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Published: March 2nd 2008
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A Boy and his Sunset
Enjoying some personal reflection and the sunset from Lookout Rock. Not too far from the research center - about 2 klicks - is a small kopje perched on the side of hill. Known as Lookout Rock, it's an easily accessible and favored site for sundowners for good reason - the short scramble to the top yields sweeping views, to the south and east, of the plateau, Mt. Kenya, and surrounding ranches, all bathed in the sun as it sets behind a ridge to the west. I felt the need for a little solitude this evening and decided Lookout Rock would be the perfect place to reflect on the past week - my first week in charge of the Starling Project.
In retrospect, the week has gone rather smoothly and my feelings of being overwhelmed are slowly lifting (for the time being). Most of my time is spent sitting beneath the shade of an acacia tree, fending off the occasional fly, waiting patiently for a starling to bury its greedy beak in the pawpaw underneath the trap. In other words, I have a unique opportunity to simply blend into the landscape. This allows me to watch the African bush go about its business uninterrupted - I often have birds approach within
Banding
Wilson banding an adult Superb Starling. a few feet, and gazelle or impala within a stone's throw. While they may know I'm there and avoid coming too close, they at least don't seem to care and simply do as they would at any other time, undisturbed.
Initially, we were primarily trapping for either unringed birds or those that needed color bands replaced (used for individual identification at a distance). Once a bird is caught, it's "processed," which entails "ringing" the bird with a metal, numbered ring on the right leg and 4 colored bands - 3 on the left, one on the right. We then take measurements of the bird, using a small ruler for wing length, a pair of calipers for tarsus and beak length, and a small scale to determine weight (which requires stuffing the bird head-first into a makeshift plastic baggy). Next, we blow gently on the bird's underside and wings, looking for both a brood patch and molt - the former a vascularized mass of tissue on the belly (indicating the bird is a nesting female) and the latter diagnosed by the presence of "pin-feathers" (those that are only recently emerging, still wrapped in a sheath, replacing dropped or worn feathers).
Spinning
Wilson setting up the centrifuge (run off the car battery) for extracting plasma. Finally, a blood sample is collected from an artery in the wing to later be used for sexing the bird, as they are not sexually dimorphic.
Processing a bird like this is fairly straight-forward and takes less than 10 minutes - pretty simple. This is not the entire procedure, however - eventually I had to learn how to incorporate into the protocol bleeding the birds for hormone samples, a task that requires procuring a sample within the first three minutes of capture, and at 10, 30, 60, and 90 minutes thereafter. The first sample (the one that must be taken within three minutes) is taken from the neck, using a syringe. All samples thereafter are taken from the wing using a syringe tip to prick the artery and capillary tubes to collect the blood, which is then emptied into an eppendorf tube. Using the wings for four consecutive samples requires alternating right, left, right, left (usually - sometimes a hematoma forms and you just have to find a good place to prick either wing). After each sample is drawn, a piece of gauze is applied to the bleeding site and the bird is replaced in the bird bag and
Passing Time
Waiting for another half hour to pass before taking another blood sample. Godfrey on the right, Wilson on the left . . . Superb Starling on the far left (in sock hanging from chicken-coop door). hung from a branch or side-view mirror. The eppendorf tube is then spun in a centrifuge run off the car battery. After 5 minutes, the plasma has separated from the red blood cells, and can be drawn and emptied into another small plastic vial, which is then marked with all the necessary information and wrapped in parafilm to prevent evaporation out the top. These plasma samples are then placed in a cooler until we return to the research center, where they'll live in a freezer until Dustin takes them back to the US for analysis. The entire procedure is quite lengthy and a lot to remember (at least, if you're in the same boat as I and have never done it before), but I'm fairly confident I've got it down. The bleeding is the most difficult part - the first samples are usually easy to get, but the third and fourth ones prove quite tough. I've mostly been watching Wilson this week, slowly stepping in to help out a little more each time as I get more comfortable.
