Still here.

It's been three weeks now and I suppose I feel a bit more at home.  I've started work for Professor Singer at Wesleyan.  This generally consists of laying sheets under branches, hitting said branches with sticks, and seeing what falls out of the branches onto the sheets.  We collect some of the caterpillars that fall out of the branches and then raise them in the lab.

On an interesting note, I've started to sell my pictures on www.istockphoto.com.  I know, it's sort of cheesy to plug my own work, but it's a pretty cool site and you can buy digital copies or prints at some pretty reasonable prices.  My member name is cskorik, so check it out if you're at all interested in copies of my work.  I'll be uploading more of my pictures there as time goes on.  Alternatively, I have also been in touch with the print lab at my school, and I'm going to try to get my panoramas printed in large formats.  If any of you readers out there (provided you still read this blog) would be at all interested in large format prints, please shoot me an email and we can work something out.

To view my work, click here.

Back.

I'm officially back from Australia.  I've been back for less than 24 hours, and I've already been completely shell shocked by so abruptly changing everything about my life.  Seeing everyone again, especially everyone back at Wesleyan, has been incredibly interesting.. I have so much to tell them, but absolutely no context for doing so... I end up just not knowing what to say.  Oh well.. I guess I'll get comfortable reasonably soon.

I'm going to try and start selling prints of my pictures.  Not a big deal at all or anything, but I'm thinking I'd like to start selling mainly my panoramas in very large format prints, price and sizes to be determined.  If anyone would be at all interested in purchasing anything like that from me, don't hesitate to email me; that will certainly expedite the process of me figuring out how to get large prints of my work, which would be great in general.  I'm also thinking of producing some sort of digital catalogue of my work so that people can order from me if they'd like.  

Right then, time for some sleep.

Why I can't wait to come home.

I'm almost done with an extremely long research project; the only thing that's stopping me, in fact, is a stupid piece of crap 6 year old printer that'll print a half of a paper and then give up and force me to start over. Thanks. Well at least I'm done writing, eh? Anyhow, I'm tired of being here. I'm not going to lie, this whole project has really made me question how worthwhile research of this type is. It's an incredible amount of work for a publication (or, non-publication, in my case) that people will not read, just cite in their further research, provided they even continue your research ever. I investigated growth habit traits with regards to frost resistance in rainforest seedlings. So what? Really! So what?? This is interesting to NO ONE. I would have much rather just had free reighn over some sort of method of transportation and just rode around the Tablelands, creating some sort of wildlife photography portfolio. Who likes pictures? Everyone. Are they important? Yes; they might make people realize that the environment is kind of interesting after all. Me spouting statistics about relative foliage retention with resepect to minimum foliage height and foliage densities isn't going to make anyone interested. Ever. I know this is just a negative spouting of nonsense, but at this point in my life, I don't think I can honestly say I'm interested in the career I've chosen for myself. I suppose I'll probably feel differently when I return home, but right now I can't wait to get out of here, away from this pointless study and all of the nothing it has accomplished.

Why can't I wait to get home? Simple. I've got five more days here in this forest and I can't wait to leave. I've been here longer than I've ever been a foreign country, longer than I've been stuck in the middle of a jungle, longer than I care to be here. I long to have my own room; to be able to drive a car downtown more than about once a week; to walk around barefoot on clean hardwood floors that aren't always covered with dust and dirt; to be able to walk down the hall to a bathroom in the middle of the night instead of down a jungle path; to be able to sit down to eat with my family and friends and tell them my stories and show them all of my pictures (what I've posted on here is around 1% of all the photographs I've taken here). I want to make a little money instead of watching my balance drop. I want to sleep in a bed that isn't cold and wet, and doesn't smell like mold. I'm totally aware that I'll probably get home and miss this place and all of the people here; I'll come to appreciate the things I've learned and the time I've spent. But that's always the case. I'm itching to get on a plane.

