once you swab backs, you never go back

south carolina dept of natural resources hired me to assist in a couple projects in the winter of 2006. primarily sampling wintering shorebirds for avian influenza (bird flu) along the sc coastline. i lived on santee coastal reserve near mclellanville, a historic rice plantation and legendary duck hunting club. i was allowed to lived in the now vacant hunting lodge, a 20 room plantation style house for americas elite during the early 1900's, which to this day i question whether it was haunted. i worked for Felicia Sanders, a state biologist and extraordinary successful advocate for all things winged on the east coast.



most mornings started before sunup by boating out to a barrier island where the birds overnight in huge flocks. we set rocket nets on the tideline near the congregated birds and then retreat to the dunes with hopes that the birds will return to the area. the rocket nets are exactly what they sound like; think cartoons or some bad action adventure movie. three steel tubular cannons are packed with gun powder and attached to a 100 sq ft woven net by shackles. charges are wired and a lead of wire allows us to sit in the dunes and remotely trigger the net to fire as the birds return. an explosion as the net casts over the birds and we run to extract them carefully. the birds are swabbed with qtips, banded, and released.


resting after an early morning catching birds. shelton (usda), marc (scdnr), i forget


western sandpiper, looking at covert tracts


we also worked in yawkey wildlife refuge, a private refuge donated by the former owner of the boston red sox to sc dep of natural resources. its closed to the public and used exclusively for research and preservation, consequently there are huge numbers of shorebirds on the mudflats, remnants of rice paddies. rocket nets were impractical in the mud so we opted for mistnets.


overlooking the mudflats and mistnets waiting for captures


processing the birds in the mobile "sterile" lab


working up a semipalmated plover with the help of a coastal carolina student


for all you bird nerds the differences in least (yellow legs, shorter bill) and western sandpipers


i helped a grad student from clemson, christy hand, who was studying feeding behaviors of american oystercatchers in cape romain wildlife refuge. it was some horribly boring work staring through a scope for 8 hours a day with a stopwatch, but i got to wear a cool pirates eyepatch to combat eye fatigue. another story of the size of the world i had met christy in hawai'i at a party years earlier, and again in florida a couple years ago.


working with sc dnr allows you to experience some unique opportunities like; squirrel huntin', cuttin' down big ol' trees, chewin', dippin', drivin' trucks, and burnin' STUFF like forests! YEAH buddy!! i got to help on a prescribed burn on one of the properties near santee. it was fun until everyone left me there by myself to go to get mtn dews and moonpies from "da stow"


dj wiggedy whack!! towards the end of my stay in the huge house i got some visitors. two researchers from univ. of delaware came to study "secretive marsh sparrows". they were using song recordings to determine presence of certain species of difficult to find sparrows in the tidal marshes. i helped them set up some transects and being a amazingly strong man i carried the boombox the lure the birds in. "i got beats to make all the lil warblers go tweet tweet/what what/ all the rufous colored wrens say HO/yeah yeah" i think i got a chance with avian hip hop!!


we also sampled hunter killed waterfowl for AI. not one of my prouder moments (you know the paparazzi) but heres me caught in an intimate act with a teal

beaufort kayaking

michael fisk, todd hodges and i went kayaking one weekend in sept off the coast of nc near beaufort (pronounced boford not buford thats sc). the first day we got off late and paddled from the harkers island bridge to shackleford banks and camped near a maritime forest with the feral horses. later that evening as the sun is going down we realize that no one brought a flashlight and so the adventure begins.


todd hodges looking tough!!





fisk doing some serious fishing under the harkers island bridge. oh so the residents of harkers island have this distinct dialect more old english than southern it sounds almost like pirate talk. arrr









sunset over shackleford banks prutty





one of the feral horses released by early settlers on the barrier islands that are still managed by the national park service.





oh yeah just probably three of the saltyest, swash bucklin, son of bitches you ever met!!! the next day we paddled down the length of shackleford island fishing along the way with no success and then across the inlet to core bank. this area is all part of the cape lookout national seashore known for the famous cape lookout lighthouse the one with checkerboard pattern on it. anyway we paddled about 9 miles on saturday and were dog tired








the dudes looking good!!!

