07/19/08

This is the final blog posting from Oregon. Finishing packing and going to head back to Eugene. This morning hiked out to WP to release the last of the lizards from the lab and ovipositorium. Also had to take down the flags for the behavior study site. In the process saw three rattlesnakes out and about. Also saw another dead raven today. Ended the season with over 250 new lizards on the year from WP as well as marking over 150 from LDT. Recaptured about 200 lizards from WP and collected about 400 eggs from nearly 150 clutches of eggs. Eggs aer starting to hatch out already and I've stocked two enclosures with hatch. Some of those hatch are destined for the lab for a growth experiment between WP and LDT. The rest are going to LP or released back at WP as a control group.

07/18/08

Completed the take down of the lizard garden in the back yard. In the process found another clutch of four eggs that was laid in the cage. All four were stuck together, but one broke when I dumped out the dirt and discovered the eggs. I incubated them all together. They don't look as old as the previous in-cage clutch. That particular cage hosted two different cohorts of females and the eggs could be from females #8470, #8471, or #8478 or from females #8539, #8540, #8538, #8535, or #8529. Hopefully I'll be able to back calculate from their date of hatch to determine from which cohort and from which dam they're originated. I hate loose ends and these clutches represent big loose ends as I can't very well use them foran experiment if they're not incubated properly or of known dam.

07/16/08

Started the first new lzard enclosure today. Added 8 hatchlings from WP (5 female: 3 male) to pen #7. This is about 10 days later than last year and points back to the cool, late spring we had. Spent the afternoon working on last minute tasks as LP like painting and taking down hose and extension cord. Added rock to the new top pens to hi-grade the habitat. Still have one more hibernarium to build, but haevn't finished the inserts yet so still have time. Don't really need the inserts until October when I come back for the fall field week.

07/17/08

This morning was hatchlings galore. Had five hatch overnight, which is the most this year. What's more they were from four different dams so the number of clutches hatching is ramping up. I'm down to the last three females in the ovipositorium and I don't think the remaining females in the lizard garden are going to produce more than a handful more (it's really late to be laying eggs).

07/15/08

Went over to LP and began by pouring the last of the cement. Woohoo. I'm selling my cement mixer so I'm not tempted to pour again. On the year poured 55 bags of fence-post mix if you're keeping score at home. Just in time, I don't think my hands could stand another batch of pouring. Covered the new cement to keep it moist and began cleaning up around LP. Have a few more chores like painting and adding the fluon strip, but nothing more than a short day. Really want to get to Eugne by Saturday night and go to the coast with Dottie on Sunday. She can't go on Monday, so I have only one opportunity. So I have four days to finish up at LP, pack the lab, deconstruct the lizard garden, and release the last of the lizards at WP and take down flags at behavior site. Could be close.

07/11/08

Kinda hard to keep up on the blog without my laptop. Not much biology going on now anyway. Just trying to wrap up and get ready to start the new experiments in the enclosures. To that end I left Roger's camp early this morning and headed back to Burns. Worked on cleaning up the lab some. Started preparing the footer for the last building. Still have about 70 m of flashing at Lone Pine that I need to erect and finish off. Raked the ground to create the footer and strung support wire for the remaining 70 m. Finished off painting the bottom pens and the cliffs. Have some touch-ups, but nothing too bad.

07/12/08

Worked at LP all day today. Laid all the flashing for the new top pens today. It's getting into the low 90's lately so I worked until about 15:00 then took a break. I actually took a nap, which is another luxury that comes some rarely.

07/09/08

Arrived at the camp of Roger Anderson and Co. at around 11:00. Got the ovipositorium and incubator situated then chatted for a bit. Roger takes a field ecology and ecological methods (two different classes) to a site in the Alvord Desert just south of Borax Lake (yes, THE Borax Lake of 20-mule team fame). They spend three weeks camping on the hard pan studying leopard, horned, and whiptail lizards. This year class size was small and only had 7 undergrads and 4 grad students. In the PM we took the afternoon to drive up the Steens since the road just opened (snow finally melted). We stopped and took a swim in the Little Blitzen River, which was surprisingly warm. Then stopped for another swim in a glacial melt pool at about 8000'. One of the undergrads had serious issues with the high altitude so Roegr and I headed back with the student. Stopped at a couple places to look for stuff on the way and found some nice quartz encrusted lava on the road just up and out of the Catlow Valley. Had a couple eggs from WP hatch this afternoon.

