Greg and Kat's blog

I’m extremely jealous of Greg getting to go home. I’m actually extremely jealous that Greg gets to pack up our place (you all should know about my love of putting things into boxes and containers by now!). I’m sure Greg isn’t thrilled about packing, though. Kinda funny how that works out. Too bad I can’t somehow catch birds here and still go home in June. For anyone that ends up helping Greg pack, make sure he doesn’t toss any of my stuff!!!! If the banister rails were still there, then yes, he could have tossed those, but luckily I got rid of those already! Now I’m down to the stuff I really want, so nothing goes!

I’m on the road to start catching birds. Tonight I’m going to try to find natural colored rope (as opposed to the fluorescent blue stuff we have now). Then tomorrow I’m going to come in early, set my traps, and cross my fingers! Anyone know if a squirrel can fit into a Potter trap? That’s my one fear now – squirrels getting into my trap and eating my birds. However, Dana said that the only squirrel that got in to one of their traps came in through the top. So, I have to make sure that’s totally secure. I think their heads are too big to fit into the funnel parts. I think!

We’re also attempting to buy a car. It’s just another process that is slowly driving Greg insane. All of the cars are either bought by the time we call (which is usually on the same day the ads were posted) or bought before we’ve had time to see the car. So, Greg is slowly developing an anurism while I’m worrying that I’ll be left here alone and stranded without a vehicle. I guess I still have my bike, but I’ve got a couple of late nights in the next couple of weeks (HPLC optimization) so I’d rather drive home than try to bike home if it’s starting to get dark. So, cross you fingers and do a little car dance for us!

I just took a 2 hour walk around the UNC Campus.

I walked by the gym, through the campus cemetary (will take pictures on the next excursion, I promise!), around the cemetary, to Battle Park (a wooded park managed by the UNC Botanical Gardens), and through what is called “Forest Theater”, which is a stone amphitheater set in the woods that I think is included in Battle Park. I saw lots of cardinals (yes, Oli, I will take pictures next time!), starlings, robins, Eastern bluebirds, some sort of wren, Carolina, probably, the local thrasher (don’t remember which one that is at the moment), brown, maybe, northern mockingbirds, what I think was a red-headed woodpecker, a female eastern rufous-sided towhee, and … wait for it… HOUSE FINCHES!!!! They exist!!! I spotted a pair flying from out of a shrub into a tree at the edge of the cemetary. Then I saw about 4 more males and two more females hopping around in the grass and around headstones in the cemetary. On my walk back I cut through the woods near the university’s stadium and saw another pair. The stadium is pretty much right next to the Biology buildings! Yippee!

On another positive note, I got clearance from the director of the university’s grounds department to hang feeders and traps in the wooded areas. I just have to tell them where the feeders will be, they draw them on some map, and then present that to the groundskeeping guys so they don’t disturb them, or so that they can inform me when they have to do maintenance nearby. This is great!

So, I think I’ll be hanging some feeders on Monday. Have to still contact the grounds guys, so I think this weekend may be out of the question, but we’ll see how fast they get back to me.

Now all I need is a car so I can get here after dusk and before sunrise!

That’s what I hope my birds will be soon. Since I haven’t seen a bird in any of my traps, I decided to make new ones. Funnel traps, they’re called. I got specs from Dana, but didn’t have any materials.

So, off to the hardware store. Had to have greg help with this one as I wasn’t totally sure how to go about building these things. I had Greg meet me at the hardware store. He travelled by bike, me by bus. The local hardware store is great! They had everything and had very helpful people. We also went to the grocery store to pick up sunflower seeds (a 10 lb. bag). After making our purchases, we had to somehow get them to school. Since greg had his bike, we piled the seed bag over the middle bar, and greg balanced the roll of chicken wire between the handle bars, and off we went – walking along the bike trail to school. It wasn’t actually that far, and the weather was nice today, so it wasn’t too bad. For pictures see the gallery.

The build started out with paper models (so as to not waste the precious chicken wire). And, by the end we ended up with two funnel traps complete with 4 doors each! Not bad for an afternoon’s work.

We finally left school around 7:00. I realised I had been at school for over 12 hours. Can’t complain though. Spent most of the morning blogging as I was waiting to see whether any birds would use my old traps. They didn’t. Now I get to sleep in tomorrow! Yippee!

Treated Greg to Japanese dinner for all of his help. “Treated” is funny because I haven’t gotten paid yet, and Greg actually paid my last credit card bill! Hee! Hee! Anyways, there’s a nice sushi place just down the road from the apartment! We braved the sushi combo, and it wasn’t bad. Will update tomorrow if badness kicks in tonight!

I’m trying but nothing is going in the traps! Not even sparrows! Dammit!

I think I have three problems:

1) Non-ideal location in our aviary: I think I have to catch somewhere else on campus (but I’m not sure I can do this – have to wait for Keith to get back), or go to Keith’s backyard and set up there.

2) Non-ideal seed: I need to get sunflower seeds.

3) Non-ideal traps: I need to make feeders and funnel traps. Thanks to Dana I’ve got specs and am ready to start constructing.

On the bright side, my starlings are doing fine. I guess worse-case senario, I catch juvenile starlings and work on them… that’s a pretty bad senario though. Not giving up yet!

Everyone cross your fingers and do a little HOFI dance for me! Dance people, dance!!!!

After two days of being in captivitiy (not even 48 hours – more like 36 hours) I had to change the paper in the cages! So, I think the schedule will be to change the paper Monday and Friday, and maybe Wednesday depending on how gross it gets. Luckily I’ll have a recently graduated undergrad tech for the summer to help me.

Also luck for me, Keith cleaned out the starling pens in the aviary, so I didn’t have to. So now the aviary is ready for my House Finches. Not that there are any yet. Maybe this weekend. Going out to buy seed to put in the Potter traps.

Other than that, nothing really new. Have Vonage now, so feel free to call! Just remember, we’re 3 hours ahead!!!

So yesterday (Wednesday) was my first real full day in the lab. Got in early (before 9:00!) so I could set up my computer (have to register the ethernet card number) and complete the online animal care course (I passed!) so I could at least touch a bird. Right afterwards, the fun started. I moved the 26 starlings (23 males, 3 females) indoors. Keith took some pictures which I’ll try to get from him asap. He just got a new camera, so he’s pretty happy. I think up until now he may have been a little wary of taking me on as a post-doc as I hadn’t really done anything yet. But, when he came in to the aviary, I was in the thick of it (literally – there was crap everywhere!). I had just caught a bird and was about to band it, so there’s a picture of me holding a female with shit on my face. Ah the joys of starlings. I was able to catch all of them in about 2 hours with another hour to fill up water and roll the cart back and forth between the aviary and the animal trailer.

Had a meeting with Keith and Richard Mailman, a prof doing neuroscience research in the med school. He’s going to teach me how to run HPLC. I think Keith was a little worried because this meeting was scheduled for late afternoon, after I was catching starlings. But, little does he know I clean up fast and well. As if I would show up at a meeting with crap on my face. Hello, princess!!!

So, all went well with my first foray into starling work. I only have a few small cuts on my hands from their claws. Hopefully they’re all okay. Going to check on them now. Forgot my camera, but maybe Greg will bring it in this aft, and I can take a 24-hour picture to show how gross is it (I’m scared!).