Tuesday 30 April 2013

Caterpillar control

I really like these Galapagos Mockingbirds. They're everywhere here and they provide endless entertainment. They defend their little patches of territory against all intruders, dangerous or benign. I saw one have a tete a tete with an ani bird (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ani_(bird)) this morning. This one below has hit the jackpot with a juicy caterpillar and seems to be taking its frustrations out on the caterpillar by whacking it to death. We never said nature was nice… beware the overly sentimental statements people make about animals...

P1090042

P1090043

P1090039

Sunday 28 April 2013

Maybe long necks can be adaptive for something other than foraging?

Everyone can probably look up the origin of the word Galapagos, which was given to these islands based on the tortoises found here. The giant tortoises (not all of them, mind you) have saddle shaped shells, from which the term galapagos comes from. On top of that is the variance in shell morphology seen in turtles from island to island. Apparently, although they differ tremendously from island to island, the consensus is that there are ~11 (sub)species of the giant tortoise. I am still trying to wrap my head around which is which, but we see them every day here at the research station. Breeding (or attempts at breeding!) are common. Tortoise grunting can be heard from the bushes all around us, along with the 'fingernails on chalkboard' sounds of claws on shells.
I never thought a tortoise could grin, but here is a pretty cheeky male:

P1090002

Same male demonstrating some rather intimate face-to-face contact with his less than impressed mate. It does show that a long neck can be useful for something other than that hard to reach plant.

P1090004

Saturday 27 April 2013

Pishing gets you the birds...not to be mistaken with Phishing.

I've known for years that birders 'pish' to get songbirds to come out of bushes or even to fly toward you, but it has rarely worked for me in Canada. All it does is make you look silly for making pishing sounds. However, in trying to obtain thermal images of various finches here, we invariably have to find a way to call them in. A fine catch with this beautiful yellow warbler: P1090027


Thursday 25 April 2013

Destroyers of Galapagos Fauna!

In the ongoing saga of finchdom (yep…that's what I'm calling the Galapagos now). Finchdom. The land of the finches. Finchtastic. Well, you get the point. So, in the previous instalment you did not see any bill action. The juvenile finches seem a little perplexed at what they are supposed to do. They follow ma and pa finch around picking up random bits of stuff on the ground and try it out. Here, however, is the monster of all finches. Destroying the plant life!
P1080578
This is a large ground finch (male) with a soft seed pod in toe, pit by pit destroying this plant.

And here is the aftermath. Looks a little like a destroyed halloween pumpkin:
P1080568

Witness the carnage all around it.

Name that finch!

Whether it be truth or myth, there is an expression in many Galapagos field guides: "It is only a very wise man or a fool who thinks that he is able to identify all the finches which he sees." (From: http://people.rit.edu/rhrsbi/GalapagosPages/DarwinFinch.html) - actual source is Michael Harris' field guide. This is so very true. The small and medium ground finches can usually be discerned easily in some field sites, but in others…boy there can be overlapping distributions. Same can be said for the medium compared to the large ground finch. Here is a little visitor to our porch, looking to me like a juvenile medium ground finch (hopefully the finch mafia isn't following my blog in case I've mis-identified this one!):
P1080650

Beach? What Beach?

Hard at work, scorching myself in the sun. Rumours that I have melted in the heat in Galapagos are close to being true. Still, I have plenty of sun block and am off to sit under my tarpoline blind and hope the little finches come to my camera. Meanwhile, here is the sign that we pass every day on our walk into town. There is a public beach right at the research station:
IMG 0853

Tuesday 23 April 2013

Lava gulls want in on the action

Apparently there are only about 400 pairs of breeding lava gulls on the islands. We seem to be near the most persistently bothersome ones, as this individual here has decided he would rather be in the limelight. Note how he has nicely placed himself squarely where we are trying to obtain thermal images of Darwin's finches. Maybe he fancies himself a finch? I have a nice thermal image of his hot little legs somewhere on one of my electronic devices... P1080619

Monday 22 April 2013

Pirates….oh, no never mind…just tourist boats.

A view from our cabin (which is almost on the ocean, except for the invasive plant species ruining our view!!) at the Charles Darwin Research station reveals a constant stream of boats coming in. Being on what is effectively a desert island, I initially thought this was a pirate ship. Then I remembered that I watched Pirates of the Caribbean on the flight down here, so perhaps my imagination got the better of me. P1080502

Galapagos Intern

So, we've decided to hire the local mockingbird. Well, hire is a lose term. Like many student interns and volunteers, he is paid nothing. Science is, after all, a passion, and not a means to get rich. But we cannot exactly feed him peanuts either. Anyhow, here he is setting up our equipment in the field: P1080498
And inspecting the cables to make sure they are connected to the computer:
P1080499
Looks like he even knows how to add an extension cable: P1080500
If I had had an opportunity to volunteer as a student, I'd have jumped at the chance! I wonder if he knows about IP agreements and has assumptions of co-authorship…please don't tell research services or HR that we have an unpaid intern who has not had his health and safety training.

