TravelStream™ news feed for member mattador on TravelPod's free travel blogs service http://www.travelpod.com/syndication/rss/mattador en-us Copyright ©2009 TravelPod.com Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:40:14 -0400 http://www.travelpod.com http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1251300507/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1251300507/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1251300507/tpod.html Wed, 26 Aug 2009 11:40:14 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Boulder, Colorado, United States

Well, after 23 hours of straight travel, and a day of rest and reprieve, I find myself once again in the comfort of my own room in Boulder, Colorado. My time in Turkey was incredible, and I cannot have hoped for a more productive trip than I had. Hakan will be an excellent collaborator and from the looks of it, Bogazkent seems to be a dream-site for field work in barn swallows!  Top on my list of things to do now that I am back was to get a dog. Yesterday, I picked up a two year old Australian cattle dog mix from the Humane Society, and I named him Atticus. He's a sweet dog--I haven't heard him bark once--and he is still getting adjusted to a new home without the confines of a kennel. Now I can look forward to the fall semester, which has already started (I have my first class on Speciation, which is being taught by our newest faculty member and one of the world's experts on the subject) and a whooole lot of data analysis from this summer's recording. Thanks to those of you who followed my short excursion into Turkey--I hope you enjoyed it half as much as I did! I intend to maintain a blog from the field next spring cataloguing our progress. Til then.Cheers! Matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1251026114/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1251026114/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1251026114/tpod.html Sun, 23 Aug 2009 08:53:19 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Antalya, Antalya, Turkey

Yesterday, I got up around 8, had breakfast, typed on the travelpod, and headed out to the Antalya Museum. The museum was quite impressive, considering there wasn't a single stuffed bird or dinosaur display. What they did have was an archeological record of every civilization to colonize this corner of the Mediterranean from the Paleolithic Age to around the 16th Century. I must admit, it was all substantially better than I had expected.One of the things that impresses me about archaeological museums is the artistic mastery of ancient Man. I think we have a tendency to consider people from a thousand years ago as primitive. The fact is that Man of even 5,000 years ago was probably nearly as smart as the average modern human, but simply didn't have the advantage of thousands of generations of progress and technological advances. I think most people (myself included) would have quite a lot of trouble making even simple cutting tools from stone. But even more impressive than, say, a fine bone fish hook made during the Bronze Age, was the INCREDIBLE artistry and attention to detail shown in the sculptures of Greek Gods and the sarcophogi that were on display. I still don't think it's as cool as a natural history museum or an aquarium, but I was pretty impressed, nonetheless.After I had satisfied my meager appetite for museum-going, I spent most of the rest&nbsp;of the day eating and lounging by the pebble beach at Konyaalti, where Hakan, Leyla and I had gone the day before. The water was crystal clear and cool, and I really appreciated the occasional break from my crosswording to rinse the sweat off. (The past two days it has been around 37 C, or 100 F.) And that was pretty much my day. This morning I woke up a little later and decided to go for a short run. By the time I got out at around 10am, it felt like it was about 90 degrees.&nbsp;It didn't help that on my way back I managed to run half a mile past&nbsp;a turnoff before I realized I didn't have to cross a major highway to get back to the hostel. I asked one guy how to get back to Hadrian's Gate, which is in the right area. His response was, "Huh?" As we briefly tried to communicate via sounds, pointing, and different pronounciations of the word "Hadrian," which didn't seem to be getting us anywhere, I realized I was not going to get directions from this guy. I then jogged up to a man and his son and hopefully queried, "Do you speak English?" I was happy when he replied, "Of course! What do you need?" I got directions, ran back to the hostel and drank two liters of water in an hour as I watched my breakfast get cold and the hostel proprietor asked me, "Why you run in this weather?" I had no good response to this--but I still felt accomplished.After a long cool-down period, when I could finally eat, shower, and change, I headed out to do some shopping. I went to a bazaar that they claim has been going on since the 1400s. I bet back then they weren't offering Gucci and Armani knock-off apparel--but perhaps the 15th Century equivalent. Designer frocks and coin purses.&nbsp;I think I did a pretty good job and managed not to get swindled too badly. My shining moment was haggling with a guy who spoke very little English. He quoted each of the three items I wanted individually, which would have come to 70 Turkish Lira. He apparently wasn't great at math because he typed them into a calculator and the total came to 45. He then added the forgotten item, bringing it to 60. I countered by pushing clear and typing 40. He shook his head, pushed clear, and typed 50. So I pushed clear and typed 45. He smiled and said, "OK, my friend."&nbsp;I got an extra discount by only having 44 Lira on me. So I felt pretty good about that transaction. It's amazing how you can always find a way to get by when you don't speak the language.Another great moment was when I was walking past this store window and saw a pigeon ramming its head into the glass over and over. The two ladies working the store noticed it and seemed hesitant to touch it. One managed to grab it by the tail, pulling out a handful of feathers. I bounded into the store, nodded to the shopkeeps, and grabbed the bird. I offered it to the lady nearest me, who declined, so I released the bird outside. The ladies began jabbering something in Turkish as I smiled and left the store. I wish I could've understood what they were saying. It's probably not every day they have some strange American run into their store, grab a bird, and leave just as quickly. <i>No need to thank me ladies. All in a day's work! I also just realized I am wearing my Marvel superheroes shirt. Haha!Well, this is my last day in Turkey, and I am sorry to leave, but greatly looking forward to getting back to Boulder. Wonderful English-speakers; sweet girlfriend; air conditioned house; roommates; colleagues; roommate's dog--I'm coming home! A great trip it has been, though! Catchya Stateside.Birdman Awaaaay!
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250924263/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250924263/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250924263/tpod.html Sat, 22 Aug 2009 03:59:44 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Antalya, Antalya, Turkey

