everyone is here!

Well OK, most have left by now, but all the PI's came at the beginning of the week to hold a couple days of big meetings and presentations and whatnot. Monday morning before the meetings started at noon, Candice and I went to finish netting at a site. We caught 10 birds! ... And one was a bunting. Damn bycatch. We had a towhee, a few warblers, a few sparrows, a wren, and a goldfinch. Most were somewhat annoying, but I kinda liked the goldfinch. Striking appearance, very cute, and he didn't struggle much. My favorite kind.

Then began the 1st annual Corridor Project meeting. Even though the project has been around over a decade. It started off with lots of people in the room while the big important PI's talked about the Corridor Project in general, and then people not on the project slowly left as the talks got more specific and didn't involve them anymore. Once just Corridor folks were left we circled up and began discussing some of the larger studies going on. Mostly plant stuff that didn't mean much to me since the only involvement I've had in them is the one day of watering I did. But I sat quietly, contributing nothing to the discussion, trying not to fall asleep, but also learning a bit, so the time wasn't an entire waste. I think that took the majority of the afternoon and then there was a BBQ at Lars's house. It was BYOBBQ so I brought eggplant. Yum! I stayed to long and regretted it when I had to get up earlier the next day.

Presentations were schedule to start at 8, but plants needed watering and birds needed catching. Candice and I were the only ones without watering cans I think. More bycatch, no buntings, so we took down the nets. We got back to station around 9, but we weren't too late comparatively. So we started down and alphabetical list of students/techs working on or wanting to start projects. It was mostly an informal, "here's what I'm doing or here's what I'm thinking about," that everyone else could give feedback and suggestions on. But we had a fancy shmancy powerpoint. Because Julian told us to. Or really, I made a powerpoint because Julian told me to. And I explained it to Candice. And we presented it and it went really well and got good feedback. Several suggestions weren't actually things we could do in our limited time period, but might make a good continuation project... Anyway, after the discussions were done, everyone went out to one of the sites to discuss a bit more, while Candice and I reasoned (slightly guiltily) that they didn't need us there, so we slipped out and went home.

Matt arrived home about when my tacos were done and informed me that everyone was going to the Pizza Joint. So we ate the tacos, planning not to eat pizza, but having that plan thwarted (it looked so delicious). I went to bed too late and then couldn't sleep because there was a crazy thunderstorm and I live in a trailer.

Wednesday was another bycatch day, but with slightly better ratios. 4 out of 14 were buntings. We quickly began setting up nets and Ipods and when I returned to check mine, 7 birds! One bunting, 4 brown birds (probably sparrows, phoebes, etc), a female cardinal, and a great crested flycatcher. The flycatcher was definitely the coolest out of the bunch, and rather snappish. In some of the other patches we caught a chat and some more nondescript brown birds and warblers.

Dr. Levey and Julian came out with us on Thursday to observe, help, experiment, advise, etc. We concentrated on two patches, moving nets around a bunch and trying new techniques, such as putting a male in a cage by the net to attract others. Not sure if this actually did anything or if the Ipod was responsible for the other birds caught. We now have a real taxidermied decoy, which also helps. Julian and Dr. Levey left around noon after discussing some specifics of the project with us, and Candice and I moved the nets to the next site.

Woo Friday! We managed to catch one bird in every patch, and we didn't really hear any more singing, but we didn't want to call the patch done in just a day, so we left the nets. But Julian decided we should just move on, so he offered to take down and move some nets this weekend while he's going to be working anyway. How nice. Candice wasn't too enthused, but I offered my help if he needed it, mostly so I wouldn't feel so guilty about the big favor he's doing, but also because I can't think of much else to do this weekend. I'll probably check out the gardens or something. We'll see. Time to wash dishes now.