So, I'm in Washington State. It's beautiful here. There are mountains here which I love, and the ocean is not all that far either. In fact, just this past weekend I went to the beach--I had forgotten how huge the ocean is. It stretched for as far as I could see in three directions. And the waves were huge. Wow. I was amazed. But . . . . I don't spend most of my time near the ocean. I spend most of it in the mountains and hills just east of Mount Ranier. In the Yakima Valley if you're more familiar with the area. I'm working with the United States Forest Service, on a project involving Clark's Nutcrackers. Much of what I do involves walking or driving around with a little black box--attached to a large piece of metal--that emits a noise very similar to the sound of static on a bad radio station, hoping to hear a beep (see below). If I hear a beep, that means a bird is near (earlier, radio tags were placed on the birds), and then it's a matter of trying to figure out exactly where the bird is. Ok, so that's simplified a little, but that's the basic gist of what I do.
The point is, we're trying to learn about the home range and habitat use of these birds, especially as it impacts on the conservation and restoration of white bark pine, a species in decline for a number of reasons. The birds and the pine have a mutualistic relationship: the birds eat the seeds, and cache some for later, and those that they don't retrieve germinate and grow into new trees. The tree actually has no other way to spread its seeds.
So, that's what I'll be doing until November at least. It's great: lots of hiking and mountains. And I do get to do other things too, like transects, and cone counts, and cone harvests, and maintaining feeding stations and other related activities. I'm learning a lot, that's for sure. It's a pretty sweet deal.
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