A Long Journey

Time for a big catch up! I’ll begin about three weeks ago with my first Easter away from home and family. Unfortunately Australians don’t really decorate Easter eggs (their take on Easter eggs are candy eggs) so there were no egg dyeing kits in stores. Ahh well, that’s just one more thing to add to my list of things to do with Chris when we are in the States. Chris told me that his family never did Easter baskets full of candy either. What?! That was one of the best parts of Easter as a child: waking up to find that the Easter Bunny had left a big basket full of candy in your room while you were sleeping! I made sure the Easter Bunny stopped by our room this year and left two baskets, filled with things like Reese’s peanut butter cups (a rare find!), marshmallow fluff (another rare find), Cadbury cream eggs, and other delightful treats. Chris and I will be feasting for months (hopefully...)!

On Easter Sunday we drove out to the Penola Cup Race for my second horse-racing experience. I again entered the Fashions on the Field competition, and Chris got roped into it too, this time as an individual contestant among all the girls. Haha. At least there was one other guy in the competition. There were 26 of us (Chris and I were numbers 26 and 25, respectively) and we each walked on stage as our names were called, paused for our pictures, and walked off. After everyone had gone, the judges called the top 10 contestants back up on stage for one final look before making their decisions. They called numbers 2, 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 15, 16, 21, and then 25, my number! I couldn’t believe it! We filed onto the stage and waited while the judges deliberated. I was at the end of the platform, and there were three little girls, probably around 5 years old, sitting next to the stage. All of a sudden I felt something touching my leg, and when I looked down I saw one of the girls holding my leg and stroking it. I had fishnet stockings on, which must have looked fascinating to her. I said hi to her and chuckled, and she shyly stopped. The audience was laughing too. It was quite adorable! I didn’t place in the competition, but I’m still amazed that I made it in the top 10! Chris and I stayed a little to watch a few races and then headed home to prepare for our journey to Melbourne on Tuesday.

 

My second race day Fashions on the Field outfit. It got me in the top 10!

 

Chris and me dressed for the races.

 

Notice the bat fascinator. Too bad fascinators aren’t part of everyday garb.

We left for Melbourne on Tuesday morning. I was heading there for the Australasian Bat Society Conference, and Chris was catching a bus up to Albury and then Wagga Wagga, New South Wales for some uni classes. We had to take Chris’s 22-year-old car as mine is still currently out of commission from the kangaroo accident. He had gone to Adelaide when Steve and Claire came out to look at my car, and Chris brought his car back to use until mine is fixed. He had the battery replaced the week before we left since the car had been sitting at his mom’s place for six months and the old battery was dead. I just hoped it would get us where we needed to go and back home again. 

 

At the Giant Koala in Dadswells Bridge, Victoria.

 

Chris turns into a koala.

After dropping him off at the Southern Cross Terminal in downtown Melbourne and navigating my way through the CONFUSING hook turns (see picture below) in the dark in the rain, I finally made it to Lindy’s house, where I was staying for the week. Lindy was on the planning committee for the conference, so I got to tag along and help run the conference, including helping at the registration desk and catering at the opening session and tea breaks. While this did mean very early mornings (it took about 1 ½ hours to get from her house into the city, find a parking spot, and walk to the university), it was well worth it, as I got to meet the registrants as they checked in and chat with them as I went around serving food while catering. Plus, catering was a TON of fun! I got to go “backstage” in the kitchen where the caterers, from catering group Hot Dish, were preparing the food. This of course meant I got to eat stuff as it was freshly made! If you’re in the Melbourne area and looking for caterers for an event, DEFINITELY check these guys out at their website, http://www.hotdish.com.au. The food was AMAZING and Chef Michael pays special attention to detail and presentation. Plus, Michael, Travis, and Mary, the three people working that night, were very nice and I really enjoyed getting to know them over the week. I of course got time to mingle with the bat people too. Mingling at academic conferences is always a bit awkward. One night Lindy and I were talking about it, and she said that when she went to her first Mammal Society meeting as a student, she hated the tea breaks because she didn’t know anyone and felt awkward mingling. During the poster sessions, she would read posters 10 times each to look occupied (I must admit I’ve been guilty of that). She said she didn’t feel confident enough to go up to people and chat and she felt like she didn’t know anything to be able to talk to others about, especially the well-known researchers. What she said really struck me. I look up to Lindy as a mentor and as someone I’d like to be. She’s a world-renowned bat researcher and exudes confidence. How could she have ever been a shy undergraduate who thought she had nothing to contribute? It just reminded me that I am at the beginning of my career and I don’t have to have all the answers now. I am still learning (as I hope I always will be) and I am “allowed” to have moments of uncertainty. There is room for lots of growth and that’s all part of the journey.

