Monday Schedule

1.      Andrew East; avian ecology graduate student Univ. of Southern Main gave us our schedule for the day:

845am briefing on loons and how to capture loons at night from a boat.

930am Darwin Long, IV Loon researcher sharing wintering ecology from California and what we might learn from the Delta which nothing is known

12 noon Lunch

afternoon: prep equipment; insect repellent;  wet gear; wind chill clothing; head lamp; dip nets; blood sampling equipment (for sending to Tulane for search for hydrocarbons from the oil spill or not)

5pm dinner (last night we ate the catch of red fish, crawfish, gumbo, rice, salad, wine) Biology is rough.

615pm boat leaves

6:30-1:00am  seeking rafts of birds or individuals for observation and capture and release.

The wintering of loons is 7.5 months long in the Delta but all of the studies of loons (divers) have been in their nesting (4.5 months) areas of Canada and Northern U.S.