Day 46 - Day 52: July 11 - 17, 2016

Monday - Friday, July 11 - 15

On Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, Olivia and I worked at the museum like we did last week.  We finished the embroidery box eggs and moved on to more eggs donated from UNC-CH.  

On Tuesday, I missed a couple of hours at the museum to go to a two-hour volunteer training session at the LGBT Center of Raleigh.  I was kind of nervous at first because I often get anxious during social situations, but I had a good time.  The volunteer who trained me was absolutely hilarious and made me feel at ease.  He made jokes, spoke in a Scottish accent so thick that he asked me “Is the accent too much? Can you understand what I’m saying?,” and was a great and thorough trainer overall.  

On Wednesday, Olivia and I hung out at home since John was not able to go to the museum that day.  He was having a heart checkup at Duke in preparation for his heart surgery in early August.  

Saturday, July 16

This is the day that I’ve been waiting for an entire year!  GSE ALUMNI DAY!!!!!  Last summer, I went to Governor’s School East for 6 weeks, and today I got to go back as an alumna.  Olivia and I got there at 8:30 and were able to meet up with some friends that we made last year in our Natural Sciences concentration.  I was happy to have a conversation with my favorite teacher from last year (which is saying A LOT, because all of my teachers were amazing), who everyone calls Banyas.  I also got to talk with the Chemistry teacher, Dan, and one of my science project partners.  

After the first hour and fifteen minutes of visiting a few core classes, it was Quad time.  My friend Iliana and her group of friends sat down on a blanket on the grassy expanse of the Quad, and I soon joined them.  I had a hilarious, in-depth conversation with Iliana, Olivia, and Rachel about different Spanish dialects.  Iliana has family in Puerto Rico and Mexico, while Rachel’s mom is from the Dominican Republic, and Olivia and I talked about the unique Spanish of Andalucía in southern Spain.  We ate lunch at Jasmin (one of my all-time favorite lunch places, I always get a spicy falafel zaki at this Mediterranean restaurant), which is right across the street from where GSE is at Meredith College.

After lunch, I went with Iliana’s group of friends to a GSE elective.  The electives of this summer programs are phenomenal.  I cannot quantify how much I learned in my time there last year, going to electives on the Queer Theory, Music Theory, Islam, Linguistics, Institutional Racism, and more.  The elective I attended today was called Breaking Stereotypes, and it was a student-led elective designed and taught by an Area 3 class (Area 3 is a group therapy class where you discuss beliefs, current events, and individuals vs. society).  Before the elective began, I had a wonderful conversation with a current GSE student, Sheila.  She asked me about my experience in Natural Sciences last year, and in return she told me about her time in Social Sciences.  After explaining the experiment I did in my Natural Science class comparing different soaps and sanitizers, she told me about a soap that is made from used motor oil.  How cool!  I could tell that we are similar in our desire to learn more about the world in order to help it become a better place.  She talked about how her class had talked about the War on Drugs, mass incarceration, immigration, and so much more.  I asked her about Darryl Hunt, who spoke to my GSE class last year about the criminal justice and incarceration systems, and who died this spring.  He gave the most important and moving lecture that I heard in my time at GSE.  He was in jail for over 19 years for a crime that he did not commit, and after being exonerated he started advocating prison reform and helping wrongfully imprisoned people become exonerated and living decent lives after imprisonment.  His story, which was shown to us through a documentary last year during a convocation one night, was unbelievable in its pain and injustice.  I cannot tell you how many of us students had to quietly cry or sob into our hands that night, and who stood up to give a roaring standing ovation when he entered the auditorium when the documentary ended.  After the film, he gave a speech and later took questions and shook hands (mine included, I felt so fortunate to be able to shake the hand of such and incredible human being).  My conversation with Sheila that made me feel like I was at GSE again, a place and idea that is the home to my spirit, and where students are free to love knowledge and share ideas.  

