Crested Goshawk, Dr. Miller, and Mr. Hoodi

Yesterday (Friday), before I arrived at work, a group of people was standing on the pathway of TBG looking at something. So I stopped and took a look too.
It was a Crested Goshawk, perhaps a fledgling or a juvenile, staring at the pond below. Swimming (and squawking) in the pond was an adult Common Moorhen. One of the watchers told me that there are moorhen chicks hiding in the bushes in the pond and the goshawk had been staring at them for quite a while now.

In the end, the goshawk finally made its move, but somebody (an elderly lady, it seems) in the audience screamed when it happened, so the goshawk came away empty-handed. I am not totally sure what to make of that.

Before noon, I attended a special talk given by Dr. Jeffrey C. Miller of Oregon State University on the topic of "Repeated Standardized and Consistent Measures for Assessing Lepidoptera Biodiversity through Time for Assessing Climate Change." Quite a mouthful, no?

Besides describing his researches in various sites around the world, the more intriguing part of his talk was his "cyber-field guide" on Lepidopterans - "Lepidoptera Wing Pattern Identification System" at this URL. Basically, when you came across a museum specimen or an individual in the field that you couldn't identify, you can take a picture of it and submit it to this system. By selecting reference marks on the wings of the Lepidoptera, the server will immediately pick the best matches in its library of images and tell you what this species is. What a wonderful tool it is, especially for an amateur naturalist like myself! I can't wait for them to get grants to build a faster server and a better library of images (not just in North America but the entire world). I feel great potentials of using system not for Lepidopterans only, but also for other confusing taxas, such as spiders, ants, marine invertebrates, fishes, etc.

Anyways, after lunch, it was all office work for me. During my breaks, I photographed our next-door-office cat named Hoodi (means Tiger-brother in Chinese). Isn't he just handsome?

If there's one thing changed about me from this internship, it was transforming me into not just a dog person, but also a cat person too. I just love these independent and cool-looking felines!

Today (Saturday) will be all work (and this blogging) from home, so don't expect another post from today. Have a great weekend, everyone!.