I am, once again, waiting desperately for spring. Spring is the time when field biologists get to shine once again. Early morning birding! Evening frog call surveys! Vegetation community classification (="sweet wetland!" = "this forest is very dense, I am stuck in it!" = "what the heck kind of tree is THAT?"), the ultimate gruelling educational, trying, satisfying approach to making sense of the natural world. Hikes.. what I do for fun, I'm getting paid for? Playing with super high tech GPS equipment to navigate around, and using my compass when that fails, making me feel like a fairly awesome old timey explorer. I eagerly await spring plants on their journey out of the ground. I nibble at wild raspberries in the heat of summer. I always get to eat lunch at THE most beautiful places in the world. Yes.. spring and summer as a field biologist is FUN! It keeps me going. But oh my goodness.. it is rife with trouble. Hijinx?! ME!? But of course! Thought I would share a few of my fave anecdotes from my 7+ years in the field of conservation biology.
- This past summer I got to survey the interior of an amazing island property in the middle of nowhere. Only problem is, this island is 5,000 acres, of the toughest terrain I've ever walked. Trying to make it 1 km inland, my coworker declared: 20 minutes, tops! 2 hours later we finally hit an inland lake, our destination, and looked at each other in fear. Trying to pick our way out, spruce and fir trees bitch slapped us across the knees, the arms, the face. Their stabby limbs which grow from ground to crown and point out at sharp angles from the bark were like thousands of angry intertwined knives, pointed straight at me for days on end. The whole team did an impressive job of each taking a branch in the eye at some key moment on the journey. Sometimes a branch would slyly hook its curled brown finger under a loop on your backpack, causing you to reel backwards into its waiting, pointy arms when you tried to move forward. The moss covered interior of the moist coastal environment was a maze of green carpet that felt like walking on a cloud. Sometimes, a moss covered fallen tree was the perfect balance beam. Sometimes, it was "non-tree", eaten away by moisture and natural decomposition processes. There is nothing weirder than suddenly finding yourself up to your knee in a tree stump.
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| Moss carpet |
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| Ewwww..... |
My spirit, if I could photograph THAT in my hotel room, would probably have looked similar. But when this is where you get to eat lunch, and what you get to boat around, and how you're spending your Tuesday afternoon, you sort of just shut up about it and take it all in.
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| Shoreline View |
- Also this past year I had the pleasure (?) of surveying a property that was entirely wetland habitat. But not so much that you could just say "it's a wetland, see ya!" - there were swamps. Marshes. Open water pools. Fens. Occasional pockets of upland forest, just to dry off your feet. At one point in this 100 acre wetland I found myself knee keep in an alder swamp (a tall shrub that tends to grow in thickets - so picture that dense forest I described, but covered in standing water and with thinner branches growing even more tightly together). I was holding on to branches above my head, and feeling my feet sink deeper in deeper as they hopelessly searched for a branch or root to hold on to. My backpack full of electronic field gear moved closer and closer to the water... my coworker tried to point out places to stand, but if I let go of my hands, tightly clutching other alder branches above my head, I would surely fall backwards, and my rubber boots were sinking swiftly and deeply into muck that didn't seem to have a bottom. We managed to find our way out of the thicket, only to enter an open marsh.. which my coworker decided to explore.. and began sinking.. pack of electronic equipment sinking closer and closer to the surface of the water.. she took a step forward and was up to her hip. Why was her instinct to take ANOTHER step forward. I performed some sort of fireman rescue, hooking my feet into sturdy branches on dry land and we got her out of there. This went on for about 2 days. I love wetlands.. don't let anyone tell you differently... ................