The elective started with two spoken word poems voicing damaging stereotypes in such a beautiful and honest way that I got chills.  The students leading the elective then had us break into groups and assigned each group a stereotype to discuss.  After sharing out the stereotypes, we had a discussion about personal experiences regarding stereotypes.  Then, we were split in half, and a group of students and alumni went into another room to have a more individualized discussion.  The group of students that stayed in the room included Sheila and Iliana with our shared friend group.  One of the student leaders, Isaac (who is awesome), discussed his experiences with stereotypes as a young Colombian man who many people assume to be black or mixed because of his physical appearance.  As the discussion went on and shifted from race to gender and sexual orientation, Sheila’s friend mentioned machismo, which is a patriarchal family system prevalent in Hispanic culture.  It was so cool to see that word spark a deep conversation between Isaac, Sheila and her friend, Iliana, and Rachel about that part of Hispanic culture.  Isaac said, “I, I love Hispanic culture, I really do, but I hate machismo.”  There was a perk to understanding Spanish as they had that conversation, after which they apologized to the people not involved to the discussion for going on a spontaneous rant about something which many people did not understand.  But Isaac soon explained what machismo is to everyone, and then the discussion became something that everyone could learn from.  We soon transitioned into coming up with characteristics for the “perfect” woman and man.  Then, the group gave a list of words that people have called women and men who do not fit those characteristics.  This exercise brought to light the impossible molds that men and women try to fit themselves in, and the damage that social standards have on people.

After the wonderful elective, all of the GSE alumni went to a convocation and said goodbye.  Olivia and I soon returned, as did Iliana and Rachel, to see an instrumental music performance performed by current GSE students.  The performance was breathtaking.  Afterward, in the pouring rain, Olivia and I drove to the house of one of Iliana’s friends.  There, we all played Uno and had moving conversations about social hierarchy, Durham, GSE, and more until almost midnight.  I could not have imagined a more perfect GSE Alumni Day!

Day 39 - Day 45: July 4 - 10, 2016

Monday, July 4:

Happy birthday United States!  It’s kind of funny that we think of July 4, 1776 as Independence Day, even though nobody else in the world recognized our independence until years later.  Although maybe we could have done something more patriotic, all my family did today was plan how we’re going to get out of this country!  Haha, that sounds a bit extreme, but really what we did was plan our trip to Spain in September.  It was really fun to spend time looking at places to go and where to stay.  For dinner, we of course had burgers and hot dogs, but they were unconventional because they had no meat.  If you hadn’t noticed by now, my family doesn’t eat red meat.  I refuse to financially support companies who torture their farm animals, so I only eat humanely raised chicken and sustainable fish.  Although, I shouldn’t get all self-righteous because I don’t have enough self-control to not eat red meat in Spain.  I simply cannot resist jamón serrano, a finely sliced cured ham that is so decadent it melts in your mouth, or chorizo, or all of the wonderful dishes that contain other forms of red meat.  Don’t worry, though, because I will be describing all of the marvelous food in detail when I’m there, because as you now know I’m a foodie.

Tuesday - Friday, July 5 - 8

I finally have a job!  I’ve always felt guilty for not making my own money, because my parents are amazing and they do so much for me on top of paying for things that I want.  But this week, I started working at the Museum of Natural Sciences, identifying and sorting eggs.  I thought that it would just be a volunteering opportunity like all of the other bird stuff with John has been, but he said that now that O and I are 18, he’ll give us some money!  

The work was great.  I worked on eggs that had been stored in an antique embroidery case.  Most of the eggs were from the 1930s, which is interesting because that was after it became illegal to collect bird eggs.  Some of the eggs had scraps of paper associated with them, and this was the best part of the job.  A lot of the paper with the data on it had been eaten (likely by silverfish, a bug that often plagues libraries), and some of it was faded and hard to decipher.   On a small piece of paper on top of a single egg, Olivia and I could read "La" and what seemed to be an "i" and two "ll"s farther down the paper.  We joked that it could be a Large-billed something, and when we looked at a bird egg book (which had a many old names of birds), we saw that there was once a Large-billed Waterthrush, now known as the Louisiana Waterthrush!  So we identified an egg based on a scrap of paper that was at least 90 years old!