In five days I board a Qantas flight (possibly my last) and I won't stop traveling until I've gone 5,000 miles. The journey will take 34 hours and because I'll be crossing the international dateline it will be May 8th for the entire trip. In fact, it will be may 8th for a total of 38 hours. That's going to be a bitch, but it'll be worth it. When I finally lay down in my bed at 11:30 PM, May 8th, I'll be home.

Making a digeridoo...

So, a while ago it came time to FINALLY make a digeridoo. They get delivered here tonight, and so because I'm excited, I'm going to share the story of making my digeridoo. For those of you who don't know, a digeridoo is a hollow log that has been emptied by termites while a tree is still alive. This is an entirely natural process, and indeed many small mammals live in trees that have been hollowed, for example many endangered possums. The result is a wooden tube that can be played like a tuba... I guess. When you've found your hollow log (it can be any wood really; Phil, the digeridoo maker, told me that any wood will sound pretty good, and they sound better as they dry and get seasoned), you must chip out one side to make a hollow bell with a chisel. This part is hard work. Next, you have to strip the bark off with a large knife, as I'm about to do in the first photograph. Seconds after this was taken, I sliced open my thumb with the thing, but it wasn't a big deal. My digeridoo is made out of the trunk of a red stringy bark tree; the grain is very wavy, and the aboriginals used to use the bark to make string. Anyway, next the wood gets trimmed down and smoothed. After that, you've got a digeridoo.
Here's me practicing for my own digeridoo.. Phil needed a while to decorate the digeridoos with our totem animals... I have a hunch that mine is some sort of mammal, but who knows.
Here's the bottom of Phil's pride and joy, the story stick. There are cave painting type things on the inside of it. This thing is absolutely sick; it took a year to decorate.
Here's all of us who decided to make a digeridoo... what a fun day!!

Alright then, back to the lab to process samples...

See you all in America in just over two weeks!

Directed Research... part 1

So, directed research has started. Essentially a month long research project under the direction of one of my professors. In this case, it's my favorite one, this really funny and friendly guy named Tim. I'm in a group of six kids, and we work pretty well together; I'm happy with the one I've chosen. We're working on a couple of different things, and one of those is investigating plant functional traits and how they correlate to frost tollerance. To the left is a group of harlequin beetles we found as we were collecting samples. There were hundreds of them on a single tree. Curious.












We then took a camping trip out to 40 Mile Scrub, which is a section of endangered dry rainforest that is heavily infested with Lantana. Lantana is what biologists call a "garden escape"... originally brought over to Australia as a decorative plant, it quickly invaded rainforest areas, growing quickly and forming vast thickets that choke native vegetation. A lot of effort is now being put into controling this invasive weed, and part of our project is to investigate the effectiveness of those methods. Essentially, 40 Mile Scrub is almost completely full of the stuff.

To the left, the first morning at 40 Mile Scrub, I walked outside of my tent to find two kangaroos, one was a mother with a joey in her pouch, and this was the little guy that was with her. After much difficulty trying to photograph them through bushes and trees, I eventually followed them onto an empty campsite, where they continued to graze, unbothered by my presence. It was pretty cool... if I hadn't filled my memory card, I would have stayed and taken many more pictures of them. The morning light was perfect, casting long, dramatic shadows behind them.
I saw this parrot the next morning. These things were everywhere, along with black cockatoos, flaming gallas, etc. etc. Oh, and also...

Kookaburras! Here's one that sat outside of our bungalow as we were preparing breakfast. I managed to get pretty close up.
Here we are doing research. That is a lantana thicket. It's been sprayed with an herbacidal spray, so it's all dead, but when it's alive it's way over our heads and green and thorny. We have the cube there so we can cut up and weigh a cubic meter of the stuff. we had to do that for 16 5x5 meter plots. We then counted the plants within those plots by pulling them out by hand. Backbreaking work, and it was incredibly hot.
Here we are after a job well done, posing in front of some giant termite mounds. Huzzah!
Here's a spider we saw while taking leaf and stem samples for our frost research.
And here's the elusive platypus. This is the best picture I could get... they're really small and you can't get very close to them.

