Thursday, April 25, 2013

Looking into the future

I have spent the past three or so blogs focusing on my project and having written a rough draft of my paper for today, the last thing I want to do is write more about it. Therefore, I am choosing to write about a more positive subject - my future. Beginning May 7th, I will be a crew leader leading a crew of students based out of Lake Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge in New Hampshire. My crew and I will be doing bird and vegetation surveys in spruce-fir forests to see how birds respond to different forest management techniques. Since this job is outside in the woods everyday all day, you can probably guess that this job has a lot of connections to ecology. Everything about this job, actually, is ecology. I'm mostly excited for the data gathering part of this job because I get to walk around the woods and keep track of all the birds I hear and see so I get to test my bird identification skills which I love. It will be interesting to see the different types of birds present in these types of forests because I haven't spent much time in spruce-fir forests. I'm curious to see how these interior forest birds are different from birds that live on the edge of forests and in more urban areas. But the results from the research we are doing will also be very interesting. I am curious to see the birds responses to different forest management techniques and if that has any effect on how people decide to manage the forests. It is safe to say that ecology will be on my mind every day of my three months on this job, especially because I'll essentially be living within the spruce-fir forest ecosystem being in a remote area without cell service or internet! I think this class is what has put these things in my mind and has given me a better understanding of the natural world around me.

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