Yesterday was a very productive day. We got out to the field with only a little light creeping over the horizon. I had to stop off to make a brief call home, and when I returned to the site, I was informed that we had 11 barn swallows! This was unexpected, as swallows generally fly high in the mornings and only swoop low enough during their feeding later in the day to encounter our nets. We caught 2 adult females and 9 fledglings, bringing our data set for this trip to 16 so far! This was more than I had hoped for, especially considering the number of photos and recordings we have acquired. This was an excellent bookend to a great field excursion. Unfortunately, we didn't catch any bee eaters, but I did get a fairly close look (though no photos) from Hakan's front steps.After we headed back to the house and I got showered and packed, we headed out for Antalya, where I'll be spending the rest of my trip. But first, we dropped the field assistants off in Serik to do some shopping and Hakan picked up some newspapers. On the front page of the Serik paper, which has local circulation in the greater area where we'll be studying, was a picture of me holding up a microphone. The headline said "Wilkins," followed by some random letters I didn't recognize as words. Awesome! Inside there was a half page write up about our proposed work and at the top, one of my photos appeared in print for the first time! Sure, it's an obscure local paper in Turkey, but hey, I was proud to see my work in black and white right there on the page!A funny story about the article is that when Hakan told me he had talked to the reporter, he said my name, "Matthew Reed Wilkinson." "What?!!" I replied. I could not believe that my whole life people have been adding "-son" to the end of my name--and even now in grad school my professors seem to get carried away with my name, and can't seem to stop themselves when they get to that "s". But I never dreamed that this would also apply to Turkish people. What is that?! Hakan told me it just flowed easier--there is also a prominent British maker of disposable razor blades called "Wilkinson." Darn you razor blade maker!!In any case, I got him to fix the error, and my name is spelled correctly in the article, which you can see in the photo gallery for this entry. After we picked up the paper, we continued on to Antalya, where we had coffee at Hakan's main apartment with his wife (Leyla) and an undergraduate (Ramis), both of whom are interested in joining our project next field season. After coffee, Ramis, Hakan, and I went to the University of Akdeniz to have lunch and for Hakan to give me a tour of his biology department. The Uni was very nice and oddly reminiscent of CU Boulder. Like Boulder, the school is quite large, there are close views of a nearby mountain range (the Taurus in this case) from all over campus, and also similarly, the biology department was one of the least impressive buildings we saw. This seems to be a tradition among biology departments--but that's the price you pay for doing what you love!The rest of the day was spent hanging out by the beach at Konyaalti (which was amazing--I'm hoping to go back today) and having a last dinner with Hakan at a nice seafood place. In between, we also visited a shopping mall. It was actually pretty awesome, and as today was the first day of Ramadan, the place was decked out. I took a particularly interesting photo op in front of a Starbucks, with a Happy Ramadan banner in the background. What a far shot from the humble beginnings of a small coffee shop in Seattle! For dinner, we stopped in at a place with an ocean view, where we were immediately greeted by three or four waiters and shown our table. We then got to select which fish we wanted (Hakan did the choosing, since I just wanted...fish...without any complex idea about which sort or how it should be prepared.) Fortunately, Hakan made good decisions, and I happily devoured the fish, which was sauteed and served whole on the plate. After that, we were served an awesome assortment of fresh fruits and I had what I believe is my first fresh cranberry. Strange, how cranberry is such a popular juice flavor in the States, but you never see fresh cranberries served anywhere. Kind of like a bitter, pit-filled grape. I liked it.After dinner, Hakan dropped me off at my hostel and we parted ways. I could not be more pleased with my experience here--the data we have accumulated, the friendship we have forged, and the prospects presented by our research collaboration. This has been a most successful meeting indeed, and now I have two days at my disposal to wander around the meandering streets of Antalya and get a feel for the Turkish city life! That's all for now.Cheers,Matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250755753/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250755753/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250755753/tpod.html Thu, 20 Aug 2009 05:10:22 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Antalya, Antalya, Turkey