 

Only in Melbourne...

 

I came across these “busts” of past somebodies at Melbourne University. They are perhaps the strangest tribute to important people I have ever seen.

 

Creepy.

I gave my talk on my research on Thursday morning. It went well, but I felt I could have done better. I got very nervous and got a dry mouth (like I always do when I’m nervous) so I fumbled some words. But overall it went well and people asked lots of questions afterwards. Many people were also interested in the thermal imaging software I’m using (Thermal Target Tracker, or T3) so I got lots of questions about that. At the conference dinner that night I spoke with Dr. Rodney van der Ree, the organizer of the conference and the Deputy Director of the Australian Research Centre for Urban Ecology at Melbourne University. He asked me lots of questions about my project and my future plans. I have decided that I want to pursue the path of ecosystem services of bats for graduate school, including getting farmers interested in using bats as natural pest control agents so we can aim towards more sustainable food production. I mentioned this to Dr. van der Ree, and he suggested I consider studying with his group. Wow, a potential grad school offer! I could definitely see myself working with him and researching aspects of urbanization and agriculture and how bats fit in. It’s definitely something to keep in mind as I apply to grad schools!

Friday was the last official day of the conference. At the awards session I got called up with the rest of the volunteers and given a bottle of wine as a “thank you” for helping out with the conference. I sure wasn’t expecting that! That evening we went to the Yarra Bend Park to watch the Grey-headed Flying Fox fly-out, where I got to demonstrate how all my equipment and software worked. The Melbourne colony, which was originally in the Melbourne Botanic Gardens, had to be relocated several years ago due to the destruction the bats caused to the heritage-listed trees in the gardens. The relocation process was a joint effort of many local and state wildlife groups and took six months to complete. The bats were moved to the Yarra River at the Yarra Bend Park, where they have remained since 2003. The colony now contains between 20,000 to 30,000 bats (there were about 18,000 when we were there). I set up the camera so everyone could watch the emergence on the screen. It was quite different from the emergence at Bat Cave, due in large part to the huge size of these bats (they have a one meter wingspan). Terry had the brilliant idea to try recording the emergence directly through the Sony camcorder (using the night settings) without also running it through the thermal imaging camera. I did that and then ran the emergence through T3, and sure enough, the thermal software still worked and picked up the bats! This was a huge breakthrough, as now anyone with a camcorder of the correct format (320x240 pixels) and night settings/infrared can record bat emergences and run the count through the T3 software, which is free from the makers (you just have to email them and they’ll send it to you). You can only do this if you have a clear background that will not cast any shadows from the infrared, like the sky or an open area. But still, this opens up a lot of possibilities for people who want to use thermal imaging technology to count bats but cannot afford a $7000 (or more) thermal imaging camera. How exciting! After the emergence we had a pizza party to celebrate the end of the conference. Well, the end of the “official” part of the conference.

The post-conference fieldtrip began Saturday morning, when we drove up to the Kinglake National Park, about 1 ½ hours outside Melbourne. This area was the worst impacted area in Victoria during the 2009 “Black Saturday” bushfires on February 7, 2009. 120 people died and 1,200 homes were destroyed in this area alone. The town of Kinglake was wiped out. Ninety-eight percent of the national park was burnt, 67% of it severely. It took a month to put out all the fires raging across the state. One of the park rangers who had been on duty that day talked with us about the day and showed us a few clips from his camera. The craziest video he showed us was of him and his crew driving through the smoke looking for a way out. It was pitch black out and you could barely see the headlights, despite the fact that it was only early afternoon. I can’t imagine how scary that all must have been. Driving to the park was a huge eye-opener too. Hill after hill was still covered with burnt, black trees. Three years later some areas still have no regrowth. The place where we were staying, the Kinglake Ranges Wilderness Camp, was in an area that has begun to regenerate. It’s quite beautiful actually, although eerily quiet with a lack of many bird calls. We spent the weekend learning about the myriad of acoustic monitoring devices on the market, catching bats in harp traps, and having a good time. I have found that bat people are always a fun group of people and the conferences are never dull. It was a great way to end the week of batty fun!

 

You can still see the burnt trees from the 2009 Black Saturday fire amid the regrowth.

 

This pretty much sums up the field trip: showing bats to curious spectators and taking tons of pictures all with a beer in hand.

