Greg and Kat's blog

We did it! Yesterday Adam and I caught 10 House Finches! There are 6 males and 4 females/juveniles! Yippee! The only thing now is trying to determine whether the birds we have are females or juvies. I was so tired from the day of catching (the excitement was just too much!) that I ended up falling asleep around 9:15. Yes, I’m getting old. But it was good because I was back out this morning by 6:00. However, it had rained last night, and it was too cold and wet this morning. So, there were no birds. Going back out later when it warms up a bit.

Oh, and I love the new place we’re using to catch. There are very few mosquitoes. The bite tally has stalled! So has the itching, for the most part. Now I only have 3 large bruise-looking marks on my legs. Joy!

Another cool thing – when we were putting the finches into the aviary, a female/juvie landed on the outer fencing of the aviary! I can finally set my hanging traps and try trapping inside the aviary, and maybe actually catch something I want! Yea!

For the past few days I’ve been watching my feeders. There have been House Finches there everytime I’ve watched. Today, I didn’t even see a house finch anywhere near my feeders.
Today was the first day of trapping with the large funnel traps. I got up early and set the traps before 5:30 while it was still dark. Waited and waited and waited. Finally, movement! There was a bird about to go inside! Hmmm… looking at it through the binoculars, I didn’t know what it was. I knew it wasn’t a HOFI, but wasn’t totally sure what I had caught. It has a longer tail than a finch, and was all gray. It was still too dark to make out facial features to look it up in the book, so I just waited. Soon, there was another one in the trap. Hmmm… wonder what these things are. Luckily, Adam came by around 6:30. They’re titmice. Tufted titmice, to be exact. Well, at least I know that the trap works. Eventually they found their own way out. Throughout the morning titmice were getting caught and finding their way out. Not sure if it’s the same pair, or if they were different birds. There were a bunch in the area.

Once it got really light out, the squirrels found the trap. I was interested to see what they would do. Luckily I got aligator clips to close the top of the trap, so everything was secure. I was 90% sure that the doorways were too small for them to fit into. Luckily, I think I was right. They jumped onto the trap, swung around a bit, and then jumped off. Had to scare them off twice though because they wouldn’t stop, and the birds wouldn’t enter the trap if the squirrels were around.

We took the trap down at noon. To make things worse, as we were walking back to Biology, what did we see? Three males and either a female or a juvenile splashing around in a puddle in the parking lot. Dammit! I think I need to walk around with seed in my pockets! I miss the Zeebies!

Happy to say that so far, I don’t think I had any bites today – went and bought Deep Woods Off for my clothes and citronella lotion for my hands on the weekend. Together with my mosquito shirt, they’ve kept the bugs away (I think, will have to see whether anything starts to itch this afternoon). Total: 29 and holding.
Have to eat, and then head off to Neurosciences for my first day of HPLC training. Tomorrow we’ll try the other location.

I’m procratinating from reading about HPLC or going UNC’s online safety course. So, I figured I’d say a little bit about the car. Like greg said, it’s not flashy, but it’s mine. I’ve named it “Rusty” since he is. I know cars are supposed to be female, but this one’s not pretty, so Rusty it is.

After yesterday’s repairs, including general fluid flushes, hooking up a disconnected wire to the AC (yea! cold air!), and replacing the brake master cylinder (yes! brakes that work well!), I’m out another $1000. But that’s okay, because now Rusty should in theory go for a while now (knock on wood). Today he’s back in for the state safety inspection and an alignment check. Only $90 today!

I drove home, got gas (first time in MY car and nobody to take a picture!), and then went home to retrieve Blinky. If you’ve read Greg’s prior posts you’ll remember that Blinky is ou new auto GPS system. I needed Blinky to guide me to Finley Forest apartments (I already kind of knew where I was going, but figured I wanted Blinky’s company), where I purchased 2 small dresser drawers from a guy who graduated with an MBA from UNC. Also got a nice wood end table thrown in! I managed to get everything in the car, and then Blinky and I drove home.

Some of you reading are wondering why this is such a big deal. Well, for those of you who don’t know about me and cars, here’s the deal. I don’t drive. I can drive, since I was 16, but I haven’t driven a lot since I got my license. Insurance in LA, where I grew up was $4000 a year, and my mom said no. I drove a lot on my learner’s permit, but then had to stop due to lack on insurnace. In Seattle I drove a bit, but the streets were really narrow, and people didn’t know how to drive at all! LA drivers are insane, but, like drivers in Montreal, they know what they’re doing. I never felt scared in LA. I did in Seattle. So, the fear developed. Then in Vancouver, I drove more because I had to be up at school really late at night and really early in the morning. Not so scary as in Seattle, but I had become accustomed to not driving. So here, I figured the best way to break out of the non-driving rut was to just drive! So, going to Finely Forest (which is only 10 minutes away) was the first step. Plus, as positive reinforcement, I got to buy something!

