http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/ Earthwatch - Mark McTier's North Queensland Rainforest Expedition Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:25:00 PDT http://www.blogdrive.com Copyright 2005. http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/10.html Mon, 31 May 2004 11:47:11 GMT Day 8 Good Morning! Today's weather has taken a bit of a turn, for the good. Over the last day or two it has been pretty cold and miserable (nothing compared to Melbourne!). But by the end of the afternoon the rain had cleared and sun managed to peek through the clouds. Scientist in Depth - Matt Bradford (The Plant Man!) Today I wandered through the forest with Matt doing a seed count. As I pointed to trees and fruit he reeled of the common and scientific names of dozens of species of tree, since it is second nature to him. Hence the name we gave him, “The... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/9.html Sun, 30 May 2004 11:50:32 GMT Day 7 - Biology students: see important note at the end of today's entry. Friday was spent doing a tree watch. We looked at two different trees, for three hours each. Unfortunately, the fruiting season is almost finished for many plants and so the birds are not as active or have flown elsewhere in search of food. But, some of the highlights were the animal spotting. I saw a pademelon (small mammal, like a kangaroo, just!), a red-bellied black snake, and Qigang saw a wolf! (Which of course ended up being a dingo, not a wolf! - there's not many wolves up here on the... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/8.html Thu, 27 May 2004 12:56:03 GMT Day 6 Mission: Improbable! Your mission (whether you choose to accept it!): To use telemetry to find the exact location of Lewin’s Honeyeater for every minute of the day in a patch of tropical rainforest. Your chance of success: Improbable Your briefing : Lewin’s Honeyeater is a small bird, 10cm in size, and blends in extremely well in its natural environment, the rainforest. You must find one specific example of the bird (given the id no. #105210) and track its every move, from 11am until 6pm. Your attempts: to... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/7.html Wed, 26 May 2004 10:04:59 GMT Day 5 - Tree Watching After a well needed sleep in (8am) I got up to do some domestic chores (washing clothes and me!) and then met at the lab, as we do each morning, to pack the cars and drive off into the wilderness. It was a very dewy morning, but lucky for us it was a late start (10am). Today I worked with Chiang (China) and Catherine (USA) and Graham (the fella who has a beautiful house amongst the trees, you'll hear more later). This was my view for about 6 hours of today! Let me explain... This is called a Focal Tree Watch. ... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/6.html Tue, 25 May 2004 07:14:24 GMT Another 5am start! Even the sun isn't up, but the birds are! And so I spent all day radiotracking a bird with a group of Earthwatch volunteers and CSIRO scientists. I wandered around for about 7 hours tracking a Barred Cuckoo Shrike. Unfortunately, it was too far away from my station for about 2 hours, so I had to fill in time. I came across some unusual things... This is a very cool Boyd's Forest Dragon, I found near Lake Eacham. Queensland's Rainforest is teeming with life, sometimes you just need to look hard. Today was a hot... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/5.html Mon, 24 May 2004 11:53:00 GMT DAY 3 - Bird Tracking & Tree Watching G’day! Well, we had our first ‘real’ work day today. Although we finished at around 1:30pm this afternoon, we certainly did not slack off! We were up at 5am (yes students & Lauren, such a time does exist!) and had had brekky, packed our bags, the 4-wheel drives and were on the road by 6am. Today's Funny fact: There are turtles in some of the crater lakes up here that breathe through their bottom! Seriously!! We spent the wee hours of the morning looking for a bird (it had a radio collar on for... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/4.html Sun, 23 May 2004 08:47:04 GMT DAY 2 Today was an incredible introduction to Queensland's tropical rainforests! In the morning we were given a talk by the ecology 'guru', Andrew Dennis, who has an incredible knowledge of the area's plants and animals. He gave 2 talks; an overview of the Queensland area and then details of our project, separated by a much needed coffee! It was incredibly informative and interesting. Year 11 students - if you think I squeeze a lot into one lesson, you should try one of Andrew's talks! In the afternoon we went out into the field (the rainforest) to learn more about the... (more) http://earthwatch.blogdrive.com/archive/1.html Sat, 22 May 2004 10:30:36 GMT DAY 1 What a huge couple of days it's been! On Friday night I flew from Melbourne to Cairns, arriving just before 1am early on Saturday morning. As soon as we got off the plane we could feel the heat and humidity of the tropical north (although not as bad as it is in the wet season). I'm travelling with Cathy a fun, environmental, tree-huggin’ hippy! (according to her). If you want to check out her description of me then see her website from the Teachlive website. She teaches at Princes Hill SC in Nth Carlton. After meeting up with the other Earthwatch volunteers (10 of... (more)