Month: November 2015

So you know the description of the project John is working on (if not you can go here to read about it), but what does his day-to-day work entail?

Every morning he starts off by feeding the birds. Right now there are 9 birds and 4 different species. They eat in the morning and in the afternoon. Their diet consists of veggies (green beans, carrots, and corn), berries (black berries, blue berries, and raspberries), some grapes, maybe some bananas (if they’re available at the store) and if they need some protein maybe a few meal worms or hard-boiled egg. Depending on the bird, the food needs to be cut into smaller pieces so they can eat it. I have gotten to help make the bird diets and have become a master chopper!

If the bird is new to captivity, it might not know right away to eat the food we provide it in the bowl. This means that it needs to get tube fed 2-3 times a day so it doesn’t lose too much weight. To tube feed, John uses a syringe filled with protein powder and water and feeds it to the bird directly. This happens in the morning, afternoon, and early evening for as long as it takes the bird to start eating the diets we make them. The new Fruit Doves that were mist netted last Monday are still being tube fed this week, so hopefully they will start eating their yummy fruits and veggies soon!

Now that the fruit has started growing back after typhoon Soudelor, he has been able to do a few trials. This is where he’ll feed the birds one of the types fruits that has been designated to study for the project. Then once the birds pass that fruit, he’ll plant those seeds as well as seeds from the original fruit to see if they will germinate. It is a pretty diligent process planting so many tiny seeds and keeping track of what is what.

If he did do a trial, or there are seeds germinating, then he needs to record the data so he can keep track of it for the study. This means a lot of Excel spreadsheets that need to be created and updated regularly.

Most of the work done is with the birds at the field house. The first couple months he was here, his focus was on creating the aviaries where the birds would be kept for the study. If he’s not at the field house though, he could also be out looking for ripe fruit to use for trials, searching for frozen fruit/vegetables to feed the birds, or mist netting new birds.

One of our favorite places to run in Saipan is along the beach front trail on the southern end of the island (I like to think it’s because of the great view and not that it’s the only flat running path we could find). We try to run a couple times a week, and this has definitely become our regular route. It’s a really nice paved path right along the ocean which is a great distraction while we run. The half-way point where we turn around is a tank that is from the American invasion during WWII. The start and end of our run is at a restaurant right on the ocean called Oleai. Sometimes we go there after our run to get some iced tea and a snack!

Last weekend it was the birthday of one of our friends here. He planned a dinner cruise on boat for all of us to celebrate and hang out. The boat was catamaran style, with tables set up on the front deck and inside. We were lucky to get a primo spot in the front so we could enjoy the amazing views while we ate. John had fish, I got the chicken, and they both came with grilled veggies and rice. We all had a great time on the boat and got to see the island from a different perspective along with some great views!

Thursday night we had the opportunity to go to Thursday Night Market. It was a pretty exiting experience as this has been closed since typhoon Soudelor hit back in August. There was food tents where you paid $5 and got to pick 5 items for your plate. The food was mostly different types of local food, Chamorro, Korean, Chinese, Thai, etc. All of it was really delicious, and there was also music and dancers near the middle of the market. Now that it is back open, I am sure we will be back for more good music and delicious food.

Saturday night John and I decided to take on a more challenging dish to cook (it probably isn’t actually that hard for people that cook more frequently than we do, but it was exciting for us). We found a recipe for a cream parmesan pasta with mushrooms and green onions. So we went out and got all the ingredients and whipped it up that night. To both of our surprise it turned out extremely well, and we made so much that we got to enjoy it for dinner on the following night.

Sunday morning we had a bit of free time so we drove out to Marpi, (the main protected area of forest on the island), to hike a bit and read. This is also where the team has more of their sites for the plant and bird projects, so I got to see what those look like. Later that evening we drove up to Mount Topachou (the tallest point on the island) to watch the sunset. The drive up was pretty bumpy as it is not paved and full of pot holes, but once we were up there the view was incredible. From the top, you have a 360 view of the entire island, and it really puts in perceptive just how small it is in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. At the top there is a statue of Jesus, and every year on Easter there is a pilgrimage up the mountain to this statue.

Last week I had the opportunity to see first hand what mist-netting means. Early Friday morning I went over to the field house and saw the huge nets that had been setup the previous afternoon. The nets were a little taller than the house and the largest one was 15 feet wide. We had just setup our lookout spot when only about 2 minutes later a bird had flown into the net. Our first one of the morning! I spread out the net so John could take the bird out. Once he had him out, I got to hold him before we released him. Though it was not the species he wanted to get that day, it was a really cool experience to get to hold a bird. A little while later, after a few other birds had been caught and released, a Starling flew into one of the nets. This is one of the species John was looking for for the study, so we kept it. After weighing it and taking some measurements, John introduced him to his new home.

Saturday morning we went over the LauLau Bay Golf Resort driving range. We got two buckets of balls, some rental clubs, and picked out our spots on the range. A few swings in I finally hit the ball more than a couple feet! I’d say our drives were, how do I put this, inconsistent at best. We could definitely use some practice (and maybe a bit of advice so we aren’t just making up the technique), but it was super fun to just hit a bucket of balls on a beautiful resort! We’ll be back again to practice some more for sure.

For the past couple weeks we’ve been sharing our apartment with a baby gecko. He usually shows up around dinner time to hang out with us and hunt for a meal (though he’s not really the greatest at finding insects). Like most of the animals around here (White Rooster, Brown Bull, Road Dog, Marley the Bandit, Balc Honey Eater) we’ve given him a “name”, we call him Baby Gecko.

This weekend was Halloween. Friday while we were out doing laundry and running errands we saw some kids dressed up in their costumes from school. Superman and a princess seemed to be popular choices. They were all pretty adorable! Saturday we went to Fiesta beach bar in Garapan and hung out there all day. The weather was beautiful, and it was nice to just relax in the sun. The sunset was putting on quite a show that night, and I went a little crazy taking pictures!

Once it was dark, we put our costumes on and headed to Godfathers (our go-to place for dinner when we’re in Garapan) for some pizza. Everyone there was dressed up, including the people that worked at the restaurant. Some were even acting the part of their costume.

Then we went back to Fiesta because they were having a Mad Max themed Halloween party. They had a costume contest (there were some really great costumes!), a DJ, and we even got to enjoy some Halloween candy!