23 April 2017 Squirrel release video

You gotta love these guys.

Yesterday was Earth Day, and as you know, I spent the evening marching for science and attending a friendly bonfire. What you may not know is that earlier that day, despite being Saturday, we were still working. It was our first day working at the Toolik field site, and that meant I had to learn to drive a snowmachine. Actually, there was no learning, just get on and go and try not to fall off or lose Cory's trail. He is quick. I am slow. Oh so slow. I think I was more of a deterrent to him getting work done than helpful. His machine had a sled on the back which carried the squirrel traps. We set them in different places, and then headed back for lunch at the field station. That lunch was like a dinner - enormous and delicious. With full bellies, we got back on the machines and did another loop to check the trap. Really, Cory had checked most of the traps before I even drove up, but I was trying to get used to the machine. It's different than driving a car, and you really have to use your body to turn it, which I was struggling with in a somewhat terrified manner. I didn't flip it though, which is a relief. The third time I let Cory go without me, to make a quicker loop, and he came back with a male squirrel that we processed at that time. It had the largest head I have seen to date. I did get back on my machine one more time, and on this round we released the male and closed the other traps for the day. Transporting the squirrel involved putting the trap on the "schlepper", the backpack-like device that Cory wore while driving his machine so that the squirrel would have a more comfortable ride than being bounced around in the sled. This way Cory acted as the shock absorber.

Today we went back to Atigun and spent about five hours setting traps and checking them. Some catches had repeat squirrels, which we released right away, but we did get five new squirrels that we brought back to the lab. We processed two after dinner tonight and will do three in the morning tomorrow. One of them was a young female who was tiny and adorable. Afterwards, I headed to the sauna during women's hours and this time I shared it with two other women.

Today, I think I got some more useable GoPro footage, but that's for another day. For now, enjoy the first two short movies I've made with some of the GoPro footage so far.