First impressions of fieldwork

I spent the past summer in the remote field site of Middleton Island, Alaska. The season was three and a half months. I slept in a tent, there was no running water, limited Internet access, limited fresh food, worked long hours in all weather conditions, and honestly, it was the best three months of my life.

So as this was my first venture into field ecology, I wanted to share my overall thoughts and impressions for those wondering: is field biology really for me?

Things I thought that would be a challenge (but really weren’t)

Living without plumbing

My biggest fear going into this summer was living without running water. As a person that grew up in the city, daily showers were the baseline, and the thought of an outhouse made me squirm. But upon arriving to Middleton, I was surprised how easily I got used to living without running water. You actually don’t need to go to the washroom or shower as frequently as you think you do. And hygiene? Easily manageable with wet wipes and hand sanitizer, especially when you are living with 10 other people that are as equally as dirty as you. No judgement here.

Being constantly exposed to the elements

I was also really worried about spending all of my time outside. A 6 hour school day tires me out extensively, how will I ever manage to spend 8-10 hours in the field being battered by high winds and horizontal rain? This is the ultimate test, because if you truly love what you do, you will feel alive and excited every minute when you’re doing fieldwork, and time will pass relatively quickly. So really, for me it didn’t matter if I was covered in mud and soaked by the rain, being able to spend the day in a breeding colony of rhinoceros auklets was all the motivation I needed.

Being in an isolated/remote region

Doing fieldwork means that you will go to some far-out places. Sure that’s incredibly exciting, but being attached to your phone and social media is unfortunately the reality for most people (myself included). So to think I would be cut off from the rest of the world for three months was a bit scary. But once I got to the island, I became so preoccupied with my own research and also being in such an amazing place, the events of the outside world faded away. I no longer felt like I was obligated to be present in social media, and a burden was lifted and I could really focus on what I wanted and not what others thought of me.

Things that I realized were actually important

Having a positive attitude

Not gonna lie, it is tough to do fieldwork. Spending hours and hours down in the dirt and working in tough weather conditions is not everyone’s cup of tea. But there are two ways to approach this, either be really miserable and grumpy all the time, or see this as an opportunity to grow and become stronger by maintaining a positive attitude. By viewing the experience through a positive lens, its not only easier to get through the tough day to day things, but also allows you to grow as a person.

Teamwork

This is probably the most important thing in fieldwork. You are going to be stuck with a small group of people with little to no outside contact. If you don’t work well with these people, that small amount of space can be suffocating. If you do work well together, the field season can be a rewarding experience.  The support you give each other will get you through the daily grind, and everyday is a bag of laughs. In the end, we really become our own little family, and you walk away with some really meaningful friendships. Also, by working together, you can accomplish some amazing scientific work!

Communicate!

If you have an issue that you’re dealing with, talk about it! Working with a small group means that everyone needs to contribute their part for success. If one person lags behind, it could cause problems later down the road, so it’s important to talk about expectations and goals so that things can get done.

Being okay with things not reaching expectations

Fieldwork is unpredictable. You go in with a bunch of expectations (or not), and the result is something completely different. If you’re planning your own project, you are going to have some goals in mind when collecting your data. But these are wild animals, and they do whatever they want, even if that means messing up your experiment. Don’t freak out! Even if your investigation doesn’t go according to plan, take every mistake as a learning experience, as information that you can pass down to the next scientist so that the research can be more refined. There is only so much you can control.

Other notes:

Make sure you have the appropriate clothes for the climate.

You will be spending every minute outside, and you will be wearing pretty much the same clothes everyday. So to ensure that discomfort is minimized, dress for success! Bring raingear if rain is an everyday problem. Wear breathable quick-dry clothing if it’s hot out. You will be living in these clothes for the entire season, so choose wisely. Also wool socks are your best friend. I might do a packing list post in the future, so let me know if that is of interest.

