Rubber boots
I will say goodbye to my rubber boots, Bought for $30 from Canadian Tire in 2022 Now spattered with specks of red, blue, yellow, green...
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Aug 134 min read
Saltfish and ackee
In the last five days of field work, we hit numerous firsts. Up on the north coast, near Annotto Bay if you’re following along, we were...
Aug 91 min read
Fireflies
Dusk falls Light dims Hazy purple glow behind the trees. First a squint as the shadows lengthen, Inky wells of blackness pooling and...
Aug 62 min read
No plots at 800m
From the dry forests outside of Kingston, we wound our way up into the Blue Mountains, famous for its coffee and steep sided hills. We...
Jul 233 min read
The soundscapes of field work
For the past two years in Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, the language and rhythms of the music we heard have been Spanish...
Jul 173 min read
Marshall's Pen
In the week that followed Hurricane Beryl, we had been intending on camping in some high elevation forests neat St. Catherines Peak....
Jul 33 min read
There be giants
Oh field work, how you delight me and try my patience. Our first week in Jamaica can only be described as chaotic. The first ten days...
Jun 213 min read
Welcome to Jamaica
I’m now wrapping up my fifth year as a PhD student at the University of Toronto and am conducting my third summer of co-leading...
Aug 9, 20231 min read
Mangrove bioluminescence
Inky black as sun slips behind mogote Stars above, But hazy and indistinct without glasses. Dishes in lagoon prompt sparkle of shooting...
Aug 1, 20232 min read
Privilege in science and field work
I come to science with privilege. To name a few aspects, I am the child of scientists and university professors, which helped me have an...
Jul 26, 20232 min read
Diversity and tree climbing
Across elevation gradients, abundance of anoles decreases from low to high elevations. Species richness also follows distinct patterns...
Jul 22, 20232 min read
ZAPT05, night survey
The mark-resight aspects of this project involve hours of solo searching for lizards in a forest, both during the day and night. This was...
Jul 17, 20232 min read
True zeros at Zapoten
On top of a mountain, I surveyed a site for three days in which I saw zero lizards. After 6 hours of no lizards, my brain goes through...
Jul 12, 20232 min read
Green ones
One of the main goals of the work we are doing this summer is to estimate the abundances of the various anole that are present at each...
Jul 5, 20234 min read
Cloud forests and organized chaos
Hola y bienvenidos a la Republica Dominicana. Voy a estar en este país por casi dos meses para trabajar con las lagartijas para mi...
Mar 16, 20232 min read
Anoles & Jurassic Park
After finally finishing the Jurassic Park original trilogy, I must modify my belief that working with Anoles is akin to working with...
Mar 11, 20233 min read
Coffee, coffee, everywhere
The first five sites we’ve been to on this trip were “successful” from our scientific perspective. We caught a decent number of...
Mar 7, 20233 min read
High elevation pine forests and drought
From our sites in Cachote, we wended our way inland and north to Puerto Escondido. In this region (near Lago Enriquillo if you’re looking...
Feb 28, 20233 min read
Fire and cloud forests in Cachote
The third region we explored this trip is the Cachote, in the Sierra de Bahoruco National Park. This part of the southern Dominican...
Feb 23, 20233 min read
Jaragua and Las Abejas
Phew. One week of field work in the Dominican Republic and it feels like I’ve been here much longer. This is partially due to the intense...
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