WEEK 1

Monday, May 29, 2000
     I'm back at Sweet Briar. Wendy gave me a brief overview of the project and pointed out places on Sweet Briar land that I didn't know we owned.
     At Kentucky Ridge we practiced listening for bird calls. It was informal - we just listened and discussed what we heard. Three warblers - Pine, Prairie, and Parula - I need to work on the warblers, although I did know both the Pine and the Prairie. We also went across to the pine stand, pushed our way through the closely planted trees and made it a little ways in - what a tangled mess! It's so thick and dark and bare underneath the limbs.We continued to practice birds throughout and along the main Kentucky Ridge trail. I didn't know that Sweet Briar had this land and I certainly did not know that it had been recently logged. A wild turkey burst up from the underbrush and startled us. Just after, ten or so baby turkeys scurried across the path.

Tuesday, May 30, 2000
     6:30 a.m. start. It was cold. Two sweaters. More bird practice today. We started by the boathouse. Saw barn swallows - maybe three swallows and heard a very loud mockingbird right above us. How confusing - it's the first time I had tried to separate a mockingbird from the other birds on the forest edge. We went all around the lake trails. We heard both a Louisiana Water Thrush (which I did not know) and a worm-eating warbler (which I did know).
     In the afternoon I learned how to measure and take habitat data: slope, aspect, DBH, basal area and everything else. I feel that this is real work. I'll see in the next few days if I'm allergic to poison ivy. I was wading in it today. Tonight I worked on the two tally sheets, became familiar with the common birds and read parts of the GPS manual.

Wednesday, May 31, 2000
     5:30 a.m. start. The pink light was just starting to peek out over the hills and it was cold, cold, cold for May almost June. I could see my breath until 11:00. We went to more hardwood forests and into some fields and forest edges. I feel pretty confident in most of the bird calls. I still need work on the warblers and some of the southern birds I'm not as familiar with. When we hear a bird, we ask each other and double-check. "Is that a...? Yes...maybe...yes! "
     In the afternoon we located and marked the random plots in region 4 for tomorrow morning. We finished at 5:30 p.m. - a good 12 hours.

Thursday, June 1, 2000
     The first real day. Up at 4:40 a.m. Still dark. Still cold. We counted bird plots in the front fields of SBC that parallel Highway 29. They're so pretty, divided with creeks and scrub into rolling patches of grass. I got soaked though in the dew. In the afternoon, we continued to find the plots for bird counting the next day. Both GPSs were being "funny." I took them home to read the manual and to see what was the matter. Couldn't tell and fell asleep at my desk. I'm exhausted.

Friday, June 2, 2000
     Thank goodness it's Friday. I can't wait to sleep tonight. I must be such a boring roommate. I'm gone from 5:00am until 7:00pm. I shower, eat and sleep.
     We counted birds in the hardwood forest around the upper lake. I'm glad we found the plots yesterday - it's a lot of walking and I was tired. Good Sighting!!! By Williams Creek we saw a Louisiana Water Thrush hopping along the creek. We could tell by her long, pink legs and speckled underbelly. It was hard to look away and concentrate on listening. We heard Acadian Flycatchers throughout these woods and recorded one at plot 20, deep in the woods with no understory. Very big trees there. At plot 27 a hummingbird flew past. This is scrub on the edge of a field and it was a mess to get the 80 or so meters to our plot. Not many other birds there.
     Wendy pushes us hard but she never tires of my questions. The long hours never seem long and I'm learning so much.

Photo album	Locations of field sites

WEEK 2

Tuesday, June 6, 2000
     Went across 29 highway this morning at 5:00. Not as cold as last week. The mountains were smoking and the sky cleared to a brilliant blue. Counted birds along the railroad. What a mess to get there. Poison ivy, barbed wire and Wendy said it's the ideal habitat for copperheads. Cool, as my brother would say. We heard the Common Yellowthroat today. Wendy was surprised that we haven't heard a cowbird yet. I'm starting to feel comfortable with my birds and have finally got down the Indigo Bunting's song.

Thursday, June 8, 2000
     We went up to Kentucky Ridge this morning. We walked in along a farmer's field to get to our plots. Much easier access than through the messy scrub we went through yesterday. That took forever and was all brambles. Maybe that's why I was so cranky! Today we counted birds at plots 10, 11, and 12. Plot 10 is in a pine stand and, of course, we heard pine warblers. An upward, dry buzz - like a chirping sparrow but slightly ascending. In the afternoon we drove through the main Kentucky Ridge Trail to plots 13 and 15. Another mess. Straight uphill, almost 700 m through brambles. It's rough going as it was recently cut. There are no big trees on the slopes on this side of the trail. Just Tree-of-Heaven and raspberry canes and grapevines and poison ivy.

