August 9

At 9:00am all of us Conservation Biology and Genetics students were piled into minibuses to head out on our four-hour field trip. As a part of a project that we're working on in groups, we are going to be conducting field and literature research and proposing conservation actions for arguably one of "the most threatened reptile species in the world", the grassland earless dragon. These buggers are only a few inches long, but they prefer to live in short-grass grasslands (grassland/field = paddock in Australia), and a fairly significant population (of up to several hundred) can be found in some excellent habitat around Canberra here inthe A.C.T. These little lizards live in burrows in these prairies, burrows that are made by either wolf spiders or a cricket, typically.

After crawling between two strands of barbed wire (turns out they don't yet have a gate to access this property!), we followed a path out into the field to begin our educational field experience. We learned this morning in the freezing cold (mostly because of the wind), extremely windy conditions how to conduct searches for burrows in quadrats within a grid in the paddock. We then spent some time finding burrows and recording data such as diamater, occupation (by shining a pen-light down the hole), depth, and distance from tussocks of tall grass. There really isn't too much known about these lizards, so we're actually instrumental in conducting natural history data that has previously not been well understood. We did our burrow searches in groups of 3-4 people. I happened to the lucky person to first locate a burrow that was occupied by a lizard. During the morning only two lizards were found in the few quadrats that were surveyed. It was a pretty cool morning, and I learned a lot and enjoyed the experience. Hopefully collectively we as a class will be able to collect important data and propose possible conservation measures for the protection of this very vulnerable species.

Back at UC I ate a quick lunch then realized that I had one hour until my literary studies tutorial and I hadn't read for class or done the assignment. I quickly read the four stories assigned for this week, went and dropped off my completed Australia census form, then got to class two minutes late (I'm in Australia, so they don't really care too much if you're late). As much as I typically dislike literature, I actually enjoyed a couple of the stories we read for today, and the tutorial discussions were interesting. The professor liked my analysis of the paragraph that I thought best set the theme for the one essay/story about Australia and its ecological and developmental changes over the past 30 or so years. Yay.

After my literature class I ran into Sam and we decided to go running together around Lake G. We ended up running the loop in about 41 minutes, but it felt like a great "recovery run" and the time flew by since we talked most of the way. Only three more days until the City to Surf race in Sydney! Tomorrow afternoon/evening I leave for a three-day weekend in Sydney! Two or three other Americans are going to be coming along, so for the couple of days before the race, we're going to enjoy the city together. As a result of not being here at UC, I'm not sure how much internet access I will have or when this blog will again be updated. But rest assured, once I am back on campus I will update to let you all know how the trip and race go!