Natural history blog #1: beavers

One of my goals this summer is to become more familiar with more plants and more wildlife in the Kingston area. This area really has an exceptional diversity of flora and fauna. So I figured every once in awhile, I would post about something particular I have come across and share it on here.

I posted about the elusive beaver at the Frink Centre the other day and I think I will start with that... beavers! Now I am no beaver expert by any means, I have literally only seen one in real life ever (this past Saturday) but I do actually know quite a bit about them, having been a TA for winter ecology field trips several times.

I think they are soooo cute! (Photo credit: The Guardian)

Beavers are rodents (not mammals) which is more obvious when you look at their two unique rodent-like front teeth. Beavers as far as I know are the largest rodents in Canada, (porcupines take a close-ish second), but I believe the Capybara (spelling?) is the biggest - we don't see those guys in North America though as far as I know. Beavers are semi-aquatic meaning they live both in the water and on land. Beaver's are pretty large. The one I saw on the weekend was very big, and I was quite a ways away from him. I have heard many people from around here saying it's not uncommon for a beaver to weigh over 50 lbs.

Beavers live in lodges, like the one seen below. The lodge is built in water, so the entrance inside is actually under the water but inside the lodge they live above the water. It can be -34 degrees C outside and still not below zero inside of a beaver lodge they insulate it so well. What I find really cute about beavers is that they often live in pairs and have families. I learned this in a documentary called "Dam Beavers" that I watched awhile back. In fact, inside their little family homes they often have two rooms, the first room is for drying of (shaking and smacking their tail once they come in from the water) and the second is the "living room". Too cute. Beavers have to store food over the winter as they don't actually hibernate. They have it a lot harder than muskrats, as muskrats can just eat plants that grow on the bottom of the pond. Beavers like trees like willow and alder, etc. and thus have to store the branches in their dens over the winter.

Beaver lodge at the frink centre, in Belleville ON

One of the reasons people dislike beavers is their dam-building habits. The reason beavers build dams is because they actually can't find a good pond to build in, so they have to stop the flow of water. I don't know/remember the specifics to building dams but these beavers are incredible at it and it really is a fine art. Beavers used to be so abundant, especially in Canada, but there numbers are only a fraction of what they used to be. Hunting and habitat fragmentation are probably largely responsible for their decline.

These guys are really intelligent, amazing creatures and I hope that more people appreciate this and put effort into conserving their habitat and making co-habitation with humans possible.

Making decisions and saying no

It seems like one common theme of the journey through my PhD thus far is that of making tough decisions...I reiterate,  not just any decisions tough decisions. I feel like each week presents me with a new challenge and each week said challenge means I have to choose between one of two or more things. And there never seems to be an obvious choice.

One of the things I have the hardest time making decisions with is what to take on and what to not take on. I've talked to a lot of different faculty about this and the opinions vary but they all seem to have the same foundation. Most people suggest that until you get where you want to be in life, you just say 'yes' to everything and once you get there, you only say 'yes' to things that will help you advance your career or keep your job. I would imagine that this would be especially true once you decide to start a family.

There is definitely value in saying no though. I had lunch a few weeks ago with a wonderful women who did her PhD at Queen's years ago. She now works for a Biotech company in Alberta. She said, alluded at the fact that during your PhD especially you have to do things that make you stand out and take opportunities when they arise, but always do things that really have your ultimate goal in mind. If it won't help you, and you won't enjoy it then don't do it.

I say 'yes' to a lot of things, and always have, and I think I always will. It's part of my personality. I'm a self-proclaimed 'busy body'. On a busy body side note: I always considered myself that type, especially since my final year of my Undergrad, and then I saw an episode of Sabrina the Teenage Witch (embarssingly a favourite show of mine) and it was called "I busy-body". And when I watched it, it was all about how she meddles in everyone's lives. That's when I decided to look up the definition of a busy body and found out that indeed that is what a busy body does, meddles in other people's business... or as urban dictionary defines it: "the person you want to punch in the face for being so damn annoying". Anyways, I quickly learned my lesson that I am not a busy body. I did a google search for what I might call myself and it turned up many interesting terms, "busy bee" I will stick with, as I don't think jack of all trades fits.

