Greetings,

As many of you know I am now living in southern NJ (Maurice River Township), and am now working for the New Jersey Audubon Society at their Cape May Bird Observatory Center for Research and Education (CMBO: CRE). Today is my third day down here, and it has been quite a ride to get to this point….

Leaving home on Monday morning (9am) I arrived at the center just after 2:30PM where I quickly met some of my future co-workers, most notably Kim Peters and Patting Hodgetts. Kim is the Director of Research and Monitoring, and Patti is the head bander for CMBO. The meeting was brief, but efficient and I made the necessary moves to get my paper work in and all that. After a short period of time at the center Patti showed me to the field house on Langley Road. It is mostly used as a hunting lodge in the fall, but for now it is being lent to us. As always when moving into a field house, expect the worst, but hope for the best. This experience fell somewhere in between.

Pulling up to the house it appeared to be an old brick building with a screen porch, all hidden behind a metal chain-link fence. The yard was overgrown and was completely devoid of any and all shade trees. It appeared stark and naked. Patti then led me into the house, and what I found wasn’t all that bad. It was complete with hard wood floors, and several rooms including my single room, and the larger bunk room that everyone else is going to have to share. The kitchen had all the necessities including a stove, refrigerator, and microwave. The bed in my room was a double. All in all it wasn’t that bad. Unfortunately, it wasn’t cleaned to the level that I (or they) had expected.

With the house needing a good cleaning I spent the remaining part of Monday and Tuesday getting things in order…and it felt good. It felt like I was laying claim to something and making it my own. Now the kitchen is spotless, as is my room. Hopefully my roommates enjoy what I have done. This though is all in hopes of making the field season that much more enjoyable.

Wednesday and today (Thursday) has found be starting to get into the pre-field season work. There is A LOT to do, but unfortunately I am the only one here until the interns come to get them done. So far I have gotten all the net poles in order, and started working on the burlap holding pens. The next thing to come up is to finish the holding pens, and to practice making the flags that will go on the birds we band in addition to the USFWS metal bands. The plastic “flags” are simply used for color-marking the bird in the field so it can be re-sighted a lot easier from afar with optics. This of course will help in the understanding of migration movements of the species. The birds that we will be color flagging as far as I know are to be Semipalmated Sandpipers only.

So what do I think of it all so far? I’m starting to like it. The work so far has been tedious and a bit hard, but this is only because I am on my own. What will come with the interns helping out should make things easier. I especially am growing to like the staff here at CMBO. I share an office with Bob (Can’t get away from a workplace with a Bob) who I can talk about music with as he is a Banjo player. Kim of course is especially nice, as is Patti, although my sociology skills always likes to tease apart the differences in each of their personalities. The other major player in my life is Dave who is the Vice President of Research at CMBO. I immediately like him. He seems like he is going to be a hard person to please as he is much about business, but he takes cares of his employees very well, and does his best to cater to their needs. MUCH different than what I had experienced in my last job.

What else? Well the birds down here are starting to pick up, and when the time permits (perhaps this weekend), I will update all my lists. But so far I’ve been able to pick up good birds for the year list including Black Vulture, Boat-tailed Grackle, Field Sparrow, Eastern Towhee, Blue-gray Gnatcatcher, and others. When the time comes I will update everything. For now, I have to run to one of the field sites and mark a measurement that we need tomorrow. Things are going good down here, and while it is always hard moving to a new place and meeting new people and being away from everyone you know at home….it feels GREAT to be in my field again and to feel that the work I am doing can contribute to something good in the future. Ok, that is it for now…I will try and upload some photos if I can over the weekend, as well as update more here in the journal. This entry was a little boring because nothing big is going on…yet. Lots to come!!!!

~Chad