Saturday, June 10, 2000
     Yesterday was horrifying and maddening and...funny. We were driving up to Kentucky Ridge to count birds at the most NW plots, and it was fairly dark along the main trail. Well, about two miles in, we went through a small looking puddle and just sank. Right up to the axles. This was at 5:30am. I bailed, Wendy shoveled for one and one-half hours. Then we experimented in the mud pit. We tried jacking up the tires. No, didn't work. We got hundreds of sticks and laid them down in the mud for support. No, didn't work. We finally cut sod from meters back on the dry part of the trail. Back-breaking work. Finally, we rebuilt the road out of mud, sod and sticks. Covered it all with sheets of burlap and Wendy's old coats. Inch by inch we moved. We both got very quiet during the hours of shoveling, bailing and digging. A lot of swearing. But no hard feelings, we got out at 8:30am and Sally (Wendy's truck) was only dirty.
     We got to our plots late because of the truck/mud incident. There was hardly any bird activity, only crows and cardinals. We had to rebuild the road again for two hours to get back out. More sod cutting, bailing the ever rising water, and pushing. We played in the mud and took victory pictures. Wendy took me out for breakfast. What a sight we were - covered in mud. What a Friday. Wendy kept apologizing, but it was fun. I am sore today!

WEEK 3

Tuesday, June 13, 2000
     At plot 30, near lower Paul's Mountain Trail and right on the banks of an old creek, we heard three Acadian Fly Catchers, three wood thrush, and two ovenbirds in only a few minutes. Those are three of my favorite bird calls. The Acadian because it's so clear and quick and...cheery "Cher-up!" And the wood thrush sounds like a flute from fairyland and the ovenbird's call is so piercing and insistent, and it ascends so quickly and loudly.
I met Dr. Edwards this afternoon. He knew almost every inch of the Sweet Briar campus and gave hints at how to get to some of the remote bird plots. He knew where we would find some birds, and when. He mentioned some large rocks up on Kentucky Ridge and said there were ravens there. Dr. Edwards was particularly interested in the warblers, like the worm-eating, the Kentucky and the Parula. He was just as excited as Wendy and I were that we found them.

Wednesday, June 14, 2000
     Dr. Fink went out with me this afternoon to measure habitat data for field plots. Went well until we got stormed out. We had to sprint up the hill from below the hockey field to get to shelter. It was the biggest storm all summer. Huge lightning. We were the tallest things in that field, as Dr. Fink said, so...we ran.

Thursday, June 15, 2000
     Today was long and this morning was rough! We went up to Kentucky Ridge to plots 10, 11 and 12 and made it to 17 in time to count birds. Huge amounts of walking and it was wet! But Dr. Edwards had suggested a good way to get to 17 - along a stream and up one mountain, instead of following the messy, brambly power line. There were cuckoos, wood thrush and three warblers within a few minutes - the worm-eating, Kentucky and hooded. We also heard an ovenbird and the first redstart! GREAT BIRDING. It was worth the walk but we got lost on the way back out: it is the Bermuda Triangle.

WEEK 4

Tuesday, June 20, 2000
     Today we packed a lunch and spent 12 whole hours up at Kentucky Ridge. We counted birds in six plots - all fairly dispersed. We were quick and efficient. By this time it's almost easy to navigate through the forest towards the specific plot. I've started to notice landmarks in woods that used to seem quite uniform.
     This afternoon we hiked into the woods from the main Kentucky Trail to get to plot 16. On the way and, actually, directly across the ravine from plot 16, we came across the huge rocks. This was as close to a rocky mountain as I had ever been. Wendy and I took a minute to climb them and take pictures. We also saw a pair of vultures and their young quite close. We had to dodge the baby vultures' large amounts of poop! They couldn't fly and were obviously quite nervous about us being below them. It was quite steep and took a while to take all the data.
     It was sunny and hot and clear and very "ticky." We walked back to our farthest plots up the messy overgrown slopes and recorded their vegetation and habitat data. A lot of invasive species. But we did see a pair of worm-eating warblers around their nest. Today was a lot of walking.

Wednesday, June 21, 2000
     It's the longest day of the year - midsummer's night. We counted birds around the lake trails in the Williams Creek Sanctuary. The GPS didn't work at all, but it wasn't too much of a problem as we knew where we were going and could orientate in the right direction towards our points. I like these woods; they seem so dry and still. They remind me of the forests back home. We heard a Common Yellowthroat this morning, many woodpeckers, Acadian Flycatchers, Indigo Buntings, Vireos, and Cuckoos. Nothing super uncommon but some variety. The 10 minutes of listening makes up for all the minutes of brambles and steep hills.

Thursday, June 22, 2000
     Today it was very hard to get up and just as we went out, it began to rain. We did get six plots counted, but we had to discount two others because of the rain. We both went back to bed until lunch time, and spent the rainy afternoon inside. I designed and finished our spreadsheet and began to input our data. I also organized and counted the remaining plots that need habitat data collection and need to be revisited to count birds. It's going to be tight in the next 10 days.

