Daily life in Colorado - Part 4

Research

My field season is slowly winding down with the flowers setting seeds (a.k.a. nutlets).  However, the nutlets contain elaiosomes that are removed by ants (and the plants are also eaten by deers), thus I have to be extra diligent in nutlet-collecting before other creatures get to them first.

Ants also steal nectar from flowers.  Here is one removing the flower.

Fast-forwarding the days

After the somewhat relaxing day-off on Saturday, the remainder of the week became incredibly busy in carrying out our field projects and staying late in labs to get results.

2012/4/23

Another student's project - use staining techniques to stain scent glands on different parts of flowers, as well as using SEM to look at the structural differences between the parts.

Jackson Park, Peterborough

My mother returned back to BC yesterday, so I am officially on my way through graduate school now. Just need to wait for the classes to start next Tuesday.

I went for a short jog in the morning when I was taking out the garbage. It was incredibly warm and humid but it felt good to explore and discover more of Peterborough.

Then in the afternoon, I went to check out a park nearby where I live called Jackson Park. It is a beautiful place with a small lake right at the entrance with many trails and streams running around it. [Most of the photos in this post were taken with the OM lens. I'll probably use the wider lens the next time.]

Quick post from Edmonton

Hello from Edmonton. I arrived at Edmonton about a hour ago and now waiting for another graduate student from Trent to arrive. We are planning to go to Elk Island National Park and then we will travel to Inuvik, NWT tomorrow morning.

Now, here are the photos from yesterday where I went to do a Grassland Bird Survey (GBS) with my supervisor's husband in the morning (woke up around 5:20am), then came back to their home and got ready to go to their cottage. Overall, it was a fulfilling but tiring day, considering I woke up early than usual and kayaked and canoed (not activities I do everyday).

In the morning.

Carden memories come to an end & Niagara Falls

My summer field season concluded yesterday. I am now in my friend's home in Ontario before I fly back to B.C. on Saturday. There are many memories, photos, thoughts, emotions, and experiences from the last 4.5 months that I would like to share, but now they remain unorganized in my head. Hopefully, I will be able to share them as time progresses.

Here are some photos from the last few days on the field site and last boat rides on Lake Dalrymple.

Orange Sulphurs enjoying the salts on the road.

A juvenile Brown-headed Cowbird posing for the camera.

First time to Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary: Part 2

This is the continuation of yesterday's post on my first time to Reifel Migratory Bird Sanctuary. Here were the birds that I saw and photographed.

A male Northern Pintail (Anas acuta). The supposedly evident black central tail feathers are not clearly seen in these pictures; thus, you got to identify the male by its chocolate brown head with a long and slender neck, and the white neck extends in a thin line onto the head.

Female Hooded Merganser (Lophodytes cucullatus).

American Wigeon (Anas americana). These birds are so cute-looking.

Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias). Quite solitary and sad-looking.

Unknown accipiter. If I have to guess, I think it's a Northern Harrier.

Spotted Towhee (Pipilo maculatus).

A female of a hybrid species? But what exactly? Perhaps a father Goose and mother Mallard?

A female Greater Scaup (Aythya marila) that I thought was a Goldeneye in the first place. Terrible. Thanks to the posters here that I realized my mistakes.

There were several times when my family and I were amazed by the sound and sight of thousands of Snow Geese taking off in the distance. Spectacular!

After we left Reifel, we headed to several places before going to Richmond Nature Park to sign-up for their special program "A Night For Owls" later that night. But apparently the class was full already. Shoot! I was really disappointed about not seeing any owls and birds of prey at Reifel today, so I was really looking forward to this opportunity. Disappointed but not discouraged, we walked around the Nature Park, and we saw these two mammals in the day all about birds: Douglas's Squirrel (Tamiasciurus douglasii) on the right; and House Mouse (Mus musculus) on the left.

House Mouse (left) and Douglas's Squirrel (right) pretending to be birds.