Nate Senner

Cookies!

Sometimes the things that generate the most excitement in a field camp don’t revolve around anything that is even remotely related to biology (except maybe human biology).  Instead, they generally stem from contact with the outside world; somehow spending time in a field camp, even if only for a few weeks, narrows your view of the world and makes everything that exists outside of the field camp seem utterly exotic and interesting.  After a while hearing one more story from your campmates really doesn’t add that much to your daily existence—you already know that Joe was a child prodigy and that Sue absolutely loves parakeets—but hearing the news that your favorite high school teacher just won an award from the school district for their good teaching, now that’s worth talking about for a least a couple of days.  This becomes especially true the longer you are in the field camp and away from your normal social circles.  For instance, one summer that I spent living in a tent camp on Alaska’s North Slope, we only received mail three times over the course of three months. Those mail days served as our only source of news about what was going on in the “real world” outside the confines of our four-person camp and could bolster or crush our spirits during the surrounding weeks.  In the weeks leading up to mail day, we would each begin to imagine what the mail might hold for us:  Would my girlfriends write me any letters?  Would Mom send along a bag of cookies?  Would my friend Greg burn a copy of the new Radiohead album?  Then, in the aftermath, there were either hurt feelings—“She didn’t write a very long letter, that must mean that she doesn’t love me.”—or complete elation—“Mom not only sent along cookies, but also the past few months worth of Sports Illustrated magazines!”

Our camp this summer at Su Flats isn’t quite so isolated that we don’t ever receive news from the outside world (I am writing this blog post that I will email off to you during our once-a-week checking of email), but our relative isolation does present some other limitations to our ability to lead normal lives.  The most noticeable for us, on a daily basis at least, is our lack of fresh food.  Not having electricity, or any underground storage capacity, really minimizes the number of fresh vegetables and dairy products that we can have around and basically rules out any kind of meat (and I’ll always skip canned meat products, thank you very much).  That means that we entirely rely on the food shipments that come every 2-3 weeks for any food that strays outside of our normal fare of pasta, beans, peanut butter and jelly, and mixed nuts.

This past Friday we received just such a shipment and it was accompanied by a level of excitement that was even higher than normal: Somehow we had miscalculated the amount supplies that would be necessary to get us through the first three weeks in camp and, thus, by the time Tuesday and Wednesday of this week rolled around, we were getting by on Cheerios and powdered milk for two meals a day, followed up by a plain dinner of pasta and red sauce (yum!).

Oh but the joy of a new food shipment!  The meal possibilities suddenly seem so endless.  Now we have both Cheerios and granola.  There are even some vegetables.  And how about cream cheese and bagels for lunch?!

The real danger, of course, is that we will become gluttons and finish off all of the really choice foods during the first few days after the shipment and then, very quickly, return to our quotidian existence of rice and beans, stale bread, and dried fruit.    So far, so good though, and for the moment we’re just happy to have some colorful foods in our diet again!

Nate with godwit

A professor I had in college once told me, with a very serious look on his face, “Scientists study questions, not species.”  Besides seeming (and being) a little over zealous, what he meant by this was that scientists are supposed to be driven by their interest in the why’s and how’s of science—Why do animals on islands often seem so tame?  How much competition is there between two similar species when they share an environment?—and not by their love of a particular species.  I must admit, however, that I have grown more than a little bit attached to my study species.  Whenever I think about scientific questions now, I think about them in terms of Hudsonian Godwits.  For instance, I don’t just think about how the migratory routes of birds have evolved, I think about how the migratory routes of Hudsonian Godwits have evolved. And, to tell the truth, I think that this is a good thing: If I wasn’t so interested in godwits, I doubt that I would have the patience or the energy to spend so much time in the field taking data or sitting in front of a computer analyzing that data.

The true nature of my relationship with godwits is most noticeable to me when I see a godwit that I have banded before. When that happens, instead of simply thinking, “Good, another data point,” the first thing that runs through my head is, “Hey that’s my bird!  Howdy!”  Thus, during the past couple of weeks as we’ve been resighting the birds we banded here at Su Flats last summer, it’s felt a lot like a nice little family reunion.  “Hey, there’s PE!  And look over there, that’s TA.  I wonder how he’s doing?”

Weathered data logger

I get even more excited when we actually recapture one of the birds carrying data loggers.  Those occasions bring the added excitement of potentially learning where the birds have traveled during the past year.  This week, luck was with us and we were able to recapture three birds carrying data loggers—YT, XL, and XP.  After getting over my initial jitters as I actually hold the birds in the my hand—Don’t drop her now, we might never get this logger back!—euphoria takes over and each evening we rush back to the cabin to hook the loggers up to our computer and start piecing through those maps.  My euphoria has not been misspent, either.  While each of the birds ultimately wound up spending the winter on Chiloe Island, Chile, each took a slightly different route to get there and then to get back to Su Flats.

