Hello again,
I hope spring is treating everyone well at home! It's fall here and beginning to get cold at night...as in all the way down into the upper 60's!! Ridiculous right? hah! I went to the beach today....it was fabulous! Anyway, I have lots to tell you all about, so I had best get started. From the last time I wrote, not much happened in the week following. I spent a lot of time working on assignments because I left on the 24th for lecture recess.
Now on to the exciting things to tell you about! I spent the 24th-26th of April on Orpheus Island for my corals class. Orpheus Island is beautiful. The research station is situated in Pioneer Bay, which is on the west side of the island. It is absolutely gorgeous. Please check out the photos from this trip and my reef fish ecology trip. While here, my partner and I collected data on our chosen coral species, Merulina ampliata. Jess and I will be writing a paper about the life history of our coral. Basically describing the coral and its survival strategies, which are good and which are bad. The visibility at Orpheus isn't great, but there are heaps of corals and fish everywhere. We had such a great time snorkeling and collecting data. I was really glad that we decided to snorkel on this trip because the majority of corals were in less than 6 ft of water, so diving would have been very difficult.
I don't have too much to say about this trip, but in order to get to Orpheus we have to be ferried across (obviously) by the Challenger III, JCU's boat for passenger carry between Orpheus Island Research Station (OIRS) and the mainland. We had to be there extremely early due to the tides. When it is low tide, it is really low tide. You will see this in some of my photos. The tide gets so low that some corals are exposed during the lowest of tides.
Oh, I also forgot...it was really cool because Pioneer Bay is a nursery for baby black tip reef sharks. They were so adorable...about 1 1/2 feet to 2 feet. So cute! They were easy to spot as long as the tide was high in the mangroves looking for food. Sorry no pictures of them!
Anyway, so I returned to Uni for a day and a half before heading out to Moorrinya National Park for my Australian Vertebrate Fauna class. I have to say that this trip was absolutely amazing. The photos are unreal...just you wait! So it took us about 5 hours by bus to get to Moorrinya...which is in the middle of nowhere as you will see from one of the photos...
Being in the outback was great. While here, we were trapping birds, reptiles (all kinds), amphibians and mammals. On the first day, we went in the afternoon to check the pitfall traps and the I'm not sure what they are called, but the net traps. These traps allow animals to enter, but they can't get out...you'll see in a photo...it's the green mesh rectangle thing. We checked these mainly for reptiles. We would then set the elliot traps. These traps are silver rectangles in which you put a little bit of bait and put the door down so that mammals can crawl in and get trapped. The reptiles caught were all placed in ziploc bags with a little bit of grass. Apparently, they can be kept for up to a week or two in these bags without new air. However, they must be kept out of direct sunlight.
On our first trip out, we caught 7 different lizards, which according to our tutors was very unlikely! Yay for us! Once we got back to camp, we had some time off with the option of going on a water bird watch. There is a watering hole where a lot of birds go just before dusk in order to grab a quick drink and bath. On our way there, a massive monitor lizard fell from high out of a tree. All four vehicles pulled over in order to check him out and make sure he was alright. The thing was absolutely massive! His talons were at least an inch long...definitely could have ripped someone up! Anyway...so we all go some photos and headed down to the watering hole to watch some birds. It's really surreal to sit there and see all of these parrots and things come down to the water to drink. Everyone here is so spoiled and doesn't even think twice about a parrot flying around, but I just can't get used to it! It's still so cool every time I see them!
The next morning, and each morning thereafter, we would get up before sunrise and head out to the sites. We would check the elliot traps and pitfall traps for animals. We would do this in order to keep the animals from baking in the sun all day. If mammals were left in the elliot traps, they would most likely die from heat. We caught 5 desert mice and 1 stripe-faced dunnart in my group at our site. The stripe-faced dunnart is a marsupial that looks very similar to a rodent. He is very tiny, but super cute with a pointed nose...check out the photos.
Oh, I forgot to tell you...our first night there we went frogging after dinner. About 8 oclock we went down to the creek and caught as many frogs as we could. We only caught 3 species, but about 75 frogs in total. Two species we released; however, the three cane toads we caught were not released. They were disposed of humanely. I'm not sure if any of you have ever heard of them, but they are an invasive species here that has become a major problem. People are supposed to kill them when they are found. They are poisonous and take over habitats that are necessary for the natural wildlife.
So back to the next day, after getting back from elliot trapping, we went mist netting. A mist next is a big mesh-like net that's about 50 ft across with four tiers in it. Birds fly into the net and drop into whatever tier where they are untangled and measured, etc, etc. Don't worry...this is typically not harmful at all to the animals. They are all fine, measured and released soon after. On our mist netting adventure, only four birds were caught: two diamond doves and two honey eaters.
Each day consisted of setting elliot traps, checking the pitfall traps, and resetting the elliot traps. Other activities included bird censusing and reptile censusing. On these trips, people would actively search for reptiles and birds. The birds were not trapped, but the reptiles were caught if possible. I was not able to do the reptile census because I left early in order to make it on time to the reef fish ecology trip, but other groups on our trip did. The bird censusing was very cool. We saw so many species of birds. It's very weird to think that budgies are wild birds that live in Australia! You think of them as birds you can get for like 15-20 dollars at the pet shop. Anyway, so during free time, we were allowed to do as we pleased. We could take photos of the animals that we caught, go for a swim at the creek, etc, etc.
