Quickie recap: visited farms with Kristen, met some very nice farmers and some very well-meaning-but-sadly-uncooperative-and/or-misinformed farmers. Got enough fields for her to do her study, we think, provided they don't decide at the last minute that they can't cut when she wants them to. Saw lots of bobolinks and heard many eastern meadowlarks.
My stuff: met with people from the GRCA and NCC in the middle of nowhere in the woods next to an incredibly vandalized/destroyed defunct Korean church...headless doll on the steps...creepy curtains waving in wind...single shoes...you know, as creepy as possible...but the baby grand piano was untouched. We dragged a table and chairs that wouldn't shatter under us and held a board room type meeting under the pines. Then we hiked to the grassland section of the property, which was actually sand barrens and oak savanna, two habitats I have never really seen before - it was beautiful and strange. Good eastern hognose snake habitat, apparently. And we saw an american woodcock!! Highlight of day! Liferrrrr.
Meeting tomorrow with the GRCA again to sync up GIS map data about what habitat is where, and doing a first run at a random sampling of point count sites...after which I'll have to go around to them and make sure they're still what the maps say they are, which is highly unlikely as the data is years out of date. So then I'll have to re-sort out my sites, and account for under/over-representation of habitat types that is bound to occur. THEN I can go out and start my counts :D
My binoculars and Sibley field guide arrived - splendid. I got a rolly distance counter thingy so I can go to the park and pace out distances to get used to estimating them (read: go to park and look like absolute dork). I went out today and got me some field boots so I don't have to wear my running sneakers (they've already been covered in cow poops). I also got a pair of pants from Mark's that are durable, lightweight, can hook up to be capris or zip off to be shorts - three in one!! Last but not least, men's t-shirts from Value Village, because girl t-shirts are stupid and usually reach only to the middle of my abdomen and/or constrict my shoulders.
Lesson learned today: do not go into Value Village when they are holding a 50% off sale. As if cheap stuff needed to get any cheaper?! Was madness.
Sorry this is so sporadic...it's word vomit of the most important things I can think of!
Sat and yakked to my webcam about my best friend Ashley and her fiance Lucas, who are competing for a free wedding on PEI...then Emily worked video magic and entered it! They've been through a hell of a lot in the last couple months, let me tell you, so go here http://cfcy.fm/country_wedding.php and scroll to Ashley and Lucas, and watch, then vote! (as if anyone except people who already know read this thing).
I think that's all for now. But it never is.
just wanted to say that I was walking along the confederation trail behind the university yesterday, and out behind the farmer's market and the experimental farms is AMAZING birding territory...the trail goes from field to scrub to pond/wetland and back. Saw everything from red winged blackbird to fat goldfinch to seagull to whatever that bird is that is on Dal campus and burbles like mad. I never actually SEE that one and I never ID it properly ><
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