Though sometimes it was frustrating to identify and sort eggs for hours on end, I enjoyed my time doing it.  I had done some of this throughout the past few years, but only for a couple of hours at a time.  It was fun to look at all of the details of an egg and try to match it to the book, and then go look in the archives of eggs that the museum already had for comparison.  The most important part, though, is the data.  Eggs that have slips of paper containing the egg collector, date, or location where it was found were considered to have data.  It was interesting to learn to read the marks that collectors often put on eggs called “set marks.”  Set marks are always written as a fraction, like ⅕, and can mean two different things.  One option is that a set mark could say the eggs collected out of the number of eggs in a clutch.  For example, ⅕ could mean that one egg was collected out of a clutch of five.  The more confusing and common option is that the mark can be used to determine the trip in which the egg was collected.  For example, 5/1 could mean that this egg was part of the fifth clutch collected during the first trip of this week.

The most important marks on eggs (besides data and set marks), are AOU (American Ornithologists’ Union) or Ridgway numbers.  Both of these numbers are types of catalog numbers that are used to identify the species of bird egg.  Some egg collectors used the AOU system, others used the Ridgway system.  Ridgway was an egg collector who came up with his own catalog that many other collectors adopted.

Day 32 - Day 38: June 26 - July 3, 2016

BEACH WEEK!

This is my favorite week of the entire year.   Every year, Mama, Daddy, Olivia, and I go to Atlantic Beach to spend a week with my dad’s extended family.  It is always full of laughter, sun, love, playing, and cousins that become my siblings, if only for a few days.  To make it even better, Olivia and I brought our best friend from elementary school (who also went with us to Millbrook), Olivia V.  Let’s just say the number of Olivias staying in one place that week was ridiculous.  We also have a cousin, who’s just a few years younger than me, whose name is Olivia.   

The best part about this week were the new additions to the family.  Millie is my cousins Olivia and Tessa’s little sister, and she had just turned one.  She was always smiling and pointing and gurgling at something, making everyone laugh.  Elijah is Millie’s first cousin, and he was born February 15 of this year.  He is literally the cutest baby I have ever seen.  He has enormous eyes, rolls of soft skin, and round cheeks.  I got to feed him once, and he even fell asleep on me a couple of times.  Mama called me a baby hog, and though I protested, it’s probably true!  I guess there are worse names to be called, haha.  :)

The week was filled with Spoons (the game, not the utensil--although it does involve the utensil), Mao Mao (like Uno but better), sunburns, jokes, Capture the Flag, and swimming.  We always go to a movie with all of my cousins, and so this year we went to Finding Dory, of course!  I really enjoyed spending time with Olivia V., since she’s going off to college in Virginia this coming fall, and it was nice to hang out before she heads off.  What a wonderful week!

Day 26 - Day 31: June 20 - 25, 2016

Some highlights of the week:

Tuesday, June 21:

My family and I went to a jazz/tap concert in Durham tonight.  The tap dancer was Savion Glover, whose rhythms and beats were astonishing, and the famous drummer for the jazz band was Jack DeJohnette.  I really enjoyed the atmosphere of the concert, especially since the audience gave a huge round of applause when DeJohnette stood on the stage before the show began and said that the group performing supports the repeal of HB2.  I was happy to be part of an audience of artists, thinkers, and progressives who enjoyed listening to the beautiful music of Glover and DeJohnette and his band.

Wednesday, June 22:

Today I saw, standing less than 50 feet away from me, the next President of the United States (hopefully).  If you are not a fan of Hillary Clinton, feel free to not read this post.  I have nothing against you, because political alignments are not the defining feature of a person’s character.

Clinton was introduced by Jim Hunt, a former governor of North Carolina, and Alicia Wilkerson, a teacher from Goldsboro.  She mostly focused on an extensive economic plan that she vowed to execute in her first 100 days in office.  In this plan, she discussed immigration reform, saying that it is not only the right thing to do, but the logical thing to do to help both our economy and the families in our nation.  Investments in big manufacturers will include investments in scientific research to make the United States a clean energy superpower (to which I thought: YES! It’s about time “the most powerful nation in the world” starts to live up to its name).  To my relief, she talked about the importance of breaking down the barriers of institutional racism, something that I believe is one of the most pressing issues in the US.  When Clinton said that she would push for equal pay for women, the crowd broke out into “Hillary, Hillary, Hillary!”  Overall, I really enjoyed the speech.  It made me feel hopeful, instead of horrified by the problems facing our country.

