Homeward Bound

Posted on May 25, 2013 by BIObus Crew

The past month has been an amazing experience. I traveled through the Maritimes, explored 11 national parks, met with park staff and deployed traps for the Canadian National Parks Malaise Program.

Smera Sukumar with Park Staff deploying a malaise trap in Fundy National Park

Having spent the last month in provinces I had never been to before, I was taken aback by the spectacular scenery that can be found across this country. From sand dunes and beaches to mountainous landscapes, from clearly sunny weather to snowstorms in the middle of May, I can honestly say I have experienced more than I ever thought I would within this short period of time.

But now this journey has come to an end and I am back in Ontario to spend the rest of my summer at BIO in Guelph. I am happy to be home, but will miss my daily adventures with Agata. The new BIObus crew has met with Agata in Fundy NP and will carry out the standardized sampling protocol, travelling to 7 national parks on rotation throughout the summer.

-Smera

Rainy Days Have Found Us

Posted on May 24, 2013May 25, 2013 by BIObus Crew

Hi there, my name is Martin, and I’m traveling with the BIObus collecting insects across the east cost of Canada. This week we are at Fundy National Park in New Brunswick. On Friday we woke up early in the morning worrying about the pouring rain we heard overnight. Hearing rain pretty much meant one thing: damage control. We had a quick breakfast and then we decided to set up our third collecting site. We packed up the RV and headed out down the road. We got to the hiking path that was going to lead us to our site; we had no idea what sort of a hike we had in front of us. After a grueling hill climb of about a kilometer up the Costal Trail, we made it to our site. At this point we were pretty good at setting up sites and breezed through the setup, just in time too, it began to rain… hard. Next on the list of things to do was damage control for the two sites we set up the day before.

Graham Ansell, Katelyn Lutes, and I collecting specimens from pan traps at our Maple Grove sampling site.

We got to our first site at Maple Grove for damage control but at this point the rain was pouring buckets on us, we had no choice but to continue on. When checking on a site you are really collecting the insects the traps have caught and making sure there is no damage to any of the traps and that they’re all still functioning. The flight intercept traps needed to be emptied into a net, the malaise trap bottles needed replacing, the pit falls needed to be topped- off with ethanol, and the pan traps needed to be emptied and refilled. Luckily the damage caused by the rain wasn’t as bad as we thought it would be. The only damage was the damage our pants and socks took from the rain. We came out of the forest wet and miserable. We made our way back to the campsite with the heaters blasting and we made ourselves fajitas and drinks for dinner. With our moral back up we are ready for another day.

– Martin

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