Some say cleanliness is next to godliness... but as you know, Marin Catholic didn't do much to instill a strong desire in me to reach godliness. Don't get me wrong, I'm still showering almost everyday, but jumping under a weak stream of chilly water doesn't warm me up after a day of strong winds in the field. In fact, I'd be perfectly fine with skipping a day (or two) without a shower... but I haven't crumbled to that point yet. Ben can somehow get hot water in his shower and only ONCE didn't have a steamy shower. I think that may have coincided with my only shower that was warm, and how I did savor it!
Gladis took our clothes to the laundry last week, but there were a few problems with it. One, I didn't get my only towel back until the following day. (I took a shower and dried off with my tanktop... That still counts as cleaning up even if the shirt was dirty, right? It's the thought that counts.) Two, my clothes were mixed up in Savina's (Gladis's daughter, both of whom are STILL living with us). And three, I thought I lost my laundry bag (aka sleeping bag stuff sack) for good as it didn't come back until several days later. Therefore I've resolved not to send my laundry out to get it clean. However, I've also built up a Pavlovian dislike of the shower/tub where I'll need to handwash my clothes.
I'm doing fieldwork so I wear my waterproof pants every day. Those I can probably just rinse off in the shower once the caked mud starts to bother me. (It hasn't yet.) My tops could now probably use a wash as I think I've worn them all at least twice. Mind you, I didn't bring much down here! But really, I work in a pasture covered in cow patties and dead creatures of every make and model. I still smell better than all of that, so does it really matter if my clothes are clean? I think not.
On another note, I must mention a bit about the driving here. Have you ever seen a couple of kids find a new board game without the directions? They can figure out that they need to roll the dice, but they just don't know any of the rules that make the game more interesting. Well, interesting basically describes the driving here, so maybe that's not the best analogy. It just seems as though the automobile made it down to this part of South America without the DMV to make sure cars are used properly. There are plenty of cars on the roads here, yet in every intersection in Santa Fe, there are no stoplights. (Only once you get towards the "freeway-ish" road are there lights.) Okay, so there are towns in the States that don't have stoplights, but this is a city of half a million people! ANNNND to make matters even more interesting, there aren't even any stopsigns!!! Yes, that's right, I keep my eyes closed at every intersection just hoping that there isn't another car coming the other direction.
But then again, Ben and I noticed that there weren't any cars that had dents and dings as you might imagine from the inevitable crashes. We asked Martin about this one day on our way to the field. He assured us that people here certainly do get in accidents, its just that when they do, the cars are totaled. When they crash, they realllly crash. Oh that makes me feel better. So why aren't there any seatbelts in any of the taxi's??? I'll just keep my eyes closed some more.
As far as birding goes, we have about 20 nests with complete clutches (aka the swallow is done laying her eggs), then we have about another 20 that are either making nests or almost done laying their eggs. We've also found a nest made by an oven bird that looks like a swallow (though not our species) might be using. I think I'll try climbing up into the try and peak inside with my fiber optic spy camera. (Okay, so there's no camera attached to it, but it is still pretty cool.) I'm thinking I'll need to wait for a warmer day again before I can be limber enough to make the climb.
Today I caught two more females and banded them. It is so much more satisfying to catch birds here than with mist nets. With a mist net, you simply set it up and hope that a bird will fly into it. Don't get me wrong, it is very effective. But it just isn't very hands-on or active. Here we have several ways to trap swallows. The easiest is to sneak up on one of the boxes, cover the hole and then hope that the bird is inside. This doesn't always work because other birds around give alarm calls as you approach, and the bird might not be in the box to begin with. In that case, we have plug traps. These are basically a piece of cardboard cut bigger than the hole with a piece of fishing line tied in the middle. This is hidden inside the box with the line hanging out of the hole and attached to a fishing reel with the rest of the line. You back up away from the box and wait... Then when (and if) the bird returns to the nest, you reel in the line so that the cardboard inside the box covers the hole and traps the bird inside. You keep reeling in the line as you approach the box, reach in and you've got yourself a bird! It's very fun when it works and you feel like you actually had a part in the trapping. We have one bird that I've been trying to catch for two days that doesn't seem to like the little bit of fishing line coming out of her box. We're going to try an automatic trap soon...
We're only trapping the females that have been incubating their eggs for a few days already. Once we have them, I put a band on, take flattened, bent wing chord (aka length of their wing), then the length from the back of their head to the tip of their beak, and then their weight. Then I paint them with a sharpie. Ben's idea of painting the birds was with a fine tip black sharpie. Ummm, that doesn't quite fly. As even he couldn't tell which birds he caught, I showed him my method that Kels taught me. Basically, I make a whole new species of swallow. I only brought really bright colors of thick sharpies with me, so that's what I use. I've been using my bright sky-blue sharpie to color their chests, and formerly white rumps. (The species we are studying is the White-rumped Swallow.) For good measure I also sometimes color the underside of their tail. When they fly away they look like jellybeans. :) I love it and you can definitely tell which ones we've caught. (We need to know which is the male and which is the female later on when we need to trap the guy. Also, Rodrigo is studying them to see if the male helps in incubation. I've never seen the male even go in the boxes yet... but that's what science and observations are all about. Ben thinks it's a waste of time, but I think any data is good data. We can still get our work done, so it can't hurt to find out.)
