Life as an applied biologist: office and insects

Coming weeks, I’ll mainly use to write my research plan, so it will be a bit boring. During these weeks I’ll spend most time in the office, where there is at least AC. Btw don’t expect too much by “the office” (I had to laugh a bit when I saw this for the first time, it’s kinda cute how they call it that way) it’s literally 1 room with 3 desks. Most of the day I’ll be there alone since all the people are going to the field or work at the farm. “All the people” is also kinda funny tho, there are like 6 people working in the field and maybe 10 people working at the farm.

During my time here, I’ll also go to the fields trying to find new Harpy Eagle nests. Harpy Eagles make their nests in tall trees, usually they use the Brazil-nut tree those are often a bit taller than the surrounding trees. With the drone I hope to find these trees and be able to see if there are nests. I will need to fly quite large distances with the drone and the drone won’t be in my sight anymore. Let’s just hope no birds (a Harpy Eagle perhaps...) will attack the drone.

Oh, and for the sadists among us I’ll also tell you about all the biting insects. First the good news, there are no mosquitoes, I haven’t seen a single one. But they have something better here, they are called sandflies and apparently they all want to try some Dutch blood. So, as you can guess I’m full of bites of those little ***. And all the bites itch, it’s like one starts and tells all the others to itch as well. I try to ignore it but, there are so many! But when I scratch it all gets worse and it ends with my arm on fire and me trying to cool it under the water. I would go to the store and try something for itching, but the nearest town is far and so small that they probably don’t have anything. So just keep on scratching is the motto of this week.

For the rest, I'm good ;)