Disappointment and Discovery

Still really nothing new to report here. We are still awaiting a green light to begin field season, but it's ok. I had set the schedule up with an extra site survey and two extra sites so it should be no problem to adjust and still come out of the season as planned.

We were finally able to test my bug capture contraption. What I wanted to do is place a tarp over the trees and surround it so that no insects could escape and then fog the inside with insecticide so that they would fall underneath. My original idea was to place a sheet 3/4 from the top of the tree and another 1/2 way down. See, different bird species use different parts of the tree. If we didn't find any insects at particular parts of the tree it would explain why they weren't there if we didn't find any birds that use that area and vice versa. This became a challenge while putting the sheet parts together. What if my tarp covers more than one tree, how can I place the sheets then? So I just nixed that part out.

SFA had 5 days out for the Easter holiday, so we took one of those days to test getting the tarp up. That was a major pain. The PVC pipes were too flimsy. The painter's pole wouldn't fit in the eyelets. The tarp was huge and heavy! Then came the questions. Are we going to be able to maneuver this huge, heavy ass tarp around plantation style trees? We were having to work with the wind and were having extreme difficulties trying to get it over a tree with limbs. So, that planned was nixed. The majority of the literature I have found has just fogged the hell out of a tree and shook it 30 minutes afterwards to make sure any silk hanging insects fell, so that's what we are going to do. I had the idea to just surround branches in the cardinal directions on the top and mid story (same idea as the sheet but separated instead of the entire canopy part), but my major adviser is more interested in what insects are there and not necessarily where they would be located at.  Which, considering there are no published works from the United States about this habitat type, is a good start.

The word as of yesterday on the project is that it is at the President of the University's office to sign,
which should be the last step. Part of our equipment is already packed in the truck (ya! we have a truck) and everything else is packed and ready to be packed.

While we have been waiting oh so patiently on the landowner agreements to be resolved, we visited two zoos last week. The Caldwell Zoo in Tyler and the Ellen Trout Zoo in Lufkin. The Caldwell zoo had penguins and Ellen Trout had hippos! Both were small compared to the ones we had been to in Montgomery and Birmingham, Alabama, but they were unique in their own ways. The Ellen Trout zoo was laid out in such a way that you were constantly coming up on something different and there were lots of places to sit, rest, and enjoy along the way. When we went to Caldwell there were about six different elementary schools visiting and so we had to constantly dodge and maneuver around children. Both had some small cages for some of the animals, but nothing so bad I would want them reported for.

I don't know this kid, but this picture makes me smile. 

I'm going to try to do better about posting. I've gotten really bad about it this month! But hopefully I'll be able to give y'all bigger and better news next time.