The rest of the week was relatively uneventful.

Day 23 - Day 25: June 17 - 19, 2016

Friday and Saturday, June 17 and 18

Throughout these next two days, our trio tried to catch more birds.  On Friday, at the end of the day (at 1930, which was our longest day in the field), Edward caught HETH 2!  He was finally able to catch one of the birds and take off its transmitter!  That same day, we caught two more thrushes close to and inside HETH 3’s territory.  On Saturday, as I was way down in HETH 1’s territory trying to catch him, Edward and Olivia caught a male Hermit Thrush near a nest!  Mark and Marilyn had found a nest just that morning, and so Olivia and Edward set up a net to try to catch one or both of the parents.  I went up to see the nest (standing back about 15 meters as to not attract predators to the nest), and inside were four babies!  They were quite old, almost ready to fledge, and I got to watch as an unbanded adult fed the nestlings twice.  Mark explained that this nest was more like nests often found out West -- it was in a baby spruce tree about a meter off of the ground.  This was the third type of nest that Mark and Marilyn have seen in North Carolina’s mountains.  They had found one on the ground in a swath of sedge (much like the Dark-eyed Junco nest, I suppose), one on a large rock outcropping, surrounded by small ferns; and now one not far off of the ground in a baby spruce tree.  It was fascinating to learn about all of these microhabitats to which Hermit Thrushes have adapted.

After banding the male thrush near the nest, Edward had to leave and go home.  Our parents joined us on Saturday afternoon and stayed until we left Sunday.  Olivia and I took them out to the trail as we tried in vain to catch HETH 1 and 3.  Though we were unsuccessful, it was fun to be able to practice our net skills.  Hermit Thrush 1 circled my net (which was by the lunch spot where I first heard a Canada Warbler sing) coming close multiple times to flying in.  We decided to try that same spot again tomorrow.

Sunday, June 19

Today we got up early and went out to try and catch HETHs 1 and 3 again.  I took the antenna with me as I played playback for 0.615.  As I walked the trail in his territory with my family, two male Hermit Thrushes came in.  One was unbanded, and approached very close to shed, a bit toward the Parkway.  The other was a banded thrush that came in to the exact spot that I had tried to catch HETH 1 the afternoon before.  It was crazy to see the territorial fluidity of Hermit Thrushes.  Two male thrushes in HETH 1’s territory, with 0.615 nowhere to be seen?  Weird.

We all went down to HETH 3’s territory and Olivia and I set up a net.  The playback caused two Hermit Thrushes to come in and try to scare each other away.  Finally, we caught a banded bird!  Olivia and I ran to get the bird out of the net before it escaped, but it wasn’t HETH 3!  This bird had evergreen bands and no transmitter.  So, after trying again to catch HETH 1 with no luck, we were finished with the study for the summer.  Even though we were unsuccessful in re-capturing HETHs 1 and 3, we were able to see how much male Hermit Thrushes travel into the territories of others.

After packing up a bit, Olivia and I drove to see our Governor’s School friend in Asheville.  We had a lot of fun with Leah, walking around Asheville and eating delicious food.  We stopped to watch a large group of street performers playing jazz music, with all sorts of instruments and a singer whose rich voice was filled with layers of emotion.  We ate at a delicious vegetarian/vegan restaurant, where I got an Almond Dream mocktail and a yummy vegetarian meal.  After walking around a bit more, Leah took Olivia and I to the Chocolate Lounge.  Yes, it is as heavenly as it sounds.  All of the chocolate is fair trade, and all of it is amazing.  I got a chocolate creme brulee with a crunchy sugared top that I had to break through to get to the creamy chocolate below.  I also bought the best chocolate chip cookie I have ever had.  It was half an inch thick, with large dollops of sweet chocolate chips.  YUM!

Finally, it was time to go home.

Day 22: June16, 2016

Thursday, June 16:

Woke up at 0530 again and ate yogurt with granola, along with raisin cinnamon bread and almond butter for breakfast.

