Field Season_2021_USGS_and then some….
Greetings once again…….
I haven’t been posting here for some time, but a new slide-show is up and running on Vimeo (at least I hope so). Spring and Summer have almost passed, but not without plenty to do and done. In late March, I saddled up the pony and headed back to San Diego for a 7th season working for USGS through KusLab, the bird research side of WERC (Western Ecological Research Center) in the San Diego. The main office is just a stones throw from San Diego airport – but, really it is an empty office these days due to COVID. For the entire season, once again I lived at SMER (Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve). The field season just ended last week on August 13th, 2021. The work routine was fairly much the same as many years with duties primarily focused on surveying for the Endangered Least Bell’s Vireo and Endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatchers. While the vireos are doing pretty well in terms of numbers, the SW Willow flycatchers are not doing so well at least in the main survey areas of the Lower San Luis River and in all the riparian areas of Marine Corps Base Camp Pendleton (MCBCP). With COVID-19 still an ongoing issue worldwide and for sure in California, we had to be mindful of the pandemic and take precautions like working in masks at times or keeping some distance when we did our MAPS (monitoring avian productivity and survivorship) work. MAPS work was conducted at 3 locations this season, and I worked at two of the locations/stations on MCBCP known as DeLuz and Santa Margarita. The diversity of species we worked with at MAPS seemed pretty promising as usual and some new banding codes made for some new challenges for me in the bird-banding realm. Thankfully, the MAPS crew has some well-informed banders in its ranks!! Despite a multi-year drought, many tough neotropical migrants and the local resident species (Towhees, Sparrows, Bushtits, Wrentits, some wrens…..) continued to make a go at breeding and carried on with their bird lives as we collected data about them in the field. This season I spent time on the Lower San Luis Rey River study area helping with some of the monitoring duties of vireos and of course I participated in the end-of-season “Veg” work which all the crew works on post-vireo-flycatcher season. It was a tiring season for sure this year for many reasons, but now with some rest – and, as I am looking back through these images and reflecting on the season, I can say we did our best to do good work and to have some fun at least some of the time while busting through what always is a tough field season. Working with the monitoring crew was a good way to get an intimate look at breeding vireos and special thanks goes to Ryan and Shannon for letting me help with their work and to protect them from any evil in the LSLR. The MAPS crew also managed to plow through many 100 bird days with some form of grace and the comaraderie was always welcome for this lone warrior. The field season wore many of us down but I am always amazed at the crew I work with for sticking it out and grinding through the final weeks of work even though many of us were exhausted from being in the field day in and day out for 4.5 months. We began our work March 29th in masks at the office and by August 13th, the Delta variant had us back in masks as a precaution as we checked out at the office August 13th….. At present, I am now back on the Mesa above Bishop, hunkering down now inside due to excessive smoke from multiple fires north – with plenty of house projects to contemplate and to start plowing away at!!!! Anyhow, I hope you get a chance to view this 12 minute life-of-a-migrant-bird-worker episode. The slideshow I set-up jumps around a little from field work (surveys, MAPS work, Monitoring site) to some images of (mostly bird) life that happens on the weekends away from work in the field. Due to some USGS/GOV online restrictions I am only keeping this “show” up for about a week — so if you see this link and the Vimeo feed is gone, well that means I have removed the video….I can share it via flash/CD/DVD for anyone interested in a home-viewing….and without further ado, on with the show…….thanks for watching….hope you enjoy it….(PS, forgot to put music credits in END….Live from Here – with Chris Thile and Friends – Can’t Find My Way Home, Orange Mandolin – Wildfire, Live from Here – Hyperballad with Thile and Aiofe)….
This blog revolves around just about anything I happen to be doing, it documents places I travel to, and it is a place to share my interests with others online.
bay salt blog 