- One summer I was tasked with taking a super high up, government head honcho lady out on an inspection of a property. She wanted to experience "a day in the field". Back in 2009 before I carried my emergency satellite messenger which sends check in/check out messages and can contact police and local rescue groups with the push of a button; before I had an electronic GPS; and on a day I didn't bring a compass... I followed maps. Rough hand drawn trail marked out on a map of a 200 acre property.. got it!!! We started on a jaunt that would take about 1 hour. 2 hours later we were wandering hopelessly around the backwoods, dense, isolated forest of this property and the head honcho, I think, perhaps, was starting to lose faith in me. I could make out a building in the distance - could it be... were we back at the house? No way.. we were way too far north.. that much I knew. We came upon a house buried in the MIDDLE OF THE WOODS, that a shirtless man made his way out of and squinted at us: "can I help you?". We gingerly explained our situation.. he eyed us up warily and explained just how far off course we were. Not wanting to end up in a Gretel and Gretel situation, we hightailed it out of there, backtracked the way we'd came and made it (the LONG way) back to the front of the property. Sure am glad that dude wasn't in a murder-y kind of mood that day.. would have been tough to explain to the feds... (the federal government that is...) GULP
- In 2008 I finally learned how to hop fences. After doing it wrong for the LAST TIME. I never got the concept of putting my foot down on the other side of the fence equal height to where the first foot was on the starting side of the fence. I always wanted to "go big or go home" and stretch that leading foot onto the ground. On my way to watch a prescribed burn, with a total stranger who I'd met 5 minutes before, we realized we'd have to hop a fence to get to where we needed to go. I boldly led! This story ends with me dangling by my leg upside down, my calf hooked on the top of the fence. I swear I haven't done that since.. I swear!
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| Fence Dangling Was Worth it.. |
- 2011 was the year of ticks. I came home from one field visit literally crawling in hundreds of deer ticks (oh yep, the ones that carry Lyme disease). I'd somehow walked into a NEST of them on a property on Georgian Bay and no amount of flicking and picking would get them off my field clothes!!! Also that summer, in northwestern Ontario, a local resident picked one off my neck ("oh Kristyn, you had a wood tick on you.. watch out"). I went back to my hotel that night with a sinking feeling. Tick searches involve stripping down naked in front of a mirror (or a loving partner.. and hopefully not ever a coworker) and inspecting every inch of yourself for dark spots that look out of the ordinary. Wood (or dog) ticks are a little easier to spot, they're about half the size of your pinky fingernail. Very very easy to see when you peek behind your ear and find one buried half under your skin, sucking your blood. AUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Yes - that was my reaction. In my thin-walled hotel. No one even came to see if the girl who was being murdered was ok. I managed to remove my attacker after several attempts (he was IN THERE!) with a sharp flick of my fingernail. I learned another lesson there - don't put ticks in the garbage can. FLUSH THEM. I was revisited by my ear-loving friend and several of his brothers for the remainder of my stay in that place. My apologies to whoever checked in next......
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| End of Day in Deer Tick Country |
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| Lunch in Wood Tick Country |
- Conducting research for my master's project in 2006 was SO COOL. I was alone in the field, left to my own devices, my own boss, and I was going to SAVE this forest!!! Of course I had to put one of my experimental plots on a hill with a 75 degree slope. It was a balancing act and calf workout not for the faint of heart. And at least three times I ended up losing my footing and tumbling down that hill head over feet, like a cartoon character, winding up at the bottom with the wind knocked out of me. As I said I was alone, with only ME to laugh at me. But don't worry.. I did. And so did my roommate Jay when I'd make it home at night.. and for several years afterwards.
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| The (beautiful) plot of terror |
- Working as an undergrad research assistant on a master's project in 2005 was a summer of awesome experience. It was the year of the roses. Literally, I was working with a few species of roses, and trust me when I say every rose has its thorn... After a particularly gruelling week of desexing and tying tiny labels onto roses, up to my elbows in prickly bushes, but "manning up" and going with it, I looked like I cut myself recreationally. Under flourescent lights, the cuts up and down my forearms were nearly glowing in contrast to my pale skin. My friend Jay ditched me in the liquor store "ah! Kristyn, I can't look at you! You're disgusting!" The cashier took one look at my arms and gasped. I ducked my head, took my money and my four pack of Keiths (that's how we rolled that year) and my emotional cutter arms to the bar, where it was a little dimmer at least.
- In 2010, while walking into a site to apply pesticides to a population of invasive Dog-strangling Vine, I noticed a big steaming pile of black bear poop. Uh oh. It was bear cub season as well = angry moms. But the DSV had to die. So I sprayed. At one point I heard a distinct low growling noise. My coworker was a few hundreds meters away from me, outside of the forest I was working in, so I was essentially alone. I couldn't see anything, but my survival instincts kicked in. What are your survival instincts? Mine, apparently, are to sing at the top of my lungs. I had Drake's "Find Your Love" in my head... so out it come. "I BETTER FIND YOUR LOVE... I BETTER FIND YOUR HEART...." <-- in a shaky, terror-voice. I saw another pile o' poop on my way out that day, but decided the bears had been sufficiently terrified with my singing to stay away. Let's hope that keeps happening!
So what was I saying about looking forward to field season..........? Let's hope I come out alive again in 2012!
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