The last six weeks have been a blur. My dreams have been taken over by PVC pipe and stalks of alfalfa.
My experiment has started! So, for better or worse, I've been out in the field just about every day since mid-February. For you loyal blog readers (of which I doubt there are many), I'm sorry about the radio silence for so long.
What have I been up to all this time? Mainly, building exclosures, sampling alfalfa fields, and counting weevils. As is the case with all field work, everything takes longer than expected.
My experiment has started! So, for better or worse, I've been out in the field just about every day since mid-February. For you loyal blog readers (of which I doubt there are many), I'm sorry about the radio silence for so long.
What have I been up to all this time? Mainly, building exclosures, sampling alfalfa fields, and counting weevils. As is the case with all field work, everything takes longer than expected.
I have a team of fantastic undergraduate interns, who I'll introduce to you later. Between them, my mentors Rodd Kelsey from The Nature Conservancy and Jason Townsend from UC Davis, and whole lot of time on my own: we've managed to build 78 exclosures, to set up and monitor experiments in 18 alfalfa fields, and to prepare to monitor another 19 tomato fields. I've cut 2,640 feet of PVC pipe into 4', 2.5' and 1.25' lengths using an electric saw and a MacGyver-esque frame that let me cut 10 pieces at a time (it still took me three full days to do it all!). Each exclosure takes between 10 and 15 minutes to construct, and then an additional 15-30 minutes to place in a field and take initial samples from the treatment (exclosure) and control areas. Plus time to process the samples which each consist of 10 stems of alfalfa that we randomly select and then extract weevils from in the lab. Boil it all down- and my team and I have spent a LOT of time setting up these experiments.
Being in the field is super fun. We constantly come across things we're not expecting, and driving around the countryside between Davis, Knight's Landing, Esparto, and Winters keeps showing us neat little pockets of wildlife habitat. Great birds I've spotted on the farms so far include burrowing owl, Swainson's hawk, merlin, prairie falcon, loggerhead shrike and Western bluebird, plus all of the more common species (including plenty of yellow-billed magpies)... not bad considering we're setting up exclosures, not looking for birds. We've also come across a coyote, lots of Sierran treefrogs, and a falconer.
I've been trying to 'live tweet' my experiment from the field using the hashtag #wildag, and have truly joined the twitter revolution by 'storifying' my tweets so far. I'm going to try to post more short updates on this blog about fieldwork, now that the initial setup is mostly behind us. I'm also hoping to get my interns adding their thoughts and blogging about their experiences- so.
Click on 'Read More' below to see the whole twitter story since the start. Be sure to follow me on twitter @sara_kross for real-time updates from the field.
Being in the field is super fun. We constantly come across things we're not expecting, and driving around the countryside between Davis, Knight's Landing, Esparto, and Winters keeps showing us neat little pockets of wildlife habitat. Great birds I've spotted on the farms so far include burrowing owl, Swainson's hawk, merlin, prairie falcon, loggerhead shrike and Western bluebird, plus all of the more common species (including plenty of yellow-billed magpies)... not bad considering we're setting up exclosures, not looking for birds. We've also come across a coyote, lots of Sierran treefrogs, and a falconer.
I've been trying to 'live tweet' my experiment from the field using the hashtag #wildag, and have truly joined the twitter revolution by 'storifying' my tweets so far. I'm going to try to post more short updates on this blog about fieldwork, now that the initial setup is mostly behind us. I'm also hoping to get my interns adding their thoughts and blogging about their experiences- so.
Click on 'Read More' below to see the whole twitter story since the start. Be sure to follow me on twitter @sara_kross for real-time updates from the field.