Birds are getting busy

Matt gets the friendly cows and I get the horse that flipped out and charged across the field... no fair.

Seriously? It's snowing and we are looking for frogs? I think the frogs are laughing at us. That's my boss, she doesn't seem to mind the snow.

I rode 30 miles on my bike today. It was a test run to see if biking to work is feasible from my new housing location. It is only 9 miles from the house to the office but I think adding an 18 mile ride to each day would really turn my usual routine of hiking and falling into the water into a full daily triathlon. I am not that hardcore. Thirty miles might sound like a lot, but 30 flat Utah valley miles are roughly equivalent to 5 hilly Bay Area miles. They have a lovely system of bike paths following the Provo River through downtown Provo. After finding this bike path I promptly went 5 miles in the wrong direction because I went upstream instead of downstream. The river flows into Utah Lake, I live next to Utah Lake…. Duh. I guess my inner fish instincts were erring toward salmonid tendencies.
I finally managed to roll home and was greeted by the two large mutts and one small daschund. Evidence of their afternoon of mischief was scattered across the backyard. One recently crotchless lacey thong and a shredded Book of Mormon. Grandparents, don’t worry, neither were mine. I picked up the religious confetti from the lawn (seemed like the respectful thing to do) but left the underwear.
Work is still fun and my waders still leak. It’s been less than two months and I am on my third pair. I would rant longer about the leaks, but the amount of water they let in is insignificant compared to the inflow every time I fall in. I have a tendency to leap first, sink, and then look at my soggy situation. We spend a lot of time going through wet meadows, which could be more accurately described as grassy streams. It is like one of those arcade games where the little digital dude has to jump across floating mushrooms. Grass blobs bob innocently, looking oh-so-solid until you jump on. This is a great balance building exercise; standing one legged on a floating ball of vegetation, arms waving like a windmill, mouth going like a sailor. Based on this description, it’s actually surprising that I only fall in two to three times a day. Falling in would be significantly less annoying if my waders didn’t immediately fill up with enough water to drown a large mammal. Theoretically all those leaks should let out the water, but apparently my waders only leak in the inward direction. I clearly wasn’t paying attention in the physics lesson when they explained this phenomenon (“ wet wader reverse osmosis”). At this rate I will soon perfect my techniques of wader-water-removal Yoga. “Downward Bog” is my favorite. Handstands work, but then all the nasty footy swamp water flows straight into the face. I can accept soggy toes (or perhaps zombie feet…), but I draw the line at duckweed in the hair.
Interestingly, all this time spent looking for frogs is helping me to become a better birder. One of my coworkers was pondering the identity of a marshy bird with a brownish head, black wings, and silly looking long bill.
“Oh, you mean the Avocet? They were with the snowy egret and killdeer…”
Oh, wow…. I guess all shorebirds are no longer “curved bill dowagers”. However, it’s certainly baby steps for the ornithological advancement: anything smaller then a starling and colored brown is presumed unidentifiable. I like the bigger birds, like the Sandhill Cranes we see on a regular basis. They are nesting in the wetlands we frequent and it is remarkable how well they blend in with the reeds and bulrushes. More than once I have been sloshing along, minding my own soggy business, when suddenly a huge bird (we’re talking 8 foot wingspan here) emits the cackle of an angry velociraptor and launches itself out of the reeds towards my head. Pretty cool for something with feathers.

(Sandhill Crane nest, after mama bird went kamakazi-crane and then stood cackling at me from a pond 20 feet away)
Also cool: Osprey courtship.


Geese also seem to have no issues with fecundity. A week later the eggs were replaced with a fluffle (originally a typo, but I think I like the word) of little gooselings, fulfulling my daily quota of cuteness.

