my whole week, hopefully condensed into a reasonable length

So here's an abbreviated update of my last week or so. I may post additions later or something...

Saturday:
Matt and I wanted to go climbing in North Carolina for the day, but the forecast called for rain in the afternoon. So we went to the climbing gym in Columbia instead. It was probably better for me that way anyway, because I'm soooo out of shape climbing-wise. My hands and arms were like "Heeey Camille, you know we haven't climbed in a year and a half, right? Yea, just thought we'd let you know, hence the weakness and pain." They continued to tell me this for the next few days. But I'll show them. I'll go back to that gym soon, or maybe even to North Carolina or someplace cool, and I'll open up a can of pwnage on those walls that were kicking my butt. That'll teach those arms.

Sunday: Matt had previously found a local organic grocery store downtown so we went there to shop. It was pretty cool, some things cheap and some things ridiculous, like the dairy section. I liked how they had all the grains, granola, dried fruit, etc in barrels or sacks with a big scooper. It looked old-fashioned or something. I was sadly disappointed with their blueberry granola, however. It wasn't crunchy and it just didn't taste as good as the stuff Beck and I would get at Ward's in Gainesville. I'll probably go back to Old Aiken Market, but my overall impression was that I still haven't found a store as cool as Ward's.

I also played ultimate Sunday, which was pretty fun. A decent 5 on 5 game, though some of the playing was pretty unimpressive. I wasn't terribly impressive myself, either, as I discovered running used (and hurt) muscles I never associated with running. My throwing was also affected by my still weak arms. But I'll try to redeem myself next Sunday.

Monday: Candice and I made the mistake of trusting the weather forecast, so we got to work later than usual, without realizing that Julian was planning to meet us at the usual 5:30 time. So he had already been in the field a while when we got there and we felt really guilty. We also only caught one bird, despite spending the rest of the morning moving nets and Ipods around. Then I honestly can't remember what happened because I think I'm blurring Monday and Tuesday together.

So I'm gonna throw in Tuesday now and hope it's about right: Eventually, with a total of 2 buntings in 4? days, we just decided we were sick of site 52, so then we had to take allll the nets down that we had worked so hard to put up in the rock hard soil. Then we moved all 8 of them (Dr. Levey mailed more) to the next site down the road. After the 6th, we decided that a 12-hour day was a bit too much, and left the last 2 nets for the next morning. I could hardly stay awake to put my feet in a bucket of ice water.

Wednesday: A record success day! 8 Indigo Buntings! 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8! It was ridiculous. I set an Ipod in patch A, while Julian and Candice did the same in B and D, and then we planned to meet in Patch C to set up a net. I turned around, walked to the matrix, looked back at the net, and a male had just hopped right in. So I took him out, hung him in a pillowcase, and went to patch C. When I returned to A, a female had been caught, and while I was getting her out, Candice appears from the corridor to tell me she has 3 in her net. I radio Julian and tell him to go help her. I get my girl in a pillowcase and and discover there's now another male in my net. Finally I've got 3 flapping pillowcases hanging from a tree, as does Candice, and somewhere in the meantime, Julian had caught one in D and another in C. Patch A actually had 5 birds, but 2 were bycatches, a prairie warbler and something else. Patch E had a yellow-breasted chat bycatch.

Anyway, we eventually got to processing the buntings. One in A already had bands from a different study, including a pretty silver Forest Service band with numbers on it. Bird bling, essentially. We didn't have to bother putting our own bands on it. After A, we went to B and in our hurry, Candice and I stepped within about a foot of a snake! Luckily not a venomous one - we're pretty sure it was a coachwhip, and Caleb, who knows a ton about herps, agreed - but it was somewhat defensive. It had a hole/burrow nearby, and it probably smelled the birds in pillowcases. It was also about to molt. We kept an eye on it while we processed.

Julian left for something else, Candice and I finished processing, we took down the nets from A and B, and we drove to the next site to put them up. The end.

Thursday: One bunting in C. Male and female cardinal bycatches in D. Too damn many horseflies. If someone was watching us who wasn't aware of how annoying they are, they'd probably think we had Tourette's. Seriously, we must look ridiculous cursing and flailing and slapping ourselves. Anywho, we took down the rest of the nets and put them up at the next site.

Friday: This was a good and bad day as far as buntings go. We set up in A, C, and D, then met at E to put up another net. Upon returning to D, I had 3 males. And no one to help me. But I got them all out pretty fast, hung them up, and went to check on Candice. In the time it had taken me to get 3 out, she had gotten one and was just starting on a prairie warbler bycatch. After that, all we got was another warbler, so we started processing and took down the nets in D. Brenda, who was watering, radioed me to check C. I got excited and thought we had another. We did, but here's the bad part of the day: she was dead. We shouldn't have left the net up when it was that hot unless we were constantly watching it. She probably died from the heat, or perhaps strangulation. We named her Deddy (Dead-y, I thought of it) and buried her.

We decided it was lunch time and meanwhile Julian had arrived to do ant stuff. I think almost everyone on the project was in that one site: Me, Candice, Julian, Lars, Brenda, Nash, Becky, Lauren, Nadia. Only Matt, Melissa, Caleb, and Dirk were missing. Feeling guilty, we told Julian about Deddy. He asked where she was so we could pluck her feathers and put them on a decoy. Oops. Didn't think about that. I would've felt wrong desecrating her dead body anyway, since I felt partially at fault for her death. Rest in peace, Deddy.

Candice came home with me to get ready for the potluck that night, where we were supposed to dress up like our radio call-in name. I'm Mike, she's Tango, needless to say her outfit (which was actually mine) was way better. I tried to pass off as a microphone by wearing all black and a black hat. Didn't work that well. But the potluck was fun, especially when 13Kilo came looking like a drug dealer. 13Alpha had helium nuclei (alpha particles) all over his shirt (super nerd), 13Charlie looked like a classic hick, 2Golf and 13Golf looked spectacular, and 13Hotel was in a short pink bathrobe under which he wasn't wearing much else. Other people were boring and not dressed up, but it was a delicious and fun party.

Saturday: I was bored all day and did virtually nothing. Finally I decided to go to a show at the USCA planetarium. I learned how to find constellations, nebulae, double stars, and a few other things, most of which I forgot. But I was reasonably entertained, and at some parts, totally entranced like a little kid. Space is pretty sweet. After the show we went up to the telescope and the fat guy up there showed us some stuff. Unfortunately the heat and the light made some things hard to see, but I had never looked through a telescope like this before. The moon was pretty cool up close, and it was pretty sweet to see the different colors of the double stars of Alberio (one is blue and the other is yellow). The best sight was definitely Saturn because you could actually see the rings! It looked like a tiny photograph, minus the colors because it's so far away. But I could see 4 moons and even the shadow the rings make on the planet. I'm definitely going back there, maybe next month to see some more stuff, and maybe the trippy laser show.

Sunday: Equally boring. I washed dishes and wasted time on the computer while I should have been working on my presentation for tomorrow. It's almost done, just needs a little extra. The only exciting thing was talking to Beck when he got back from his weekend in Amsterdam. I can't wait to go. I'm not even sure if I'll play ultimate today, as it's 100 degrees outside. I'm not lying. 100 degrees. Blah. Time to waste more time.