Troubleshooting 101

Yesterday, I went out to the field with my friend Kari and we tried to start setting up my main experiment...with emphasis on try. I have lots of experience doing field work so I know that more often than not, your plans change a million times once you get outside and see what you actually have to work with. My experiment (or one part of it at least) is being set up at the Bracken Tract in Westport, Ontario...about an hour North of Kingston. This tract is about 400 acres and is land that was donated to Queen's Biology Station. A few summers back, we set up a large, ten year watering experiment in an old-field at this site, and because of free-ranging cows, the site was fenced in. There is a fairly large section along the side of the field, where Kari and I set up an 80m x 20m area to hold my experiment in, flagging every metre around the perimeter. Doing experiments of such large scale are always a challenge. We went out with a 100m tape, and all the flags. I had measured the field and flagged the corners earlier that week, and still, once we got to the final corner we were 2 m short, so we had to go back and correct it. It's so easy to make mistakes when the area you are covering is so large.

I had two main concerns after yesterday's outing:

1) There are too many shrubs in this area. The old field is slowly going through succession and the shrubs are encroaching in on the herbaceous plants. And unfortunately, they are all prickly ash, or mostly, which is also very painful. The land hasn't been, maybe ever, bush-hogged so this could create problems.

The site all flagged out and measured. Soon it will be lush and green
 and not so dry and sad looking!

2) The cylinders/sleeves made to insert into the ground around my plots and cut off surrounding rhizomes are very problematic. We only tried a couple, but indeed, they will only go into the ground about 5-6 inches. And they need to go down 10 inches. There are just too many rocks to make that happen, so that will also require a re-think.

A cylinder - it's not going in much further than that....

I guess with field work comes problems... many of them and always. Hopefully as the spring proceeds and I spend more time out there we can troubleshoot this project as necessary.

On another note, I spent lots of time outside this weekend both north and east of Kingston. Below are a few pictures from my adventures.

A pair of Canada geese nesting a top the Beaver's lodge. I have been trying to see this elusive beaver for a few years now, and I finally spotted him this weekend. I was too far to get any photos but cool nonetheless.

Grackles

A pair of osprey nesting. Massive, beautiful, fish-eating birds. 

Many of my cylinders/sleeves. 

First rescue of a turtle this year! This little guy was so cute

Fingers crossed

I'm not proud that the manuscript (well, the main one of two) for my MSc research took me THIS long to get out... but as of this evening it is done and being submitted to Functional Ecology tomorrow. As my supervisor said... "Fingers crossed". And that's what I'll be doing for the next several months, as I wait for the manuscript to go through peer review. My first paper took about a year from first submission to print. The first journal I submitted to, Journal of Plant Ecology, is a lot easier (at least I think) to get published in than Functional Ecology, so I can only hope that the process goes smoothly. As long as it doesn't get rejected right off the bat, I think we're good.

Yesterday I spent a few hours out in the field with Sarah. It was sooo nice to be outside again. We measured out the area for my main project up at the Bracken Tract in Westport. On the way home we took a slow drive down Opinicon Road to look for, well, anything cool. We saw loads of partridges and a couple turkeys. I checked out a great blue heron soaring above with my binoculars and we also saw a pileated woodpecker and a loon. I have actually never seen either of them before. So that was exciting. The woodpecker surprised me, it was a lot bigger than I would have envisioned it. When I looked it up, it said they can grow to be half a metre tall. They're mostly black with a bright red crest on their heads. I didn't get to see him for too long, but it was super cool.

The site of the main part of my PhD project, looks like nothing right now, and to be honest, I don't think it will look too different by the end, haha. 

The long-term watering experiment... still standing. 

Stole this picture from google, but this is the pileated woodpecker. Gorgeous. 

I am not still in Ecuador

I might go down in history as the worst blogger to surf the blogosphere...ever. But life's been busy so what can I say. When I looked back at my last blog, those who may not know me would think I could STILL be in Ecuador...oops!! I had an amazing trip, that deserves an entire blog let alone an entire blog post and I will get to that.. one day. Probably next winter when I am really missing those islands more than ever. Other than that, the last 2 ish months have been busy.

I've done lots of things including officially designed my entire PhD project and am so, oh so close to the submission of my MSc manuscript. I finished my course in teaching and learning and have started the process of creating a teaching and learning discussion group for grad students and faculty in the fall. I registered for the oCUBE conference in May, which will focus on teaching undergraduate biology and I wrapped up (minus final exam marking) the courses I TA'ed this winter term. I have had a few fundraisers including Bowl for Kids Sake and Bowl for the Animals and have done some other fun stuff including curling, a cooking class, marsh monitoring and did my first ever guest lecture. I am exhausted reliving it all.

Now, within the next two weeks, my field season will be in full swing and I'll be doing field work for the next 5 or 6 months. I cannot wait to get outside and get my research underway.

I will be better at blogging. I promise!