if you know spanish, french, or italian you know what this blog is about. but for those of you who are monolingual, i'll just tell you in english: this blog is about birds. today we took our third and final field trip for my ecology and conservation lab course. and what did we do? we went bird watching at the famosa slough. i had never actually been bird watching before, and i don't think i'll be doing it again any time soon. it's not so much that it wasn't interesting. i think animals are really interesting. really. i think its amazing how many different
types of birds there are, and how many of those different types we saw in just one marsh. we saw tall birds, colorful birds, fluffy birds, all sorts of birds. i don't remember the names of all the species we identified or the exact amount, but i think the total came in around 25. and i could go on and on about how interesting the birds were. but i won't. because that's not the point i was trying to make. the reason why i don't plan on bird watching in the future is not the birds, but the binoculars that we watched them with. they should come with a warning label: "using binoculars may result in dizziness, nausea, and severe headaches."
i'd rather view close-ups of nature through the television screen, planet earth style. that way i get the cool brittish-accent-narration without the binocular-induced-discombobulation. the birds and binoculars weren't the only interesting part of the field trip, though. while we were hiking along the trail, my professor (who, staying true to tradition, sported his field trip outfit once more) brought us to a sudden hault, and with excitment he shouted, "look! a veracious predator!" in unison, we gasped, without even knowing what this "veracious predator" was. "where?!" "a coyote!?" "a bobcat?!" "oh...a cat."
apparently house cats are considered veracious predators at the famosa slough. and there were lots of them. we even saw one on a leash. we also encountered some obnoxious children whose mothers would have been ashamed at the things they said to us. i wont repeat the profanities and insults. i will just say that i hope that my future children will not 1) know those words and 2) harass strangers (or anyone, for that matter). as we continued on the trail, the boys eventually stopped following us and shouting profanities and we came across a woman, crying and crouching over something. it turns out that that something was a bird,
and that bird had been attacked by her dogs and was dying. poor lady. poor bird. but at least i got to see a bird close up without looking through those darned binoculars. rest in peace little guy. and r.i.p. to you too, field trips. it was nice knowing you. thanks for the opportunity to get out of the class room and into the tide pools, trails, and sloughs. from here on out its back to the laboratory...
if you know spanish, french, or italian you know what this blog is about. but for those of you who are monolingual, i'll just tell you in english: this blog is about birds. today we took our third and final field trip for my ecology and conservation lab course. and what did we do? we went bird watching at the famosa slough. i had never actually been bird watching before, and i don't think i'll be doing it again any time soon. it's not so much that it wasn't interesting. i think animals are really interesting. really. i think its amazing how many different
types of birds there are, and how many of those different types we saw in just one marsh. we saw tall birds, colorful birds, fluffy birds, all sorts of birds. i don't remember the names of all the species we identified or the exact amount, but i think the total came in around 25. and i could go on and on about how interesting the birds were. but i won't. because that's not the point i was trying to make. the reason why i don't plan on bird watching in the future is not the birds, but the binoculars that we watched them with. they should come with a warning label: "using binoculars may result in dizziness, nausea, and severe headaches." 
i'd rather view close-ups of nature through the television screen, planet earth style. that way i get the cool brittish-accent-narration without the binocular-induced-discombobulation. the birds and binoculars weren't the only interesting part of the field trip, though. while we were hiking along the trail, my professor (who, staying true to tradition, sported his field trip outfit once more) brought us to a sudden hault, and with excitment he shouted, "look! a veracious predator!" in unison, we gasped, without even knowing what this "veracious predator" was. "where?!" "a coyote!?" "a bobcat?!" "oh...a cat." 
apparently house cats are considered veracious predators at the famosa slough. and there were lots of them. we even saw one on a leash. we also encountered some obnoxious children whose mothers would have been ashamed at the things they said to us. i wont repeat the profanities and insults. i will just say that i hope that my future children will not 1) know those words and 2) harass strangers (or anyone, for that matter). as we continued on the trail, the boys eventually stopped following us and shouting profanities and we came across a woman, crying and crouching over something. it turns out that that something was a bird, 
and that bird had been attacked by her dogs and was dying. poor lady. poor bird. but at least i got to see a bird close up without looking through those darned binoculars. rest in peace little guy. and r.i.p. to you too, field trips. it was nice knowing you. thanks for the opportunity to get out of the class room and into the tide pools, trails, and sloughs. from here on out its back to the laboratory...
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