After a day of hard work, a swim at lake Barrine. This is what is called a Maars, a crater formed by a volcanic explosion. It's just a random water filled crater in the middle of the Tablelands with no rivers flowing to it or away from it.

Homestay weekend

Well, I'm feeling rather distracted and unable to work, so I suppose it's time for another blog update. Today: the story of my homestay with an aborigional family. I stayed with a guy named Phil who is a professional digeridoo maker. The morning after the first night, I took a walk and took the first and second photographs. The light was pretty good, and the grass was dewy. Not much else to say about that. Phil was a very nice man, and so was his wife. His house was full of kids; 1 child and four grandchildren, two of which were to young to talk. It was an interesting weekend, to be sure.

Phil took us to some local waterways and waterfalls, where we saw some more rainforest and stuff. One of the kids, Jayden, discovered this tiny turtle on the riverbank. Freshwater turtles are some of the very oldest Australians, having been there since the Gondwonan era.
Here's a waterfall that Phil used to jump down as a kid with his friends. It had to be 10-20 meters tall.
And here's a digeridoo that Phil made, which he called a "story stick". He played it for us and it has a very nice sound. It was ridiculously decorated, with his entire family history on it from "before the white man came" (his words) to the present. On the underside of that gnarled part on the bottom was some cave-painting style stuff... really cool. He said it took a year to paint. The guy standing to the left is Justin, who also stayed with us. Oh, also the bottom has five depictions of the seasons... the aborigionals used to have five seasons based on which berries were ripe at the time.

Ok. Next, Directed Research.

The Daintree

The Daintree. Where the densest rainforest meets the Pacific coast. Stinger infested waters crashing up against miles of jagged rock and mangrove forests. What a great place!

We went to the beach on the first night at sunset... incredible patterns on the sand from the running of a freshwater stream back into the ocean. The very same stream, in fact, that we were urged to stay away from because of crocadiles. Wicked.
Here's a couple of fan palms... very large diversity of palms in the daintree. These whorled leaves are almost perfectly circular; really very neat. There are also a bunch of cycads here, which look a lot like palms, but are actually a form of tree that dinosaurs used to eat way back in the day. Their leaves are extremely tough in comparison to modern ones, and they look ancient.
A landsnail shell I found at the edge of the mangrove forest. They're actually really common, and a little bigger than a golf ball. This one was pretty nice though; very intact and clean.
A panorama of the mangrove beach. If you look closely, you can see them in the middle of the picture just boardering the ocean. They're the ones that are light green and closest to the ground.
The mangrove forest. They're not actually a species of tree, but a class of plant that have adapted to frequent flooding and high salinity soils. In order to cope with these conditions, thousands of species of plant have evolved stilted roots, even roots that grow down into the soil and then back up again like snorkels, in order for the trees to perform gas exchange with the air. The soil they grow in, which is often sandy, is so compacted that it's almost entirely anoxic; if they didn't have these specialized root structures, they'd drown. Similarly, they have to find ways to deal with the high salinity of their environment. There are a couple of common methods used by mangrove forests. First, reverse osmosis: they refuse to let any salt into their roots. Second: sequestration. They will sequester (store) the excess salt either in their bark, or in dummy leaves that fall to the ground when they're too full of salt. They're often leathery and yellow, and if you chew one it tastes... you guessed it... salty! Third: extrusion. Many mangrove trees have special glands on their leaves to push out the extra salt. They don't have to loose their leaves, but they do build up with a flaky, salty residue, which could affect their ability to collect sunlight. These strategies are common most everywhere that there is a dense forest in boggy or saline conditions, not just in Australia. This was my favorite part of the Daintree :)

Right then, I'll try to post some more soon, but I'm off to 40 Mile Scrub tomorrow morning to start my directed research project. I might be away from the internet for a few days.