I must say, I had almost forgotten the joy of holding a wild bird in your hand. Especially a bird you have never seen up-close before. It really is something.Last night, after struggling with some very tangled nets and slogging through another inundated field, we successfully set up four 12 meter nets alongside the riverbank at Hakan's banding station. (In my previous posting, I mistakenly said the nets would go between a fallow field and a meadow. I didn't realize there was a small river behind the tall grass! I also didn't realize the field would be flooded and kind of ruined my New Balances before Hakan told me there were another set of rubber boots. Thanks!) Anyway, we had some luck. I say some, since there were hundreds of barn swallows flying around, as you can hopefully tell from the video I posted, but of those we caught four fledglings. But, on the other hand, we caught four birds! Sweet. We hope to catch a few more this evening and I will also not try to convince Hakan (as I did last night) to band in the field just before sundown. Instead, we'll take any birds we get straight to Hakan's place to band. (This is because last night, as we were closing the nets, the mosquitos pounced en masse. I mean, without exaggeration, I was unbothered by&nbsp;mosquitos one moment, and then one minute later I had twenty trying to suck blood out of a two square inch area on my foot!) In any case, this morning was better. (Unlike some American mosquitos, the ones here seem blessedly afraid of sunlight!) We set up the nets just as the sun was peaking over the mountaintops in the distance, and then we waited for thirty minutes before going to take any birds out of the net. On the way out to the field, I told Hakan I wanted him to catch me a kingfisher, a bee eater, and maybe some barn swallows, if he could be troubled. He just laughed and said he would try. It turned out he was good for his word. After about an hour of having the nets up (we spent twenty minutes or so taking at least that many sparrows out of the net, which had all swooped in at once), we heard a familiar high-pitched twitter and saw a green bullet shoot into the net. "A kingfisher?" said Hakan, who was banding one of the sparrows. I jumped up, threw on some rubber boots and scrambled down the crumbling slope, falling hard at the edge of the swamp. I laughed and scurried on, sloshing through the muddy hummocks of grass. When I got to the bird, it was squawking noisily and then proceeded to bite me several times as I worked to free it from the net. (I was impressed by the sharpness of its beak.) As I brought it back to the banding station, I was greeted with cheers. Alright, Hakan, now for a bee eater. More on that later...
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250684035/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250684035/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250684035/tpod.html Wed, 19 Aug 2009 08:16:41 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Antalya, Antalya, Turkey

Yesterday was probably our last day of early morning recording. We got up, as usual, a little before dawn and had a cup of coffee and some fruit. After that, we headed into the Bogazkent city center to cruise around looking for barn swallows singing from perches on the power lines running parallel to the street. We didn’t have to go far, as there were quite a lot of birds in the area, and I managed to get some very clear recordings from just a few meters below the perches. It was a short recording session, though, as Hakan had to pick up two undergrad field assistants from the nearby city of Serik. The new recruits, Bircan and Kader, have come down to help for a month of banding before the fall school term begins. In the coming weeks, thousands of birds of around 50 different species will pass through Bogazkent, and Hakan heads up a ringing program that aims at banding a fraction of these birds to help gain a better understanding of migratory pathways and the life history of migratory bird species. He has been waiting for a large order of mist nets to come in from Germany in order to create a string of nets approximately 100m long at the boundary between a ten foot high fallow field and a low-cropped meadow. Even if the new nets don’t come in, we hope to set up a few that Hakan has this evening, in hopes of catching a few barn swallows to take feather and blood samples. We should be able to catch quite a few, as we saw a hundred or more in the area last night. I am also excited to see what other unfamiliar European birds we can catch!In any case, the main event yesterday was the arrival of 558 white storks to an expansive cow pasture off the road connecting Bogazkent and Karadyi. Hakan received a call from his friend Aiden, who happened to see the birds flocking by while he was at his usual "roost by the river," as Hakan likes to put it. (He was fishing.) Everyone scrambled into action like the bunch of bird nerds that we are, and we were on the road in minutes, armed with binoculars, SLRs, point-and-shoot digital pocket cameras, a videocamera, and a tripod, but for some reason, all three girls decided to wear flipflops. This turned out to be a mistake, since we were not happy with the 500+ yard distance of the flock from the roadside. We soon found ourselves slogging through a partially inundated cow pasture, trying our very best to tightrope along a few narrow, raised berms of grass that occasionally required a few hurried steps into a fetid, clingy murk covered with some delightfully aromatic water. But it was all well worth it. For our troubles, we were rewarded an amazing close look at some glossy ibises, some grey herons, a huge number of white storks, and some very good-looking cows! Speaking of cows, as I was trying to make my way back to solid pasture from the miniscule arm of land where I had managed to situate myself in my search for a closeup of the storks, I suddenly became aware that Hakan was trying to get my attention. "What?!" I yelled. "Matt. Stop! That is a male cow! That cow is a male! You should not go closer! Come back this way and cross [the swamp that presently separated us]." It was then I noticed a cow about twenty feet in front of me that was munching grass right next to the thin furrow of ground I intended to walk over. I looked at the cow. I looked closer. <i>Whoa. It was carrying two volleyballs in a rucksack! "Uhh…" I started, a bit uncertain. The bull munched on, unconcerned. "Nah, it’ll be fine," I shouted back.Hakan again appealed to my logical faculties. He could not have known, however, that I was being goaded forward by a mixture of stubbornness, curiosity, and the memory of that part in Crocodile Dundee where Paul Hogan puts a water buffalo to sleep by humming and moving his hand in front of its eyes. I stepped forward, slowly. The bull munched. <i>No problem. I took a few more steps, putting me about 12 feet from the huge-testicled beast before me. It looked up abruptly. Our eyes connected. It was then I noticed the horns. <i>It’s got horns! I thought. <i>Of, course it’s got horns, said my brain, <i>it’s a cow! Then my brain said, <i>Crap! I don’t want to jump in that swamp and have to run through that muck away from a charging bull. Wait, it’ll be fine. Just stand tall, look confident, but not threatening. What have your years of watching Paul Hogan, Steve Irwin, and the Beastmaster movies taught you?...Hmm, no animal is too dangerous to be messed with…and…if you get inside the animal’s head, show it who’s boss, and then whistle the Beastmaster’s song, it will become your servant and steal keys from the sleeping jailer to let you out if you ever get caught by your enemies. Unfortunately, I could not remember the Beastmaster’s song, so I just started whistling. The bull kept looking, so I changed up the tune and took a ginger step forward. The bull kept looking and I kept looking at those black horns of his. As I kept whistling, I think I may have stumbled on some kind of Beastmaster command whistle because at that point the bull went back to eating for a few seconds and then slowly walked away. It was either the Beastmaster command whistle…or I had successfully weirded out a cow. In either case, I was not charged by a bull and I did not have to pull my best Jamaican sprinter impression through a nasty quagmire. So, needless to say, I learned my lesson. That is, if you ever find yourself in a potentially dangerous situation with an animal, just emulate what you have&nbsp;seen on TV and the movies.In comparison, today has been fairly mundane. I went for a run early this morning, and saw an owl sitting on Hakan’s neighbor’s porch on my way back. I went in to tell him about it, and he asked what kind of owl it was. "I don’t know," I responded, "just some little owl." (When we looked up the common name in an English bird book, it turned out to be "the little owl". Well done, bird-naming guy.) So that was cool. And we will set up a few nets this evening and see what birds we can catch. That’s all for now.Cheerio,Matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250507742/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250507742/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250507742/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 08:12:23 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Antalya, Antalya, Turkey

