Now it's a research project

This past Thursday I spent the majority of a day trying to figure out a mock schedule for field season. What sites to visit when, how to shuffle them around so that they were not being visited at the same time each time, when/how to go back and forth between the interior and coastal sites. Then, right before bedtime, lightning struck my brain and I had the most awesome mock schedule I could fathom. I submitted all three possible schedules and felt really awesome about my decision.

The next afternoon I get an email back saying that the coastal areas were going to be cut from the project due to landowner issues, but it should make for a stronger study case for the interior sites. So, I get to start over on my schedule, but its not really like the schedule would have stuck anyway. After this summer's 6 weeks in practicum I've learned that schedules are more like guidelines. You try to stick to them, but something always happens whether it be bad weather or something just comes up that has be handled first. 

I'm both happy and bummed about this change. I'm happy because then we don't have to worry about finding field housing for the coastal sites and I don't have to worry about coastal birds. Coastal birds suck for a semi-amateur birder like myself. They sound and look so very similar. Sparrows are nothing compared to rails. I'm bummed because this just shrunk my project down into half. Granted, there were more interior sites than coastal so the coastal part may have been weak anyway. So, maybe we just saved me a ton of unnecessary field work.  

I guess since the interior sites' landowners are more cooperative I should be able to do some field work in the winter too and still have time to do another side project to add to my thesis. Everything was going so smoothly, too smoothly in fact, that now that there are a few speed bumps it officially feels like a research project.