Overdue pictures of Green Roof Sampling

Hi Everyone.

I promised I'd post a few goofy pictures of me sampling in the field. It's taken me forever, but here they are. I realize it is not as picturesque as Gabon or Kenya, but who can deny the beauty and edginess of the city.

So my research included two weeks of sampling on 15 green roofs in the city. This required a lot of coordinating with building owners/managers and a lot of driving around the city.

This first picture above is me sweep netting on the green roof of the U.S. Postal service. One of the biggest sedum covered roofs in the city. I used a couple of sampling methods, this one is the most photograph friendly. Coincidentally, the building just behind me is where Stephen and I got married four years ago!

This second picture is me using an aspirator to suck the insects out of my sweep net--with the Empire State Building behind me. I must say, you all know I'm pregnant, and looking at these photos makes me realize how big I've gotten since the end of May!

Here is a shot of another cool green roof I visited. It's in mid-town, which is hard to find parking, but I can see a few other green roofs from up here and it makes me dream of a green roof polka-dotted city.

After sampling for two weeks I spent the month enjoying the air-conditioning of Columbia University identifying insects under the microscope.

Starting next week I'm going back out in the field to sample from July 18-30th. It's gotten really really hot here (106 F) so let's all hope for some cooler weather at the end of July. I'll post pictures of me hilariously large swinging my sweep net around.

Have fun in the field and please please please post blogs! Also, put your name or a photo of yourself on the posting so we know who posted it!

Melanie

Greetings from Gabon.

About a month has passed since my arrival in Gabon and, like Sarah, I have been horribly remiss about posting on this blog. As such, I shall dive right in.

After arriving in country I spent a few days in the capital city Libreville, enjoying the BEAUTIFUL Gabonese coast and getting to know some of the WCS personnel. On day three I jumped on a train, a surprisingly comfortable train with timely departures, functioning air conditioning and plush seats, and headed east, way east, to a city called Franceville, far inland and close to the Congo border. Along the way we passed through stunning forests and over picturesque rivers. All I could think during the trip was, 'Dorothy, you're not in Mali anymore.'

Once in Franceville I met some more WCS personnel and prepared for my departure out 'en brousse' to Kessala Village, the site I am living and working in. It is there that I have been for the past two weeks, and there that I shall return to in a few days. It is very quaint as far as rural living goes, nestled in the rainforest, and I have a sturdy wooden house with dirt floors, some sparse furniture and electricity for a handful of hours each day. I bathe in a local stream and lug water to and fro for drinking. Cooking is done on a small camping stove and consists of mostly canned goods provided by WCS. I eat village food every now and again, but generally like to prepare my own meals. Above is a photo of my house.

My daily routine consists of trips out into the forest to look for elephants, taking GPS coordinates of the surrounding areas (Fabio would be so proud!), and discussing with villagers means by which to improve the success of ecotourism in the region. It is the dry season here and the elephants are hard to find, but signs of them are all around. Each day I cross fresh tracks and skirt even fresher piles of elephant poop. Soon I shall see them, I just know it! I have seen others animals thus far, though, including monkeys of an indeterminate species, forest buffalo, bats, birds and snakes galore! The landscape in Gabon is really breathtaking and I feel lucky to be here. This Friday I return to my village with a WCS research team to resume observations and am scheduled to spend some days out in the field at a platform that the WCS has constructed for elephant viewing endeavors, and which I've posted a photo of. It makes for some pretty stellar observations, and I imagine my time there will be highly productive. I very much look forward to it.

Lastly, I've included a photo of a felled tree I came upon with a villager. Logging is legal in Gabon, but very tightly regulated. Nonetheless, the scene makes one sad. Some of the trees here are enormous and fetch a pretty penny at market. Luckily, 80% of Gabon is still covered in rainforest and an extremely low population density (5th lowest on the continent I think) means that Gabon's forest have a fairly bright future. Hooray!

Alright friends, that is all for now. I hope the summer finds you well and in the midst of exciting things! À la prochaine!

Summer at Mpala

Jambo!

I hope everyone is having a great summer so far. I have been in Kenya for about 6 weeks now and am way overdue for posting on this blog!

I’ve been staying at Mpala Research Centre, a beautiful field station in the Laikipia District in western Kenya. Most days I go out from 7-12 in the morning and 2-5 in the afternoon to record superb starling calls and do playbacks; it’s exhausting but awesome. I’m posting a shot of me in the field with my gigantic microphone! There are about 30 other researchers staying here; we share lab space and eat family style meals together in the dining hall-usually ugali, sukuma wiki, lentils, and other African or Indian dishes-and I’ve had a lot of fun getting to know everyone else. Sometimes at night we have a ‘sundowner’ on a cliff or lookout where we can relax and take in the scenery before the temperature drops and it’s too dark to walk around outside.

So far the trip highlights include meeting Maasai warriors that pass through the roads beside our nest sites, driving a rickety 1980s jeep through the bush and having to push start it at least once a week, having close (and sometimes scary!) wildlife encounters, presenting a poster at a regional wildlife forum, and hanging out with local kids at their conservation club meetings. I have been missing some conveniences of home, but overall things here are great. In fact, I’ve decided to extend my trip until the end of July- kind of crazy considering I was so unsure about staying here for more than a month!

I’m putting up some other pics taken here at the research center; one shows the elephants grazing really close to the dining hall and the other’s a nice sunrise shot. More updates to come soon… Can’t wait to hear what the rest of you have been up to!

Kwaheri :-)