City Living

The trapping component of my study came to an abrupt end last Thursday as there was a serious problem with the contract of the rental truck. After a series of miscommunications, e-mails lost to cyber space, ect. we discovered that the contract for the field vehicle had expired after thirty days. I would have to open a new one to retain it any longer. And seeing as how the price was actually rather ungodly for a single day, I decided to save some money and call an end to the field study in Rinconada until I return in September to start collecting ecological data.

So after 2 months of intensive trapping, the tally comes to 30 individuals from 7 colonies. Tissue and fecal samples were collected from nearly all coruros. Leukocyte smears were made for nearly a third of these critters. These samples will tell us something about the stress levels of our fuzzy friends. The acoustic recordings are yet to be determined as I am still hesitant to say what will be able to use for analysis. It was a good run. To say the least.

I am so grateful to the girls who stepped in after Michael left. They were such a big help.

As I have had some extra time on my hands, I have slowed down and done some city wandering. The city tells a fascinating story of history, progress and contradictions. The demographics are as intriguing as the beautiful faces I see on the streets. Perhaps you have to delve into the history books of Chile to really understand what is behind the simple gestures people have here on the streets. The young people display their affection so readily for others to see while the older generation content themselves with holding hands. Overall, Chile is far more affectionate than the United States. People kiss 'hello' and 'goodbye', and children and adults alike hold hands and interlock arms with their parents and grandparents while walking the streets. Sundays are quiet, for the exception of the barking stray dogs and honking horns after a fútbol game...

My new apartment has a view, but it's nothing really to speak of, simply apartment buildings and old cathedrals rising above the 2 story shopping areas. And as always the impressive looming Andes.

Today and tomorrow I prepare for my trip to Peru. This will include packing and repacking my travel bags, calling the embassy, a cab, completing my raw data entries and saving the document in a bazillion places, and writing down key Spanish phrases in my notebook that I forget so easily.

After three months in this country, I am functional in Spanish, but cetainly not fluent. That will take much more time. And some tutoring, which I will be signing up for upon my return.

Saying goodbye

The days have flown by with Michael and myself working so hard in the field to collect as much data as we could before he returned to Berkeley with the samples for his parasite study. He returns early to learn the flotation techniques for his fecal samples from an expert in the field currently visiting UC-Berkeley. He begins his fall semester in just a few weeks! For me this is hard to imagine.

Oh, Michael...

The days seem to melt together. Only the unique spectacles of the animals around us distinguish the days. For example, just yesterday we observed a 'midflight degu transfer' between mama black chested buzzard eagle and and junior. Amazing! I wasn't nearly fast enough with my camera, but Dr. Soto Gamboa, days before, had captured some nice photos of them. However, I snapped this one.

Impressive, isn't it?

Last week, Mauricio Soto Gamboa, one of my committee members from Universidad de Austral in Valdivia, came to visit and work on my project with me. He gave excellent advice on my protocols, and also had some good news and bad news for me...

The good news was that we were able to use the data loggers (much like the frog loggers) to collect data on frequency of alarm calls projected from burrow openings to measure predation risk at each of my studied colonies. We are up to eight with this data!

The bad news is that my acoustic recordings are "no beuno". What I mean by this is that they were recorded in the wrong format. This sort of thing happens all the time with research. A little miscommunication can have serious repercussions down the road. I am so grateful that Dr. Soto Gamboa came when he did to help me correct the error before there was no time to recover from it. However, I will still be able to use these recordings for part of my analysis. All it means is that we have to capture more coruros in the following months.

No problem! Right?

Pictures from the Field

We have been very hard at work the past month. Many days in the field. Unfortunately, with it being winter, flu season is again upon us. Both Michael and I caught a nasty case of it and were out of commission for several days. However to make up for it, the great coruro karma gods blessed us with 9 total coruros in two days.

Michael has been getting plenty of handling experience.










Michael flirting with danger

We even captured an Olive Grass Mouse, Abrothrix olivaceus, passing through a coruro tunnel way.

A New World mouse, considered
a pest in Chile and carrier of Hanta

We have also become familiar with many of the birds frequenting the study site. A noisy juvenile buzzard eagle is always about calling to ma and pa, "Feed me!"

Say "Hello" to Junior

On a sad note, we have retired Stinky Steve for our new fox replica. He had a good run.








Señor Stinky Steve

This week we go out a'blazing. Dr. Soto Gamboa has brought up from Universidad de Chile- Valdivia some equipment that will allow us to collect some data that will add strength to the study. He will also be a great intellectual contribution as he is actually an Acoustic Ecologist
and will be able to provide some excellent insight. I'll let you know how it goes!