From Pacific to Prairie and Pole to Pole

Gregor Mendel and Nik’11.

Nik’11 who studied how the distribution of seabirds varied around Santa Barbara Island for his senior thesis, is finishing his Master’s degree in Economics at the Univerzita Karlova, in Prague, Czech Republic. He is doing the important work of environmental economics. He has managed to combine his interests in biology, botany and economics! Nik made a pilgrimage to the birthplace of Mendelian genetics; Mendel’s abbey where he carried out his classic pea experiments!

Nik is behind the E in Gregor.

The peas!

Sagehens with Albatrosses! Both Kristina McOmber’12 and Nai de Gracia’14 are working on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge! Here they are fixing a gapped band of a black-footed albatross. Albatross are so long lived that they need their bands re-closed if they start to develop gaps in order to last the next several decades.

Kristina holds the bird while Nai ensures that the band that this albatross wears won’t fall off.

Nai holds the bird while Kristina (wearing Pomona College sweatshirt) fixes the band.

The summer undergraduate research program (SURP) poster session was held yesterday and Jeffrey, Kyle, Leo, Mimi and Elika presented posters.

Jeffrey talks about whether nest success one year predicts nest success again.

Kyle talks about the impacts of El Nino on seabirds.

Leo tells the story of the murre invasion on Gualala Point Island.

Elika talks about vertebrate diversity in burned and unburned areas of the BFS.

Mimi discusses the ages of fish consumed by skuas.

Jeffrey presented his poster twice that day, the second time was at a dinner to thank donors who contributed to the SURP program.

Jeffrey gives a second presentation of his poster.

Everyone did an OUTSTANDING job!

Hi everyone,

I just wanted to say THANK YOU to all of the wonderful people who made this summer so spectacular, especially Joel Llopiz and everyone in his lab!

Joel was SO generous and made space for me to bring in and work on a new project in his already very busy lab. Also happening in the lab were studies looking at the diets of forage fish along the NE coast through gut analysis and stable isotopes, and using otoliths from larval river herring from different areas to determine growth rate and survivorship. Really cool stuff!!

So much of what made this summer so great is the amazing people who I was able to work with. Joel, Martha, Andy, and Julie (and Penny): thank you so much for all of your great advice and guidance, and for welcoming me into your lab family this summer. I had such a wonderful, interesting, educational, and unforgettable summer at WHOI!

To everyone reading this, check out Joel’s lab page!!

Thank you,

Mimi

Mimi presented her summer research at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute’s Summer Undergraduate Poster Session.

She gave a great two minute talk!

For the rest of the poster session she was surrounded.

It was really exciting that her Mom and Dad were able to see her in action!

I was very proud too!

Hi all! I’m still at Sea Ranch with my family but Kyle, Leo, and Jeffrey went home yesterday and our field work is done!  For a while I’ve been meaning to upload a “day in the life of” type post where I describe one of our normal days, so here it is even if it is a little late!

Most days we woke up at 6:00 AM, got organized, ate some breakfast (below is a morning bun from Two Fish Bakery, a treat my dad got us while he was visiting!), and headed out to Gualala Point Island (also below).

This is me entering data on the Nest Survey form.

After GPI we headed back home for a few hours that we mostly used on catching up with data entry (seen above) or other work like keeping the log (seen below).

After some lunch it was time for our PECO study or BLOY study depending on the day.  Kyle and his BLOY site are featured below:

(Even on cold, overcast days it’s easy to get sunburnt, hence the umbrella!)

After our afternoon studies we had more time to work on data entry or other projects.  I walked to my parents house one evening to check on the house and my pet rat Glenn and took the above picture of the evening sun.

Then dinner! (Above is Jeffrey’s tater tots and sloppy joes.)

Then a bit of cleaning up and potentially some free time before bed!

…

Because this is probably my last blog post for this project I wanted to throw in some photos from the last few weeks I never got to post:

Here’s Kyle and Leo in the recording studio from when we were interviewed for the local radio station!

Here’s a young rubber boa (notice the tail is stubby to look like its head) that we saw on a hike with my dad!

And here’s a selfie from our last day out in the field! (We’re in front of GPI even though you can’t see it!)

…

Lastly I wanted to thank my fellow students, Leo, Kyle, and Jeffrey, for being great to work with and entertaining in our free time. The four of us would like to thank all the wonderful people who made this summer amazing and a great learning opportunity, including everyone from the Sea Ranch Task Force, the BLM, and the Madrone Audubon Society who made this project possible.  Thank you to my parents Liz Keene and Dale McDuffie as well as Dibby Tyler for graciously housing us, even in the peril of their homes! Thank you for the team from UC Santa Cruz for the opportunity to help with an intertidal survey and to Doug Forsell for taking us along on the fascinating search for marbled murrelets! Also to Molly Engelbrecht and others at the UC Davis Bodega Marine Laboratory for organizing a fantastic tour of the premises and a taste of grad school!