Explainations for the pics... oh I guess I could add that...
1. Hot springs at Fish Spring Reserve in the West Desert.
2. Wetlands in the middle of a desert. See those reeds? those are 4+ feet tall and we walk (or in my case fall) through that. Frogs live here, so do cows.
3. Hatching eggmass, Columbia Spotted Frog. Awww cute little tadpoles.
4. Grass. I was standing up to my wader clad knees in swamp mud, but it seemed like a good time for a photo.
5. Tiger salamander. It had leaches, look closely and you can see them.
6. Columbia spotted frog. Not a great photo, but oh well.
7. Working hard
8. Carp. but check out the scales. see how they are all different. genetic epistasis at work!!!
9. measuring a fish, yeah that's me. carp have spines, so do catfish. makes them really fun to grab out of a net.

Now that’s a bad sign.

I got home from work last Wednesday and there was a ‘for rent’ sign on the front lawn. Silly neighbors put their sign in our front yard, I thought. Trying to figure out which neighbors to implicate, I grabbed a flyer and was rather unpleasantly surprised to see our address at the top.
Uh oh. I think there is something my housemate forgot to tell me.
I walked into the house and was greeted by a scene of human unraveling that, now as time passes, grows steadily worse.
We got evicted. More precisely, my housemate got us evicted. Apparently the nasty old dog she has violates the housing agreement. I didn’t like that thing anyways! It’s blind, deaf, and putrid, and tries to bite anyone within biting range.
So, three weeks here and now it’s time to find new lodging.
Fortunately the semester at BYU just ended and there is quite a plethora of housing options on craigslist. I have found a new place and am jumping-for-joy excited to move in next week. Four normal housemates, with real jobs, and a friendly dog. It will be a bit more of a drive to work each day, 10 minutes or so, because it’s up in Provo instead of Springville. But honestly, we all know how much I like Springville….
Actually, my Springville dislike has faded a bit as the grass turned green and the tulips popped out of the melting snow. I think I just showed up at a particularly unattractive time of year when the snow was gone but the plant life was still hunkered down in shades of winter grey. Not that there is a lot to do in this town. I was hanging out in the public library because the landlord was giving tours of the townhouse (on two hours notice!) and a local kid began a rather elaborate, and somewhat annoying, series of courtship displays. Perhaps not the brightest fellow, but if he was going to trail me like a lost puppy for two hours I was at least going to get some useful information out of him. Unfortunately, his answers to my questions on fun things to do in the area were not exactly what I was looking for.
Go to the arcade in another town.
Harass cows.
Throw rocks at squirrels, particularly the ones by the high school, those are the best to throw rocks at.
As for “good” restaurants in the area, he was especially fond of the royal pair of Burger King and Dairy Queen.
Eventually it was time for me to escape his hopeful, but somewhat misguided efforts; the library is only open until 9pm. With big blue puppy dog eyes he asked when I would be at the library next. Oh, dunno, could be a while… a long while… which is a bummer because I liked that library.
What is it about Utah? This is the second time in a week a guy has asked me for my phone number. First time was a middle aged guy on a chair lift at a ski place on Sunday. Should go check my forehead… must have single stamped across it.
Work continues to go well. I get grumpy when I have to hunt for frogs in the snow. I think the frogs are secretly laughing at us. Silly monkeys in the snow! The calendar says it is spring but the six inches of snow yesterday night beg to differ.
There are some benefits to cold weather. It keeps me from going outside (because I am a California wimp). I finished the current round of manuscript revisions and resubmitted it to the journal last night. …private happy happy dance…
10 pm and the manuscript was submitted. I wanted to go to bed, but my housemate and I had made plans to go to Walmart at midnight to get packing boxes. Yeah, that sounds sketchy but let me explain: I managed to drag her out of bed to go get boxes in the evening, but when we got to Walmart and asked for the box aisle they told us to come back when they stock the shelves, midnight to 6 am. Apparently the cereal aisle is the best place to get packing boxes, all you want, free of charge. Excellent because she is broke. Except midnight came around and my housemate turned into a petulant two year old who whiningly told me “I don’t wanna go.”
Fine, just fine, I am not the one who needs boxes, but there is no cow’s-jump-over-a-blue-moon chance that I will help her do that on another night!