After returning from the internet cafe yesterday, I began to look over some of the sound library I'm building up and started to see some promising things. From some very cursory observations it seems like some of the darker birds I recorded in the village of Karadyi have some distinctive differences in their song, compared to the birds in Bogazkent, which tend to be lighter in color. This could mean we're looking at the territories of two different subspecies. It is all very subjective, but a bit exciting nonetheless.&nbsp; (Hakan and I high-fived over it in any case.)But after toiling away with sound files on my small laptop screen and dealing with some infuriating issues with power conversion which seems to have left my laptop battery incapable of holding a charge, I felt like I had earned a short siesta. The hour nap I had planned turned into five, though, as I had only slept four hours the night before and I have not completely adjusted to the 9 hour time difference. (I am determined not to take a nap today, so I can go to sleep at a decent hour and get up at dawn one more time.) Anyway, when I awoke from hibernation, a little bleary eyed and probably making some bear-like grunts, I sauntered out of my den, where Nilay informed me Hakan had gone to pick up his friend Aiden and some fish he had caught for dinner. Mmmm...fiiish...I was once again engrossed in birdsong when Hakan and Aiden came in, and I stayed that way til the food was ready, since Aiden didn't speak English and I certainly couldn't contribute to the lively Turkish discussion that was going on across the room. But every once in a while, as the sweet smell of fish frying drifted my way, I noticed Aiden casting a curious glance at the scruffy man in the corner playing one bird song after another and then nodding his head like someone listening to the news...As it turned out, the fish Aiden had caught in the river, small herring-like fish, taste almost exactly like the bream I used to eat back in Alabama. I tried to explain the necessity of hush puppies to Hakan, but I don't think he will really understand until he has one for himself. After dinner, we had a couple bottles of a Turkish pilsner, Efes, and watched Usain Bolt set a world record in the 100m. Then I slept three more hours and once again had to wake up Hakan and Nilay to go chase birds.-------This morning it was very foggy as we headed&nbsp;back to Karadyi. The idea was to try to cover a bit more territory and get a few more samples of swallow song, especially from any of the darker individuals we could find. We had a little luck, but then, as we head back toward Bogazkent, it started to get windy, making recording impossible. So we decided to go have tea at the "Melek" restaurant that I had noticed on the road connecting Antalya and Bogazkent. The restaurant is apparently owned by a famous actor in Turkish movies, who Hakan knows personally. We went and walked around the place--which is an absolutely bizarre collection of animal pens, little houses, and random structures, all set on a sprawling property set back from the road and overlooking the Koprulu river. We had tea (which we weren't charged for--apparently Hakan is the&nbsp;resident celebrity-biologist) in a treehouse sticking out over the river. It was pretty cool, and I think we may go back for a real meal before I leave. So far all my meals have been prepared by either Nilay or Hakan, and I think it will be nice for us to all go out for a nice dinner, on the EBIO Department, of course. The rest of the day has been spent talking with Hakan about the details of our project and thinking about the future. I am extremely excited about the potential of our work and I think this collaboration could result in some great science. This is not to mention what a great place this is to work in. I have also been very pleased to find how misplaced my worries were about people reacting to the gun-like appearance of my "shotgun" microphone. People have been very helpful or at the very least apathetic to my presence in their streets and around their property recording birds and taking photos. I also think we will have quite enough birds to study and two willing and able field assistants to help us next year. I really couldn't have hoped for more!I think that's all for now. Tomorrow two more undergrads are coming and Hakan will be switching back into his bird banding program-mode. I will help him out for a few days before I leave, which means that hopefully I'll get to band and photo a bunch of cool Turkish birds up-close. Stay tuned for that! Til next time.Cheers,Matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250415429/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250415429/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/3/1250415429/tpod.html Mon, 17 Aug 2009 07:11:01 -0400 A Glimpse of Asia Minor