At 0700, all three of us went down to the gap where 0.615 territory is and set up two nets in a V-shape.  I set one up while Olivia and Edward set up the other one.  But after a while of playback, there was only a far-away HETH song response.  We did catch a beautiful, tiny, female Golden-Crowned Kinglet that we released after taking a few pictures.  

By 0900, Edward had gone farther down the trail to try to catch new birds past HETH 3’s territory.  Olivia and I were setting up a net on the trail by HETH 1’s territory.  I had seen a thrush flushed right off of the trail as we walked by, and was so excited I wanted to set up a net then and there.  After much frustration (the net was twisted and thus took us 45 minutes to set up) Olivia and I succeeded in putting up the net.  After playing playback for a while, Olivia left to help Edward band a new thrush (yay).  At about 1100, I was about to take the net down, and of course a group of people come down the trail.  The group consisted of three people, one man in his seventies and a couple in their twenties.  I immediately began apologizing profusely about the net being in their way and said that I was about to take it down.  I explained that I was trying to catch a Hermit Thrush to take its transmitter off.  I told them that I was with the Museum of Natural Sciences.  The elderly man said, “Oh, in Raleigh?”  I nodded.  He said that he lives in Harrisburg, Virginia, where there is a pair of professors that catch and band saw-whet owls!  How cool!  The woman asked if the trail would end or turn around soon, and I said no.  They also asked about if there was a place up ahead with a good view, to which I also said no.  The elderly man said, well, this is still pretty, and I agreed wholeheartedly.  I mentioned the beautiful view from the overlook and wished them a good hike as they turned back.

After taking down the net, I went down to help Olivia and Edward with a new thrush that they had just caught.  I went down the trail for a while until I came to the tree that we call the “Nap Tree,” because it is a huge fallen log that is parallel to the ground, a perfect space to take a nap.  They were color-banding a male HETH and I released it when they were done.  We ate lunch and then kept going down the trail to catch more new birds.

We played playback every 50-100 meters down the trail, and after walking down a couple of switchbacks, and aggressive male came in.  We walked another 30 meters down the trail before setting up a net, and after waiting a long while he flew into the net.  Edward and I jumped up right away and started flat-out sprinting to the net (this is because, in our experience, HETHs had a pretty easy time getting out of the net).  But of course, being me, I didn’t see this enormous branch at the ground at my feet as I began to run, so I promptly tripped and almost face-planted into the dirt.  Luckily, I regained my balance, but it was pretty hilarious to watch, I’m sure.  That klutzy moment marked the beginning of the end of my sanity that day.  After getting the male thrush out of the net, I could hardly put the color bands on the bird I was laughing so hard.  Edward missed my near dirt-eating moment, and I could hardly tell the story because of my hysterical laughter.  Olivia was already laughing, having seen the graceful moment, and once Edward understood what had happened he cracked up, too.  So, here the three of us were, laughing our heads off on the trail near the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi.  Soon Edward and Olivia figured out that I could not stop laughing, and so they teased me a bit until I was laughing so hard tears were streaming out of my eyes.  Finally, I processed the thrush and massaged my cheeks, now sore from laughter.  What a wonderful day with wonderful people.

Day 21: June 15, 2016

Wednesday, June 15:

We got to the study site at 0730 this morning.  Olivia and I went off to get the last four points on HETH 1.  Our goal was 35 points on HETH 1 and 3, and 40 points on HETH 2.  Yesterday we finished getting the necessary points on HETH 2 and 3, so now all that was left was HETH 1.  Edward went to 0.659’s territory to try to catch the thrush again.  The goal now was to recapture all of the transmitter birds to get their transmitters off.  Although the transmitters do not endanger the birds and the thread attaching them to the thrushes will eventually dissolve, it is nice to get the transmitter off once the waypoints have been recorded.  Between 0730 and 1100, Olivia and I got five points on 0.615.  We tried tracking him so that we could get a visual, but Olivia only got a glimpse of him.  We heard a thrush singing within 20 meters of the gap/Brown Creeper nest area, but it wasn’t HETH 1.  He sang from 0810 - 0856, then flew south and sang from 0901 - 0910.  Meanwhile, a distant HETH (too far to be 0.615), began to sing in response.  Their songs flowed, glimmering, out of their throats for the forest to hear.