Sunday 21 April 2013

To kill a mockingbird? How could you!? Perhaps simply to film a mockingbird?

We have been making great strides in our 'field thermography' project here. Finches are in great abundance and even allow us to get close enough for imagery. There are, of course, numerous other animals interesting enough to take thermographs of, and some are even keen to help out!! The Galapagos Mockingbird here has been frequenting our field site and is very curious of our technology. So much so that here it is sat perched on my thermal camera while I stopped to take some weather readings:
IMG 0851
It is really quite adorable, although he likes to bully the other birds and chases the finches away from the camera. Not a very helpful field assistant.
Oh…some good news. I've just been invited to film some of the giant tortoises up close. I might actually get to do some tortoise Science!!

Friday 19 April 2013

Hone your plant metabolism knowledge and Infrared Skills

Case note: Cactus plants are abundant here on Galapagos. Go back to your first year botany and see if you can explain why the cactus temperature is higher than other nearby plants.
P1080473
CactusIR






































Sorry, I cut the top off on the thermal image above. Hint: it should have something to do with Crassulacean (spelling? I have no spell check here!) Acid Metabolism.

Thursday 18 April 2013

What manner of creature?

Yesterday, we took one of the ever-present white toyota trucks that whiz around Puerto Ayora up to a potential field site. These trucks act as taxis and I wonder if shipment of toyotas fell off a shipping container in the pacific and washed up on shore in the Galapagos (much like most of the creatures here). Anyhow, scoping out the field site for potential finch sightings, we stumbled across this interesting creature.

  P1080445

 I will allow the comments to see if you can guess as to what it is. Remember, there are no known venomous snakes in the Galapagos. This creature is about 5 inches long.

Wednesday 17 April 2013

Galapagos Toroises at their finest

Our cabins at the station are located about 50 m away from the tortoise breeding program. Sometimes things can get a little heated

Btw still searching Internet. Currently borrowing from cafes in town


I wish I were an iguana!


Ok...We finally arrived at Charles Darwin Research Station.  Long day yesterday and after many buses, dragging suitcases and equipment through the heat we arrived close to the station and park entrance.  Only to find out that EVERYONE is at lunch.  Including the iguanas.

So, while waiting in the sun for the officials to come back and help us with our accommodation (etc.) I snapped a thermal image from the water.

Here is a marine iguana soaking up the sun's rays.  Skin temperatures of 45C.  This is how I will be over the next month.  Scorching and sunburnt!




Blog entries will be sporadic.  I think I managed to upload this image because the whole island just left for lunch and so the internet isn't swamped.

Anyhow!  Enjoy!

Tuesday 16 April 2013

Arrival in Ecuador!


 Well, the first leg of the trip is over.  We arrived in Guayaquil late Monday evening.  I had no trouble with immigration, although I may have received a marriage proposal from the immigration officer.  Or at least she warned me not to fall in love in (or with?) Ecuador.  



Our taxi driver/hotel seemed to be confused. We booked a hotel at the lovely Guayaquil Suites Hotel.  Always be suspicious about something called ‘suites’.  Lovely place once we arrived (sweating and hauling our equipment laden suitcases), but it looked more like someone’s apartment/spare rooms than a hotel! 

Sorry for no photos.  Internet connection here requires patience, which I seem to lack when the weather is hot and the sweat is pouring off me.  

Monday 15 April 2013

Departure to GPS imminent

Waiting for my flight to Galapagos.  Departing in a couple of hours.  Excited and slightly shocked that this is happening.

Will be in Puerto Ayora sometime tomorrow (16th April).

Thursday 11 April 2013

It's official! We're going to the Galapagos!!

It has been over a year in the making, and at times I was not sure it would happen at all, but we finally got our tickets to head to Galapagos.  I am using this as an excuse perhaps to start putting some effort into this blog.

Here's the context.  Back in 2009, I published a paper on the role of the bill of the toucan as a 'radiator of body heat' (http://www.sciencemag.org/content/325/5939/468.abstract).  Meanwhile, Russ Greenberg and his student/post-doc, Ray Danner were working on Song Sparrow ecology and bill size.  After reading my paper and contacting me, we started sharing ideas and Russ began to develop questions examining how bills of his birds may be shaped by their environment (temperature, water availability).

Anyhow, long story short....this led to Russ and Ray collaborating with my lab via my student, Viviana Cadena who spent a couple of months in Ray's lab working on heat loss parameters in song sparrows.  (see below).


Figure 1. Infrared images of eastern and Atlantic song sparrows.




This work with sparrows showed that the bill in these birds can represent up to ~9% of resting body heat loss.

Last year, along with Russ, Ray and Viviana, we submitted a grant to the National Geographic Society to go to the Galapagos to test our research questions in Darwin's Finches.  I won't go into those details yet, but perhaps future blogs will shed some light.

Anyhow, heading out on Monday and will be away for a month.  Let's hope we don't have any trouble getting there!

For a summary of this work, here is a great blog from Jack Dumbacher.