Birthday cake

November 13

I have learned that having a birthday out in the bush can be surprising.

We were having our evening meal in the dining hall on November 13 (my birthday). An interesting collection of folks: Alan and Loraine (our hosts at Western Flora), Byron Lamont (a Curtin University ecologist), Tianhua He (a Chinese geneticist plant geneticist who works with Byron), and two Telstra (the Australian telephone company) technicians that were working on a pipeline communications system that runs for hundreds of miles across western Australia. The conversation was rich and varied; the climate and landscape of Tasmania, seed dispersal across multiple scales, and how many Chinese people believe the U.S. has blundered badly in the Middle East - and that this is a good opportunity for China because by the US squandering its leadership role and resources, it provides a chance for China to increase its standing in the world.

After the dishes from the meal were cleared away Loraine emerged from the kitchen with a cake bearing candles. On top of the cake were ants fashioned out of chocolate pieces and plant parts. There were also cashews, which resembled and represented ant larvae. Once happy birthday was sung and the candles were blown out everyone was served a piece of cheesecake that had a similar ant and ant larva on top of their desert. The creativeness of Maria, the resourcefulness of Loraine, and the cheery nature of our dinner party made for a nice birthday celebration!

pictures

a few photos from down under

photographs

Time Off

November 16 and 17

We ended up having almost 2 "holiday" days --both to give our heads & bodies a rest, and to see & do things in places we wouldn't normally go (i.e., elsewhere besides the WF park and the land across the highway from it!). So we took a drive out to the coast! Yes, to the Indian Ocean that is directly West of us (c. 45-60 min drive, depending on what road or hilly "path" you choose). I've seen some tourism marketing that refers to this area as the "turquoise coast". We hit the coast and started out at Greenhead Beach, a tiny coastal town with a series of bays. We started at the one called Dynamite Bay, which has lovely dune trails to lookout points, and a small, turquoise bay carved out of ancient coral reefs, with beautiful white sand. No-one anywhere near the water, or the beach or the barbie for that matter, but David and I waded at the water's edge. It is not surprising much of the soutwestern coast is also referred to as the coral coast. Large, old pieces of reef were strewn like like large boulders along the edge of the bay. These had small tidal pools in their nooks and crannies. Each one had a different collection of marine organisms. It was glorious.

As we headed north, we did stop and check out some of the other nearby bays, then got onto the coastal road that goes right thru the bush (most of which was nature reserve), with occasional glimpses of the ocean beyond a cliff. We arrived at the Dongara - Port Denison area JUST as the stores were closing down. Everything closes down at 5-6 here. We went straight over to the beach that Allen and Lorraine had suggested as the best in the area--which you can even drive out on. It was SO beautiful. Not a bay this time, as there was definitely surf, but still turquoise colored water, and loads of rotting seaweed on the beach. We were informed that in a few weeks time the seaweed season would be over, and summer should really start. We explored some of the extensive walking paths along the estuary shared by Dongara & Port Denison. Really well set up and maintained, with great view points and even boardwalks (on which David looked and found ode exuviae-- I couldn't believe it!).

Great dinner at a nice restaurant on the coast, then back to WF on the main highway, which didn't take long at all!

On Saturday we were invited (!) to join a walk with some members of the Western Australia Orchid Association, led by Allen of Western Flora. Spent a good part of the day out at a wide variety of landscape sites, with quite a variety of beautiful and fascinating plants and bugs. We really got to see some flying duck orchids!!!!! (and even almost ran some over) Yep, we got to see a population of c. 10 individuals of the largest flying duck, in flower!!!! That evening we all had a wonderful evening BBQ, hosted by Lorraine & Allen...meat on the barbie!

Nothing like a beautiful mid-November evening for a pleasant barbeque. What is the temperature in New England tonight?

Ant Work

November 19

Things have settled into a fairly regular routine around here at Western Flora. Maria and I (try!) to wake up at 5:30 AM. We have breakfast, get ready for the field, pack up the truck, and drive to our parking spot just across the highway. The driveway is the long stretch of our commute. It is a little over a half a mile and there can be traffic - bobtailed lizards, kangaroos, and whatever other wildlife causes us to stop along the way.

