Chocolate-eating mice, Banff hot springs, and wading in Barrier Lake

It’s getting harder and harder to come up with new material for all of you to read, but I will do my best. I have three brief things to mention this week.

Chocolate-eating mice: At the beginning of the week, we were visited by two girls from Europe who are working with mice as well at the other University of Calgary field station. One girl is from Switzerland and the other is from the Netherlands. We shared ideas from our own respective projects and gave them advice on theirs. To thank us for our help, they left us some delicious Swiss chocolate. Crisia and I ate most of it since Nikhil doesn’t like dark chocolate. One of the pieces of chocolate was left out on the desk in our trailer by accident. A couple days later, I found it and noticed that it had little teeth marks all around the edges. It would appear that in addition to eating dead bees (Nikhil killed a huge bee, and it disappeared before anyone could throw it out), the mice in our trailer also eat chocolate. I hope they didn’t get sick.

Banff hot springs: Nikhil’s girlfriend Ashlynn came to visit him this week, so for the most part he was off with her while Crisia and I spent a lot of time accomplishing nothing back at the field station when we weren’t trapping. I think I spent most of this time napping. Friday night, when Nikhil and Ashlynn were in Calgary, we decided to go to the Banff hot springs because we had a day pass into Banff for one of our cars that would expire at the end of June. Just as we were getting ready to leave, we couldn’t find the pass. We thought that maybe Nikhil took it with him in his rental car because he had gone there earlier in the week, so we spent most of the evening cursing him. We decided to go anyway because we were already ready, and Kurt and his friend Denise were waiting for us. Tracy couldn’t come because her parents were visiting.

It turns out that without the pass, it costs $17.80 to spend a day in Banff national park, which is absolutely ridiculous. Because I was forewarned, I knew what to expect at the hot springs. This doesn’t mean that I wasn’t disappointed when I got there. When I think of hot springs, I think of a very natural setting with cliffs surrounding a pond of sorts. What we got looked like a pool. Although the atmosphere itself was rather disappointing, the pool itself was very relaxing and kept at 39 degrees Celsius. If you could see through the steam without your glasses, you could see the mountains in the background. It started to rain while we were there, so that made it feel even nicer. We were lucky that it wasn’t crowded. Apparently sometimes there is standing room only. I guess it’s not high tourist season yet.

When Nikhil came back, we had determined that he didn’t have the pass into Banff either. The only thing we can think of that may have happened to it is that when Paul, Crisia’s friend, came to visit, he left it in his rental car when he returned it. Since Nikhil had to pay when he went, and we used it to go to the springs, and Crisia went to Banff with her friend Meghan yesterday, we have spent almost $60 to simply enter Banff between all of us. I will also be going in again when Eliott comes next week (yay for Eliott coming and boo for spending another $20 to go into Banff).

Wading in Barrier Lake: I woke up this morning to the sight of snow falling. At the field station, there were huge chunks of snow falling and just barely sticking. Five minutes away from the field station, Crisia had to kick around snow to locate her traps, while her car was buried in even more snow as plows went by. Crisia, Kurt, Denise, and I were bored during the day since none of us could do any work, so we decided that since it was so wet out and since there was only so much amusement to be had from rolling around in desk chairs, we would test out the thigh waders that are hanging in the lab. For those unfamiliar with what those are, they are rubber boots that go up to the thigh often used to wade in shallow water. The waders in the lab varied between size 10 and 11 for men, which made them very interesting to walk in. We also borrowed raincoats from the lab, so we all looked like complete dorks (well more than usual anyway). We spent a lot of time splashing around in puddles and swampy areas next to the road. Before we even got to the lake, Denise sunk into the sand past her knees. It took us maybe 45 minutes to get her out. We found places to go into the lake without sinking, which was fun. Kurt and Denise found rocks to skip, and Crisia found out that we could seesaw on newly exposed logs. All in all, it was a very amusing time. If I get the pictures from this, I will put them up.

