Sunday, July 8, 2007

A day in the field with ‘The Widowmaker’

A day of work begins at 4pm.

The characters on the owl crew ’07, affectionately nicknamed ‘hooters’, are trickling in to the crew house, the house that Lisa and Zac sleep in that serves as a jump off point.

Inevitably the afternoon gets underway with a casuall conversation then slowly picks up as sites are carefully selected and partners picked. Then with surprising speed we all get to our roles.

‘I’m driving, you’re navigating,’

‘You get the thermos, I’ll get the mice…’

‘Do you have fresh batteries both double and triple A? Replacements?’

‘What channel and group do we use on The King?’

‘When do we check in again?’

‘What is it we’re looking for?’

In the bustle memory sometime fails, so we double check our minds with the checklist by the door.

‘So… we clear the memory with the… right arrow on the SLM… press run|stop and walk away… that seems easy…’

We throw our gear in the vehicle and set off for the gas station…

‘Oops! I forgot to bring my sleeping bag… lets just run by the barracks before we head out.’

Peace…

We’re on the road. Just the two of us. Expectant. Excited. But Calm.

‘How are you feeling?’

‘Pretty good.’

‘How’d you feel this morning?’

‘Could have been better, BUT I drank a lot of water and I felt a lot better… I gotta watch out on Karaoke night man…’

(Laughs)

Small talk.

‘So we get on Big Creek north to 16 then west on 47… right?’

‘Yep… then look for 42N07 on the right.’

5pm, we are rolling through yellow fields, dry as sandpaper but cooling off after surviving the hot midday sun. The land all around seems to be collectively breathing out… sighing in relief as the fields are tickled with soft breezes… There is a relaxed almost smug contentedness rolling along these fields at 25mph waving to the horses and the people.

Then, inevitably, we begin to climb and the driver must pay strict attention to the road. Washboards, sharp curves, rocks, trees, speed, panoramic mountain views, in my case motorcycles and expeditions of lasso-ing excellence are all a driver’s worst enemy taking vast reserves of concentration to travel over, around, and remain focused on the road ahead

Occasionally, the passenger will grip the door. Without a sound, the driver knows to slow down.

6pm, Still 3 hours of daylight… we arrive at our first site. Look at the maps. Find nearby drainages. Find the best line of travel and good potential hoot points using the contour lines. The best points are where the sound travels the farthest.

Hike. The sun is trickeling in through the leaves. Big trees, diameters of 7 to 8 feet, Douglas Firs, Manzanita, Medrona, Ponderosa Pines. Take time to pick off the budding lime green nettles and bring in their aroma sloooowly… And, of course, hug a ponderosa and smell its exotic bark. It’s worth thinking about.

7 to 8:59pm, Dinner – Peanut Butter and Jelly, granola, goldfish, fruit loops, wa-sa-bi peas, bacon flavored almonds, carrots, yogurt pretzels, peach, juicy grapefruit, water. A splendid table as the sky molts from blue to banana yellow to orange, to pink, to rosy-red, to glow, fade to starry black. I suggest leaving those UVA-UVB sunglasses on, so you don’t have to turn away.

Glance at my watch, 9pm arrives, my partner having hooted a few times at a few different call points with no responses. We begin to make our exit. Maybe there’s an owl there but she doesn’t feel chatty.

Getting back to the car we re-examine the maps, drainages, contours, etc. However, this time we won’t go in. We’ll call from the road. Hairpin turns are especially good for this.

Driving to the selected spot we see that the road ahead is washed out. Impassable.

‘We’re gonna have to walk it’

15 minutes to the call point on a hairpin ¾ mile down the road.

I call. Hoot. “Hoo…” sounds like a cow birthing a car. My partner snickers nearly, but not quite, inaudibly from down the road. Clear my throat.

Try anew. The four note “Hoo (pause) HooHoo (pause) Hooooo…”

10pm and nothing going… Hoot once per minute for 12 minutes… My attention begins to wander. The sky was clear, the moon was full. The fog has moved in and the moon is now a glowing orb taking up an eight of the sky. The birds have long since ceased their chorus. Silence… pure and simple… Silence, so often unheard of… I’m no longer waiting for anything anymore: I am loving exactly where I am. Here, for this moment, the grass won’t get any greener.

11:30 about to leave the site. There are plenty of other sites that we could go to tonight and night-hoot. So we begin to hike out.

‘C’mon lets go’

Absolute silence is broken. Boot on gravel.

‘Wait’ Between steps I’m sure I heard it.

‘There!’ Pointing to the sound of a 4 note response… We separate, take separate bearings, and jot down UTM coordinates from our GPS units.

‘So looks like we are sleeping here tonight.’ We say with shared excitement and weary.