So I hope that this was helpful. Basically, if you really love the outdoors and getting up close and personal with nature and its inhabitants, all of the hurdles will fade away and you will have a lot of fun (it’s mostly all in your mind anyways). So go on, give field biology a shot!

For Science!

If you hang around me a lot you know that I love using the phrase “FOR SCIENCE” as a way to explain why someone is doing something crazy to learn more about the world. But what does that actually mean? What is science?

Well Wikipedia defines science as:

Science (from Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.

This means that science builds the knowledge of the world around us. However, recently, there has been a lot of distrust around science, dismissing it as a set of theories with no real truth, or “fake facts”.

So how do you know that your heart is the organ that pumps blood around your body? How do you know that an apple falls from a tree because of the force of gravity? All these basic facts of our everyday lives exist because of science. This is generally accepted knowledge. So why are things like global warming, supported by scientific studies, so hard to accept?

I’m not sure if I can answer that (Maybe you can shed some light in the comments below). All that I know is that we must communicate our scientific discoveries to the public so that people may believe in science again and can band together to make a difference. FOR SCIENCE!

My inspiration for the post comes from this article here (a great read) and also the fact that today is the International Day of Women and Girls in Science (woot woot!). Check out some inspirational women in the link below.

http://www.exploringbytheseat.com/womensciex

Thanks for reading!

Why ethical owl photography is important

Owls are amazing.

Okay maybe I’m biased. Owls have been my favourite group of birds ever since I started birdwatching and I’m not really sure why. Maybe it’s because they have so much personality. Maybe it’s because they can fly using their powerful wings to hunt without making a single sound. Maybe it’s simply they are so difficult to see and so they represent the few pieces of untouched wilderness left in our world, encapsulating that wonder of nature.

My experience

I don’t think I’ll every forget my first encounter with a great grey owl. This was a species that I’ve missed time and time again. I had almost given up but during one of my summer trips, upon driving up a windy road in Central BC, an indescript shape came into view. As we got closer, the shape became clear. It was a few brief seconds, where its yellow eyes pierced into mine, before the owl flew soundlessly into the forest.

Unsurprisingly, owls are also a common favourite among bird enthusiasts. They are probably one of the most sought out birds in terms of photography. And that causes problems.

What is unethical photography?

There has been a lot of controversy over the topic of owl photography. Cameras are so accessible these days that almost everyone has one, and more and more people are trading in their binoculars for a fancy lens. Owl photos are so mesmerizing so when an owl is reported online through local birding networks, it is immediately swarmed by a mob of photographers hoping to get that perfect shot. For the most part, people respect the owl, but a select few decide to take matters into their own hands when the bird does not do what they want it to do. To get that eyes wide open shot, they play the call of the owl very loudly on constant repeat, hoping to get a reaction. If they want the bird to wake, they shake the branches of its roost. They even bait the owl with unnatural foods, in order to get that close up pic. This is unethical photography.

There are many documented instances by the birding community, where owls become dependent on humans for food when baiting gets out of hand. I’ve also heard owls that have died due to emaciation as they are unable to get enough rest during the day. However, from what I can find, there’s not a lot of scientific research that backs up the negative effects of unethical photography.

Conclusions are a bit of a mixed bag. Many studies have expressed concerns of human/recreational activity on owls, but none really investigating specific adverse effects. For example, by measuring the corticosterone (stress hormone) levels in owl feathers, scientists discovered that barn owls born near human disturbance were thinner because they were constantly stressed. But, it was also concluded long-eared owls, even when flushed, had low corticosterone levels. Even loud noises, like distant chainsaws, were generally ignored by roosting spotted owls. Only when the birds were handled or exposed to deafening chainsaws did the effects become negative, but this is usually beyond what photographers can do.