Potluck, Orthodontist, and Pirates

On Tuesday, some of the other researchers hosted a potluck for all the researchers who were around. They are from the University of Calgary, so we don’t see them around very often since they have to option of going home occasionally. The food was excellent. Since we brought half of the party with us, we also brought half of the food. Crisia and I made some cupcakes from a box. Paul and Tracy helped with the icing. Nikhil made his signature curry chicken. Edith made her famous brownies, and Kari made a strawberry and spinach salad. Tracy made banana bread even though she promised us potatoes, and Kurt made his famous homemade bread.

Kim, Darryl, and Amallia were there. Amallia put on quite a show by singing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and the ABCs. She also Care-Bear-stared us for good measure. Our hosts were Hilary, who studies ungulates, Joanna, her sister and field assistant, Tyler, whom I think studies beetles, and his field assistant Josee. Although Hilary and Joanna are sisters, it is hard to tell because Hilary is tall with straight, dark hair, and Joanna is shorter with curly, red hair. Joanna’s music was playing in the background; it would appear that we have very similar musical tastes since a lot of what was playing was by The Arcade Fire and The Shins. I happen to be wearing my shirts from both those concerts right now. Josee was born in Quebec; she is also a huge Harry Potter fan. She, Edith, and I shared our theories on the new book that is to come out.

Just before we were about to leave, Pierre, who works for Parks Canada and who was invited to come by Tracy as he jogged by her cabin, showed up. He is a very worldly guy from Quebec City; he told us all about his backpacking trip to India. He is staying at the field station for the summer. Those of you read my previous post may remember that I mentioned another guy from Quebec City named Louis who was stuck here during the gas leak. Louis is Pierre’s friend, and that day he broke a window to get into Pierre’s trailer and took some beer and some Doritos. Pierre didn’t seem very angry about it; he was more amused than anything else since it makes for a good story.

On Thursday, I had to make a trip into Calgary to go see an orthodontist. I had forgotten my retainer in Montreal, and it turns out that my mom threw it out since she thought I left it because I didn’t need it. This was the craziest orthodontist office I had ever seen. I thought my orthodontist was rich. There were action figures everywhere. There was a greater than life size Superman bursting out of a phone booth, a life size Spiderman, and a Yoda telling you that not wearing your retainer was a sure path to the dark side. They had a PS2, a Gamecube, and an X-Box in the waiting room, as well as a touch-screen log in system. There were 5 chairs for patients, and each of them had their own computer and a Nintendo DS or DS Lite for patients who had to wait. They also had a fancy coffee machine that I got to take advantage of. I arrive half an hour early for my appointment; within 10 minutes, they had me seated at a chair and did the mold of my teeth, and 20 minutes after that, my retainer was ready.

I was hoping to meet up with Eliott’s aunt and uncle that day, but they both work, so Nikhil came with me instead. Nikhil and I went to see the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie. I had heard mixed reviews of it, so I went in with fairly low expectations. In the end, I rather enjoyed myself. The beginning was very confusing, and there was too much Orlando and not enough Johnny even though when Johnny Depp was there, there was often at least 5 more of him for no apparent reason. I liked Keith Richards as Jack Sparrow’s dad although it was only a very small part. I thought it was pretty cool that he played the guitar briefly. Keira Knightley wasn’t bad, but starring with Orlando Bloom makes me think less of her performance. Orlando was slightly less annoying in this movie than in the previous ones. I think I liked it better when he had cool hair and didn’t talk much rather than the ugly mustache and the self-righteousness. The movie was really long, but it didn’t drag on, as the action was pretty much non-stop and entertaining. Overall, the movie was better than the second one, but not as good as the first.

Work, Canmore, Calgary, Gas Leaks, and Hockey

I have had a fairly busy week, so I will just give a brief rundown of everything that might be interesting that has happened.

Since Yeen Ten was here to give us each advice on our own respective projects, we took advantage of her help and were all very busy with work until she left. As for my own project, I’m to hold mice in rooms at different temperatures and then take tissue samples after they have been there long enough to test for the presence of stress hormones and to see if there are differences in their carbon and nitrogen stable isotope signatures. I’ve established a protocol, and my rooms are all set up with the appropriate temperatures and light regimes. I have 21 out of 30 mice, and I can get started as soon as I find out how much blood I need and when to take it from a professor in Toronto. All I can do now is sit back and wait for his email and catch more mice.