We fall asleep in our bags, under no cover except satellites, with the knowledge there’s an owl nearby consuming our thoughts.

4 to 5am, up and hiking into the site. We call and get a response from roughly the same bearing. How lucky!

We fly toward the hoot, maintaining our bearing. Running. Watching our steps when we get the chance.

Reporting to my partner on the radio using any of our many personal and group-endorsed ‘handles’(clutch, spock, roommate, tanner, you-mae-ging, boom-hog, bread-lady, sarcasm, hot-pants, java bean, JB, Rayma-cakes, mop, rushmore, mickey, diseased peta, mai-thai, cliffhanger, lat-long, widowmaker),

‘I’m directly under her at UTM 046…’

As we settle ourselves beneath her she watches us… Analyzing with her big black silver dollar eyes.

Now begins the most important part of our job. We are silent except for occasional radio communication. We are allowed to sing – But only in our heads.

15 minutes pass like 5… The owl seems to have relaxed and has let her heavy lids fall slowly… We take out our behaviour analysis sheets and set a time to begin. Sitting side by side now, me with binoculars and partner with pen, we begin.

‘head turn, sleeping… head turn, head turn, head turn… Awake, preening… (6 minutes) contact call… head turn…’ etc…

An hour of that passes, we’ve accomplished part of our goal.

We decide to separate to get a better angle on the bird’s business side, the more important side for us at this point.

Getting up, I step on a twig that snaps loudly. She stirs, watches me as I re-settle.

After a while she dismisses us as unimportant and proceeds to re-ignore us. She’s got crap to do. When that ‘to do’ becomes ‘done’ we got to work and collect it as though it were made of Ur235, bit by bit… Not the white urate – that’s useless to us – but the black gunk with the tapioca consistency.

Say goodbye and its back to the car, up the steep, slippery, slide-y hill that was so easy to go down. Back down 42N07, 47, 16, and Big Creek to the barracks… Each thoroughly taken with a powerful, emotional awareness of privilege.

Monday, June 25, 2007

Photos... finally...

To check out my photos you will need to follow these links... I can't post them here due to the slow connection speed...

Trip photos:
http://unc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32324&l=d97ba&id=549665715


Nick, Taka, and Eric go to the Redwoods:
http://unc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32327&l=ded05&id=549665715

Hayfork Photos:
http://unc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32342&l=5966b&id=549665715

Enjoy,
NICK

Thursday, June 21, 2007

Close calls and excitement on the trails

Hello all we are in to the 3rd week of the project here in Hayfork. The project is going pretty much to plan. That’s not to say that the project has been without exciting moments. For example yesterday I got the 4WD Chevy Blazer stuck in the mud on a hair-pin turn in the mountains. Takahiro and myself were heading down a mountain before we saw that the road became blocked by a downed tree. We elected to reverse out to find a better spot to turn around. We began to spin our wheels when we were over the soft shoulder doing our 5 point turn. No one was hurt but we did need to have the fire guys come and pull us out of the hole with a Caterpillar Bulldozer (Luckily, we were friends with the fire guys before this happened).

The funny(but really not very funny) thing is that the time before last that I was out on the roads I had a flat tire that I needed to change. When it rains it pours(that’s what I read on the salt container this morning and it pretty much sums it up). I am learning lessons and skills left and right, however, so these things are more good than bad(especially when no one gets hurt).

So we have today off until 2 and then we’ll need to go out in the field again. I may need to get up the necessary courage to do so, however.

Monday, June 11, 2007

First few weeks in Hayfork(More remote than Thailand)

I am working in Hayfork, California right now and everything is going well. I have been here for ~10 days now and I am having a lot of interesting experiences - really too many to tell you about. But I am working with a guy from Boston(Eric), a girl from California(Rayma), a guy from Pennsylvania(Dustin), and a guy from Japan(Taka)… I have had many conversations with Taka and he is a really kind, modest guy. He has taught me a little about Japanese culture and has offered me 3 books on Japanese culture to borrow. He and I have bonded greatly due to our common interest in Asia. Recently we had a discussion about the differences between Japanese and Thai Buddhist thought and practice. They are more different than I originally thought!

