July update - Hiking to Treasure Mountain (4,103 m)

Last Saturday (July 11th), everyone in my lab took a half-day off to hike Treasure Mountain.  To get to the trailhead, we drove from Gothic to Paradise Divide and then hike to Yule Creek Trail.

Paradise Divide.

Windy Pine BioBlitz - Day 2

On our second day at Windy Pine, we first went canoeing and then hiked in the forest looking at fungi in the morning.

Kushog Lake in the morning.

BEE-tiful Saturday

Once again, I came to school to do some work.  One thing I found quite inconvenient about coming to Trent on the weekend is that all the buildings would be locked (that I have no access to), so there is no direct route from the bus stop to my office.  I guess the silver lining is that I can walk around the buildings and take some time to appreciate the nature around me.

Close-up on the lichens on the rock.

Strange nature formations

On Thursday (April 4), we set up stations for tomorrow's lab where students were assigned stations along the Otonabee River and recorded the abundance and diversity of waterfowls on the river, as well as other environmental variables, including water flow, location of waterfowl on the river, and habitat type of the embankment.

We saw some interesting things, such as:

Ice bells?

Lichen growing on a slanted wood surface.

Today, I came to school and checked on our maple sap collection.  Because it was cold last night and warm this morning, all of our buckets were overflowing with sap!  How wonderful!  Unfortunately, we didn't have the big buckets readily available, so I couldn't do anything except wait for the others to collect tomorrow.  I also saw my first flower of 2013.  Hints of spring are starting appear!

I am currently in discussion with a potential PhD supervisor in the University of Ottawa, and tomorrow I will finally meet her in person, as well as meet other professors in the department, and tour the university and city.  Super excited about it!