On Tuesday, we went in to Canmore for an oil change. We took advantage of this time to walk around and do some shopping. I pre-ordered the 7th Harry Potter book at a book store there and bought some fudge. We had a nice lunch at a coffee shop there. After some small groceries, we also went to Tim Horton’s for the first time since we left Ontario. Tim Horton’s is actually more expensive there even though taxes are less.

On Wednesday, Crisia, Yeen Ten, and I drove into Calgary to run some errands before taking Yeen Ten to the airport. This was surprisingly fun, as we got a lot done quickly and enjoyed ourselves doing it. While Yeen Ten did what she needed to do at the university, Crisia and I went shopping in the morning, as she needed to pick up a new hard drive for Kurt. We came away with supplies for an herb garden. After a brief trip to Canadian Tire to pick up fuses for the radio and heater that I broke in the Ark as well as a light timer, we spent a good amount of time perusing MEC. It’s really rather hard to shop there and not spend a ridiculous amount of money when so many things could be of use out in the field. Afterwards, we went for coffee to pass the time until Yeen Ten had to catch her flight. We were going to set some traps to catch mice for me when we got back and then meet the others at Woody’s to watch the game, but the traffic caused us to get back a little later than anticipated so we went straight there to watch a rather nerve-wracking game. All but Nikhil were cheering on the Senators. Damn Leafs fan.

The rest of the week was a rather lazy one for all of us. We planted our seeds for the herb garden. Crisia and I spent an afternoon on the beach by the lake. I actually got a little sunburned since I refused to go in my room to pick up my sunscreen because Nikhil was napping. I wasn’t sunburned nearly as much as Crisia though. Tracy and I had some Mariokart time, which Kari watched, refusing to play. Crisia’s friend Paul came late Friday night for a weeklong visit, while Nikhil took off to Calgary for the weekend to visit his relatives.

I spent much of Saturday alone since Nikhil was gone, Crisia was off with Paul, and everyone else was doing fieldwork during the day. Sometime in the middle of the afternoon, I was watching TV on my laptop and chatting with Eliott online. I heard some heavy breathing and stomping over the sound of my show. Suddenly Darth Vader and his twin brother, Darth Vader 2, showed up at my door and told me to leave the building. These were actually firefighters in gas masks, and there was a gas leak in the lab building and the nearby lodge. They made a perimetre around the buildings, so I couldn’t even go back to my trailer unless I wanted to do an hour long hike in my flip-flops.

I spent sometime conversing with two of the cooks and Gary, our caretaker, getting eaten by bugs until we went inside a nearby dormitory. We were soon joined by Kim, a researcher, Darryl, Kim’s husband who looks like Matt Damon, their very cute 2 year old daughter, Amallia, and Erin, Kim’s field assistant. There was also Louis from Quebec City who works in the village and who got stuck looking for a friend who is staying in a trailer here.

Kurt and Tracy soon came back. Luckily for them, the route to their cabin was not blocked off. I helped them do some work for Kurt’s project, which involved gluing styrofoam balls to sticks and sticking them in the ground to dry. I made their walkway look like the entryway to a gingerbread house.

Soon enough, we were allowed back in the buildings, and Crisia, Paul, Kari, and Edith returned. We all went out together to watch the game at Woody’s. This game was far more exciting with a happier end result than the last one.

Today is Sunday, and once again, I am left alone while everyone else is gone. That is why I finally have time to put up a blog post.

Updates: I have added several new pictures to my Wildlife in Kananaskis album. There are some pictures of a friendly golden-mantled ground squirrel Crisia, Kurt, and Tracy met on a hike and a couple pictures of a kill site of an elk from one of my trapping sites.

The Killers at the Saddledome and Visitors

As a bit of a change of pace, we booked tickets to go see The Killers this past Thursday. We were a bit worried that it would cut into trapping time, but we did it anyway. Over that week, it was especially stressful because we had to keep postponing our trapping due to the weather. There was still snow on the ground the night of the concert, so it all worked out anyway.

