it started a torrential downpour. meaning we definitely would miss our tiny window of time to get things started. so we drove back down the road (i still managed to get soaked because i had to open and close the gate).
then, when i got back, there was a veery singing, quite loudly, right off our back porch in the pouring rain. ha.
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i'm so excited to sleep in tomorrow morning. fridays are going to be wonderful.
i'm scared to see the state i'll be in when i've done this for 5 days in a row.
my mentor was telling me about this crazy field assistant job she did one semester of college. she was responsible for driving this 6 hr loop to survey bald eagle nests in the area, but because she had to pick up the truck she used from far away and needed to be out there at dawn, she had to get up at 2:30. and being a college student, there were some days she only got 2 hrs of sleep. she told me there was this one time she actually remembers having a dream when she was driving on the road.
----
sitting in an office (though the field office- the modular- probably doesn't qualify as a office under most definitions) at a desk with other people around is an amazing way to be productive. i can't believe i worked so consistently without distractions. my methods section is pretty much written, i have 3 or 4 backup plans in place in case certain things don't work, and i also read like 5 or 6 different papers and requested a bunch more.
now it's time for round two!
----
there are several different playback experiments going on with the veery crew right now, which involves a lot of going out to playback stations and setting up recordings that are left going until they're collected again. the playback tapes are actually played from i-pods. so there are dozens of little brightly colored i-pod shuffles lying around the lab in the morning before everyone leaves. it looks kinda funny.
----
when you have to check yourself for ticks several times a day, you develop a really good understanding of where all your moles and birthmarks are...
on this project i keep alternating between overwhelmed and excited. today's a little more excited. it was really nice to hear my mentor say she thinks i'm definitely in the spot where i can write my proposal without any more of her input. though it is stretching not being able to ask any more questions.
tonight i'm being loaned out to help with the owl playback experiment. then on monday morning i get to join the bird banders. this summer is certainly going to be very full.
---
ha. so i left about a half an hour ago to help kara set up the owl playback experiment for tonight. it was kinda drizzly but the radar predicted that it would stop before we had to start (our recording equipment is sensitive to rain so if it's too wet we can't do experiments). we drove all the way out to where we needed to be and it was raining lightly. we got out of the car and stood there for a couple of minutes trying to decide if it was going to stop or not. we decided to get back into the car and wait. the minute we did it started a torrential downpour. meaning we definitely would miss our tiny window of time to get things started. so we drove back down the road (i still managed to get soaked because i had to open and close the gate).
then, when i got back, there was a veery singing, quite loudly, right off our back porch in the pouring rain. ha.
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i'm so excited to sleep in tomorrow morning. fridays are going to be wonderful.