1500! I never thought this blog would make 500 views, nevermind 1500! I just want to thank everyone who reads my blog on a regular basis and those who read it from time to time. Thanks for making this little blog a success.
Saturday 4th April-
Saturday 4th April-
Back to reality after spring break, I spent most of today catching up on college work. I had a take home exam to do for my genetics class, papers to read for recreation behaviour and had to complete my research proposal for my rangeland class. That night I finally got to watch Intersteller, which I'd been waiting to watch since it came out. It was a great movie but difficult to follow in places. I guess I'll just have to rewatch it.
Sunday 5th April-
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| Apparently Mya was upset I didn't bring her on spring break |
I continued with my homework today. I finished everything I'd started the day before and started on rangeland summaries. As there was not a place for me to upload these online like there usually is, I couldn't tell if we actually had to do summaries this week or not. I got one done that day.
Monday 6th April-
In my 8am genetics class we've moved onto the "fun" genetics, which focuses on natural selection and adaptations. We were shown some adaptations seen in old field mice to match their fur to backgrounds depending on whether they live at the beach or in fields. After that, I had an hour off before my ornithology class. In ornithology we moved on to bird song and why song is so important to birds. This will be our main topic for the next week or so. After that it was straight off to work. I had my two shifts which went grand.
Tuesday 7th April-
In my rangeland class I found out that there are summaries due this week and that I'm supposed to be presenting one of the papers on Thursday.... ooops. I got assigned a paper on wild horses in the U.S.A. and how they can degrade the landscape. So after my recreation class I headed home and started to throw a powerpoint presentation together and summarise the other two papers. By that evening I had a semi-decent presentation put together which hopefully will go over well. There are house finches building nests outside our window. The more red the male is the more attractive he is to the ladies.
Wednesday 8th April-
In ornithology we got our exam results back. I got 94%, not bad for someone who was sick taking it. I had my double work shifts and read my recreation paper in between them.
Thursday 9th April-
This morning I had a 7am field trip for my ornithology lab. We went to the Flight Research Station at Fort Missoula and set up mist nets. We split up between the two TA's, Sara and Riccardo, to set up the nets with 6 students per group. You learn so much more in small groups. These are nets which when set up properly become virtually invisible, even to people. We went inside, talked about how to handle birds when we catch them and how to process them. About fifteen minutes later we went outside again and there were five birds in our nets! I thought we'd be lucky if we caught one. The five birds were all juncos and pretty cranky at being caught. We put one in a bag, released another, one escaped as it was freed, we let another go because its leg looked odd and held the fifth. We brought them inside and saw Riccardo's group were processing a European house sparrow. As these are an invasive species you are allowed to practice taking blood from them and use them to practice measurements. Don't worry birds heal very quickly and if held correctly will not get stressed out. We released our two juncos after showing them to the other group. We checked our nets and had caught another house sparrow, so we measured and recorded this one. After this Sara showed us how to properly take down and store a mist net so that it doesn't tangle and become useless. We got dropped back to campus and I spent the next hour preparing for my presentation. I headed to my rangeland class and found I would be going third. My presentation went well I think, I got 90% for it so I was happy. We had a new teacher for my recreation behaviour class. She will be teaching the next two classes about attachment to place and what makes a place important to a person. That evening Shannen and I relaxed and watched The Lion King.
Friday 10th April-
My genetics and ornithology classes went fine. Shannen and I did a Spring clean of the whole apartment so we won't have to clean it so much during finals week. I went off to work for my three hour shift in the kitchen. That evening I corrected two of my classmates proposals for rangeland. This helps to give us an idea of how to give constructive criticism. I spent the night finding the cheapest possible motels and hostels for our roadtrip back to New York. I worked out a route which will look something like this.. Missoula-Buffalo-Mt.Rushmore-Rapid City-Badlands National Park-Sioux City-Omaha-Des Moines-Davenport-Chicago-Detroit-Niagara Falls-New York. That's 2668 miles in roughly 9 nights :D
Saturday 11th April-
I did what I do most Saturday's and spent the day working on assignments. Kate, Shannen and I went for a walk for a break to a nearby playground. We played basketball and went on the swings for a while before it stated to rain. Then twas back to the books for me for the evening. Kate found out that she won't be able to come on the road trip with us anymore :( . I really wish she were able to, it would have been fun to have her along.