The three of us and Tracy headed out to Calgary in the afternoon. We found what looked to be a shifty Vietnamese place to eat for supper, but it actually turned out to be really good. I wanted to try one of their hot plate or hot pot meals, but we just didn’t have the time. After dinner, we found our way to a transit station where we could park our car for free and take the light-rail train a couple stops straight to the Saddledome.

The concert was opened, to our surprise, by Hot Hot Heat. I only knew a few songs off the radio and found those songs rather annoying, but they put on a great show. I think I’m going to rip the album from Nikhil, who really likes them and was very excited to be getting two awesome concerts for the price of one. They were a perfect sort of band to open for a band like The Killers since both bands have a lot of fun, high energy songs.

The Killers were in top form and played all the songs I wanted to hear. I was very excited to be seeing them since I wanted to go to the show in Montreal, but that was happening a few days after I had arrived here in Kananaskis. The Killers put on a great show, and I encourage all who like them even a bit to go and see them live. I really wished we had thought to book our tickets sooner, so that we could find ourselves closer to the action. The Saddledome feels much smaller than the Bell Centre, so we could still see very well. I would have loved to be on the floor. Although they are not my favourite band in the world, being on the floor would have allowed for a much greater atmosphere. I would have loved to be jumping up and down and dancing in the crowd. As it was, I only gave in and stood to dance during the encore despite the reluctance of my companions to do the same, but I would have preferred to be on my feet the entire time with everyone around me dancing.

Even though we went to Calgary on Thursday, we had to go again on Friday to get groceries and pick up Yeen Ten from the airport. Yeen Ten, for those of you who cannot keep track of all the people I talk about, is the post-doctoral student of our lab, and I have recently moved into her basement. Nikhil and I spent the majority of the day stuck in traffic, and I’m really starting to loathe trying to get anywhere in Calgary. I now understand why Crisia would so easily pass up a trip to Calgary.

When we came back, our trailer had doubled its number of occupants, as Yeen Ten would be joining us as well as two others from David Green’s lab at Concordia, Kari and Edith, both of whom I had met prior to leaving Concordia. Yeen Ten is only here until Wednesday; she is here to offer us advice and to check on us since Jack is too busy to do it himself (We also like to think it’s because he trusts us). She will be back at the end of July to do some of her own work. Kari is only here to show Edith around for about a week before they head off to Edmonton. Edith will be joining us again, I think, towards the end of June.

Updates: I had added pictures of the snow we’ve been getting this past week. It’s mostly gone now except for some areas in the mountains. If you want to see the pictures of the PG-13 snowman Tracy, Kurt, Nikhil, Crisia, and I made, please let me know. I have kept those pictures unlisted because they are not suitable for all viewers. There are also some pictures from the Killers concert. We took a video from Crisia’s camera that turned out quite well considering how far we were. We could actually see better from the camera than we could with our own eyes. The sound, however, is not all that great. I’ve got the video up with my pictures; it's not as good shrunk down. Since I couldn't figure out how to embed it in the blog, here’s the best video from youtube that I found from the concert.

Snow and Bears

Monday morning at 6am, we woke up to a snowfall and snow covering the ground. We actually had to brush the car off before we left. It’s usually warmer by our trailer than it is at the field sites, so this didn’t exactly bode well for our morning. We didn’t see a lot of wildlife on the road, and we drove through several areas that were buried in snow and where it was snowing and others areas that had no snow at all and where it was raining.

We dropped Crisia off at the bridge to Fortress Mountain where the snow is coming down in huge flakes. Our long-term site is actually a 30 minute uphill walk from the bridge, but the bridge is barred supposedly due to construction on the bridge. We are in the process of trying to get access over the bridge. The government turned us down, but we ran into the president and GM of the mountain randomly one day. We gave him our research documentation and our contact information. He says he needs to clear it with the government before letting us through, but we think he's the reason they won't let us through. Obviously there’s nothing wrong with the bridge since he and his partner drive over it twice a day in a giant SUV. Supposedly the government has deemed the ski hill he’s trying to reopen unsafe and until he puts enough money into it to make it safe, they’re making it so that the public can have no access to the road leading to the mountain. So until we hear from him regarding our access, Crisia has volunteered to run it, while Nikhil and I do the nearby long-term site at Grizzly Creek.

