nowhere to hide.

playing: songs from a ghost town by trampled by turtles

it's been a while since my last update. 

I’m at the lab right now with jake sleeping under my desk. Should be working on my bat conservation international proposal but ... a blogpost sounded better.

I had my last presentation for the semester on November 29^th:

Which built on this presentation the week previously, which was the history of my field before 1940 - dating all the way back to Aristotle in 350 BCE.

Current topics in my field of sociobiology without talking about bats. This was a really cool project and I got to learn cool things like warthogs live in complex fission-fusion societies, and despite the many similarities between badgers and martens, badgers are more social and this may be because they are chubbier and can go into torpor (short hibernation). 

I also had to write a paper for this project – only 8 pages, but had to be super comprehensive (I ended up having about 40 references); and then for another class an annotated bibliography for 30-50 journal articles. This caused a lot of stress and loss of sleep, but it’s all over and I did well.

Last week I went with a couple people from my lab to do field work. We went out to do hibernation site counts for three days – where you go in and basically count how many bats are present, which species are there and how much white nose fungus is around. I got to see my fifth nova scotia species of bat – a tricoloured bat – and so the only one I haven’t seen is the silver-haired bat. The first day we did one small abandoned mine by the bay of fundy, I was the safety person so I hung outside and walked along the ocean shore, it was beautiful. The next site was another abandoned mine, but this one took a lot longer (over 2 hours) and was neat because it was a site we had been visiting since May, so it was neat to finally see the inside. The numbers in both of these sites were down, especially the second one – from 1200 last year to about 400 this year. That’s ~65% decrease in numbers since white nose hit late last winter. The second day we went out to this huge cave which took about 4 hours – we counted about 16000 bats (same as the previous year) although the bats were often far away over a river or high up on the ceiling, making it nearly impossible to count accurately. It was super draining – but at the same time neat, because we had to get up at 5am to leave home by 6am, and then spend 4 hours being silent and concentrating on counting bats – it was a different head space to be in. After this we went to a small site of an old tiny cave which only took about 30 minutes – so a couple of us just stayed outside. It was quite beautiful, about a 20 minute hike into the woods. Last day we went out to an old gold mine by a lake. It was beautiful out – I hung out by the lake, wondered through the woods and then read a bit in the sunshine. Then I went in to count bats, and there were a lot – over 3000, but there was a lot of white nose present as well. 

I’ve been getting out a lot, music and stuff, and it’s been great. We had a couple friends over and played catan the other night, then went out to an open mic, and it was super fun. My roomie and I are getting along better than (ever) before, we’ve finally learned how to interact with each other and it’s great.

I’ve been swimming, and I’m kinda terrible at it. I just do the backcrawl because I hate putting my face in the water. I’ve been doing the aquasize class which is just like aerobics but in the water, and it’s really chill, relaxing, and super fun – end up laughing most of the time because balancing on a noodle or coordinating your arms and legs can be pretty hilarious.

Boardgames night tonight with laura and her friends, so it should be good times. Might go hiking on Saturday, or maybe paint because I haven’t done anything artistic in a long time.

I went to a friend’s poetry reading the other night and it was beautiful. 6 people read parts of their long poems and it was like going on a trip in their memories. I feel more inspired to write now. 

After having a super social week or two, I’m thinking I need some alone/reflective time. People are overwhelming most of the time, but I’ve learned that everyone is a tad bit awkward, and sometimes it’s okay for things to be awkward.

Realized that every cute person that I may be interested in consumes meat, and that sucks.

More bike rides will fix everything.

xx 

vegan

18-novemeber-12: life.

Update:Novemeber 10th - house show at our place.

it got pretty full.
nice to see people out supporting local music.
there was also some art up and a movie projecting on the wall.

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I had to present my annotated bibliography of my research - basically sum up 30-50 journal articles in 15 minutes...

it went well, I went really broad and didn't talk much about bats. from the feedback so far, people enjoyed it. who doesn't want to hear about the life of orcas and sperm whales, how they babysit and care for eachother's young. or how chimps have an awareness of another's perception on the world - and will give more alarm calls if there's danger and she thinks a comrade nearby is unaware.

off to food not bombs, after I read yet another journal article from the early 1900s. this never stops.
I've been looking up the history of my field and it's fucking horrific. the things they did to animals is disgusting. removing part of the brain to see if a dog can function without a cerebrum - and to make it live that way for 3 years. or to give electric shock to produce learned helplessness. but don't get me wrong, we still do terrible things to animals today - it's just more hush hush. go vegan already and stop buying products tested on animals.
xx

NASBR conference in Puerto Rico!

I recently went to Puerto Rico for a bat conference. This was my first time leaving the country. 

 day before I left: took jake and sydney to the park to play.
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Day 1:

 after a 5 hour flight, I was in the tropics - tons of palm trees!