XP first flew north from Su Flats in the fall, before heading east to spend August in Alberta, Canada.  XL instead flew directly to Saskatchewan, Canada, while YT flew all the way to James Bay, in eastern Canada.  Then each of them took off and flew out over the Atlantic in a 4-day non-stop flight to Amazonian Peru.  On their way north, each of the birds was in the air for 5-days, flying non-stop from Chiloe Island to Kansas and Nebraska.

While looking at the maps, it was like sitting around with friends or family and seeing pictures from their recent vacation, I knew all of the places that they had been and I was able to picture them one by one as the birds’ migration routes appeared on the screen.  If only the godwits could tell some funny stories about the things that had happened to them along the way…

If our luck holds, those won’t be the last three data loggers that we recover this summer.  We already have three more loggers already lined up to be captured on nests and another nine out there whose nests are just waiting to be found.  I am excited just thinking about greeting those old friends again!

One of the hardest aspects of being a scientist is knowing when you have gathered enough information to actually say that you really “know” something.  What I mean by this is: As scientists we are taught that we can never prove or disprove something, there is always a chance that we only know part of the story and thus that there might be some missing detail that is really important.  For example, we think right now that birds know when to begin fattening up for their migration because of changes in the amount of daylight between seasons. However, they might actually know when to start fattening up for migration because of changes in air temperature or the arrival of a new food source that happens at the same time each year.  The fact is that we could collect data for the next one hundred years and not know all of the details about how birds decide when to prepare for migration; it is simply impossible to know the whole story.  The flip side of this dilemma is that as scientists, we are often called upon to help to solve real world problems—for instance answering questions that will help to solve health issues or help to save endangered species—and we often feel guilty, because we know that we don’t have the “whole” story, but, at the same time, we need to come to some conclusions so that ultimately other people can make informed decisions.

I ran into this problem during the tail end of my time in Chile.  During the last three days of my visit to Chiloé Island, I participated in what is called a conservation planning process.  The goal of these processes in general is to arrive at a consensus amongst scientists, conservationists, government officials, and industry representatives about how best to conserve an ecosystem or group of species; the goal of this process in specific was to identify ways to maintain and improve the situation for Hudsonian Godwits, Whimbrels, and other migratory shorebirds on Chiloe Island.  Given that goal, my colleagues and I were called upon to act as experts—to help guide the process and inform everyone else about the details of the biology of godwits, Whimbrels, and other shorebirds.  Being put in such a spot—as the expert—made me nervous.  For instance, what would happen if I said something about godwits that was inaccurate and the representatives of the local aquaculture industry felt that I was wrong or, worse, trying to lie to them?  I could easily imagine such a scenario resulting in the aquaculture industry losing confidence in our expertise and deciding not to cooperate in the process, end of story.

Luckily our three-day meeting—the first of three separate rounds of meetings—remained entirely cordial throughout; no one began shouting at each other, no one became overly defensive, and no one walked out on the process.  That is not to say that there weren’t disagreements and tense moments when everyone involved had to choose their words carefully, simply that we were always able to move forward and to find some common ground.  But we’re not through the most difficult parts yet.  This first set of meetings was just to identify which species are most important to conserve on the island and which threats are most likely to impact those species.  The next two meetings—when we try to actually identify strategies to achieve the goal of conservation and when we begin to make compromises—will be much more difficult.

Between now and then, though, I have a little over two months to prepare and you can be sure that I am going to be checking my facts not once, but twice, and that I am going to be brushing up on my Spanish so that I can be completely sure that I am saying everything in the most polite way possible.  I certainly don’t want to accidentally talk to the manager of a local salmon fishery like he was a five year-old child (which is always a distinct possibility with Spanish!).  So now it is time for me to hit the books!

Until then, suerte and saludos (Cheers and good luck)!

After our failure at Pullao, we thought it might be a good idea to try to catch elsewhere before returning for another attempt.  Thus, we set up our nets at a site that we had not tried in a number of years: Curaco de Velez.  Curaco de Velez is a bustling little town right on the waterfront that serves as an interesting example of the conservation dilemmas facing Chiloé. Both the people living in the town and the birds rely on the same thing—the intertidal ecosystem.  And, sitting as it does right on the waterfront, there are frequently many people either tromping around the town’s mudflats, working their boats in the near shore water, drying algae above the high tide line, or simply just lounging on the short stretch of nearby beach.  This frequently brings the people and the birds directly into, if not conflict, at least close proximity.