The snow was coming down hard as Nikhil and I drove to Grizzly. Suddenly out of the snow, a baby black bear galloped across the highway – directly towards our field site. Where there are baby bears, you know there is a mother bear somewhere that would not be very happy to see anything she would see as a threat to her young. Nikhil parked the car, and we debated what we should do. In our little fire and safety seminar held by the staff at the field station, we were told that if we know there is a bear, especially a mother bear, in the vicinity of our field site, we should leave the area and come back later. However, we had animals in our traps that would die if we left them there for too long. We came to the conclusion that we would proceed cautiously on the opposite side of the creek and let our animals go without taking the time to collect all the information we usually do.

This took a long time since everything was covered in snow and looked so different. It was hard to see our flags and, when we found them, we had a hard time locating the traps since they were covered in snow. We proceeded slowly and talked loudly, hoping to inform any bears of our presence so that they would go away. We got to the end of one of six trap lines, and we saw the mother bear directly across the creek. It was huge. Neither Nikhil nor I had ever seen a bear this close before, so we decided we would finish the second line, go get Crisia and come back later.

We got back to the bridge around 7:30. We tried to estimate how long it would take for Crisia to get back to the car. If she took any longer than this, we would go after her because something might have happened. The time we decided upon, 8:40, came and went, so, reluctantly, we went out to walk up the hill with the snow coming down hard directly into our faces. We would either have to rescue her from a sprained ankle, or we would arrive there just as she was finishing up. Fortunately for her and somewhat unfortunately for us since we had gotten soaked in the cold for no reason, it was the latter. We heard her shout, and I answered. Since she was shouting for the benefit of any potential bears in the area, she didn’t expect to be replied to, so apparently I scared her quite a bit. She was wet and frozen from falling several times and losing her way in the snow but was otherwise alright. It took her so long because, in addition to falling and getting lost, 23 out of 31 traps had animals in them. We were told that 10% trap success was considered a good day. We’ve been getting much more than 10% trap success, closer to 40%, at Fortress and Grizzly. So this was even much more than usual.

As we headed back to the car, we told her our story of the bear and asked her what we should have done and what we should do now. Crisia told us that her instinct would have been to do what we did, but she got in trouble for letting animals go last year. We decided to go back and check the rest of the traps together and hope that we don’t run into the bears.

At that point, there was even more snow to contend with. It took a lot of digging and kicking snow around to find any of the traps. Our traps are made out of metal, so even handling the traps to lock them resulted in frozen fingers. It was difficult enough to handle any animals when you couldn’t move your fingers from digging through snow and handling the trap. Anytime one of us hit a branch underneath a tree, piles of snow would fall on our heads and down our backs. On the positive side, out of both grids, we only found one trap death, and we didn’t encounter the bear. We had expected to find more dead animals with it being so cold.

By the time we got back, it was almost 11am. Crisia’s fingers, after soaking through her gloves at Fortress and working without them at Grizzly, were burning for two hours afterwards, and I think I’m now coming down with a cold.

We postponed setting traps out that night to wait for the snow to disappear since we were told that we don’t often get a lot of animals in the snow and if it’s too cold, we could lose some animals. The snow was mostly gone by Tuesday night, so we set traps again and had no problems in the morning. However, right now it is snowing again. I’m reluctant to postpone another day of trapping since it means less time for me to catch my own animals, but I may not have a choice. Oh well, that’s life in the field with the mountains and their unpredictable weather.

Updates: More velociraptor (a.k.a. bighorn sheep) pictures and pictures from the bridge to Fortress (taken this morning when it wasn’t snowing, as Nikhil and I were waiting for Crisia).

In news unrelated to anything I’m doing right now, here is a trailer for His Dark Materials: The Golden Compass coming out December 7. If you haven’t read the books by Philip Pullman, I suggest you do so immediately. I’m making Eliott read them right now (Eliott, I hope you have started that book by now), and JJ has read them already.

