Expeditions and Travels

A Ground Game previouis post When we began our work…

Under a brilliant blue sky dotted with snow-white clouds, we spent our first day in the field — literally in a field — while horses, sheep, and cows watched silently with judgment.

I watched the kids explore the exhibit. The beach and pond where the sanderlings chittered away at each other or the water tank where horseshoe crabs crawled along the bottom. I saw many other people move through the exhibit. Most just experienced the birds and crabs and moved on. The Zoo predicts more than 2 million people will see this exhibit yearly.

The telemetry data from the satellite transmitters opens up an entirely new view of what is vital to the birds, based on their location as they moved from day to day, in some cases hour to hour. This extraordinary intimacy with the knot provides an unprecedented opportunity to outline the area of importance and revisit the protection of this stopover in the future.  

Previous Post 5 On our 7th day of trapping, April…

But as the days wore on and difficulties mounted, we found refuge in thinking about dinner and a beer. Some nights we cooked, like when Antonio and Mateo barbecued meat and vegetables on the indoor barbecue pit in one of the ASA’s outbuildings. On others, we ate out at one of the many restaurants in Mostardoes on our way back from the beach. Except for Keith and Lori, we all drank but got up early the following day to try and catch birds.