Day 3

Not much happening today, didn’t start till 0800 today. got to work and organized my desk (somewhat) and then started reading papers. I jus have to say that now I don’t have the pressure of school and having time reading papers is rather enjoyable. I read three papers over egg contamination study looking at piping plovers, peregrine falcons and common loons. It got a little thick on the chemistry of the different contaminants but is was still a good paper. I also read some of another paper over brook trout. It was interesting. I have also found myself looking at the citations to see if there was any other good reading they pulled from. I think i am going over to the dark side…..j/k :D

Bruce and I went out one more time with the Fish guys Matt and Todd and went to swap out two receivers for an antenna  array that they designed and built to read PIT tags of the fish that they have marked. I got training on how to down load the information for the receivers and where the batteries were located to replace the current ones. we then ran back to the office and met with Tim and …forgot his name… to talk with a local land owner to see if he would grant permission to let these guys on his land to net for bats and band them. The land owner was very agreeable and said anytime, he then proceeded to tell us of the 89 little browns that were counted in his barn one year. I think we are planning on banding them one night for the land owner.

I found out today that my personal boots are NOT waterproof. it has been raining for the past three days and today was the worst. It was foggy, misty , soaking rain that permeated everything, it reminded  me a lot of the rainforest except for the cold ass temperature.

Finally we shot back over to HQ for one last meeting of the day with Sarah. She is a college student conducting a small research project with salamander sampling. she was at Acadia last fall with a class and saw how they sampled and wondered if there were a better way to conduct the samples less invasively. Current studies use cover boards that are expensive and inconvenient. Sarah asked if you could set a sample plot and walk the plot and find just as many salamanders then using cover boards. She will be writing the report over the summer and be in contact for revisions of her paper.

I have to admit it was rather interesting sitting on this side of the table while discussing a paper that I didn’t have to write. I suddenly had flash backs to Donna ans most of our conversations concerning any paper that i had written for her. It was funny. Thanks for teaching me so well Donna I thin you would have been proud.

Well that is all for today…

Tomorrow we are going to go for the Precipice Falcons if the weather gets nice. I will have to post a bout the weather some time it is really strange thing here.

Take care all.