Once we are in the field there are a number of things we do, depending on what the day calls for. One chore is to find the nests of our ants. The first day we got out in the field and tried to find nests I realized I had not brought any bait with me. Doing field work teaches you to make do with what you have on hand so I used pieces of the granola bar I had in my pack. After some trials with other baits the following day it turned out that granola worked best. Give one of our ants a piece of granola and she runs right back to the nest with it. The task that takes most of our time in the field is digging up nests. Lots of digging holes (mainly Maria's doing, considering she has the good back) and sieving material through a series different sized screens. We end up with a dishpan sized plastic bin containing ants, their brood, some sand, plant parts, and a variety of other small insects. Some of these things are potential parasites of the ants we are studying. We are also making plaster casts of nests. This will help us to figure out the structure of a typical nest. Other things we are trying to gather data about includes information about the ants' diet (seeds and insects) and how they handle the parts of the food they gather that they do not want. Most important is how they handle the seeds they gather and end up dispersing for plants.

It generally gets too hot around 11 or 12, so hot in fact that it is difficult to keep the ants alive as we are digging and sorting them out. Our ant species does not forage during midday. There are one group of species here that does not come out until it gets really hot, > 100 degrees. One day last week it was 42 C (~ 107 F). Those crazy ants that like it hot were real busy. Anyway we generally retreat to our apartment for an afternoon siesta once the hottest part of the day arrives.

Siesta time is a lot more variable than our time in the field. Naps, lunch, reading, filling out postcards, etc. takes up part of the time. It is also a good time to sort and count ants, update data sheets, make notes, and prepare things we need to use for the field. Somewhere around 4:30 to 5:30 it cools off enough to go back out in the field again. The evenings outside are really nice. The temperature becomes increasingly more pleasant as the sun falls from the sky, sunsets are colorful, and we are able to make more progress with our work.

Most nights we eat dinner in our apartment. We have much of what we need here and there is a small town (population 268 according to the sign), with a small grocery store, about 15 miles from here. We also have the option of eating "evening meal" with our Caravan Park hosts. The first few times we ate with them we ate in their home. Since then, we have had a prepared dinner with larger groups of visitors and our hosts. There is a larger dining hall where they serve meals when they have larger groups. The dining hall also has another room that is set up for giving talks. Alan Tinker, one of the hosts, gives flower walks during the flowering season and he ends the walk by taking everyone to the lecture room. There is a steroemicroscope hooked up to a projector and he can show folks details of the plants he picks during the walk.

I gave a little talk about ants after dinner one night. The other day I went to go use the the stereomicroscope and Alan was there trying to get rid of a Western Brown snake. It had gotten in and, in going after a dead mouse, got stuck in the mousetrap.
Alan was holding the snake at the end of the broomstick and I asked him if it was poisonous. He casually said it had just about the most lethal venom of any of the snakes around. Just another day at Western Flora.

Eneabba

Nov. 10

We've now settled in here in the Banksia Chalet, at Western Flora Caravan Park, north of Eneabba, Western Australia. It is a spacious, comfortable, furnished apartment, essentially. In our three days here, we have seen and done such a variety of things. However, there are 3 things that we see the most (after ants, of course)--and very intimately, indeed!:

kangaroos, bob-tailed skinks, and flies

The family that owns the park also takes in and raises orphaned "joeys"--baby kangaroos! There's a kangaroo food trough outside our chalet, and there's always a couple of the youngsters (and the ones they've raised that have already mated and have their own young) hanging around somewhere nearby. The one we've gotten quite close with is the Tinker family's current baby, named Roxie. In fact, she has latched onto us on our walks several times, bounding up from behind, then right by you (or between your legs), and then lying down in the trail and grooming. You can pet her back and neck, but don't touch the head or tail. VERY cute. Most of the group are (western?) grey kangaroos, but there is a mom & young son who are what the Western Aussies call "euros" ("wallaroo" out east). Kinda hard to tell the difference, but the youngster is very red.

Bob-tailed skinks are slow, chunky lizards that are all around, mooching (often IN the kangaroo trough) and pursuing the ladies (it's mating season). They have a blue tongue, and a large head that is similar in size to their stubby "bob-tail"--thought to look similar enough, so predators wouldn't know which end was the mouth. I have never seen anything like it, but here they are all over, and some even come over to beg.