When we haven't been trapping birds at our regular sites, we've been baiting for them at a number of other sites
Pearl-spotted Owlet
Gotta love owls . . . especially diurnal ones no larger than a robin. we think will be good for the brain hormone project. These sites are typically around bomas, or livestock corrals enclosed by a dense fence of thorny acacias that, once a herd of cows has inhabited for long enough, attract a large number (and diversity) of insects (including vast swarms of exasperatingly annoying flies at the "live" bomas). The insects, in turn, attract plenty of birds, many of which are starlings we hope to catch for a variety of samples (brain, liver, spleen, feces, eyes, gonads, breast tissue, feathers . . .). The brains are the only organ for which I know the purpose we're collecting them: Dustin wants to study hormone levels in relationship to breeding across the three species. The other organs will be used by various other researchers; the idea is, since we're killing birds for their brains, to take as much as possible so that as little as possible goes to waste. Of course, I'd rather not be killing any birds at all.
I sort of fell into a routine during the last week: wake up early (between 0430 and 0500), dress, stumble to the dining hall, eat cereal (provided there is milk, which there occasionally
Too Shallow for Crocs . . .
Crocs have apparently been showing up at various spots along the Ewaso Ny'iro near the research center, so we made sure to find a shallow, crocodile-free area before settling down. is not), load car, leave for the site (~0530 to 0600), set up traps, wait, wait, wait (read, watch birds, read, ponder life), dissemble traps (but leave them there for the afternoon session), leave for MRC (~1100-1200), check e-mail, eat lunch, take nap or do computer work, drive back to site (~1500), trap for a couple more hours, pack everything up, return home (~1830), shower, relax for a bit, eat dinner, check e-mail, go to bed. That's my day in a nutshell. There have been a few alterations, though - I went for a nightdrive with Rob and Kayna at the beginning of the week (highlights of an ardwolf and young Striped Hyena); the Suzuki's engine was sounding funny on Wednesday and needed time in the shop, so we spent the whole day trapping at the research center; I've seen lots of good birds (like the Pearl-spotted Owlet), and the usual game; and finally, today, a large group of us ventured to the river for the afternoon.
In lieu of Rob's temporary leave from Mpala and impending departure for the US, several of us decided to abandon our research for the afternoon and simply enjoy some time spent basking
Ewaso Ny'iro
A look down the Ewaso Ny'iro River. Mpala Ranch is to the left, and Lekiji - a sort of community parcel of land currently under ownership dispute - is on the right. by the Ewaso Ny'iro River. As a party of 8 (6 people, 2 dogs), we took a short drive to a favored sundowner site, and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as possible within a jumble of smoothed river rocks. While both crocodiles and hippos are known to inhabit the river, the extremely low water levels in this stretch allowed us to find safe perches amidst shallow water devoid of such beasties. It was a very relaxing departure from the usual grind of trapping, and much appreciated. We had a rather amusing time watching the puppies chase each other around the rocks, still not fully confident with their constantly growing bodies, stumbling over one another and rolling down the grassy banks. Some of us read, some of us enjoyed a beer, and some of us just took in the beautiful day and scenery. For me, it was a much needed reprieve, as much for something relaxing to do as for the social interaction. I love the field, but it often feels like it's too easy to get caught up it the work and accidentally avoid interacting with people - people who seem to be quite fun and, in any other
The Posse
The group of us who ventured to the river for the afternoon (clockwise from top center): Siva, a postdoc studying Grevy's Zebra; Kayna, a Wild Dog Project researcher and field tech; Rob, a Stanford grad student studying Kenya Dwarf Geckos, among other things; Corinna, Siva's newlywed wife and postdoc studying the environmental impacts of large herbivores; Sarah, a Vermont grad student studying termites and ants; Arcus, Siva and Corinna's puppy (can't recall what breed - some sort of terrier, I think); and Talik, Kayna's 5-month-old ridgeback. circumstances, with whom I'd probably spend quite a bit of time just hanging out. Hopefully there will be more outings such as this in the weeks and months to come; the bush is a perfect place for personal reflection and being alone, but also a wonderful place to share experiences with others.
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