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Antalya, Antalya, Turkey

Merhaba,It's hard to believe this is my fourth day in Turkey! I woke up this morning, as I have already grown quite accustomed, in a small room in a two bedroom apartment in the town of Bogazkent just before the sun dawned over the Turkish horizon. After washing my face and putting contacts in, I heated up some water for instant coffee and waited for Hakan and his undergraduate helper to wake up. After about ten minutes, as pale blue light began to come through the living room window, I decided to go nudge Hakan in the temple. He woke up suddenly as I gingerly poked him in the head with a finger, "What time is it?!" "Not quite six," I replied. After a breakfast of cold watermelon and Nescafe accompanied by Andrew Bird playing through my laptop, (Hakan agrees with my taste in music) we headed to the center of town where we got a few barn swallow song recordings yesterday. Unfortunately the birds weren't there, so we went to another site where we saw a dozen or more birds yesterday. No dice. Instead of barn swallows, we found a lazy dog that merely yawned as we pulled into the driveway a few feet from his tail. The morning was not going well.Then, as we decided to do a loop and head back into town, we came upon the group of birds we'd recorded before, sitting on the same wire across from a three story apartment. Since I'd already recorded these birds, I decided to do an informal experiment. I set a speaker on a brick wall, and plugged my MP3 player into it. I then played the song of two birds song-dueling, which I had recorded earlier this summer back in Colorado.&nbsp; I then played an individual Colorado barn swallow song. No response from the birds. Then I played a recording of two territorial males countersinging during the heat of the breeding season in June. This got all the fledglings plunging off the wire to fly all around the speaker. Something about this particular playback incited them. After waiting a few minutes, I played the songs I had recorded yesterday of these very same birds. They did not respond. Again, I went through the sequence, and it seemed that they only responded to the one playback from Colorado...I'm still not sure why...and it's interesting that they did respond to the birdsong from the US, but not to their own song. There are a lot of possible explanations, but I thought it was an interesting exercise, in any case.After the little experiment, we toured through town some more, grabbing some pretty clear recordings (much better than yesterday's--I'm uploading a particularly noisy one with a rooster crowing and an old man talking, and then a truck drove by soon after that.) Then we headed to&nbsp;the nearby town of Karadyi. I have been a little worried about the sample size of our little barn swallow study for a while, but after seeing Karadyi, no more.&nbsp; Even this late in the breeding season--I wasn't even sure we would see, let alone be able to record any swallows--we probably saw around 300 birds today. This means that during the breeding season (many of the birds have already started the journey south), there will be a lot more, and plenty for our project.What is yet to be seen is whether the birds we are looking at and recording are (as we are hoping) two different subspecies. As you can see in some of my pictures, there is a pretty big range of color, from pale white to the darker brown that we see in some of our North American barn swallows. We'll have to see through genetic, song, and perhaps isotopic&nbsp;analysis whether these represent the lighter rustica and darker transitiva subspecies...But enough science talk. What's it like in Turkey?!&nbsp;Well, it's pretty awesome. I have to say, first off, that the Turkish language is CRAZY. Just looking at the keyboard in front of me, I count 6 strange unpronounceable letters, which is not to even mention the crazy ways they fit into impossible, unpronounceable words. And it's hot here. Like Alabama July hot, with the humidity that goes with it. Also, the hospitality and friendliness that goes with the south, and yes, the cows and cicadas, but no sweet tea. Instead, and I still don't get this...hot tea. Nothin' like it for a 100 degree, 80% humidity workaday sweat. MMmmm. So, anyhow, after about 19hours of travel from Boulder, Colorado to Antalya, Turkey, I was picked up on Friday by my new buddy Hakan and brought hear to Bogazkent, where we've spent the last few days chasing barn swallows and trying to photo them and spy on their conversations to each other with a directional microphone. We also have been dragging along Nilay, who is an undergraduate interested in working on our barn swallow study next year. My first day was spent sleeping til 12:30 (out of character for me, right?) and then going to a series of shops for supplies. (We went to the bazaar, the mirror maker, the hardware shop for silicone caulk to attach the mirror in the bathroom, the grocery store, the bakery, and the corner store on the way home for a jug of water.) Yeah, I got a whirlwind tour of Turkish shopping. And over the past few days I've gotten a whirlwind tour of Turkish Idol, Turkish Fear Factor, and for some reason Lake Placid 2 and Sylvester and Tweetie with Turkish dubs. I also woke up yesterday morning whistling a song absently, and&nbsp;was very impressed when Hakan asked if I liked the Smurfs. (I didn't realize that's what I was whistling, nor did I expect it to be a popular show in Turkey...and even more puzzling is WHY I was whistling the smurf opener...) Anyway, I apologize for the stream-of-consciousness narrative, but I have not had a dependable enough connection for the past few days and my time here is already mixing together. Suffice it to say that I am having a great time, my hosts have been generous and awesome, the food has been good, the research prospects are looking excellent, but no, my Turkish is not prospering, and hopefully I will be able to post more frequently, or at least more linearly in the near future. For now, I hope you are all doing well and look forward to catching up stateside.Cheerio,Matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1197473580/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1197473580/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1197473580/tpod.html Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:03:22 -0500 Of Birds and Surf Down Under: studying the Satin Bowerbird and traveling around Australia

