Science Carnival

Its been a very busy week and I have spent tons of time in the library. On Monday i got up at 4am and drove with my room-mate, Eric, to some wild diverse property where we banded birds for a few hours. I did my first complete banding experience which involved setting up nets, checking them every 10 or 15mins, untangling the birds from the nets, putting them in proper grips, checking many areas on the bird for data(sex, weight, plumage, brood patch, molting....) and record all of this. Next i placed a unique metal bracelet on the birds leg to allow future study of the individual. The two birds i banded were song sparrow and common yellow throat. I also spent a good amount of time in the bike shop this week and ended up having to replace my front derailuer due to a tiny part breaking. I found a free replacement piece and it now shift in fiction rather than index.... I have been working hard on a paper about sexual selections effect on breeding in sexual dimorphic birds. This morning i presented, with my work group, about these dimorphic birds at Evergreens Science Carnival. We also had the kids make hummingbird feeders. Tonight im biking downtown with a friend and will be going to a small show with some local artists. Tomorrow im heading to Seattle for the day to check out the Folk Life festival.... Monday im going backpacking with my room-mate Eric probably to the Cascade Rage...So many fun things are happening and class has been great! I have one more day which is my final exam on Wednesday! Cant wait for summer!!!

2 MORE WEEKS!

This quarter has been the fastest by far! On Friday at 6am we completed the territory maps and compiled all our data together which formed a map that somewhat showed the dominate species and the territories they hold. This weekend has been pretty relaxing and a bit gray and rainy. I have been working on my final paper for my class which is about the effects sexual selection through breeding have on reverse dimorphic birds. Basically this deals with the differences between males and females and how it came to be that way. Almost all birds in the Falconiformes family have smaller males than females which is the opposite for almost all other birds. There are many theories to why this variation occurs and some of them consist that smaller birds eat smaller things which are more abundant. When a female is carrying eggs and protecting the nest the male must provide food and it would be harder to catch the same quantity of food as a larger bird. This is just one theory and there still needs to be many more studies to find something conclusive. My work group will be making a presentation about sexual dimorphism and presenting it next week at the science carnival. Now im just preparing for the end and starting to get everything cleaned up.

Early Mornings....

This weekend was very nice and some of the things i did were go mountain biking, swimming at the beach, watch a break dancing competition, and go to a fun party with a few djs. On Sunday my class work group met up and cook delicious waffles then brought are computers outside where we analyzed sound recording that we captured in Louisiana. This morning i woke up at 430am got ready very quick and met a classmate outside. We then drove to the organic farm and proceeded to set up a bird banding site with nets and analysis tools. I helped gather birds and take data and had a very nice sleepy morning. This afternoon i worked from 11 to 530 and now will be going to the computer center to complete more sound analysis with my work group. I was also accepted into Animal Behavior and Zoology, which is a very competitive upper division science class, after submitting a long essay and application. Im very excited for this program because it is right on the course for all my necessary science credits along with providing a lot of field time and travel opportunities.

So much

There are three weeks left in this final quarter and its unbelievable how fast time flew by. Im now figuring out class and living plans for next year along with some of my ideas for summer. My class has been going very well and on Friday I had a 5am class session at the Organic Farm on campus. The first things we did was help set up a bird banding station which involved going around to various locations and setting up very precise nets to catch birds. The nets to not harm the birds and they fly into them and roll into a little pocket. Once the birds are removed from the net we take many measurements including fat levels, molting, plumage, size of wings, number of primary/secondary/tracery feathers, check gender, and then band the leg with a small bracelet containing an id number issued from the government to track/catalog birds. This data is collected and posted online were other people can track the id number to see the migration patterns. I have been working everyday this past week at the rec center and have also been dealing with lots of statistics on excel... Today was the academic fair and im filling out an application to hopefully get into Animal Behavior and Zoology. Things have been speeding up and so much is going on.....Those cell phone pics consist of jazz fest, cafe du mond, the cemetery pic is from new orleans and the forest/beach is at evergreen. Those jars are my kombucha iv been brewing. I figured out how to load pics from my phone now...I have created some very interesting tasty flavors and really enjoying brewing/fermenting. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kombucha

pics finally

there will be more to come....these are all from classmates since my camera stopped reading my flash card. this week has included
-giving blood
-volunteering with us fish and wildlife at ft. lewis to take bird/habitat surveys
-going to grays harbor to observe shore birds and saw a falcon swoop in.
-create many excel files using regression statistics and deviations....its been a while since iv used this much math!
and many other things ill fill you in on eventually