Woooaaaahhhh!

Tuesday, 12.04.2011

We’ve just been rained off our fieldwork, so I thought I can give you a quick update, cause the rest of the week is likely to be so busy that I’m not gonna be able to see past the tip of my nose at the end of the day. I’m on a different project again this week, exciting exciting… we’re doing a survey of an endangered bird in the area, the white-breasted thrasher. That means going out early, although it’s not quite pre-dawn starts. We leave the house round about 6:30 and get back between 2 and 3. We’re doing distance sampling from points, each point supposedly is 250 meters from the last, although it feels quite a lot longer. The going is rough and it usually takes us in between 25 and 45 minutes to cover those 250 meters. My idea of good of fun, as I’m sure you all know. What makes the whole thing even more err exhilarating is the fact that we’re tracking through snake-country, the islands only poisonous snake species, called fer-de-lance, makes a home up in those hills. I know, I probably shouldn’t be telling you guys this and I can think of a few people this is gonna freak out, but it’s the truth of the matter and life is always gonna be dangerous to live, which is a big part of why it’s worth living… savvy? I’m not planning on getting bitten, but if it happens I’m not gonna regret having made the choices that brought me to this point, she said with confidence.

Anyways, so we’re trapsing round the tropical dry forest (has a real mediterranean feel to it) with snake guards on, which makes walking a bit awkward, but it’s not as bad as one would think. Having said that, I slipped on a rock yesterday and with those thingies on there was no way I was gonna be quick enough to catch myself, so my right hip hit the very same rock in an astonishing display of clumsiness, re-spraining my right ankle, which means I managed to repeat my last two accidents (new years eve and mid-January) in a single go… the joys of fieldwork. Oddly enough, I’m still loving it and especially walking out of snake-country after a days worth of fieldwork makes you feel so incredibly alive one could almost think me a madwoman… J I’ve been reading a few books about mountaineering lately, they very much describe the same feeling, although I would never compare my humble ventures into Dennery backcountry with the amount of insanity required to climb – say- the Everest.

Anyways, what I actually wanted to say before going on this endless ramble was why my week is likely to be insanely busy, only marginally dependant on the weather. On Sunday, we went to Praslin island, one of the small offshore islets off the coast of St. Lucia. These are used as a wildlife haven because it’s possibly to eradicate rats and the likes from them, which is never gonna happen on the main island. In this case, the whiptail lizard, a very pretty thing, has been re-introduced onto a few of the islands, including Praslin. We’re still monitoring the rat situation on those islands, so on Sunday we went on a little boat trip to check the baiting stations. And sure enough even though we didn’t find any dead rats or the like, we found rat droppings, which set off a contingency plan meaning that we’re gonna be going off to Praslin island a few times this week to put out some more bait and check the stations. If we find more signs of rats we’re gonna kick into action and be going out there 7 days a week if we can get a boat, camping on the island if not… Horray, I’ve been waiting for a chance to try my hammock, but that might mean that I’d be uncontactable (not to mention sweaty, smelly and wet) for a while. Basically, we need to hit this on the head before the rats start hitting the whiptail population and we’re back to square one.

So, for the remainder of this week I’ll be getting up at half past five to do thrasher-surveys, then go to the island, come back around about 6 o’clock and then do data entry, followed by collapsing into bed. One just has to love rodents and there human-like ability to take over the world…

Anyways, I know this all sounds rather err not so good, but every fieldworker who reads this will have a knowing smile on his lips, and to be honest: right now I wouldn’t trade this in for anything, despite jiggers, ankles, sore hips, sunburn, slight cold, not having seen a thrasher as of yet, not having seen a snake as of yet, and the likes…

So feel free to envy me, I’m certainly enjoying myself, no matter how mad that sounds… J

Take care guys, hope you’re well or even better: alive and kicking…

Carola

P.S.: Note how it says quick update at the start of this monster-entry…

P.P.S.: Another attempt at bread-making turned out highly successful, here is to hoping I’ve figured it out now… (and yes, I’m obsessed with bread-making, cope!)