The day to day at Base Cero

Originally this post was going to have more photos but I forgot that all of my photos are on my external harddrive and not on this computer. I'll come back later and add photos, but for now enjoy the text :)

3:50 – wake up in my bed that is covered with a mosquito net. (While mosquitoes aren’t all THAT bad (unless you’re standing outside at dusk), ickier things like spiders and scorpions could crawl on us at night, so we use the mosquito nets to keep them away.) Get dressed in the dark because I’m one of the only ones awake this early. Put a pot of water on to boil for tea. Eat a bowl of cereal. Get my field gear ready and outside, ready to get in the car at 4:30.


4:40 – Once in the park, find the area of the study site I’m looking for on that particular day. (Because of the rains, we can’t drive on the dirt roads, and therefore use a complex systems of trails that WE cut to get to the areas we need to be in.) Put my recording gear together and get myself positioned near the nest of the bird I’m intending to record.

5:00-6:30 – Record the focal bird for an hour, while he sings his dawn chorus (dawn is when most birds, including my study species – the rufous-and-white wren – sing the most, and the reason I wake up so early is to get set up in time to record the dawn chorus).

6:30-11:00 – Go from territory to territory, trying to figure out the breeding stage of each pair of birds. Are they nest-building? Is the female incubating her eggs yet? Are they feeding nestlings?



11:20 – Get back to Base Cero (the field house), dump my field gear, charge my batteries, have a (nearly unbearably cold) shower and eat lunch (tomato and cheese sandwich, hummus, or leftovers).

1:00-5:00 – “Free Time” I usually spend a couple of hours logging (similar to transcribing) my recording of the morning – this will help me in the future when I try to extrapolate data from these recordings. I also read, write emails, chat, do laundry (we handwash all of our laundry here, and it doesn’t dry right now – not with all the rain!), exercise (we have a chin-up bar here, so I attempt/do chin ups, and pushups, mainly) etc.

[Now... I HAD a shot of me doing a chin up, but I think I have it on my external harddrive instead of this computer. Le sigh]

5:00 – Dinner prep time. Every 6 (or 7) day cycle, each person much be a chef once, an assistant chef once, and a dish-doer once. Sometimes on the 7th day we go into town and have Pizza Pronto (overly simple but delicious pizza served with the spiciest hot sauce I can handle). It’s been an adventure cooking for 6 people, but it’s pretty decent. I’ve cooked a bean tortilla bake with rice and veggies, fajitas with rice and beans, pasta with tomato cream sauce, pizza pasta, chili and... that’s it so fa. rTonight I'm making curry.

6:00ish – Dinner time.

7:00ish – Free time. This is when I spend most of my time writing emails and blogs. Sometimes I read a bit of fiction to help me wind down.

8:00 – Bedtime. I had no problem getting used to going to bed at 8pm.