Another activity that each group did was keying. All reptiles brought in from each of the 6 sites were put on a board that said "new." Each group on one of the days would spend time in the shed "keying" i.e. identifying the species that we caught at each of the sites. Once the species were identified, they were placed back on their respective boards in the section labeled "to be released." The information was written down on the data sheet attached so we would know what species and how many were caught from each site.
We also spent time at one of the sites doing "Roo Poo" surveys. We were basically observing the Kangaroo poop (if any) at each of the sites, how many pieces, what species, and how new it was. At Moorinya there are 4 types of macropods (what they call kangaroos, wallabies, etc). At Moorrinya there are Red Kangaroos, Eastern Grey Kangaroos, Wallaroos (no not a cross between a wallaby and a roo...just a medium sized beast), and spotted wallabies. On the trip, we only saw one...it was a wallaroo. They were all hiding from me! We saw lots of Roo Poo, but no roos! unbelievable! Hah!
Anyway, the other activity we did was spotlighting. One night we went out in the car with massive spotlights looking for Roos and such. The only thing we saw was a spotted nightjar (spelling something like this). It's a nocturnal bird...crazy huh? Once we finished driving, we arrived at the Dardenelles (one of the sites) where we actively searched for noctural reptiles such as geckos. It was great fun...we ended up finding the gorgeous lace monitor (see photos). It was heaps of fun!
This was pretty much the trip! We spent a lot of time looking at all of the different wildlife. It was so much fun. It was very hot during the day, but you didn't notice because it was so dry. I wore pants and long sleeves almost every day! At night it got really cold...all the way to 8 degrees, which is like 48/50 F!. I haven't felt that since before I left home! I will also say that the sunsets were gorgeous...absolutely unreal! And the stars...I have never seen so many in my life! There were SOOO many stars in the sky you couldn't even imagine! You could see the milky way there...there were so many! And the only constellation that is found in both hemispheres...Orion's belt...we saw there as well. yeah...I don't know if you all knew this, but the stars in the southern hemisphere are different than those in the northern hemisphere. Although we could see Orion's belt, it looked very different from the way it looks at home. It is at a different angle. But anyway...the stars...my god...awesome!
So that was Moorrinya...fabulous.
I was driven to Torren's Creek, where I caught a Greyhound back to Townsville in order to make it on the bus back to Orpheus Island. Torren's Creek consisted of two buildings on the side of the road...it was pretty ridiculous! hah! Anyway...I was very excited to go back to Orpheus for another 3 days. I think the reef fish trip was much more fun because we spent time at all areas of the bay. On our first snorkel, there was a manta ray in the bay! It was incredible! We looked up and saw his fins on top of the water...the visibility was really bad, so it was very hard to see. He was only 5 feet from me, and I couldn't even see him!
We did lots of different exercises there. One exercise we spent about 30 minutes in 5 minute periods looking at all of the different species in a 5 meter area. Each 5 minute period we were only supposed to write down the new species seen. Another exercise we counted the number of species and individuals of Butterfly fish along a 30 meter transect looking 2.5 meters on each side. We observed damselfish behavior and the hierarchy of different species. We observed feeding behavior and the way the cleaner wrasse cleans fish. One of my favorite exercises was the Clove Oil exercise.
For this exercise we went to the opposite end of the Bay where the 4 scuba divers put a mesh net over a 9 meter squared area. A tent top was put over that. The divers then sprayed a clove oil mixture under the net. This acts as anesthesia, and given too much kills the fish. The divers killed everything under the net to bring in for us to identify the species. Those of us snorkeling were using the clove oil to catch live specimens in order to bring back to Townsville to put in our display tank in the middle of the biology building. It was a lot of fun, but I didn't catch any. I was afraid of spraying too much and killing the fish, so I never sprayed enough in order to catch any!
Overall, this trip was a lot of fun because we got to see so many different habitats within the bay and so many fish! Sorry I didn't take too many photos...I didn't have my camera most of the time. I hope you enjoy the photos of the giant clams...that's one thing I forgot to tell you all! OIRS was started based on giant clam research. There are about 4000 giant clams left within the bay. When I say giant, I meant giant. Some are big enough for a 6 ft man to curl up inside! And in some areas they make up the whole sand bed...it's just solid clams everywhere you look! They are sooo cool! there are little clams everywhere as well...which you will see from the photos!
I hope that this has been a decent description of my lecture recess. The time I spent in these places has only made me fall more in love with Australia...if that is even possible. I definitely have to say that Oz is one of the most incredible places in the entire world. I am going to be incredibly sad to leave this place in which I have fallen in love...but no need to think of that right now! Still two more months! For those who are interested, I will be arriving in Indianapolis on July the 8th around 10 pm. Hope to see you all then!
Until the next time,
Krissy
xoxo
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