Thursday, February 27, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Coffee blooms and boot scorpions
Greetings from Chiapas! We are wrapping up our third of five sampling sessions. More than halfway through the field portion of the study, hard to believe! Although tired and having a rough week with insect bites and stings, our collective will is as steely as our new and improved leg muscles.
Coffee blooms for only a few days in a season, once or twice a year. Luckily, I was here to see the mountains erupt into bloom this week. Each breeze brings the scent of the blossoms, which smell fantastic-- very similar to lilacs. That each coffee plant is covered in blooms also makes it a challenge to find the flagging marking our traps! Our "bajo" site in particular is like the Bermuda Triangle; although set up in a typical 5x5 grid, it takes even the most familiar person a few minutes extra to find their traps to check or rebait.
The first day of coffee blooming was quiet, but by the second day, the fields were literally buzzing with honeybees, small through massive bumblebees, and a variety of other pollinators. Although disconcerting in its volume and intensity, the buzzing hopefully implies both a healthy bee population and a healthy coffee crop next year.
The Mexican word for popped popcorn is 'palmonitas,' literally "little doves." I like that a lot, though I was unsure as to how to describe the actual tiny doves browsing by our road a few mornings ago.
This morning, Mandi stopped to shake some gravel out of her boot, only to shake out a scorpion! She had shaken out her boots as normal before putting them on, but apparently to no avail! Luckily she escaped without a sting, and the scorpion escaped without a smash and scuttled off into the garden. It was almost as big as the scorpion which lives in the pipes of our bathroom sink, who I have dubbed The Basilisk Scorpion.
We closed one of our sites this morning, saying goodbye to our regular captures. Some mice come back every day, which implies that they find the bait more rewarding than our probing to be traumatizing. I get to know these regulars pretty well. Farewell to Sam and Juvie the Heteromys, BlueBalls the Marmosa, and Excessively Pregnant the Handleyomys! Good luck with your delivery, and please may it be soon.
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Someone doesn't understand human nature at all...
... Or else wants to unleash some chaos.
Image depicts sign: "NO TOCAR" ("DO NOT TOUCH.") Sign appears above large, highly visible, bright red button.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Useful Spanish Phrases, volume 2
Pa'same la salsa de soya, por favor.
(Please pass the soy sauce.)
Hay un correo acerca de aqui?
(Is there a post office nearby?)
Lleno, por favor.
(Fill it up, please.)
Dios mio, quien se tiero un pedo? Fue Tim?
(My god, who farted? Was it Tim?)
*Note that my electronic device refuses to let me use correct accents over letters. Pronounce with caution.
Monday, February 10, 2014
Useful Spanish Phrases, volume 1
Mande? / Como?
(What? or Huh?, if you did not hear or understand)
Que hay para la cena?
(What's for dinner?)
Por favor, traeme un limo'n verde para el guacamole.
(Please bring me a lime for the guacamole.)
Hay un alacra'n en mi ropa sucia.
(There is a scorpion in my dirty laundry.)
*Note that my electronic device refuses to let me use correct accents over letters. Pronounce with caution.
Saturday, February 8, 2014
A Day in the Life of a Mammal Survey Research Technician
This loose amalgam of a week is pretty representative of an average day, though a truly typical day sure hasn't happened yet.
5:30 - Wake up, wake roommate with poetry (optional), apply sunscreen, check field equipment, breakfast of: oats and yogurt, banana and/or peanut butter and/or milk and/or cinnamon; coffee.
6:15 - Sunrise, bird chorus begins. Last gear check, groups meet on the porch and put on boots, check radios.
6:30 - Two groups leave for different field sites, sometimes via car, mostly via feet. Roads in this rural area are a mix of cobbles, dirt, and a sprinkling of concrete or tarmac, so driving is only marginally faster than hiking, albeit much cooler. Smile and say buenos dias to everyone you pass, mostly coffee pickers and road workers working much longer days than you.
7:00 - Begin checking traps for mammals. One team member is in charge of handling (holding the animal), the other processing (weighing; recording notes; measuring lengths of body, tail, ear, and hind foot; swabbing mouth for DNA; tagging ear with ID number; and taking lots of photos). If at site 13, my favorite, do try not to fall down the mountain: channel your inner mountain goat and dash across the steep sandy rows of coffee.
10:00 - Complete checking traps. Everyone is famished. Second breakfast time! 1-2 peanut butter sandwiches and a boiled egg with crackers per person is typical. Check in with the group at the other site by radio, compare captures and give brief highlights of cool or unusual stuff caught.
10:30 - Time either for veg analysis, or a brief veg out. Each site has an array of vegetation info to be collected, from IDing all the trees to counting the heights of vegetation intersecting a transect line to measuring and photographing the coffee plants. If finished with all our analyses and have no miscellaneous projects to work on, find a shady trail and read, chat, or play cards.
13:00 or later - Begin baiting the traps, using a special mix of wetted dog food, vanilla, oats, and peanut butter. A small thumbnail-sized ball should do it. Firmly tapping the top of the trap should trigger the door to close; do this to make sure the sensitivity is right. Don't forget to bait the camera traps and switch out the ID cards!
15:00 - Head back to base. Some days end earlier, some later (if we are driving to the city for groceries, we will wrap up in the late morning; a full day of veg analysis with lots of captures will add on a couple hours). Take of the grungiest of your field gear off outside, leave equipment trash in the specified baggies outside the house, unpack the rest of your gear, shower, and meet everyone in the kitchen for a much-desired snack. Afternoon tasks are rotated, and include equipment-checking, data entry, sorting camera trap results, and bait making. Everyone works on IDing species and sorting through photos. Side tasks like dance parties, letter-writing, Spanish lessons, and recreational food preparation are strongly encouraged.
17:30 - Dinner prep begins, directed by the master chef of the day, who is assisted by one to all of the hungry crew.
18:30 - Dinner time! Favorite dishes so far include lentil and black bean burgers, peanut noodles, beans and rice with tortillas and fried eggs, pasta primavera, and veggie bread pudding.
19:00 - Rotating dish-cleaning duties, finish up daily jobs. After, we will often play cards, watch a movie, or just hang out and have a reading party before bed.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Opportunistic Nonmammal Observations
Nonstudy species captured so far:
- Muchos muchos hormigas (ants), divided into three nontaxonomic categories:
a) Sugar ants -- these tiny guys mob the bait balls and suck out all the moisture, leaving only dust and peanuts. Pleasantly harmless.
b) Small ants -- these jerks mob the bait and then bite you when you check the Sherman traps. They will run around between bites, employing a scatter technique to achieve maximum surprise and irritation.
c) Big scary ants -- I haven't had the chance to compare bites between these guys and the small ants, but considering their mandibles, I don't particularly want to. Well, I kind of do, for science, but I'm not looking forward to it.
- Crickets
- Wolf Spiders
- Lizards. The guys love eating all the ants that love the sandy soil of intensive coffee farms, and will follow them into the Sherman traps and scare the bajeezus out of biologists by suddenly flailing, surging out of invisibility from under the floor panel of the traps, or just leaping at their faces. It seems like they need to be medium-sized to trigger the trap doors, so our accidental captures have averaged ~20 cm long.
- Small birds, only one caught so far. Zoomed out seeming no worse for the wear of being caught for a few hours between trap checking and baiting.
On camera traps: dogs, plantation workers, many sassy sassy birds (the larks seem to like to pose and are always coming back for more), and an abundance of candids of techs wandering around looking for the camouflaged little buggers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)