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Brisbane, Australia

So the past eight days were spent chillaxing in St. Kilda.&nbsp; Some days I went into town to see some attractions: the Australian Center for the Moving Image, The Immigration Museum, various souvenir shops, or to meet up (briefly) with Jenn, Steph, Linda, and Brendan.&nbsp; The rest of the time I was either reading and doing Sudoku at the beach with some new international friends, going for a run, walking around taking photos, sketching in the park, or waiting for penguins to emerge from the rocks at the end of St. Kilda Pier.&nbsp; All-in-all it was a pretty fulfilling end to my trip.&nbsp; I even had time to fit in a couple yoga sessions, which is something I'd been wanting to try for a few years now. An American girl I met (there were only three Americans among hundreds at the hostel) told me she had been going to a yoga place nearby and I agreed to go one morning.&nbsp; It was bikrum yoga, which means they basically lock you in a room for 90 minutes, turn up the heat to over a hundred degrees Fahrenheit and proceed to demand that you mimic a series of increasingly absurd and painful postures and hold them.&nbsp; The result, besides a massive sweat pool on your yoga mat and the feeling you've been runover by a herd of camels and left to die in the Serengheti, is unbelievable muscular soreness for about a week.&nbsp; Anyway, I highly recommend it!&nbsp; So, though I met a great number of interesting and hilarious characters from all over the globe during my stay at X Base Backpackers, I have to say I was ready to leave it this morning when I took a cab to the bus depot at five this morning.&nbsp; Staying in a hostel that long really allows you to get a feel for the neighborhood and to get to know a few of the other residents pretty well and hear their stories, etc., that you really can't do if you're switching hostels every other day.&nbsp; So that was cool.&nbsp; On the other hand, if you stay long enough, there's always a new crowd coming in and going out, and eventually you find you don't know anybody anymore (what I came to realize last night.)&nbsp; So instead of trying to meet the new group on my ultimate day in Melbourne, I walked around downtown for a bit, came back, made dinner, and then sat out at the pier for a few hours as it got dark.&nbsp; I watched the orange sun fade into gray and charcoal as dusk settled in and the shower of the surf was blown over the rock jetty to the leeward side, where a growing number of people gathered, squinting for the first stirrings of the penguins.&nbsp; I did manage to see a couple baby penguins waddle out onto the dock, before they got scared by some careless photographer hawking for a good shot.&nbsp; I also saw a few native water rats, which look like miature otters with a white tip on their tail.&nbsp; They're pretty entertaining, and just like otters, scamper along the shore and then plunge in again to serpent about expertly through the water, foraging for tiny crustaceans and fish.Anyway, what with the four alarms I set, I managed to get myself, and a couple bunkmates up at a quarter of five this morning, in time to get my taxi, bus, and plane to Brisbane, where I am now typing this on the Duggan's computer amidst the sound of rain that has just begun to patter on the roof over head.&nbsp; It is muggy and warm and it really makes me eager to spend Christmas in the Northern Hemisphere, where the only reason to be sweaty is if you're standing too close to the fire.&nbsp; So tomorrow I leave early in the morning, once again, to fly to Sydney, then Los Angeles, then Atlanta, and then finally home, where I will arrive at 6:15pm, on the same day I left, though something like 30 hours will have elapsed.&nbsp; Now that's a long day.&nbsp; Nonetheless, despite the Duggan's great hospitality in putting me up another night and transporting me from the airport, I am looking forward to being home after a 13 week adventure that has shown me a great part of the human, environmental, and ecological diversity this great country has to offer.&nbsp; It seems like I have been gone for at least twice as long as I really have, and though I will miss the people and places I have visited, I am sure to venture down to the southern continent at some point in the future.&nbsp; But for now, it's back home to North America, to&nbsp;that cold, welcome winter weather.&nbsp; See you there!Matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1196726400/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1196726400/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1196726400/tpod.html Mon, 03 Dec 2007 03:34:12 -0500 Of Birds and Surf Down Under: studying the Satin Bowerbird and traveling around Australia