Banff, Troll Falls, and Kananaskis Village

Crisia’s friend Meghan from Regina came to visit us over the weekend, so we had plenty to keep us occupied for a couple days. We took Saturday night off from setting traps to make plans to go to Banff for an evening out. We were at liberty to make such plans since Meghan was coming with her own car and could, therefore, drive us around. I’m not sure if I mentioned this earlier, but we do not have unlimited use of our vehicles and must record our kilometre usage and give in gas receipts. However, Meghan’s 4 hour drive turned into a 9 hour drive after receiving poor directions from a friend who neglected to tell her he couldn’t come until after she had been lost for 3 hours and later, her car suddenly stopped being able to go faster than 80. Since we had already made the plans, we took one of our cars into Banff anyway.

In Banff, we had dinner and drinks at the Rose and Crown pub. Nikhil, Crisia, Meghan, and I were joined by Kurt, another researcher at the field station, and his assistant Tracy. Dinner was very good. I was very excited to be having fish (maple salmon!) for the first time in a while. Our grocery budget would not allow for us to buy such expensive foods as sustenance.

We were soon joined by Crisia’s friend Justin from high school, who works in Banff and who was there with some friends, and some random guy from PEI who I think works on an oil rig. He just sat himself down between me and Tracy. He was incredibly high and spent a good amount of time talking to Tracy. Apparently he said some weird things about how he believed Germans were the greatest people ever and how she looked German because she was the only real blonde in the place. It was very loud in there, so I could only hear the people directly beside me only when they were yelling directly in my ear, so I didn’t hear everything he had to say.

This guy only addressed me once and that was to ask what animals I studied. I told him mice and voles. I think he thought I said wolves and asked me whether I sawed beavers in half to trap wolves. Crisia, Tracy, and I thought this was absolutely hilarious when we were discussing this a couple days later. Kurt ruined our fun a little by saying that he had a friend who studied wolves and they had a deal with beaver trappers. The beaver trappers would take the fur from the beavers and give the carcasses to the researchers who would saw them in half and stick them in freezers for use later to attract wolves. Maybe I should have studied wolves.

The pub had a live band that played some stuff that was very heavy on the bass. Music included Bob Marley, Sublime, and The Police. It was pretty good, but didn’t allow for a lot of conversation.

After the random guy disappeared, Kurt and Tracy went home and we waited until we were joined by someone Crisia and Meghan knew from a camp they both worked at in Kananaskis. He brought a few female coworkers from that camp who didn’t stick with us. After staying around for a bit, we went home. Since I’m not a big drinker, I offered to drive home. I had never driven this car before, which is a boat with little acceleration. This was a very interesting 45 minute drive on a highway with a speed limit of 110 km/h and no lights whatsoever in a car whose highbeams are as bright as a normal car’s headlights. That night was the latest we went to sleep in a really long time: 1am.

The next day, Crisia, Meghan, and I went for a short hike to Troll Falls. It’s about a half an hour there on a wide, fairly flat path. There is less of a path going to underneath the falls and above it. The path was rather muddy, and Meghan fell on the way down. She slid a bit and got her jeans and hands all muddy but was otherwise unscathed. Meghan risked taking her car out, and it would appear that the car only had problems going beyond 2^nd gear.

Afterwards, the three of us went for a lunch at a pub called Woody’s in Kananaskis Village. This is the closest pub to the field station, and we will apparently end up spending a lot of time there. Kananaskis Village is unfortunately not, as the name would have you believe, a village and is in fact a hotel complex. After lunch, we walked through some of the shops there. These shops are mainly souvenir shops.

There, we were hit on twice. Once by a group of pushy guys who upon being told that we were only browsing the shops suggested that we “browse together.” We didn’t take them up on that offer. The second time was by the clerk at one of the shops when I was buying some things. His method was a little less annoying and simply involved trying to keep us in conversation for as long as possible and suggesting many times that we come hang out at Woody’s over the course of the summer, where all the staff in Kananaskis go regularly, and he genuinely seemed to be a nice person and made it rather obvious that he was hitting on us by blushing at times.

