Long May You Run

As I've said before, spring/summer is the best time to make resolutions.  Warm weather and longer days are terrific motivators.  When I moved to the city this spring I resolved to take up running again.  I have taken up running a number of times, and I often get bored of it after about a month and give up.

Riverside bike path, Ottawa, ON

I think the reason why I have never stuck with running was because I never had any kind of goal.  I was just running "to be healthier", which is noble, but there are no concrete milestones to achieve.  Setting goals can be a powerful motivator, since people are naturally goal-oriented.  But they have to easily be achievable, so it helps to break them down into smaller sub-goals.  When you work on a big project, chances are you break it down into a collection of smaller tasks.  Every time you complete a task, you can cross it off your list, pat yourself on the back, and move forward to the next task with a sense of accomplishment and a positive attitude.

At this point you're probably wondering what goal I have set for myself.  I have two goals - one is reasonable, the other is a very serious challenge.  Goal 1: Run a Marathon.  Goal 2: Complete a Triathlon.  I'm sure you can guess which of the two is the reasonable one.

Although many people run marathons all the time, it is still a lot of work.  A marathon is 42km.  That's really far.  The world record for the fastest marathon time is 2 hours 5 minutes.  The average time to complete a marathon in the USA in 2009 was 4 hours 35 minutes.  Could you run for 4 hours?  I sure can't.  So let's set some smaller goals, shall we?

The standard race lengths are 5k, 10k, half marathon (21km) and marathon (42km).  You can find all the races you want on the running room's website.  I can already run 5km, so the next step is 10km.  I think this is an achievable goal for the summer, so I bit the bullet and signed up for the Oasis ZooRun 10k at the Toronto Zoo!  The races usually are there to raise money for some kind of charity.  I'm a poor student young(ish) person, so I have a rule that I only donate to animal/conservation type charities (Hey, I've got to draw the line somewhere!).  The Toronto Zoo, in addition to being an awesome zoo and providing education and enjoyment for people of all ages, also funds a number of conservation, education, and research projects, such as captive breeding and reintroduction of rare and endangered species.  Now that's a race I'm willing to put my money on.

This race takes place September 24th, 2011, giving me about 2 and a half months left to train for it.  If that goes well, I'll spend the fall and winter training for a half marathon sometime in the spring.  Then if that goes well, I'll try to find a full marathon to run either in the fall, or the following spring.   As for Goal 2, that's a topic for another post!

A Bird In Hand

I consider myself a biologist of creepy-crawlies.  I'm an amphibians-reptiles-insects kind of biologist, with pretty good plant skills.  Birds and I have never really spent a great deal of time together.  I'm not a morning person.  The great thing about working with "cold-blooded" organisms like amphibians, reptiles, and insects, is that they don't get up before the sun does because they need a while to warm up.  With insects and reptiles you can easily start your day at 10am and not really miss anything, the best time for amphibians starts at dusk, and plants are there all the time and will adjust to your schedule (so nice of them, don't you think?).  In the birding world, your day is ending around 10am.  This scheduling conflict has left an enormous gap in my skill set.

Carefully extracting a Black and White Warbler from the mist  net

This spring I decided it was about time to fill in that gap.  Lately my alarm has been going off at 3:30am.  That's right folks - the middle of the night.  This used to be about the time I would be going to bed, not getting up.  So I drag myself out of bed (usually not until 3:45), and get myself down to the Innes Point Bird Observatory for 4:50am.  Every spring, bird observatories across the country (and the world) put up mist nets to catch birds as they pass through during their migration.  They extract the birds from the nets, measure them, weigh them, put a band on their leg, and send them on their way.  The data they collect is used to study population trends, among other things.

A Chestnut-sided Warbler in "photographer's grip"

As an intern at the IPBO, I am learning how to correctly handle birds and extract them from the nets.  Along the way I'm learning how to identify the various birds that we encounter, and I'm trying to learn to identify their songs.  So far I've managed to figure out some of the sparrow songs, but I'm finding the "birding by ear" bit to be pretty tricky.  There are so many birds that I never even knew existed!  For example, I've seen 9 different species of warbler so far, none of which I'd ever seen before.

Oh-so-cute Yellow warbler.  This wee guy weighs about as much as a loonie.

While we're out checking the nets we sometimes encounter other non-avian wildlife, like this adorable BABY PORCUPINE!  About the size of small canteloupe, this little ball of puff was just hanging out near one of the nets.  He was sitting so still I nearly missed him!  I'll bet under all that puff he's only about the size of a chipmunk.  

OMG Porcupine baby!!

You can follow all of my sightings on my Project Noah page!  If you're not already familiar with Project Noah then you should definitely check it out - it's like social networking for nature lovers!  It's a place for you to share all of your nature spottings with fellow nature enthusiasts, earn patches, join missions, and get help identifying things you're not quite sure of.  They have a mobile app for Android and iPhone so you can post your spottings on the fly, or check out what other people have spotted in your area!