Rambles of a Field Biologist

the usual fog and rain rolling in amongst the 'ohi'a canopy As the title suggests, the rain certainly falls in Hakalau Forest NWR, where I have done all my field work in Hawai'i. If you read my first post you may remember me mentioning this quite a bit. In fact, Hakalau gets 250 inches of rain every year in parts of the refuge. That is close to 21 feet of rain every year (which is more than two basketball goals stacked pole to rim for all you sports fans). For reference, we only get a little over 20 inches  of rain here in Flagstaff, AZ where I currently live. Hawai'i is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, with nothing between it and the coast of North America except ocean. The prevailing winds (the trade winds) blow from east to west, from the continent across the ocean and right over Hawai'i. There is a lot of moisture in that stretch of 1500-2000 miles or so, and the air picks it all up. Once the winds reach Hawai'i, they suddenly slam into the side o...

Cari Lynn getting a radio transmitter ready for deployment. You can see a small antenna and receiver on the table in front of her. Ever wonder how a person can follow an individual bird through the woods? The truth is, its pretty difficult and there is no real easy way to do other than persistence, laser focus, and a quick eye with binoculars. There, a flash of yellow in the leaves! There it goes! Run! Ok, it landed in that tree over there. Yea, its not easy to chase a flying object through the woods on your own two feet. I know, I have spent hours of my life doing just that. The feeling is a little like chasing a fly around your kitchen with your flyswatter - slow and steady for a bit while you creep up, then boom its gone somewhere else and there you go chasing after. There is technology, however, that can make finding individual birds easier: radio telemetry. This is a very common technique when studying wildlife from cougars to songbirds. The technique works like this. First ...

This post was written about a particular day I recorded in my journal during my last field season of my Master's degree in 2016. All my friends will tell you, I don't like the cold. What's the point of needing cumbersome layers just to stay warm, when you could be somewhere warm and sunny with only swim trunks on? Migratory birds making their annual trips from the north to the tropics for the winter has always made a lot of sense to me. I love being barefoot on warm summer days with a breeze blowing, sweat flowing, and spirits high. I would take 95 degrees and humid over 35 degrees any day. At the moment though, I'm wearing three layers with a rain shell and knit wool gloves, it's a cool 50 degrees, and rain is pattering down through leaves above me onto my wide-brim hat. I am soaking wet, but haven't been sweaty in days. I'm sitting huddled on the ground, forced to stay still to keep one eye staring through a spotting scope. And I'm loving it. To unde...