 

An Eastern Bent-wing Bat (Miniopterus schreibersii oceanensis), very closely related to the Southern Bent-wing Bat (Miniopterus schreibersii bassanii) that I’m studying.

When I left on Sunday I headed up to Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, about a four hour drive, to meet up with Chris at the Charles Sturt University campus. He had a few more days of his uni class, so I attended a few class sessions with him to pass the time. We learned how to draw and read aerological diagrams, which I found quite fun. It felt good to be back on a college campus. Gosh I really miss school! I spent the rest of the time relaxing in our little caravan in the caravan park. On Wednesday we started to head back to Naracoorte, but we first called the NRMA (the New South Wales version of the South Australian RAA, like AAA in the US) to have someone come out to check Chris’ car. For the last week or so it had been acting up. We’d start the car and drive a few feet and suddenly the power would just turn off. It did this almost every day. The NRMA guy said it could be a problem with the alternator. Great. I crossed my fingers it would get us home. Since there was nothing we could do to fix it there, we decided to start out and try to get to Geelong, about a six hour drive, that day. We made it and got a motel room for the night, then continued our journey home along the scenic Great Ocean Road. We had decided that even though that route was a few hours extra driving compared to the inland route, if the car was going to putz out we’d might as well try to see some neat things while we could. The Great Ocean Road was AMAZING. I was driving (and boy is that some fun driving!) so I couldn’t admire the scenery quite as much, but we stopped several times to get a good look. The day was overcast and cool, but the mist and the low clouds added to the beauty of it all. Of course we stopped at the Twelve Apostles and got some pictures. We made it to Warrnambool that night and then finished our journey the next day. It was amazing to see the change in environment along the way. It went from wet, temperate rainforest with lush green trees and farming pastures to semi-arid dry, open rangeland. What a change! We did have one mishap on the trip. We had meant to get gas in one of the towns we went through but I forgot, so we got down to one bar on the fuel gauge and then the gas light came on. We tried to make it to the nearest town and got within 8 km, but the car began to sputter out and eventually went dead. The steering wheel locked, which was quite disconcerting, but I managed to get the car off the road. Chris pushed it a little farther off. We called Cath, who lived about 30 minutes away, and she agreed to come out with a can of gas. Semis whizzed by the car and made me quite nervous, so we decided to get out of the car and sit up on the hill while waiting for Cath to come rescue us. We paid Cath with a fluffernutter sandwich (and of course cash). We then headed back to Mt. Gambier. Chris and I putzed around in town for a bit and met up with Cath to go over some work stuff for Chris. We headed out around 4:30pm and got home an hour later. By that time I was just so glad to be home. I had a fantastic time at the conference and traveling with Chris, but I was ready to settle back into “real” life.

 

A giant moth in the caravan park. These guys were everywhere!

 

The Mystery Machine (from Scooby Doo) outside our motel! Chris was so excited.

Giant tree in the Otway National Park along the Great Ocean Road.

 

At the Twelve Apostles.

 

The fog and overcast sky made them look beautiful.

 

 

A view of our broken-down car from our picnic spot on the hill.

Things have calmed down a bit. It’s been raining and cold the past few days so we haven’t been able to take emergence counts (grr) but I have been able to catch up on some work. On Saturday evening Chris and I went to Jinhwa’s (one of the guides) place for a barbeque to celebrate her birthday. Coincidentally it was Chris’ birthday that day. He’s 23 now and says he’s “old like me.” Haha.

On Sunday Chris and I attended the Friends of Naracoorte Caves meeting. We just joined the group and I had been asked to be the guest speaker. I gave an update on the bat project, which everyone was really interested in. The Friends have given me tremendous support throughout my time here, including purchasing and lending me the two thermal imaging cameras, the laptop, and both my external hard drives. Some of the members are also interested in helping with the upcoming winter survey of the caves in the region. After the meeting we picked up the fencing material from the district workshop and brought it to Bat Cave. In a few weeks we will be installing the new fence around the cave, which will be farther from the entrance and will hopefully reduce the number of bat hits. It’s been a long time in the planning and I can’t wait to see the final product.

So that’s what’s been happening in my life recently. I hate getting so behind in blogging, but there are just times when I don’t have time to sit and write. Hopefully that won’t happen again for awhile. Oh, one more thing! When Lindy and I were driving back to her place from the conference one night, I saw a wombat run across the road! I’ve been here for eight months and that was my first (live) wombat sighting, in the suburbs around Melbourne of all places. It was not something I was expecting but if definitely made my day.