Between 1000 and 1100, Olivia hopped onto a fallen tree that I had climbed up earlier.  We took turns with the antenna to try to lead the other toward seeing the elusive HETH 1.  The fallen tree offered high ground over the gap area, and when I had climbed on it earlier, I saw an adorable Canada Warbler and a pair of beautiful Blackburnians.  The Canada Warbler was chattering and foraging within 3-4 meters from me, while the Blackburnians got within 1-2 meters of me at eye level.

1300 - 1540:

Edward, Olivia, and I set up a net, once in 0.659’s territory and once in 0.615’s territory.  0.659 came in, flying high and circling far around the net.  He started singing and “vreeing” back.  A “vree” is a phonetic call made by Hermit Thrushes.

1540 - 1630:

At the overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway near the study site, many interesting things were seen:

• Two fighting male Indigo Buntings
• One female Indigo Bunting with an inchworm = a nest was nearby
• One highlighter-bright Chestnut-Sided Warbler carrying inchworms to its nest.  I saw him do this twice, but I was unable to see the nest’s exact location.  A nearby male CSWA \ was soon chased away.
• A turkey on the side of the road with beautiful wing coloration.

Days 19 - 20: June 13 - 14, 2016

Monday, June 13:

Back to the Black Mountains!  Olivia and I didn’t reach the campsite until 1515 (military time), but by 1600 we were already back at the HETH study site.  I spent the next 2 hours following 0.651.  I only got one point, which was disappointing, but I was working in a really difficult area that we call “the gap,” because it is a huge thicket full of young red spruce that is simply impossible to get through.

Tuesday, June 14:

Points I got:

0745 - 1030: I got two points on HETH 1.  During this time, I found two Brown Creeper nests.  One of the nests had already been found by John and Emma, but I saw another one less than 10 meters away from the first.  The habitat was very disturbed, with many fallen spruces and a lot of sunlight.  Both nests were in dead spruce trees.  Brown Creepers have some of the most fascinating nests.  They find a dead tree (spruce, in this case) with bark that is peeling away from the trunk in sheets.  They insert their nests between the peeling bark and the creamy wood of the trunk, packing it full of grasses, spruce needles, and other materials.  I was lucky enough to see a pair of Brown Creepers foraging and looking for nesting material.  I saw one climb onto a large, dead tree split so that it was only 3 meters tall.  The golden-rust inside of the tree was exposed; all of the bark from the top of the split tree had fallen off.  The creeper climbed up the top part of the tree and picked off a golden filament of the wood.  It was fascinating that the bird was using threads of wood as nest material.  I wondered why, though, the two BRCR nests are so close.  Perhaps one was abandoned, or maybe dead spruces with peeling bark are too rare to be picky about being close to one’s neighbor.

1115 - 1230: I got two points on HETH 2, 0.659.  This thrush was so much easier to track than 0.615, and I got a visual when I marked the first waypoint.  The second waypoint, I got a visual on HETH 2’s female foraging.  I had gone down to a relatively open valley area with middle-aged spruce, and numerous fallen trees that allowed for more sunlight to come through.  I saw a thrush on the tip of a fallen branch on the ground, looking around and foraging.  But when I pointed the receiver at the bird, it did nothing.  However, I knew that the HETH 2 was quite close by, within 10 meters, because the signal was very strong.  I lost sight of the female when she flew from the fallen branch, but then I saw her again, this time foraging on a lichen-covered tree branch.  The signal, again, did not increase.  Soon, the female flew off and the signal decreased, indicating that the pair had left the area.  How exciting!

1330 - 1545: Edward and I worked together on HETH 1, and all of our points were within a 15 meter radius of each other.  We took turns with the receiver, while the other person would simply try to look around to see the bird.  It was crazy how difficult it was to see this thrush.  Edward got three points with the receiver, and I got two points.  So, in total I got 6 points today.

After leaving the study site after a hard day’s work, we blasted the Avett Brothers in the car.  Once we arrived at the campsite, we made a campfire, read, journaled, and ate dinner before going to bed.