whats a pirates favorite letter? rrrrrr
whats a pirates favorite beer? pbrrrrrrrr
whats a pirates favorite element on the periodic table? gold, stupid arrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

alaskan adventure

heres a gallery from my field season in nome, alaska working with the institute for bird populations studying the movement of the avian flu in asian migrants in western alaska. the study species was the eastern yellow wagtail, a summer visitor and breeder in the western arctic of alaska. we focused on this species because of its dense wintering populations in southeast asia their proximity to domestic livestock ie they follow cattle around feasting on the insects that are rustled. the flu sampling we did involved capturing the elusive birds in nests (see below) and sticking a qtip in their hoo hoos!! ouch. hope you enjoy





typical landscape around nome, alaska, flat coastal plains with long, rounded mountains. but there arent always rusting trains. this is the train to nowhere, a remnant of the gold rush.




nome was used as a radar station during the cold war, heres a reminder of the standoff on anvil mountain




upon arrival in late may we found 200 yards of thick pack ice and spring decided to stay away for another 3 weeks





training in may was a cold ordeal, riding in the bed of a pickup in 30 degree weather was invigorating.
me, melissa, jimmy, dr sarracco













this is the general passive net setup. the ultra-thin mesh net between two poles and a remote playback recorder in the middle to draw the birds in.






here's our hero with a female eastern yellow wagtail. processing a bird inside the "orange bomber" (our suburban). notice the unsuspecting look on this bird's face, just before the Q-tip is inserted. then she's released into the cold night air without so much as dinner or a movie.






the big bossman (dr desante) with a male wagtail









i think this has to be one of the most beautiful birds in all of the world aptly named the bluethroat






the holy grails: vials of fecal samples
















sometimes the rigors of the day mandates a visit to aqueous environments to hmmmm errrr... investigate the spatial distrubution of wagtails. conclusion: no birds here, but may need further study.
oops we sometimes forget proper equipment.






now here we find our hero blending into his surroundings. can you pick him out?
our summer line suggests that difficult to capture that derelict look, that's a louis vutton camoflauged burlap soaked in cat urine, with oh yes if you were wondering that is a camo baby onesy on his head.


























on my off time all i do is fish and smoke salmon




























you wouldn't believe the traffic at rush hour

alaskan crew

heres some crew photos from the season in alaska. our crew divided after training in fairbanks. 2 went to dillingham, 2 to umiat, and 4 to nome.

THE DUDE himself

ellen, me, nate, jimmy, ted, melissa after one of our rental vehicles broke down






wow this is my trusty sidekick ted and no he doesnt always look like this

the next photo is not for the faint of heart so consider yourself warned

this is the end of a horrible cold i had, hope its not the bird flu

hawai'i

heres some pics from a job on the big island of hawai'i studying palila, a native honeycreeper. we were tranlocating captured birds from the western side of mauna kea (the worlds largest mountain) to the north side. hopefully establishing a second population, ensuring the species' survival in the case of catastrophe. we lived in volcano on the southeastern side of the island outside of hawai'i volcanoes nat'l park.

team palila: top l to r; ian, josh, bobby, emily, me, i forgot, rob bottom l to r; jenn, sara, carter, dre, aran

the male palila in all his splendor


melodie, emily, jenn, becky, bobby, sara, me, carter, aran at the sheraton on the big island

carter and i before a hike to the active pu'u o'o lava cone

cresting the cone, looking back over the kilauea lava field

sunset behind the cinder cones, this is really a once in a lifetime experience. the cone is dormant most of the time but we were lucky to come on a afternoon with favorable winds keeping the noxious gases blowing out to sea and active erupting lava. absolutely amazing, the most intense feeling i can imagine, we couldnt pull ourselves away

carter and i looking tough

the largeousity of the cones, even from there the heat was too intense to keep facing it. the spurting liquid lava falling around us added to the fun, keeping us on our toes

night only added to the intensity

how can you not love that flippin' guy!! aran with an amakihi