Conclusions

Even though there isn’t sound scientific evidence against unethical photography, something about it just feels wrong. When you play a call to wake up the owl or bait it so it flies right in front of you, you’re basically stringing the animal up as a puppet to perform a show for you. Photography is all about patience. I don’t think I will ever feel as complete as I did in those few moments of eye contact with that great grey owl. The photo I got definitely wasn’t award-winning, but that connection with something so wild was something that will resonate within me for a long time. By practicing unethical photography, that wildness, that magic, vanishes, and all that remains is a pretty picture. But nature is so much more than a pretty picture. Its the essence that causes us to reflect within ourselves, and if we continue to manipulate it for our own benefit, it may soon be gone forever.

Sources

Almasi B, Beziers P, Roulin A, Jenni L. 2015. Agricultural land use and human presence around breeding sites increase stress-hormone levels and decrease body mass in barn owl nestlings. Oecologia. 179(1):89-101.

Romero LM, Holt DW, Petersen JL. 2009. Flushing effects and seasonal changes on corticosterone levels in adult long-eared owls Asio otus. Ardea. 97(4):603-608.

Tempel DJ, Gutierrez RJ. 2003. Fecal corticosterone levels in California spotted owls exposed to low-intensity chainsaw sound. Wildlife Society Bulletin. 31(3):698-702.

 

Is environmental conservation selfish?

Just some food for thought.

I watched the documentary Racing Extinction yesterday and it got me thinking: is the work of environmental conservation selfish?

The film pushes the idea that we need to preserve these beautiful creatures so that our future generations can see them, that it is possible for the human race to coexist with life on Earth without destroying it. But honestly? Wouldn’t life get along just fine without humans running about the planet?

Life is incredibly resilient. It first evolved from a very inhospitable place, where the atmosphere had very little oxygen and the UV rays from the Sun was burning up the earth’s surface. So if we manage to blow up the planet, a few select species would probably survive and evolve into new forms of life that we could never imagine. If we end up demolishing one planet, the universe will go on just fine without us. We often inflate our self-importance, but if the history of the universe was on a 24 hour clock, we would exist only for 2 seconds before midnight. We are just a wink in time and in the grand scheme of things, our actions mean absolutely nothing.

So are we just trying to preserve the Earth so that the human race can endure? Is conservation merely in the interest of saving our own skins? I think there’s more to the equation.

This sixth mass extinction is solely propagated by human activity, so we and we alone are destroying and killing all of the biodiversity on Earth just by doing the small everyday things. That’s pretty scary. So I think that despite being egotistical, humans have something inside them that makes them beautiful, and that is compassion. We see these animals in distress and we can’t help but save them. We see the horrific present that we have created and we want to make a difference. So if we push aside greed, arrogance, and start seeing and hearing the natural world around us and let compassion into our hearts, maybe, just maybe, the human race is worth saving.

Year of the Bird

2018 is the Year of the Bird. No, not according to the lunar calendar. 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which protects millions of migratory birds and is a major milestone in bird conservation. To celebrate, Audubon, National Geographic, Cornell Lab of Ornithology, and Birdlife International have teamed together to raise awareness for why birds are so important by creating various magazine articles, social media posts, television series, etc so that we can continue to protect and conserve birds as more and more species are being pushed to the brink.

What does this mean to me? Or I guess more importantly, what does this mean to you?

Well first of all I’m ecstatic that bird conservation is now in the spotlight. When was the moment I first fell in love with birds? I couldn’t pick a specific moment. For me, this infatuation was not sudden but more gradual. I first saw unfamiliar subjects in my viewfinder, then bit by bit, I learned and saw their individual personalities. You could say that I fell in love with the short-eared owl when it glided by me soundlessly on that December morning, its yellow eyes piercing into mine. You could say I fell in love with the black-capped chickadee when it asked me for more sunflower seeds with an inquisitive chick-a-dee-dee-dee. You could say I fell in love with dunlins as their plump little bodies ran along the mudflats and took to the air, forming mesmerizing murmurations. By getting out there and experiencing intimate interactions, I fell in love.