Finally thank you to the Diane and Bryant Hichwa for many dinners and the use of their home, computers, scanners, and wifi (as well as their loving dog Bridget!); Diane was an immense help/expert in our project and a great mentor along the way!  Jim Weigand also made time in his busy schedule to be an inspiring mentor and help in numerous ways and of course Nina Karnovsky was, as always, an invaluable adviser in all things! Thank you all for making this summer an incredible experience!

Here are just a few sneak peeks into what goes on in the quest for blog material and research data.

Jeffrey and Kyle taking photos of some type of cliff rodent. (The hats are part of the process too!)

(Me) doodling caricatures of the nesting pelagic cormorants. Field research means field sketches too right?

Jeffrey scoping out the (Western gull) chicks. Yes, we all make that face when we use the scopes.

Some times the car ride between studies is the best time to lay down for a bit… If you don’t mind the teasing.

Out and about during the BLM Point Arena-Stornetta celebration. Not quite a selfie but the rock formations were too wonderful to leave out of the shot so it’ll have to do.

Now that the summer field season is coming to an end, the poster presentations are beginning! Elika presented her research comparing the vertebrates in burned and unburned coastal sage scrub at the biology department end of summer poster session.

Elika’s research was supported by a grant from the Thoreau Foundation and from the Rose Hills Foundation. Congratulations Elika!

Mimi passed on the selfie challenge to me, and after a bit of a Wifi mishap yesterday here it is!

Here’s Kyle and I during our survey of Gualala Point Island, which you can see along with our scopes behind us!

I pass the torch on to Leo!

I’ve received reports that some people feel like my photographs are not representative of the taxonomic diversity here at The Sea Ranch. Some people have claimed that my blog posts are still an “old birds club,” “yet another example of the rampant speciesism that permeates the scientific community” and “just another blog in which the orders Pelicaniformes, Charadriiformes and Suliformes are chronically overrepresented while other taxa fall by the wayside.” In light of these accusations I have been forced to reconsider how my posts are influenced by, and contribute to the systematic oppression certain taxa face in their everyday lives. Starting today, I have taken a pledge to increase the taxonomic diversity featured in these blog posts.

We start off in a completely different class with a member of the order Rodentia. These squirrels were seen on our trip up to Ft. Bragg to see Glass Beach.

A member of the order Rodentia, taking a peak of from behind some vegetation. Seen at glass beach in Ft. Bragg

Contemplating all the ways in which speciesism touches the lives of all organism and what he can do to change.

In the unlikely scenario that someone is holding a gun to your head and will only spare your life if you can identify the order of a bird specimen, your best guess would be Passeriformes. The passerines, or perching birds, account for over half of all species of birds, including many of the most familiar birds like warblers, jays, finches and many many more. One of the defining features of this order is their anisodactyl feet, which is a scientific way of saying they have three toes facing forward and one toe facing backwards. This foot arrangements facilities perching on things like branches and telephone wires.

A member of the order Passeriformes. Specifically a song sparrow perching on a bush.

Traditionally cormorants were placed in the order Pelicaniformes along with pelicans, egrets, and herons. Later Pelicaniformes was absorbed into the heavily restructured Ciconiformes which somehow managed to include grebes, vultures, storks, penguins, falcons, gulls, and albatrosses. Finally, the cormorants have found their place in the order Suliformes with their cousins the anhingas and the boobies.

Pelagic Cormorant wondering where she fits in.

The Black Oystercatcher is a member of the “privileged” order Charadriiformes. Charadriiformes includes many of the most common birds we observe on Guala Point Island, including the Pigeon Guillemot, Western Gull, Common Murre and the eccentric Black Oystercatcher.

Black Oyster Catchers calling. Members of the privileged order Charadriiformes that receives so much attention here at The  Sea Ranch

We don’t see too many dolphins here so being able to see a pod of 5 of these guys was certainly a treat.  This certainly isn’t the greatest photo out there since they were pretty far away and I was caught tripodless but I figured I had to include it. The summer isn’t a great time Ceteceans at The Sea Ranch since most of the whales are up in Alaska eating to their car sized hearts content.

A Cetacean, specifically a dolphin  seen in waters surrounding Guala Point Island

A special thanks to Prof. Karnovsky for sharing her taxonomic knowledge in Vert Bio (aka the best class ever).

A group of four humans (members of the order primate, family Hominidae) seen at Navorro Winery in the Anderson Valley