Hmmm, so that's pretty much what's happening right now. I need to go find some clean socks to warm up my purple toes. ;) ttyl!
Gladis took our clothes to the laundry last week, but there were a few problems with it. One, I didn't get my only towel back until the following day. (I took a shower and dried off with my tanktop... That still counts as cleaning up even if the shirt was dirty, right? It's the thought that counts.) Two, my clothes were mixed up in Savina's (Gladis's daughter, both of whom are STILL living with us). And three, I thought I lost my laundry bag (aka sleeping bag stuff sack) for good as it didn't come back until several days later. Therefore I've resolved not to send my laundry out to get it clean. However, I've also built up a Pavlovian dislike of the shower/tub where I'll need to handwash my clothes.
I'm doing fieldwork so I wear my waterproof pants every day. Those I can probably just rinse off in the shower once the caked mud starts to bother me. (It hasn't yet.) My tops could now probably use a wash as I think I've worn them all at least twice. Mind you, I didn't bring much down here! But really, I work in a pasture covered in cow patties and dead creatures of every make and model. I still smell better than all of that, so does it really matter if my clothes are clean? I think not.
On another note, I must mention a bit about the driving here. Have you ever seen a couple of kids find a new board game without the directions? They can figure out that they need to roll the dice, but they just don't know any of the rules that make the game more interesting. Well, interesting basically describes the driving here, so maybe that's not the best analogy. It just seems as though the automobile made it down to this part of South America without the DMV to make sure cars are used properly. There are plenty of cars on the roads here, yet in every intersection in Santa Fe, there are no stoplights. (Only once you get towards the "freeway-ish" road are there lights.) Okay, so there are towns in the States that don't have stoplights, but this is a city of half a million people! ANNNND to make matters even more interesting, there aren't even any stopsigns!!! Yes, that's right, I keep my eyes closed at every intersection just hoping that there isn't another car coming the other direction.
But then again, Ben and I noticed that there weren't any cars that had dents and dings as you might imagine from the inevitable crashes. We asked Martin about this one day on our way to the field. He assured us that people here certainly do get in accidents, its just that when they do, the cars are totaled. When they crash, they realllly crash. Oh that makes me feel better. So why aren't there any seatbelts in any of the taxi's??? I'll just keep my eyes closed some more.
As far as birding goes, we have about 20 nests with complete clutches (aka the swallow is done laying her eggs), then we have about another 20 that are either making nests or almost done laying their eggs. We've also found a nest made by an oven bird that looks like a swallow (though not our species) might be using. I think I'll try climbing up into the try and peak inside with my fiber optic spy camera. (Okay, so there's no camera attached to it, but it is still pretty cool.) I'm thinking I'll need to wait for a warmer day again before I can be limber enough to make the climb.Today I caught two more females and banded them. It is so much more satisfying to catch birds here than with mist nets. With a mist net, you simply set it up and hope that a bird will fly into it. Don't get me wrong, it is very effective. But it just isn't very hands-on or active. Here we have several ways to trap swallows. The easiest is to sneak up on one of the boxes, cover the hole and then hope that the bird is inside. This doesn't always work because other birds around give alarm calls as you approach, and the bird might not be in the box to begin with. In that case, we have plug traps. These are basically a piece of cardboard cut bigger than the hole with a piece of fishing line tied in the middle. This is hidden inside the box with the line hanging out of the hole and attached to a fishing reel with the rest of the line. You back up away from the box and wait... Then when (and if) the bird returns to the nest, you reel in the line so that the cardboard inside the box covers the hole and traps the bird inside. You keep reeling in the line as you approach the box, reach in and you've got yourself a bird! It's very fun when it works and you feel like you actually had a part in the trapping. We have one bird that I've been trying to catch for two days that doesn't seem to like the little bit of fishing line coming out of her box. We're going to try an automatic trap soon...
We're only trapping the females that have been incubating their eggs for a few days already. Once we have them, I put a band on, take flattened, bent wing chord (aka length of their wing), then the length from the back of their head to the tip of their beak, and then their weight. Then I paint them with a sharpie. Ben's idea of painting the birds was with a fine tip black sharpie. Ummm, that doesn't quite fly. As even he couldn't tell which birds he caught, I showed him my method that Kels taught me. Basically, I make a whole new species of swallow. I only brought really bright colors of thick sharpies with me, so that's what I use. I've been using my bright sky-blue sharpie to color their chests, and formerly white rumps. (The species we are studying is the White-rumped Swallow.) For good measure I also sometimes color the underside of their tail. When they fly away they look like jellybeans. :) I love it and you can definitely tell which ones we've caught. (We need to know which is the male and which is the female later on when we need to trap the guy. Also, Rodrigo is studying them to see if the male helps in incubation. I've never seen the male even go in the boxes yet... but that's what science and observations are all about. Ben thinks it's a waste of time, but I think any data is good data. We can still get our work done, so it can't hurt to find out.)Hmmm, so that's pretty much what's happening right now. I need to go find some clean socks to warm up my purple toes. ;) ttyl!
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