Friday, June 23, 2000
     5:00 a.m. start. Today we counted birds at the clear cut forest across 29 highway. Every person needs to see clear cut forest to appreciate the enormous damage it does. It's heart wrenching. It's all invasive species, poison ivy and thousands of small logs that they didn't use. It's such a waste and such a massacre. Students need to know about this. I had no idea.

Saturday, June 24, 2000
     6:00 a.m. start. Up to Kentucky Ridge. At plot 16 we saw tens of bats fly out from a crevice in the big rocks. Saw the vultures and counted a Kentucky Warbler. We hiked back up to the road. I got to lead the way. On the way back to the truck, we found an intact deer skull.
     We headed back to campus at 9:30 for the children's workshop at the boathouse. There were two groups of children: an older and a younger. Both were full of curiosity and kindness towards nature. We showed them our box of treasures that we had collected out in the woods after several weeks and asked them to identify each object. I was surprised at how much they knew. The children in the first group had trash and treasure bags, looked at three different types of bird habitat (field, lake and forest), got to use binoculars and learned some birds. They were interested in everything, even to goose feathers, rocks and acorns. The older group went further and walked to two of our bird plots where they got an "official" tally sheet, learned how to measure trees and use the densiometer as well as identify some bird calls. One child was fascinated with the titmouse and kept singing "Peter, Peter, Peter."
     I think the children got a lot out of it and they had so many snake stories! They were all comfortable being in the woods. It was inspiring and a lot of fun.

WEEK 5

Thursday, June 29, 2000
     It's Thursday night after our presentation. The past few days have been taken up with poster design, production and distribution, with developing, choosing, scanning and editing photographs, writing speeches, inviting people, working through the logistics and technology and learning how to breathe. I think the whole thing went off well. There were quite a few people - students, staff and people from the community.
I liked telling people what it was like out in the woods. The different habitats, the adventures and the birds and wildlife on Sweet Briar land. I liked sharing my small part in Dr. Edwards' years of research. I liked the first grade class showing interest and the artists from the VCCA. I liked telling my story and seeing Wendy tell hers. People were so kind to stay afterwards and chat. It makes me think they got something out of it and will see that the Naturalist-in-Residence program is worthwhile and beneficial to the college.

Friday, June 30, 2000
     Today was my last day in the field. We counted birds at plots 28, 29, 30, 33 and 38 this morning. None of my favorite birds popped out...lots of Vireos, Scarlet Tanagers, woodpeckers, and Indigo Buntings. A few wood thrush. There were thousands of ticks but I know I'll miss it next week. No more office jobs for me!
     Goodnight moon. Goodnight room. I'm pooped!

Saturday, July 1, 2000
     I spent the afternoon entering data. A mindless activity that goes by fairly quickly. Wendy finished downloading the GPS files and finalized the maps. We have habitat data for all 50 plots and have visited each plot twice (at least), a phenomenal amount of work for five field weeks full of unpredictable weather.

Sunday, July 2, 2000
     A long, horrible day but it is done-done-done, with my sister's help. I entered data for nine hours, while she made three copies of each data sheet. The original for Sweet Briar, a copy for Wendy, and a copy for me. Flipping through the data, I had to smile. What an enjoyable, amazing amount of work. Data input is never the fun part of the project but now the opportunities are endless. It's a massive data set. What an experience! I ended the day with close to 5 hours of photocopying Dr. Edwards' data. The copy machine had about enough by 9:00 at night. My eyes hurt.
     I said good-bye and thank you to Wendy. She made the long hours and sometimes not-so-pleasant working conditions fun. She stressed that we had a common goal and that I was her equal. I enjoyed her company, her encouragement and her knowledge. I think she was the ideal candidate for Sweet Briar's first Naturalist-in-Residence.
      Wendy had said that I would either love or hate this job. I loved it. I will miss the early morning sunrises, the mist rising from the mountains, the bobwhite call, the pine woods and its distinctive smell, the treasures and surprises at every turn, the adventures, the challenges, the people.
     I will not miss the ticks.

August 2000

     One cannot often say they have had the experience of a lifetime - I can. This summer has been the most satisfying of any of my 21 years. I feel, for the first time, that I was a part of and worked towards something worthwhile. I learned so many valuable things: about the environment, about birds in particular, about conducting scientific research and about myself. This summer had its ups and downs and the work was hard and sometimes unpleasant. But it was rewarding. I worked hard, with an exceptional leader and guide.
     I felt that I retrieved some of my lost curiosity this summer and became genuinely excited when I heard a rare bird or found a turtle or saw a baby deer. I had always loved nature, but had never been immersed in it for five weeks straight. This experience made me certain that this is what I want to do with the rest of my life.