07/09/08

Going to pack up the lab mobile and drive down to the Alvord desert to catch up with Roegr Anderson's summer field ecology course, which is spending three weeks in a spot near Borax Lake studying lizard and insect ecology. I'm only going to spend three days, but my timing couldn't be better (or worse)...mid 90's and baking heat. Daytime humidity around 20%. So extremely hot and dry. Should be back Friday or Saturday.

07/02/08

So time away from eastern Oregon went well. Sarah and I drove to Smith Rock (a popular rock climbing destination) on the way to Portland and ended up camping up in the Cascade mountains right on the Pacific Crest at a place called Frog Lake. There were still piles of snow on the ground that hadn't melted and the lake itself was even covering some campsites it was so high. However, late spring means no mosquito problem yet. All of the campsites were reserved starting the 3rd (for the 4th weekend), but there were only a handful of people there on the 2nd.

07/03/08

Dropped Sarah off at the airport, then dropped the lizards in the ovipositorium off at Kathy's son's place in Vancouver, WA, then Kathy and I drove into Portland to have some fun. Went to Powell's Bookstore (a big independent book store in downtown...kinda like the Book Loft in Columbus, OH) and spent some time and money browsing. After dinner walked over to the Blues Festival and met Drew, who came up from Eugene. Got to see Isaac Hayes (who seemed small and weak, but apparently he had a stroke a few years ago so that might explain it) and had a great evening.

07/02/08

Last post for a while. Yesterday and today spent at Lone Pine finishing up construction of pens. Got the wall for pen #13/14 buttoned up except for a bit on the cliff, which needs just a tad more spray foam. It was hot, but hazy so we were able to work until about 15:00. Today will be hotter so we’ll go out early and work until about 14:00, then pack up and head to the west side. Want to stop at Smith Rock and see how the rock climbing is. Then I think we’ll camp somewhere in the vicinity of Mt. Hood. Sarah’s plane leaves tomorrow at 13:30 and then I’m headed over to the Blues on the Waterfront music festival for the weekend. Thursday’s main act is Isaac Hayes, who was the voice of ‘Chef’ on South Park. Back to Eugene on Saturday evening for dinner with Rodger Kram, my post-doc advisor from Colorado.

06/30/08

Actually did get two days off for this illness, which is unprecendented for field season. First, I've never been ill during the Oregon field season before. Second, I've never taken time off from field season before (this week was bad for that, ugh). Was actually uncomfortably warm last night….low was only in the 50’s…I sleep better when it gets down into the upper 30’s or lower 40’s. Warm night means warm day…and boy was it. Got out to WP early and good thing too. It was uncomfortably hot and humid all morning. I released some lizards, but only caught two new ones. By about noon it was clear that thunderstorms were building and that we should go, so we started to hike out. The cicadas are really out in this hot weather, so I started to catch cicadas for Chuck Holliday (colleague in the Bio dept). On the hike out I was able to catch about 30 cicada, which was more fun than looking for lizards. When something else is more fun than lizards….that’s how you know it’s time to do something else for a month or three. A storm blew up just after lunch, but didn’t get any energy until just after passing north of us. We went over to LP around 15:00 and worked for a couple hours buttoning up the last of the cliff’s new flashing. Got chased off the cliff by another storm around dinnertime, so used it as a good excuse to stop for the day. Think we’re going to spend all day at LP tomorrow since we only have a couple days left before 4th weekend. Had a couple more clutches of eggs, but down to only seven females in the ovipositorium. Up to 110 clutches of eggs, which is way more than I collected in previous years. However, some of that has to be attributed to having 60 females in the lizard garden where I’m tracking their reproductive cycle, so have lots of ready females to add to the ovipositorium when the time is right. In previous years I was limited to females I encountered in the field. No snakes today. Too hot again.