An actual post by an actual person

Hello to all of our readers.  Rosco wanted me to extend his apologies for not having a Famous Basset Hound Friday ready for tonight.  He and the other hounds are busy working on "something big".  We're still waiting on more basset GQ and bikini entries, so maybe that's what they're up to.  Either way, he asked if I could fill in for him tonight.  I said sure, it's not like I don't already take care of your every other whim.  At that point he snorted at me and wandered off.

So I decided to write a little bit about my job tonight.  I work at a wetland area in Missouri, and a big part of my job in the fall is administering our waterfowl hunting program.  That mostly involves paying close attention to water levels in our different pools, and adjusting our pumps and gates so that water isn't either too deep or too shallow.  The water levels are really important for migrating birds like ducks, geese, swans, shorebirds, wading birds, etc.  The food they require during their migration becomes unavailable if the water is too shallow or too deep.  Another big component of the hunt program is doing the daily draw, which focuses on hunter education, safety, and maximizing the number of hunters we can get out on our area while still paying attention to the physiological needs of migrating birds.  Those things are a fun part of the job, but the best part is contributing to an annual survey of the migrating waterfowl each year.  We are part of the Mallard Migration Network, a group of state and federal landowners who estimate the number of mallards we see each week and use it to provide an animated map.  You'll see it on the top right part of the blog.

We're interested in the migration status of mallards because they are numerous, and are a common target of a lot of our waterfowl hunters.  They are also a good gauge of waterfowl migration in general - there are lots of species of waterfowl, and monitoring them all across the North American continent is unrealistic - so we need a "yardstick" to go off of.

We see a lot of these on our area

So each week I go out and get a rough estimate of the number of mallards I see on the area I manage.  Then I go back to my office and estimate (on a 1-10 scale) how close I think we are to "peak" migration - the most mallards we're going to see that year.  Ducks start to migrate when the weather gets cold, so they will be coming down from places like Canada and the Dakotas each fall, and then they swing back up north once the winter is over to lay eggs and hatch their young.  So I will get to do this all over again next spring.  In the meantime, my weekly number update is one of several hundred locations that contribute to making that neat little animated map you see up there.  It will continue to get updated as the migration continues, and I'll leave it up there for awhile so you can check it out.

Anyway that's my job - part-time official counter of ducks.

Am I a crazy person?

I saw a recent online article about how we are, mathematically speaking, almost certainly living within a computer simulation of some hyper-advanced culture.  Accepting a few necessary assumptions, you can show that it's pretty much likely that the entire universe is a computer program.

That of course made me think of movies like The Matrix, where people's entire realities (and not to mention acting careers) are suddenly cast into doubt as it is revealed that everything they think they know is a lie.  As a scientist, or a person who is curious about the way the world works, such a revelation would really suck.  I've spent the better part of my life trying to learn.  It all sounds crazy.

I was reminded that craziness is probably one of those 'eye of the beholder' kind of things tonight.  I had to go to the grocery store to pick up some dog treats because they are being visited by a pet-sitter this week (I can't come home at lunch due to training to let them out).  While I was leaving the store I noticed a fiery searcher wandering around the pavement near the gardening section.

Before you ask, this is a fiery searcher.

These are substantial insects, and they have mandibles that could result in a painful bite.  Not something to try and capture if you are preoccupied with the 5 pound bag of peanut butter-flavored, breath-freshening dog biscuits you just purchased, along with the questionable sci-fi movie you rented from Redbox.  But this is a cool beetle - a real collector's item.  Not terribly rare or anything, but one that I don't have yet and one that I've been searching for since the fall of 2009.  So what was I to do?

Well, I ran to my car and searched for something to put it in.  Normally there are about 500 discarded cups and pop bottles, but I cleaned it out the other day, so no luck there.  However, I was able to find some trash in the parking lot that would work.  All I had to do was dump out the pink lemonade or whatever the hell it was.  I only got a few stares as I was trying to find this bug again, and was chasing it down with a McDonald's cup outside the front of a Wal-Mart.  I console myself that most of them were dressed like twerps and appeared, like most 18-30 year-olds in college towns across America, to be on drugs.  Clearly, pursuing beetles in parking lots is standard operating procedure.

Is this the behavior of a crazy person?

We're moving!

Good news everyone!  We'll be moving at the end of the month, because I was offered a position with the Missouri Department of Conservation!  That's right, after about 12 years of secondary education, I am now officially employable.  I'll be the wildlife biologist at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area near Columbia, Missouri.  It's an area that is primarily managed for waterfowl and waterbird habitat and hunting, but it also provides lots of wildlife viewing opportunities as well.  As the wildlife biologist, I'll oversee two people and manage the area, as well as have the chance to do a few side projects of my own.  I'm really looking forward to it!  If you want to know more about where I'll be working, check this website out.  Right now my first few project ideas include helping department staff be eligible for the Wildlife Society's certified Wildlife Biologist program, trying to establish a bird-banding station at Eagle Bluffs, and trying to start a long-term turtle monitoring program that focuses on the effects of water level manipulation on turtle populations.

Of course, that means that I have a ton of stuff to do in the next few weeks.  Packing up everything we own and finding a place to live will be the first few challenges.  I also have to defend my dissertation on the 20th of this month, which means I need to get my defense talk put together and be prepared for questions that might come my way.  It sounds like I will have a pretty big audience at my defense.  Fortunately I just came back from the annual Wildlife Society conference, where I gave a very short version of my defense talk.  So it will just be a matter of expanding it to a longer talk (about 45 minutes).  Oh and I am also working part-time at a butcher shop until I move.  I'm going to be busy!

But moving should be fun.  We're just going to rent a big Uhaul truck and do it all on a weekend.  My parents offered to help (hopefully they will bring Casey along), and Zane and Melissa might help as well.  My grandparents will also meet us in Columbia to supervise the procedure.  Should be a nice, stress-free day.  Maybe.  Anyway, I know the dogs and the cats will be excited - a new place to sniff out, find the good hiding spots, and discover the best places to poop in the yard.  Bunsen will have a few more chances at some drugged victims for his affections during the trip out there.  I think I'll drive the Uhaul and let Heather deal with the amorous cats!