Tuesday 7-12-2022
In the night I experienced a bout of diarrhea so I cautiously did not go to breakfast or the research site in the am. After seeing a sign beside the door to Cabin #1-- "Water is not guaranteed safe at all times. Use water at your own risk!! DSROA" --I thought that maybe the ranch water was the root of my problem, but Kurt assured me that the water was fine. Also, no one else experienced the same symptoms. So I soldiered on and was fine for the rest of the day and the rest of the expedition.
In my absence that morning, volunteers and interns returned to the research area and set up pollinator traps, collected environmental data, and performed more 1 km butterfly and bee walks. At noon, they brought their butterfly and bee specimens back to Cabin #1 where they were euthanized as needed and the specimen containers labeled.
After lunch the interns showed us pinned specimens and taught us how to use different types of magnifiers to help in identification, how to pin each specimen on the right side of the thorax, how to glue the tiny specimens on their left sides to the bent tip of a white plastic tab, how to use the pinning block to ensure that each specimen was at the same height on the pin, and how to complete the labeling. (Pics below show pinning tools and my pinned specimens before they were organized by height & orientation and labeled.)
When finished pinning that day’s specimens, we were free until dinner, which this night, if I remember correctly, was hummus, roasted beets, potatoes, and turnips; pita bread, and a salad of cukes and tomatoes with hot peppers. (Kira suffered dragon mouth after eating one of the peppers). A macadamia cookie served as dessert.
I think this was the evening when after dinner Dr. Mogs took us on a plant walk up the dirt road, explained why the plants in this hot, dry area had very small leaves, and identified the roadside plants and trees that we encountered.
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