{"id":2289,"date":"2018-09-22T14:45:11","date_gmt":"2018-09-22T14:45:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/?p=2289"},"modified":"2018-09-22T21:22:15","modified_gmt":"2018-09-22T21:22:15","slug":"surprises-field-work-falklands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/gemmlab\/2018\/09\/22\/surprises-field-work-falklands\/","title":{"rendered":"Surprises from the field: Winter in the Falkland Islands"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Rachael Orben, Assistant Professor, Seabird Oceanography Lab<\/a><\/h4>\n

Fieldwork often comes with the unexpected. It is the reason why field work is so exciting \u2013 not only discovering something new about a species and ecosystem, but it is also often the catalyst for the development of novel ideas and projects. However, designing a successful field campaign to a new location (and acquiring funding) requires preconceived expectations that are not too far off from reality. Working with colonial breeding seabirds and pinnipeds has its advantages since these animals are predictably found at their colonies during the breeding period.\u00a0 However, breeding failures can be worse than expected (see my blog on red-legged kittiwakes<\/a>) and as I just learned, sometimes almost everything can be surprising.<\/p>\n

At the end of August, I returned from a 6-week winter field campaign on Bird Island<\/a> in the Falkland Islands led by Dr. Alastair Baylis<\/a> a Senior Research Fellow at the South Atlantic Environmental Research Institute<\/a>. We were there to study the fine-scale foraging ecology of South American fur seals<\/a>. Despite a healthy research community in the Falklands, very little is known about South American fur seals in the region<\/a>. Our time on Bird Island was probably the first time people had been on the island in winter since the days of sealing.<\/p>\n

So, what did I find surprising?<\/h4>\n

I will list them here from slightly mundane to the very surprising.<\/p>\n

1) First of all, it was winter and I expected it to be cold.<\/h6>\n

This is probably a case of me not doing my pre-field season research, but it was pleasantly not as cold as I expected. Generally, the temperatures were above freezing, which made doing everything much easier. Of course, I still wore lots of layers and drank lots of hot drinks, but overall it was fairly mild.\u00a0 It was also less windy and less rainy than I had imagined and we had some beautiful sunny days.<\/p>\n