Sunday 12th April-
Sunday consisted of more of the same. Assignments and more assignments. My ornithology proposal draft essentially got torn apart, so I'll probably have to come up with a new topic to propose studying. Safe to say I was fairly annoyed to have to redo it. So instead Shannen and I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. Safe to say I was fairly excited for the return of GoT. The first episode more than made up for the years wait. Very important question; Who do you want to see on the Iron Throne and why? That evening I watched two documentaries about the Kalahari in Africa with Sarah.
So that's what I got up to on my first week back to college after Spring Break. I hope you enjoyed this week's blog. - Fiona
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| I shall nickname him Red |
In ornithology we got our exam results back. I got 94%, not bad for someone who was sick taking it. I had my double work shifts and read my recreation paper in between them.
Thursday 9th April-
This morning I had a 7am field trip for my ornithology lab. We went to the Flight Research Station at Fort Missoula and set up mist nets. We split up between the two TA's, Sara and Riccardo, to set up the nets with 6 students per group. You learn so much more in small groups. These are nets which when set up properly become virtually invisible, even to people. We went inside, talked about how to handle birds when we catch them and how to process them. About fifteen minutes later we went outside again and there were five birds in our nets! I thought we'd be lucky if we caught one. The five birds were all juncos and pretty cranky at being caught. We put one in a bag, released another, one escaped as it was freed, we let another go because its leg looked odd and held the fifth. We brought them inside and saw Riccardo's group were processing a European house sparrow. As these are an invasive species you are allowed to practice taking blood from them and use them to practice measurements. Don't worry birds heal very quickly and if held correctly will not get stressed out. We released our two juncos after showing them to the other group. We checked our nets and had caught another house sparrow, so we measured and recorded this one. After this Sara showed us how to properly take down and store a mist net so that it doesn't tangle and become useless. We got dropped back to campus and I spent the next hour preparing for my presentation. I headed to my rangeland class and found I would be going third. My presentation went well I think, I got 90% for it so I was happy. We had a new teacher for my recreation behaviour class. She will be teaching the next two classes about attachment to place and what makes a place important to a person. That evening Shannen and I relaxed and watched The Lion King.
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| Removing a junco from a mist net |
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| A male junco |
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| Taking a blood sample from a sparrow |
My genetics and ornithology classes went fine. Shannen and I did a Spring clean of the whole apartment so we won't have to clean it so much during finals week. I went off to work for my three hour shift in the kitchen. That evening I corrected two of my classmates proposals for rangeland. This helps to give us an idea of how to give constructive criticism. I spent the night finding the cheapest possible motels and hostels for our roadtrip back to New York. I worked out a route which will look something like this.. Missoula-Buffalo-Mt.Rushmore-Rapid City-Badlands National Park-Sioux City-Omaha-Des Moines-Davenport-Chicago-Detroit-Niagara Falls-New York. That's 2668 miles in roughly 9 nights :D
Saturday 11th April-
I did what I do most Saturday's and spent the day working on assignments. Kate, Shannen and I went for a walk for a break to a nearby playground. We played basketball and went on the swings for a while before it stated to rain. Then twas back to the books for me for the evening. Kate found out that she won't be able to come on the road trip with us anymore :( . I really wish she were able to, it would have been fun to have her along.
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| Some pretty dark storm clouds rolling in |
Sunday consisted of more of the same. Assignments and more assignments. My ornithology proposal draft essentially got torn apart, so I'll probably have to come up with a new topic to propose studying. Safe to say I was fairly annoyed to have to redo it. So instead Shannen and I watched the first episode of Game of Thrones. Safe to say I was fairly excited for the return of GoT. The first episode more than made up for the years wait. Very important question; Who do you want to see on the Iron Throne and why? That evening I watched two documentaries about the Kalahari in Africa with Sarah.
So that's what I got up to on my first week back to college after Spring Break. I hope you enjoyed this week's blog. - Fiona
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