The third week of fieldwork: the RA's viewpoint
Here is the last retrospective update from our first Flying Penguin trip of the season! Just like in the previous two updates, Jesse Golden, the Research Assistant (RA), shares his views:
"The days have become more repetitive, but that’s the nature of research. Any significant changes in how we survey the birds and dunes could have an impact or bias in later analyses. Personally I like routine, it keeps me focused. And Johannes is apparent of that as well. It also helps that we work in a dynamic environment where we casually observe penguins coming in from the sea, or a Morepork owl hunting in the dunes while we tend to our tasks. Though the owl doesn’t help as he might be hunting the same birds we are collecting data on.
We’ve recently completed an experiment with the South Georgian Diving Petrels. It involved Johannes holding a small speaker attached to his mp3 player at the entrance of a burrow and carefully listening for any replies. This would take us 3-4 hours to complete over three nights during the week. It required a lot of coffee and patience on our part, in addition to careful silent communication while the playback treatments were conducted for each burrow. This is where our teamwork worked well.
Apart from the exotic location and working with unique species, being a research assistant isn’t a glorified job. You are essentially just another set of hands, patiently waiting to assist or working in sync with the researcher to make the most of our short time in the field. My focus has to be there at all times around the animals to ensure not only the welfare of the birds, but the value of the data that I record. For Johannes, I’m sure it takes a great deal of trust and we’ve built a great friendship in the process.
These last few days have been the most difficult nights for us. We’ve capture and banded quite a few diving petrels. Where before we picked just a section of the kilometer-long dune system to focus on each night, we are now spread out over 300 meters each night. While that doesn’t sound like much, we must walk carefully through the dunes with its uneven sandy substrate that is subject to great erosion if we move too quickly. We must also work quickly to ensure birds don’t spend too long in the burrow traps. The success of our field work heavily relies on our ability to communicate and work as a team.
We attempted to work all night for our last attempt at banding more diving petrels. The moon was rising over Stewart Island when we started out around 10:00 PM. The winds were moderate, the night sky partly covered in clouds, and the temperature around 10˚ Celsius. Our evening was cut short around 1:30 am to avoid lightning and an approaching storm. But in our 3.5 hour effort, we placed out 14 burrow traps over a nearly 500 meter section of the dunes, and captured a Common Diving Petrel and a South Georgian Diving Petrel – both unbanded. In just a few minutes each, Johannes had measured and banded the birds while I carefully recorded the numbers he threw out at me. Photographs of the birds’ plumage were taken. Both birds were released at the entrance of their respective burrows. This was probably the least successful or our nights, but no less successful. Each bird contributes valuable data for Johannes’ research that will one day have a great impact on their species."
South Georgian Diving Petrel, AKA Flying Penguin