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Melbourne, Australia

Saturday it was sunny as we drove along the winding saddlebacks and twisting roads of the Yarra Valley, visiting a number of vineyards, sampling a few choice wines, and thoroughly enjoying the scenery.&nbsp; That night Jane and Ian departed on the last flight out of Melbourne to spend a few more days in Brisbane before finally moving back to the States.&nbsp; And so, Sunday morning I got up, gathered my things, and said goodbye to the Cooks.&nbsp; Jaimie dropped me off at the train station and I made my way to St. Kilda, to the southeast of downtown Melbourne.&nbsp; The area is vibrant with college kids and post-graduate nomads such as myself carousing about the heavily-tracked thoroughfares and many shops and cafes, and blanketing the white harbor sands a few blocks from my hostel.&nbsp; The Base Hostel where I am staying is a step up from the usual spare wooden bunks and crowded hall shower scenario I was used to in Europe.&nbsp; The place has its own bar, a large kitchen and common room, clean rooms with provided linens and an ensuite bath, a slieu of quick and dependable computers with internet access, and even a small travel agency service specifically for indigents and slackers (like me.)&nbsp; Anyway, I think it's fair to describe it more succinctly like this: awesome.So I've been spending my time since my arrival at midday yesterday getting to know the area.&nbsp; I walked over to&nbsp;the beach, to the St. Kilda botanical gardens and watched the Sunday picnickers chasing ducks and grilling out.&nbsp; I even walked down to the pier with some other backpackers in hopes of glimpsing an allegedly small (possibly microscopically so) population of Australia's endemic 'little penguin.'&nbsp; Well, none appeared.&nbsp; But we did see a kayaker get hooked by a fisherman--so that was pretty well worth the walk.&nbsp; Today I got up late.&nbsp; It was raining and most of my roommates were departing.&nbsp; I sluggishly got out of bed and showered.&nbsp; The remaining roommate (a Londoner who has been staying here for two weeks and says he "hates London" and "won't go back for at least six months!") took full advantage of his current residence in one&nbsp;of Earth's&nbsp;farthest cities from England's capital by rolling over and going back to sleep.&nbsp; Though this seemed the thing to do on such an gray, overcast sort of day, I was not disappointed by what I saw once I left the hostel and headed into the city.&nbsp; I did some meandering walks along the river and through some of the parks, and made it back to the Melbourne Museum where Jane, Ian and I had seen Beowulf a few days ago.&nbsp; Then we had not had the time to see most of the museum, but today, with a full three hours before closing at my disposal, I went about exploring the extreme variety and outstanding quality of the exhibitions, ranging from natural history to aboriginal history and artwork to human anatomy and the history of neurology and mental illness to the myriad of bugs native to Australia, all of it displayed with an eye for creativity, visual appeal, and informative detail.&nbsp; I was VERY impressed and would rank it with the top museums I have visited in my lifetime.&nbsp; Of note were the complete blue whale skeleton in the entry, a great exhibit about human perception and emotions- there were these glass domes like the cone of silence in Get Smart where you were shown a series of reels that evoked different emotions in succession- and the aboriginal art of Lin Onus.&nbsp; Onus was a self-taught artist with an incredible talent for evocative color and imagery, and he also used his art to help reshape people's conceptions about the native people of Australia.&nbsp;And that was pretty much it.&nbsp; They kicked me out of the museum before I could really delve into some of the natural history exhibits.&nbsp; The true bionerd in me wanted to hide in the walking stick display and wait till everybody had gone.&nbsp; Unfortunately I'm not as well camouflaged as they are and despite my efforts to stand still and act like a stick I was spotted and told never to come back again.&nbsp; Oh well...&nbsp; I haven't decided what I'll do tomorrow, but I'm sure it'll be something riveting and exciting like...walking around downtown and going to a museum.&nbsp; We'll see.&nbsp; I may be motivated to rent (or hire, as they say here) a bike.&nbsp; Anyway, hope all is well.&nbsp; Ciao for now.matt
]]> http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1196527200/tpod.html http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1196527200/tpod.html#comments Travel Blogs http://www.travelpod.com/travel-blog-entries/mattador/aussie07-08/1196527200/tpod.html Fri, 30 Nov 2007 20:33:05 -0500 Of Birds and Surf Down Under: studying the Satin Bowerbird and traveling around Australia