Birds have captured my heart, and I hope that they will capture yours too. 2018 marks a year of learning, learning of how these feathered friends contribute to our daily lives, and you can take this opportunity to step into the fascinating world of ornithology (trust me, you won’t regret it). If you want to learn more and make a difference, sign up for a free newsletter with any of the organizations I mentioned above and each month, they will send you information on a “small but meaningful action” that you can take to help birds.

Check it out here: https://www.nationalgeographic.org/projects/year-of-the-bird/

Just for fun, here are some cool bird facts (from various sources):

The Bee Hummingbird is the smallest living bird in the world, it is only 5 cm (2 in) long! (about the size of a bumblebee, hence its common name)

The Arctic Tern has the longest migration of any bird, travelling from its wintering grounds, the Antarctic, to the Arctic to breed every year.

Owls can rotate their heads 270 degrees in either direction

Birds are believed to be very closely related to dinosaurs, as they share similar features in their skeletons, so birds are basically modern dinosaurs.

Corvids, like ravens and crows, have proportionally bigger brains to their bodies. In contrast, fowl like pheasants, chickens, and grouse have proportionally smaller brains.

 

Happy weekend! Get out there and explore

What I am so afraid of?

For my entire life (granted is not very long, I’m only 19), I’ve always taken the safer path. I’m not one to take risks. Sure I love going on adventures, but I’m always sure to be prepared for anything that goes wrong. Looking back, it seems I’ve approached my life choices the same way.

During my childhood, I was captivated by the vibrant pages of National Geographic and by the age of 11, I vowed to become one of their photographers. I took my parents’ camera and took pictures of everything and anything, hoping that it would take me to that goal.

As I got older, I was influenced by the opinion of many saying that photography was incredibly competitive and was not a viable career. The reality of my childhood dream, it seems, are slim, so I turned towards the sciences, a much more traditional and safe option. Don’t get me wrong, I love science. I love learning about how things worked, and that took me to university to study environmental sciences.

However, before the start of my freshman year, I had the honour to be selected for a scholarship program for nature photography. I applied thinking that I wouldn’t get in, as the program was competitive. To my surprise, I was invited to attend. There, I met many young like-minded people and well as talented instructors in the field. We spent the entire week taking photos and learning to tell stories through our images, creating our own story by the end of the week. This was so much fun and was the best time of my life because I just felt so at home and everything made sense.

After the week was over, the rest of the summer dawdled by and September crept up on me. I expected that with my love for science, university should have been similar to my experience at this camp, where I find where I’m supposed to be. But as the semester drew on, I couldn’t help but feel more and more lost. Even though my major was incredible and I learned about all of the cool things in this world, from ornithology to the geology to wildlife conservation, something was off.

Recently, I watched the documentary Chasing Coral (if you haven’t watched it I highly recommend). The movie follows the journey of a team’s efforts to bring awareness to coral bleaching. As more characters became introduced in the film, I realized that I didn’t see myself in the scientists, but in the creators of the documentary and the photographers. I realized what I really wanted to do was learn about new things and use that information to create a story that captivate the mind and inspire change. I realized why that scholarship program was so enthralling. As much as I want to love research and academics, its not who I am. I have a brain of a scientist, but my heart belongs to art. The need to create and communicate stories of nature and conservation like National Geographic photographers calls to me, bringing me back to square one. The truth is, no matter how far I deviate from my dream, no matter how much I would like to take the safer career path, I am always drawn back because this, I now believe, is what I am meant to do. Storytelling is something that comes so naturally to me, so why am I not chasing my dream? What I am so afraid of?

This I guess is why I’ve created this blog. No more safety, I am now following my heart and taking the plunge. This is my creative outlet, but also a way to develop my writing skills for science communication. This blog will probably be a hodgepodge of opinion/life pieces (like this one), posts on research I find interesting, and conservation stories. Of course I will try to incorporate my photography into this blog as well.

That’s about it. Thank you for reading and I would love for you to follow along on this journey! Who knows where it will take me?