ahh, Springville

The following are signs that Springville, Utah is a boring place to live:
1. I am planning to drive an hour to Salt Lake City next Friday night to go to shabbat services because it is something to do, there will be (normal) people there, and drinking is not considered a grievous sin.
2. I read the Provo area classified craigslist adds, delighting in the multitude of ones that read “I am bored, let’s make out” (and that’s just the tip of the iceberg, for an interesting look at local culture, see the M4M section…)
3. Sneaking into a LDS church sounded like fun
4. I thought about responding to some of those craigslist adds
5. I get bored studying for the GRE, try to procrastinate but can’t find anything more enthralling then studying for the GRE
6. I watched figure skating on TV
7. I look forward to going back to work on Monday.

I am sure once I make friends and it gets warm enough to be outside comfortably, living in Springville, Utah will become more appealing. But for now, thank goodness work is really awesome… because Springville sure isn’t.

And, stay tuned for future episodes featuring: polygamist pizza, fish handling techniques, gas station romance, and carp genetics.

I have moved to Utah

Some mud really stinks. I am not talking about your everyday, take dirt and add water variety: that just smells like wet dirt. I am talking about the black stuff that oozes up around your waders, gurgling as it slowly swallows your ankles, then knees, and then squelchingly threatens to suck you down to some anoxic netherworld. For being mostly desert Utah has a lot of mud. I might be a tad biased in this assessment as my new job involves frog surveys. Aquatic frogs like water and water is a key ingredient in mud. While practicing mud wading I am also gaining new skills like farm animal evasion, barbed wire fence climbing, and fish grabbing. And I get paid for this, sweet!
Officially, I am a wildlife technician working for the aquatics division of the Utah department of wildlife resources. Our main focus is to survey endangered amphibians and nonsport fish in the central region of Utah (which turns out to be most of the state). Occasionally we (there are two techs) are borrowed by one of the other fish biologists when they need extra hands. Yesterday the June Sucker (an endangered fish with a funny looking mouth) biologists wanted help tagging 5,000 captive bred fish so the suckers could be released. Tagging a fish with a coded metal wire tag involves grabbing a fish from the bucket, holding the slimy wriggling thing still, then jamming a bit of wire into it before chucking it into the fish run, and repeat…… for another 4,999 fish. This is definitely a new skill for the resume.
Work is a lot of fun. We jump between tasks and field sites almost daily so I think it should continue to be interesting. The Aquatics division is predominantly staffed by fish biologists and I think I might be the token “amphibian biologist”. We are going to be doing some chytrid swabbing later in the summer and the bosses are thrilled that I already know what a swab is. As the amphibian person I have an excuse for my complete deficiency in fisheries knowledge and skills. So, in trade for being a walking source of amphibian chytrid information I get to learn how to be a fishery biologist, not a bad deal at all.
I made it to Utah on Sunday night and started work at 7am Monday morning. We work 10 hour days (with three day weekends) and I haven’t really had time to experience much of the area. I live in Springville, about an hour south of Salt Lake City. The town itself is flat but the mountains begin along the eastern edge where the houses end. There are lakes on the western side, but I am not entirely sure where…. They take street numbering very seriously here; it is so ordered that I keep getting lost. There is always a Center St perpendicular to a Main St, and all the streets are numbered going off in the cardinal directions from there (i.e. the corner of 200 S and 1350 W). Sure this sounds straightforward but if you need to find 130 E it is probably a dead end somewhere that can only be reached by zigzagging across every prime numbered integer between 3 and infinity. I can see the benefits of the system, but I do seem to spend a chunk of each day lost (which is also because they are doing some major road construction and have closed a few very important streets- and nobody told google maps!).
Things to do, streets to get lost on, and a town house to move into….

I got a summer job! send me an email and i might tell you where!

New comics posted!

I have this life goal to create an all herp comic book.
I was distracted by the ants in Hawai'i, but I have finally posted some new cartoons. Go to: http://sweinstein.revealedsingularity.net/ for visual proof of my extreme nerdy-ness.