There is much discussion about the "fly problem" here in Western Australia these days. Essentially, it is maddening to go outside for long (> 30 seconds) during the day without wearing a major head-net (preferably over a wide-brimmed hat). Flies want to land all over you, especially your upper body and face. They don't DO anything, like bite or lick or whatever, but they just want to be on you. The Tinkers blame the nonnative Australian mammal populations for them (especially livestock), insinuating that they reproduce in dung, but I'm not sure. They have lived here for 18 years, and have never seen it worse than this year. David ate one today while conversing outside with someone, who casually remarked, "did ya get 'im?"

Update: Next day, while talking outside with the same person, it happened again! This time Ray, the naturalist/feral animal hunter/outback man, remarked "did ya get that one too?"

Logistics in Perth

November 5

Perth served as a launching ground for getting ourselves outfitted for our field work.

Our first order of business was a meeting on Sunday morning. Aaron, the person who was doing the job I will be doing before he left for another job, came and picked Maria and me up at the hotel. We ended up spending most of the day together, and it more or less ended up being a long conversation about many, many things as we traveled around Perth. We first visited Kings Park. It is a large area of naturally vegetated land right in the middle of the city. This was on the one place I wanted to see, if we had the time and means, while we were in Perth. We walked, talked, and saw some beautiful natural parklands. There were also some nicely landscaped areas around some of the park facilities. The one place Maria wanted to see was the beach. Off we went, less than ten miles east of downtown, to the local beach. There was quite a bit of traffic and we had to park a long walk away from the beach. Aaron bought us dinner and when we were done, Maria was able to put her feet in the "bracing" waters of  the Indian Ocean. We then went to a nature reserve wetland with birding spots along a boardwalk, for sunset.  We got back to our room around nine o'clock. It was a great day. We started the day with no vehicle, no clear sense of where things were or how to get around, and a need to get going on figuring out how we were going to get things done down under. By the time we got back to our room we had been the two places we had wanted to visit while we were in Perth, had been treated wonderfully by someone I needed to talk with, and had learned a lot about my work and the people that I need to collaborate with here in Australia.

At the end of the day I was exhausted, again, and slept great.

Monday was our day to visit with Jonathan Majer and go to Curtin University. We were picked up at our hotel at nine o clock. Jonathan is the head of the biology department at Curtin and has been here for a long time (30 years). We had to straighten out administrative stuff, gather some field equipment, and garner all the information we could about many things - from driving directions to the ants. We also were set up with a University pickup truck that we will use for the time Maria and I will be working in the field. We went for a little ride with Jonathan, with Maria and Jon risking their lives as I navigated around campus at low speed, driving on the left side of the road. My biggest problem seemed to be turning on the windshield wipers every time I went to put on my blinker. Our second full day in Perth proved to be as succesful as our first. I was able to get a vehicle, straighten out a lot of things, gather field equipment from sheds, labs, and offices, and once again was treated wonderfully by a gracious host. We also met quite a number of folks as Maria and I made our way around campus with Jonathan.

Making our way back to our hotel, Maria and I began our transition from dependant-visitors-in-a-strange-land to independant travelers getting on with our work. Under Maria's watchful eye and with her encouraging admonitions (stay to the left!), we were able to make our way to the commercial Albany Street. With its endless collection of stores we were able to find some things we needed and, eventually, made it back to our hotel.

 

 

Perth

November 3 (Perth)

So we forced ourselves to walk around the city a bit, to make us even more tired, so we could actually attempt to go to sleep "at night" here. Walked thru some (newly) ritzy residential streets, towards the park along the river that divides "Perth" from "South Perth" (where our hotel is located). Got there just as droves of folks are leaving the river's edge--indicating that the "Red Bull" (yes, the ENERGY drink)-sponsored stunt flying planes around inflated "cones" floating on the water. Walked a circular route back to the hotel, and, though I forced him to stop in a local bookstore/cafe and then a supermarket, David could stay awake no longer--and fell right asleep at around 4:30pm (I have NEVER seen this before!!!). Good night's sleep, and we were up well before sunrise--with a beautiful view towards downtown Perth and the river from our huge glass door to the balcony of our hotel room.