I have been out into the forest roughly 4 times and have spent over 35 hours hooting, listening, watching, and collecting owl poop. We collect scat so it can be taken back to the lab and analyzed for stress hormone levels. This tells us how stressed the animals are under normal circumstances. Then we take scat after an off-highway vehicle(OHV) passes by the nest and analyze the stress hormone levels in that and there we have our control and our experiment (and my summer)…

The field work is an exercise in patient alertness… We need to be patient while waiting for a response to our 4 note hoots but we can’t fall asleep or lose our sense of hearing because sometimes the response will come full minutes after the Initial hoot... or not at all…

My first time out we got lost due to my mistake with the maps (duhh… geography major…) by the time we got to the point of entry it was too late to hoot into the woods and we had to go back to the truck. We slept on the road side, got up, I called into the woods and got an immediate response. What a rush! We crashed into the woods and followed the sounds. We found the owls and began our observation. The owls seemed restless and began to fly from tree to tree and we chased after. At one point I was chasing the owl down the mountain and watching my step when I looked up and caught the owl staring me in the face. He(or she) was about 2 meters away watching me with his deep all-black eyes. I was stunned. Eventually, he went for a sip of water and I relaxed.

So that is my work this summer. I’ll keep everyone updated through this blog… Best wishes!



ps. Yes, Hayfork is more remote than Thailand... I had cell phone signal in Thailand!

Monday, May 28, 2007

Almost there!


The Badlands, South Dakota... not so bad... If you have an interest in Geology... If not, a good place to start...

Hello again all,

I just got back to the land of internet access. And it feels good... absence makes the heart grow fonder and right now I just want to cuddle up with the spinning globe of my internet browser and make sweet, strange-looking globe babies...

So hold on tight for some written diarrhea...

After leaving St. Louie I hit Chicago and Uncle Nigel's place then went due west through MN and SD... MN and Southeast SD are... flat...

The Badlands of western SD are beautiful as you can see from the above photo... They are a beautiful example of deposition and erosion that are actually occurring around us all the time, everywhere we go. We couldn't stop it if we tried... Ha! How cool is that? There are examples of this everywhere we look. The Badlands shows you that...

After the Badlands it was on to the Black Hills/Custer St. park where I saw bison, prairie dogs, elk, deer, wild turkey, and all sorts of great wildlife going through their daily routine of grazing, poo-ing, staring at people in their cars staring at them, hopping, skipping, singing, and molting... A variety of activities all seen from a short distance from my car (Thanks fungus foot - oh, I have a foot fungus that prevented me from doing much walking for fear of aggravating the infection/fungus).

Eventually, I got into Wyoming and saw the powerful, looming mountains of Grand Teton... Breath taking, speechless eye-wideners...

I spent a day in Yellowstone - which was full of tourists... and made my way to Montana to see Steve...

My respite in Montana was very necessary... I had been camping for 5 nights 2 of which were spent in my car.

After that I spent a day on the road to Eugene, OR... going through the Columbia River Gorge... very nice... I don't recommend Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas audiobook while driving 65+, however... actually not a good road trip book at all... kinda scary...

Eugene is great... Bike friendly and super fun places to go and hang around... The university isn't bad either... good football team I heard...

Spent 2 nights there with a friend(Thanks Susan!) and went on to my cousin Luke's place in Arcata, CA... I finally crossed into California to my own personal applause and... fog... lots of it...

Anyhow... I went around Arcata for a while(which was fun... definitely a place where ideas are born... not always carried out but born... and very bike friendly...) Luke took me surfing for the first time... I loved it but it was cold... I was in a 5mm wet suit so my body was ok but my hands and feet lost all feeling... A BLAST! THANKS LUKE!

I then went to Hayfork and began work... I'll be posting again soon so keep an eye out! Photos are on the way!

Best,

NICK

Friday, May 18, 2007

On the Wings of the Die

The Northern Spotted Owl

I am on my way out to California to assist a Washington State PhD with her research on the Northern Spotted Owl(above). We will be determining buffer distances at which OHV(off highway vehicle) trails should be placed through monitoring Owl habits and reactions to passing vehicles. This is my second venture into research and my first into intense fieldwork. I am excited and ready. But... I need to get out there first.

In a rush I threw my gear/life together a few days ago and got on the road. If I waited any longer I was afraid it wouldn't happen.

The christening of the "Die" (Notice she was christened with an expensive bottle of Paps Blue Ribbon, year 2007)

The first night I camped out on the Blue Ridge Parkway which was a really nice. The Blue Ridge Pkwy is my favorite road in America right now. One thing that stuck with me was the friendliness (almost camaraderie) of the fellow drivers and bikers. Every wave was returned and appreciated as though we acknowledged how lucky we all were. If you haven't done it before its something that shouldn't be described - it should be witnessed. I shouldn't really put any pictures up because they can't do it justice. But I did(above).

For whatever reason, I can't say I was all there... I had trouble putting my finger on the source of my uneasiness but my mind was telling me that something was wrong...

