Greg and Kat's blog

I’m currently experiencing my first “tropical depression.” It’s name is Alberto. Like everyone said, if hurricanes or tropical storms/depressions hit “the Triangle” it’s never really bad – just a lot of rain. So, it’s raining. It’s supposed to rain all day long. This means I can’t catch any birds again! Hopefully the birds I have will be okay. On the bright side, literally, Thursday through Sunday are supposed to be extremely hot and sunny. Yay! So I’ll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow with my traps ready.

Good news, I have HPLC peaks! I ran standards yesterday and they look good – I think. So now it’s just trying to separate them out a bit and make sure I know which peak is which. The bad news is everyone is leaving – the tech is off to his new job tomorrow, and the PI is going on vacation this afternoon. The good news is I think I now know what I’m doing and can probably keep myself busy fiddling with different standards until Monday when the PI gets back. Let’s just hope I don’t totally screw things up!

More good news: I found a bus that goes from school to the one real mall in Durham. Yay!!! So I’m going on Saturday. YAY!!!

For the last two nights there have been severe thunderstorms in the area. Came in to school yesterday, and found two of my juvies dead. I think they may not have known to get out of the rain and got water-logged as the rain here comes in pretty fast and hard (not like the Vancouver mist). Not really sure. They were all eating and drinking, so I don’t think it was that. Keeping a very close eye on the others. It’s supposed to rain all day today, so we can’t go out to catch. We could, but whenever it rains the night before, there never seems to be any birds around, so it’s not really worth it. Hopefully it’ll clear up this afternoon, and we can try catching then.

The starlings are all doing well. Half of them have started molting, so I’ve been “scoring” their progression through molt.

We have one of our quarterly animal care inspections tomorrow, so Adam and I will be cleaning out the starling room today and tomorrow morning. I’ve decided to clean the walls this time, and then hang white plastic garbage bags on the walls afterwards. That way we can just replace them whenever it gets too gross, and we don’t always have to scrub the walls, just the floor. Will try to remember to take pictures of the disgustingness.

I’ve finally uploaded some of the pictures of my feeders/traps and birds to Greg’s gallery. The first two (feeder and potter traps) are not in the correct orientation, but I don’t know how to fix it. Look at them side-ways.

I somehow managed to get a small bug bite on the small of my back sometime yesterday. Not sure how. Anyways, that brings the bite count to 30, I think.

Catching is going well. Not spectacular (not getting 20 birds a day or anything!), but we are getting at least 2 juvies a day. Yea! the birds in the aviary are attracting other birds to come in and visit, so the last 5 birds have been caught in Potter traps (think carrot under box propped up with a stick) that are hanging off of the HOFIs flight cages. We’re now up to 16 birds (8 males and 8 juvies).

On the other hand, HPLC training is not as happy. The guy I’m learning from is not a very good teacher. Yesterday he said “purge the system” and then left. Didn’t explain any of the 50 buttons on the “system” or anything! And, he knows I’ve never done HPLC because he lent me a intro book so I could understand the principles behind it. Yeesh! Luckily he has an ex-tech who set up the system that works down the hall now (until Wednesday). So, he was kind enough to actually “train” me on what buttons to what. Eep! So I have to try to learn everything I can by Wednesday, because the main guy is not so helpful. I guess that’s what happens when you have a tech for 20 years and never do any of the lab work yourself! I’m starting to think the main guy doesn’t actually know how the system works, so can’t teach me anything. We’ll see. At least this isn’t part of my project!

Strange when the “field” portion of my summer is going well, and the “lab” portion is not as good! Weird!

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.

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.

I’m beginning to hate squirrels. There are now 4 feeders up to attact HOFIs. There would have been 5, but the bottom of the only one that was up during the weekend “fell out” sometime between noon yesterday (when the tech saw it) and 9 am today.I’m not really sure how it came out as it was wedged in pretty good. Tried to find it in the pile of dead leaves and new growth (and possibly poison ivy, but only kicked around with my shoe) at the base of the tree. The bottom is gone. Probably carried away by one of the squirrels as a “take-out box” full of yummy seeds. Interestingly, there were no seeds on the ground (although the feeder was getting a little low anyways). So I now have to drink a liter of water in order to cut the bottom off of a water bottle to use as a base. All of the other bottoms are now zip-tied on. Damn squirrels.
Upon checking my potter traps today I came across a squirrel happily munching on seeds. Dammit! Those weren’t for you! Anyways, I’ve since taken the seed out of those traps (no need to waste seed feeding a fat squirrel). May put the seed back once I get more birds into the aviary that may attract more birds in. Not really sure yet.
Am now reading the most boring book ever – “Practical Liquid Chromatography”. I think I actually dozed off for a few seconds. Luckily I didn’t drool! I sure hope the technique is alot more exciting than reading about it is.

p.s. We have a lead on another car. It’s currently at the mechanic’s getting inspected. Trying not to get hopes up though – just in case. Greg said any mention of the car had to be in “p.s.” form so as to not jinx it.

Everywhere I look I now see House Finches (HOFIs). And today, I finally did it. I put up my first feeder in a wooded area. I’m a field biologist! Actually, I carried the feeder out and had the lab’s tech, Adam, put up the feeder. Ah, I love being a post-doc (being short doesn’t hurt as I couldn’t actually reach the branch that the feeder is on!).Hopefully it’s still there tomorrow morning.