Jump to the full
entry & travel map

Melbourne, Australia

Jane, Ian and I made it into Avalon Airport in Melbourne just after 9am Thursday morning, finding it cool and cloudy in the flat expanse of empty farmlands surrounding the landing strip.&nbsp; The value airline Jetstar, a subsidiary of Qantas, operates out of this mainly shipping and repair-oriented terminal.&nbsp; It's a long way from the city, and it was a good thing that Jane and Neil's friend Jaimie Cook could take off work to come pick us up.&nbsp; After collecting our bags, Jaimie took us into the city center and dropped us off at Federation Square--a bustling square thick with cafes and modern architecture of somewhat disputed taste, amongst a train station and other older buildings of neoclassical design.&nbsp; The pedestrian activity and contrast of architectural styles was reminiscent in some ways to Prague's old square--and although it is said people either hate or love the square, I found it quite appealing and pleasant.&nbsp; At a very helpful information center nearby we got some maps and, since we felt it was time for an early lunch, directions to a nearby Indian restaurant, which turned out to be a fully satisfying choice on our part, despite the querulous look of the info clerk--"You want Indian food at 10 in the morning?"&nbsp; Yes, we did.&nbsp; (Some of you might have guessed correctly this was my suggestion.)After gorging on some curry chicken, we hopped on the free tourist tram that runs around the central business district and made it to the old gaol (jail)-turned-museum where Ned Kelly, the famous Australian bandit, was incarcerated, along with his mother, and eventually hanged.&nbsp; It was a pretty informative stop, and many of the cells had plaster "death masks" of the inmates, and descriptions of their crimes on the wall of the disturbingly cramped cells.&nbsp; In one case a three year old had been thrown in jail for six months for disorderly conduct.&nbsp; Two brothers, ages four and seven, served twelve months for vagrancy.&nbsp; That'll teach 'em to be homeless!&nbsp; As we had no formalized plans for the day, we got back on the tram and watched the parks and European-styled buildings roll past.&nbsp; When the recorded tour guide got around to mentioning the IMAX theater, we decided, what the heck, and disembarked.&nbsp; When we got up to the theater, attached to the impressive modern steel and glass building of the Melbourne Museum, Ian had already spotted the Beowulf poster.&nbsp; Yes, Ian has been dying to see the new Zemeckis blockbuster since it came out in the US a few weeks ago, and when he noticed that we could watch it IN IMAX, IN 3D, well, needless to say, he was excited!&nbsp; I'll admit I was pretty enthusiastic myself, and was not disappointed.&nbsp; It's really well done, and with the 3D effects, there are several intense points where you have a spearhead thrust in your face or a dragon's face inches from your nose.&nbsp; Not to mention, Angelina Jolie's computer rendered, but realistic figure right there in front of you.&nbsp; Whew.&nbsp; Anyway, after that, we finished our circuit on the tram, I found a barber and got my ears lowered, and then we met back up with Jaimie, who took us out to his house in Eltham, a suburb north of the city.&nbsp; The Cooks have a nice house, two boys, named Jimmy and Anthony, and we were once again treated hospitably by our hosts Jaime and Annie, wined and dined and treated with stories of the intervening seven years since Jane had met up with them.Yesterday, Friday, Annie had off work and took us via train into town, to act as our tour guide.&nbsp; She took us into "The Alleys," an area of winding pedestrian alleyways near the Federation Square, populated with picturesque cafes, international food vendors, and shops.&nbsp; We walked around for a few hours, did some souvenir shopping, and made it to the Melbourne Art Museum.&nbsp; Here, Jane and Annie beelined for the Impressionist exhibition, while Ian and I meandered through the classical Italian painters and were followed warily by a museum custodian in each new room.&nbsp; A good thing to--I probably would have wiped my hands on all the pieces if they hadn't been there.&nbsp; Maybe some chewing gum on an old frame.&nbsp; Who knows with Americans!After a bit more walking around--been doing a lot of that--we had a beer and some hors d'oeuvres at an outdoor cafe, where we noted the surprising heat of the fading sun at 6 in the evening, and the ubiquity of the now familiar Australian fly.&nbsp; Annie claims they are not usually common in Melbourne, but I had long since grown accustomed to the bush salute of flailing hands, squinting eyes, and sputtering mouth at wallaby creek.&nbsp; They are an all-too-familiar nuisance that I thought I had escaped.&nbsp; Anyway, after a slightly dampened aperitif we met up with Jaimie and did a tour of Brighton Beach, with the famous colorful storage houses lining the sand.&nbsp; Apparently these little huts cost many thousands of dollars and are highly coveted.&nbsp; The costs of convenience.Jamie next drove us into the St. Kilda area where I'll be staying in a hostel near the beach, starting tomorrow and we had a nice fish and chips dinner at a takeout seafood place.&nbsp; Today we are going to do a tour of the coast--maybe stopping in at a vineyard or two--we haven't quite decided what we'll do.&nbsp; What is for certain is that Jane and Ian will depart for Brisbane on the redeye flight tonight.&nbsp; They leave to go back to the states in four days.&nbsp; It's hard to believe that the Australian adventure is almost over.&nbsp; For myself, I haven't yet decided when I'll head back, but probably within the next two weeks.&nbsp; Well, we're about to head out.&nbsp; Ciao for now.matt
]]>