Surrounded with such awe inspiring beauty I feel as though its only right to go really slow and stop at each overlook to meditate on the beauty of the world at a distance. I've always felt this way. Looking out the airplane window or down at a map - the world is perfect. I suppose its perfect up close also and there are plenty of things better witnessed an inch away, but when it comes to seeing something as vast as a Mt. Mitchell(the highest point east of the Mississippi) and surrounding valleys and hills I'll take it in from a distance to start with. Its like they say - "Don't eat anything bigger than your head". I feel like I need to know how big the thing is before I can dive in. Maybe that's why I like maps.

Even with all this contemplation going on I feel as though there is something wrong. Its a feeling of unearned reward... All I had to do was hop in my car put $30 in my tank and get on the highway... and Boom... I'm at the top of the world(at least east of the Mississippi) and I never broke a sweat or got mildly uncomfortable... I see the guys on motorcyclists and even bicyclists and I envy them: They are seeing AND feeling the things around them - not just seeing. I know its absurd but its important to recognize our inner most feelings - right?

I stopped in to Asheville, NC along the way and found that I liked it. I felt I could live there though the people that I saw and spoke to were not overwhelmingly friendly as I expected. They treated me a little as though I just got off the highway and didn't know where I was. Though I was just that.

Then I camped out again on the BRP. The next morning I got into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park with some weather creeping in - it was a pleasant misty rain. I climbed those mountains and went to the highest point in the park. This took 7 miles out of my way climbing up into the clouds and then 30 minutes hike up to an observatory with a predictable view. White clouds on all sides... It was a feel of intense isolation at the top of this observatory post with these clouds whipping all around you engulfing you from view. I could have pee-ed of the side and gotten away with it. I almost risked it(but then I thought there might be someone down below that I couldn't see - I try to be a nice guy about these kinds of things).

The view off the observatory to the North

South

East

West... Got it?

After coming back through the clouds to the land of 1m+ visibility I officially crossed into Tennessee(below) and hit the road hard.

I got lost in Nashville, got un-lost, and booked it to the Land Between the Lakes National Park in Northern TN/Southern Kentucky. I got there at ~9:45pm and it was dark and I was unhappy... But I met another guy about my age in my same position(traveling out west for a job with the bureau of reclamation) whose name was Mike. We showed up at the campsite together and shared a site($4 a piece). It was great to meet another guy in the same position as myself. The next day was on through a bit of KY and into Illinois.

Southern IL has quite possibly the most ridiculous names for cities of anywhere I've been so far. Here are a few of note: Metropolis(home of superman - photo below), Cairo, Future, and America to name a few. How cool would it be to live in THE Future(, Illinois that is). Or in THE America(, Illinois that is)... Pretty cool - that's how...


Superman... He's not as tall as I thought...

I eventually crept into St. Louis and found my Uncle's house with no significant issues. It has been such a pleasure to have 2 hot showers and a good meal. Thanks Leo and Mary! Today I head to Chicago to meet up with Uncle Nigel... and another shower! Ha! how lucky but then I hit the toughest part of my trip... Chicago, across south Minnesota, South Dakota(Badlands, Petrified forest, Mt. Rushmore), and then Dropping southwest through WY and then north west to Grand Teton(how do you pronounce that? A cookie if you know), Yellowstone, and then I should be in southern MT (tired, probably a little smelly and dirty) to see my retired professor, Steve "the dream" Levine (I only wish I could claim that nickname as my creation). After that I'll creep down into northern CA through Eugene, OR(to see Susan - friend from Thailand). From there I'll for 2 months then go south through CA and head due east past the Grand Canyon and into Florida for a family reunion in Perdido Key. After that its back to Chapel Hill and school in late August!

I have started this blog on a new concept(different from my blog from Thailand - npsjournal.blogspot.com). It will be a blog describing my trip and my internship but it will take a tone of self reflection and exploration as I have discovered that blogs have become another medium where I feel comfortable expounding and putting up nice photos as records. If it suits you, enjoy - if not, I won't be offended.

My plan/method is to call people when I feel a little tired as a sort of natural caffeine. Hence, expect a call from me. I also have a bunch of audiobooks I will be listening to to get me through the stretches of long boring interstate. I don't recommend Orwell's 1984 while driving the majestic Blue Ridge Parkway, however.

NICK

ps. I'm doing this trip with 2 rules: 1) No fast food 2) No hotels

pss. I thought about naming the blog "Forderosa" in acknowledgement of Che and Ernesto's "Poderosa" but in the end I decided against corporate sponsorship. Sorry GM... Instead of the weak direct translation of Poderosa to my own native language "The one that can" I decided to use the Thai word. "Die" is Thai for "can" in every conjugation and form. I would spell it "Dai" if I could but I think that's already taken...

psss. Below are some more photos:

Getting in to the mountains for the first time...


Morning on the Blue Ridge... Granola, Orange, and Soy Milk + Protein... Delicious...


Highest point on the Blue Ridge Pkwy... In the clouds...