Curaco Dogs

When I first began working on Chiloé in 2005, Curaco de Velez was one of the most important sites for godwits.  We would frequently see upwards of 3,000-4,000 birds there and the mud was some of the gloppiest to be found anywhere in the region (and that is saying a lot!).  In the intervening years, however, we have seen a slow and persistent decline in the godwit’s use of the site.  First 1,500 birds were regular, then 500, and now we are lucky to see any godwits there at all.  What has changed, specifically, I could not tell you, but it is obvious when watching birds there (of any species), those birds are frequently being disturbed by the town and all of its baggage—boats, children, trucks, and dogs.  Maybe it just became too much for the godwits to take after a while?

Surprisingly, though, the Whimbrel population remains strong in the bay.  Although, it was never as large as the godwit population—with maximum counts reaching only 300 or more—it has remained steady through the years.  As such, our goal for the day was one last Whimbrel catch.  Luckily for us, Whimbrel don’t seem to mind us gently pushing them in front our nets and we were rewarded once again with a healthy catch of 25 birds; enough to have allowed us to meet our minimum goal of 100 new Whimbrel.

Whimbril Godwit in hand

Now, godwits, on the other hand really do not like anyone trying to twinkle them anywhere. Or at least this year don’t.  The key with godwits is to not start twinkling them too early.  For instance, if you have placed your net so that you can catch birds only in the last few minutes before high tide, you want to wait until maybe 30 minutes before high tide to begin twinkling.  Otherwise, it is very likely that the godwits will take to the air and spend much of the next few hours up there, circling and occasionally landing, only to quickly get back up in the air again (this is not what we want for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it wastes a lot of the birds’ energy).  At the same time, if you wait too long to twinkle the birds, they might just pick up and leave the area all together because the tide has covered up too much ground and they see no other place to roost.

For whatever reason, the godwits this year in Pullao, seem to be particularly prone to disturbances.  And, so, it was not until the very last day of the expedition that we were finally able to make a catch there.  Unfortunately, though, instead of the big catch we were hoping for, we captured a seemingly measly 55 birds.  In the end, it was something like herding cats: the birds did only what they wanted to do, and there seemed to be little that we could do about it!

With that last catch, our total for the year was brought up to 150 godwits and 108 Whimbrels.  Well short of our godwit goal, at least.  I suppose that we cannot complain too much.  Catching any birds at all is always something to be pleased with.  Additionally we resighted a total of 9 of my birds from Alaska and more than 250 of our Chilean birds.  Not a bad showing.  And, now, in the next few days, we’ll be meeting with local scientists, conservationists, and government officials to try to hatch a plan to help protect godwits, Whimbrel, and other shorebirds on Chiloe; stay tuned for more on that.

Godwits in the net

As quickly as they disappeared, they came back again—the godwits that is. After a couple of days of frantic searching during which we scoured the eastern part of Chiloé Island and found a couple of promising new sites, we returned to Pullao for our normal check in and found nearly 2000 godwits feeding on the mudflats.  They of course looked like nothing was out of the ordinary, they were just going about their business eating worms and chasing off marauding Brown-hooded Gulls.  When I saw those birds though, I felt more than a little bit like a father whose child has come home late from the playground: There was a little bit of anger—“Where were you?!”—but a lot more relief—“Ah, there you are!”.  A few minutes later, all of that was forgotten and in their place was a new set of plans swirling around my head.

The upside of our mad search for the lost godwits—besides the fact that they were now “found” again—was that we had discovered a new site where we felt like it was possible to catch godwits.  New sites aren’t necessarily the easiest thing to come by; they have to have a nice sandy or rocky beach along which we can place the net, they need to have a consistent place were birds roost day after day, and they can’t have too many people.  The new site, Teguen, seemed to have all of these things.  It was quiet and well removed from the nearest road, had 200 meters of sandy beach that godwits and Whimbrels seemed to like, and at least for the moment, was home to about 1200 godwits.  So instead of trying to push the birds at Pullao so soon after their return, we decided to give Teguen a try.  And, amazingly for our first time at the site, everything worked like a charm: With only a tiny bit of twinkling on our parts, a sizeable group of godwits immediately positioned themselves right below our net and, within 15 minutes, we were processing our first catch of godwits!

With the first godwit catch of the year under our belts, we felt like it was time to give Pullao a try.  Luckily for us, the godwits decided to remain at Pullao for another day and when we arrived there, we were greeted by more than 3000 birds.  That luck proved fickle though.  Despite having all of those birds in the bay, we were somehow unable to coerce any of them to stand in front of our net long enough for us to say, “3, 2, 1, Fire!”

Afterward we all sat around and tried to puzzle out what had gone wrong.  Had we started trying to twinkle the godwits too early?  Had we put the net in the wrong place?  Were the birds in Pullao just too wary after their dispersal to other parts of the island and then their hasty return?

The answer remains unclear, but with only 86 godwits caught thus far, we seem to be a long way from our stated goal of 300.  Hopefully the last few days of the expedition will bring us a bit more luck and a lot more birds…Otherwise it will be a long year trying to figure out to how improve our chances next year.