We went back to the station after that and set traps in the evening before supper, after which we did end up going back to Woody’s for a round and some crab and spinach dip. Meghan left for home the next morning as we left to check the traps we had set the evening before (a morning which deserves a blog post in its own right) and emailed Crisia to say that she and the car got there in one piece later that day.

Updates: I have reorganized my photos a bit. Pictures of our trailer and other buildings at the field station were moved to Facilities at KFS. I’ve combined all my animal photos into the album Wildlife in Kananaskis and I have added some new ones including a couple of bighorn sheep and one of the behinds of some elk. We can’t seem to get a picture of them not running away. I have also updated my links to include Caitlin’s new blog Road to Zanzibar.

My Average Day

Kevin wants me to write more blog since he is bored with Mein Kampf, so here I am, writing more blog. In an earlier post, I had expressed the wish that people write in my comments anything they would like me to post about, as eventually, I will run out of ideas of new things to write if nothing I feel is of interest is happening. However, anyone reading this, may have a different idea of what can be called interesting. Although this was not in my comments, Eliott has expressed the wish to hear what my average day is like. I was going to wait until my weeks became a little more routine, but it may be a while until that happens.

So here is my average weekday:

6:00-6:30am: Wake up, change into field clothing, eat breakfast, brush my teeth

6:30-7:00am: Get field bags from the lab and drive to field site. At least twice a week, if we are driving on a particular stretch of road, we are required to perform a wildlife survey where we mark down how many kilometres we have travelled from the field station, the number of each animal, the species, and whether there are any roadkills when we see an animal. This data may eventually be used for someone’s Honours Thesis project. Typical animals we see include mule deer, white-tailed deer, elk, bighorn sheep, ravens, and robins.

7:00-~9:30am: Walk through the grids we have set up at a particular field site. If it is one of the long-term grids, we check all traps along the grid, which vary between 30 and 45 usually, and when there are animals, check tag numbers, tag the deer mice or red-backed voles that are missing tags, check their sex and reproductive condition, write down all the information, and let them go. If it is a grid that we’ve set up for ourselves to bring mice back to the lab, we check the traps that have something and take back the animals we need. We lock the traps open when we are done checking them.

~9:30am-5:30pm: This is where we are a liberty to pretty much do what we want. Usually we spend at least some of this time doing work. Right now, what has fallen under the category of work for me includes taking an online animal care course (which I have now passed and finished) and figuring out the protocol for my own experiment. In the future, I will be taking care of my animals in my experiment, and researching and working on the proposal I am supposed to submit sometime this year to my committee. Although this is only really due, I think, at the end of the school year, it will be good for me to get it over with now as I am doing the field work since during the school year, I will be busy with my courses, TAing, and doing the lab work for my own experiment. Occasionally, we devote some time to getting traps ready if we need to set up new ones anywhere. During this time, we also do normal things such as shower, eat a second breakfast as well as a late lunch. Often we combine our meal times with T.V. time. Right now, we are finishing up the first season of Lost. When I feel like procrastinating, I also watch the T.V. shows I’ve been missing over the Internet, take naps, or think up blog posts. Obviously I haven’t been doing an awesome job at the latter, so you can imagine what I’ve really been doing.

5:30-~7:00pm: Drive out and set and bait the traps for the next morning. We use sunflower seeds and oats as bait.

~7:00-8:30pm: Make supper and eat it while watching Lost (this will change once we are done the second season of Lost).

8:30-10:00pm: Free time. I usually use this time to call Eliott, read a bit, and then get ready for bed.

So what does all this mean in terms of my average week? We have three long-term grids that we have to take care of, and two of them need to be done twice a week, while the other one only needs to be done once a week. If this was all we had to do and we did the first two on the same day, our week could be done by Wednesday morning. However, we all have our own projects, so it will not work this way for the most part. For my own project, I need 30 male mice, so I have to keep going out until I catch that many. I think Crisia needs 10 male mice once a month, while Nikhil needs a number random species at varying times. This could mean working every day of the week at some times or only until Wednesday later on when Nikhil and I have all that we need and Crisia has done her monthly quota.