Midwestern is back in the Midwest!

Hey everybody! Well, to update - after living in DC for a few months, I up and moved to Forsyth Missouri... yeah, I know what you're thinking, 'gosh Jessica, was it a good idea to move to southern Missouri at the beginning of tornado season?'. I was asking myself that very question a couple of nights ago as I was listening to the emergency broadcast system tell me that a tornado was headed directly for me at 30mph... Luckily the surrounding hilly landscape broke it up and all we got hit with was some hail (and not the tennis ball sized stuff they were getting a little further north). Another natural disaster narrowly averted! Ha ha!
So I moved down here to work at Chase Studio making natural history museum exhibits. I've only been working there for a month now, so I'm still doing mostly odd jobs to help other people out - making trees and ferns, sculpting rocks out of plaster, painting plants to look dead. I've also been helping out with the installation of a new exhibit at the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History in Norman, OK. I get to work with Terry Chase - founder of the company - putting together dioramas. This man is really really ridiculously good at what he does. Really. Learning this stuff from the best guy in the business makes up for the fact that I'm living in middle of nowhere in southern Missouri... and that's saying a lot (I'm living near Branson people... Branson).
So that's what I've been up to as of late.
As far as birds, I've continued my tradition of being the lazy birder (side note: one of my proudest lazy birder moments recently was in Kauai when I spotted my first Great Frigatebird while lying on the beach absent-mindedly staring at the sky) so at this point the bulk of my bird list consists of sightings from my apartment window or outside at the studio - although I'm sure that will change since there's a lot of wilderness around here and when I go on exploratory excursions I'm always packin' glass. Also, I will admit that I actually got up at sunrise one morning last weekend and walked around for the sole purpose of birding. Score one bird dork point for midwestern!

Also, Koko, I had a bloody mary yesterday and thought of you :)

Beards are fun

I thought I'd share my beard enjoyment with ya'll. I agree with Sus that everyone needs to update their whereabouts. Mr. D. is in the Central Valley for another summer of PCs and nest searching.

Movin' On

My time here on Sanibel draws short. I will miss the Anhinga and the Rosies, but I'll be banding Akiapola'au while listening to Apapane, so I guess I can't complain. I'm heading over to the big Island for a couple months to help a Stanford postdoc on her project studying habitat needs of native Hawaiian honeycreepers, also doing plant surveys in the friendly hawaiian vegetation. There's a bit of outreach component to the job too, teaching some tour guides how to read color bands. I'm also thinking that it will introduce me to some key people in the hawaii bird conservation scene! In any case, it will be incredibly nice to be back in the misty forest islands called "kipuka" situated on vast expanses of black lava.

Just to make you all jealous of me, here are some pictures of a few of the lifers I've seen since I've been down here in Florida. Last week, the 2 bio interns and I went to a really cool spot (that was unfortunately next to a shooting range, but in Florida you can't be picky about land set aside) where we didn't see Red-Cockaded Woodpeckers, but did see Swallow-tailed Kite, Brown-headed Nuthatch, female Ring-necked Duck, and heard a Bobwhite, and of course also saw Wood Storks and Pine Warblers. But these pix are from Corkscrew Swamp Sanctuary, an amazing bit of land managed by the Audubon Society. Purple Gallinule and Palm Warbler. I also picked up Ovenbird (I love them!), male and female Painted Bunting, and Brown Thrasher. For more (and better) recent photos of Florida birds, go to http://picasaweb.google.com/susan.culliney

All of you who have not posted recently, let me know where you are and what you are up to!

Kranz, I just finished a trilogy about climate change by Kim Stanley Robinson (Forty Days of Rain, Fifty Degrees Below, Sixty Days and Counting). To all who have not read this author, please try him out. He wrote the Mars trilogy (Red Mars, Blue Mars, Green Mars) as well as this more recent trilogy about what happens to our society in the next few decades with our current problems. He's very optimistic, and I wish I could vote for the President in the 3rd book. There are so many great ideas and it's very hopeful. He's a very realistic and scientific fiction writer!

Everyone needs to update their whereabouts and current activities!

Mines Road Date Set

Hello there everybody (though I'm not sure how many people are still checking the blog),
Just wanted to tell you that the dates for this year's Mines Road trip have been set for April 30 to May 1. All former interns are always invited. So take some time off, fly out if you have to. Hope everyone is doing well. Take care.

White Pelican Release

Check out these photos of me helping release White Pelicans at the refuge here in Sanibel. the release happened before xmas, but we finally got the copies of the pictures from CROW (Care and rehabilitation of wildlife), who facilitated the release of these birds, who were flown down on Northwest from Wisconsin where they were getting trapped in the ice this past fall, having failed to follow their compatriots south when they were supposed to. It's an interesting dilemma, if the birds aren't migrating, should we be helping them on the way? Will they do the same thing next year? Is there a bigger problem that we aren't seeing? It was still a cool experience, and it was amazing to hold such a big bird, who was surprisingly light-weight which demonstrated how birds are so adapted to flight (hollow bones, feathers, bills instead of jaw bones). These guys swam off and joined the rest of the White Pelicans which had flown their own way down here.

hope y'all are having good winters and i'm jealous of those of you who are in snow (truly).

Damn it's snowing AGAIN.

Hooters Fresno

Gouldii and I finally got out in the field today after several days of heavy rain. We had a long drive and a long day in the field cutting net lanes and setting up nets. What better way to relax than having a beer and burger at Hooters. Goudlii insisted. Our waitress was a Koko look-a-like. Well she was shortish, had long brown hair and wore glasses. I hope all of you know that Koko was formerly a Hooters girl. I heard she went to the reunion when she was back home.

We'll be banding tomorrow, weather dependent.