 1 hour after the plane landed - I left on the bats and boas tour in the rain forest/old agriculture area.

 harp trap set up and ready to catch some bats!

 this is a hot cave - temperatures range from 30-40oC. there are about 3000 bats living here, from multiple species (we caught 6 species from here)!

 he's mad.  I am not sure which species this was..

sooty moustached bat!  (Pteronotus quadridens)

 Antillean Ghost-faced Bat (Mormoops blainvillii)! The ears are so big, that the eye is actually almost at the centre of the ear.

 and I got to hold the bats! woo!

 one of the boas (by the tree limb coming in from the bottom right) is eating a bat!

 this bat was very sweet! Brown Flower Bat (Erophylla sezekoni bombifrons)

antillean long-tongued bat (Monophyllus redmani) - smallest bat in puerto rico!

 coqui frog: these are one of the iconic animals from puerto rico - there are a few species and they have different calls, but all make a 'kookee' sound - and you can hear them in the forest and the city

 Winston, one of the researchers, teaching us how to sex a mormot species - the females and males can be hard to distinguish!

Antillean Fruit Bat (Brachyphylla cavernarum)

On the walk back to the research station:

tiny lizard!

cane toad! they are huge, I had no idea. They also have poisonous glands on their heads - apparently hippies used to lick them to get high.

this is a crown anole up in the canopy. generally anoles are characterized by being tiny, yet this one was probably a foot long.

This bat was caught in the 30 ft mist nets set up on the roof - these bats were foraging in the canopy, and are not found in the hot cave. Jamaican Fruit Bat (Artibeus jamaicensis)

The researcher told us we would never see this bat again - it's quite a rare catch. this is a Red Fruit Bat (Stenoderma rufum), which can be easily identified by the white patches on the shoulders.

crown anole again - they went and got him out of the tree..

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Day 2: exploring old san juan

above: old forts used to defend while it was still a spanish colony

tree by the water - amazing air roots. below: iguana! apparently they are introduced here and flourishing!

there are so many stray animals here - dogs and cats. it's really sad. this guy seemed to be living at the fort and was in good condition.

old cemetery - I think this had to do with the wars that occurred here over the years.

EVERY single property was fenced and there was often barbed wire along the tops of fences. even school yards, personal residences - everything.

the police station. there were police on every block in tourist areas

walking back - the bridge connecting old san juan (it's a small island) to the rest of puerto rico

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Day 3:

 

sail boat in the dungeon of a fort - thought to be drawn by a captain which was held there until he was hanged.

view from one of the look outs used to spot enemy ships coming in

another iguana! so many here

budgie like bird but wild? pretty darn cute.

this was in a art gallery - a stray cat nursing her kittens.

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Day 4: Ziplining in a second growth rain forest

climbed up a water fall

old coffee plants from when this area was farmed - roobios kind instead of the typical arabic grown on the island

many epiphytes!

mahogany tree I believe

plants with this leaf pattern are edible! many of the berries here are purple or blue, so you have to look at the leaves to see if they are edible.

flower of a ginger plant! very cool, these were everywhere since they used to farm ginger here.

ferns here can grow up to 30 feet high!

leaves with serrated edges - sometimes used by locals to put on fencing if they can't afford barbed wire.

african tulip tree? or something like that, it's invasive but has beautiful red flowers.

lemon.... can ID citrus trees because the leaves have tiny 'wings' before the leaf

witch plant ... antibiotic properties.

the man who owned the property where we ziplined - his house was basically open to outside, all you need  is a roof and you're set

banana tree!

he was a carpenter and built everything on site

these are the conditions the roosters are kept in - he breeds them for cockfighting because that's still legal in puerto rico - terrible to see.

religious figures all over properties - very large christian influence here

he had two jeeps - as most people here do. above is the one driven on sunday - it has a cooler in the back for alcohol

below is the saturday jeep - it has a chair in the back for children. saturday is family day here, whereas friday and sunday are party nights.

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Days 5-8

last night at the hotel. 3 days of lectures indoors and basically no sunshine. sweaters had to be worn because the air conditioning is always cranked.

I learned a lot, presented my poster, had some great feedback, met some batty people. even met other veggie folks to go find veggie food with! had lunch with a great prof, learned a lot about grad school. It was really amazing to see that there are other people out there that are so interested in bats - makes you excited to go do more research so you can share cool stuff with them!

great experience. the flight back - ah, there was uh... a hurricane in the way, delayed flights, missed connections, had to get out of philadelphia before the storm struck so ended up flying through toronto. made out better than others - some were 'stuck' in puerto rico for a few more days, but aside from the price, I wouldn't have complained too much, but I was way too excited to see jake.

"Not all who wander are lost" - Tolkien