I’ve e-mailed someone “in Chapel Hill” who posted a nice wood coffee table on the local craigslist for only $10. We’ll see if Blinky and I get to drive somewhere new today!

It’s true! This morning I once again got to school around 5:00 am, and headed out to watch my feeders. From around 5:15 to about 5:45 it was still pretty dark. I could see the nearest feeder, and could make out the second nearest one with the flash light. No chance of seeing it or a bird on it without the light until after 5:45. Could hear birds, but nobody wanted any breakfast. Then, at 6:15, there was movement at the nearest feeder. Red! YEA!!!! Adult male house finch. Score! He ate a bit of seed, hopped onto a nearby branch, sang a bit, and then flew off. I was hoping his singing would lure in others, but no such luck. Then at around 6:45, when it was starting to get bright and I could make out the feeder that was further away, there was movement there too! Red again! I’m 90% sure it was a male house finch. Not sure if it was the same one as earlier. The other 10% goes to a female Cardinal. However, the bird looked pretty small. The light wasn’t so good, so can’t say for sure. I’m going back out at around 11 to see what I can see. Hopefully we’ll start trapping on either Monday or Tuesday.

Bite count so far today: 3 on fingers (total 25).

Blogged too soon: 7 bites today (4 on fingers, 3 on legs) [total 29]. So itchy…

So I guess long sleeve shirt with mosquito shirt works best. Had the hood up and zipped and my pants tucked into my socks. Looked like a dork, and today a police car drove by twice, and two guys walked by on their way to work. All in the name of SCIENCE!

I’ve decided to start a bug bite tally. I did this a couple years ago when I went to the Phillipines for 4 weeks . I think on that trip I got up to 50-something bites. Or maybe it was 80-something. Don’t remember. Anyways, that was in the “city.”

I’m definitely going to top that this summer.

Day 1 in “field”: 4 bites (2 feet, 2 wrist)

Day 2: 4 bites (1 hand, 3 arms) [total: 8 bites]

Day 3: 2 bites (2 arms) [total: 10]

Day 4: 12 bites (see previous post if interested in where) [total: 22]

And so it begins…

Yesterday I worked at home because most of the day was taken up by getting the car, going to the Department of Motor Vehicles and changing the title of the car, and going to the mechanics’ to get an estimate of how much it would be to do the “maintenance” stuff to the car. Adam, the lab’s tech, called in the afternoon and said that squirrels had chewed off the plastic bottom of one of the feeders (same location as the missing bottom). Time to retrofit all of the feeders with metal tops and bottoms. Live and learn. Damn squirrels!

Today was my first early “field” day. I woke up at 4:00 am, said goodbye to Greg, who left for Vancouver to move us in to our new place and to attend a meeting, and got to school by 5:00 am. It was still dark. Perfect lighting for watching what sorts of critters come to my feeders at sunrise. I got all of my gear, put on my Lee Valley bug shirt, and got to the place where my feeders were placed by 5:15. It was still dark enough that I had to use my trusty headlamp to find the trees that my feeders were hanging from.

Found the tree, no feeders. After about 15-30 minutes of crashing around in the dark, I located two of my feeders. The wires they were hanging from had snapped, and they were lying on the ground. Adam, the tech, had hung the third feeder, and while I thought I knew where it was, I wasn’t able to find it. I looked on the ground around where I thought it was in case its wires had also snapped, but found nothing. Screw it – it’s dead to me. So I propped up the two feeders I had on the ground and sat and watched to see whether anything would attempt to feed from them on the ground. By 6:45 there were only robins (who I don’t even think eat seed) and one male cardinal. Lesson #2 for the day, use rope instead of wire to hang the feeders.
By 7:00 I gave up. I packed up all of my stuff, including the 2 feeders and returned to the lab where I would fix those feeders as well as the 2 bottomless ones. Upon returning to the lab, I noticed that I was kind of itchy. Not poison ivy (thank goodness) but 12 bug bites (3 on legs, 1 on neck, 2 on fingers, 5 on arms, and 1 just above my left eyebrow). The ones on my legs, neck, fingers, and face were not covered by the $35 bug shirt I got from Lee Valley, but the 5 arms ones were!!! Lesson #3: try wearing long-sleeved shirt AND bug shirt and see what happens. Lesson #4: Bug shirts – too good to be true. OR I’m just
super attractive to biting insects. Either way, I’m itchy!!!!

Put rope onto two of the feeders and went back out with Adam around 8:30. Turns out I was looking in the wrong spot for the 3rd feeder. It was still up. Will see how long the wire lasts. Will bring more rope out tomorrow and fix it then. With my luck HOFI’s were probably swarming that feeder, and I didn’t even know it. Put the other two up. This is when I may have gotten the leg bites as I had changed to capris, and the bites are on the part of my legs that were exposed. My own fault.

So tomorrow I will try again to see hat is coming to my feeders. Hopefully we can start trying to trap next week. This weekend will be spent eating/drinking things out of cans so that I can collect enough to make tops and bottoms for all 5 feeders.

Otherwise, life is just dandy.