The Trip

After a long night of packing, we woke up around 8:30 and began what was to be the first day of our trip. A trip to Trader Joes to get a sandwich and a visit to the drugstore gave us a good excuse to take a final walk around Arlington Center. Our neighbor Paul was able to give us a ride to the airport and that gave us a great start to our journey. It seemed to take us no time at all to get to the curb at our terminal. I think it took us longer to check in than to drive to the airport, with a big chunk of our check in time spent by our agent staring at his computer screen. Maria bought a new pair of sunglasses in the airport, as she discoverd our first known "something we forgot." She left her sunglasses in Warwick. After a few hours of shopping, eating, getting through security, and waiting at the gate we got on our first plane.

United Boston to San Francisco. Departure at 2:45 PM. It was close to on time. They had to check to make sure we had enough water before we took off. All was well and we were on our way with the warm-up flight to our long flight. We are only crossing North America on our first leg. The route map in United guide gave me a good perspective on the relative length of each of our plane trips. It is a long way from San Fran to Sydney! We arrived at San Fran at 6:20 PM California time. (9:20 PM Thursday night) for us. Our layover is 4+ hours and we leave for Sydney at 10:24 local time.

Our United 747 left the ground at around 11 PM San Fran time (2 AM Friday). The flight is supposed to be 13 + hours. Our seats were in the back of the plane, about 5 rows apart but we both at least had an aisle seat. They served us a fairly bad dinner right away and then it was lights out in the cabin. I slept in 1 hour stretches for around 7 or 8 hours. Fortunately my back was fine. Every time I woke up I wandered around a bit, talked to Maria for a minute or two if she is not sleeping, and then sat down to have another nap. By the time I was through with all my sleeping the trip was becoming a big blur. They were showing movies the whole night and I watched Sicko towards the end of the flight. That was good as that ate up a good chunk of the remaining time. They served breakfast, gave us some coffee, and we landed in Sydney. ~ 7 AM in the morning here (4 PM Friday in Mass).

We had less than 2 hours between connections. Going through customs and walking a long way to the Quantas check in desk took up enough time that they decided to push us to the next flight to Perth. It left at 10:10 Sydney time instead of 8:45. We will get into Perth 2 hours later than scheduled. I tried to call Jonathan Majer, my collaborator at Curtin University in Perth, to tell him our flight had changed. He was going to pick us up at the airport. I tried to call his number about 4 times before I asked Maria to help. Apparently my brain is a lot more fuzzy than it seems and I couldn't handle dialing the phone right. Flying to the other side of the world can do that to you, I guess. Anyway I was only able to get Jonathan's voice mail. After I left him a message, it occured to me 7 AM Saturday in Perth and that could have been why he did not asnwer.

I had my first cup of regular coffe in two days at the Sydney airport. Ask for a coffee in Australia and they say, "white coffee or black coffee?" and "is this for here or take away?". Black, take away, please.

On to Perth....getting on the plane at ~ 6:50 PM Friday (Mass time). Its been a long day and a half. Almost there, just one more short flight of four hours and forty five minutes. We had an exit row aisle and it was luxuriously roomy! An older gentleman from Perth was sitting next to us and I talked with him for much of the flight. Charles was a wealth of information about places to see, historical tidbits about various places we discussed, and was just generally a very nice fellow. He ordered some red wine with his dinner and after Maria asked him what kind it was, he even offered her some so she could try it. Our last flight was on Quantas and it was nicer than our earlier United flights. The food, for example, was just great. We arrived in Perth right on time, 1:10 PM local time. Jonathan was at the gate waiting for us. Once we gathered our bags Maria and I were finally able to walk away from an airport terminal.

Jonathan has a 1963 Sunbeam car that is in immaculate condition. It was Jonathan's father's car and his dad brought it over from England. It is also rather small. Maria and I both wondered if our bags would fit. Amazingly, they did. He brought us to our hotel and we arranged to to see him on Monday morning, and then he left.

The time here is 12 hours ahead of eastern time. We left Arlington at 11:30 AM on Thursday and arrived at our hotel here in Perth a little over 38 hours later.

 

 

 

01 NOV 07  -  THURSDAY

     UNITED AIRLINES      FLT:181    ECONOMY  

LV BOSTON                            245P
           AR SAN FRANCISCO           619P           NON-STOP

     UNITED AIRLINES      FLT:863

LV SAN FRANCISCO          1024P

03 NOV 07  -  SATURDAY

AR SYDNEY                            650A

 

     QANTAS AIRWAYS       FLT:575

LV SYDNEY                            845A

AR PERTH                                1130A

ARRIVE: TERMINAL 2 QANTAS