Greetings from the field!

 

A view of our field site at Island View Beach on the land of the Tsawout First Nation

Greetings from BC! Thanks to your generous support, Team Black Widow (this year again consisting of me, Catherine, and the best possible field assistant and collaborator I could ever hope for, Sean McCann) is settled in Victoria, BC, and the 2017 field season is underway! We are so excited to be able to continue the work we began last summer and learn much more about the secret lives of black widows at Island View Beach.

We are very grateful to the Tsawout First Nation for allowing us to continue to do our work on their beautiful land at Island View Beach and Cordova Spit (TIX̱EṈ). This coastal sand dune ecosystem is a truly amazing place to work and probably the densest population of black widows in BC

So far we’ve been doing preliminary surveys and a lot of preparation and planning while waiting for the rain to stop, but this week the weather looks like it will improve and we will begin our first big experiment. You can follow along with our progress on twitter by following the #TeamBlackWidow hashtag, and Sean and I will also try to post periodic updates on our blogs as we go along. If you sponsored a spider, expect to see a digital portrait and profile in the next few weeks as they begin to embark on exciting nighttime adventures!

Thank you all so much for making this field season possible!!! 

 

Sean and I say hi from the field!