Wapanocca NWR

Back in January, I went to Wapanocca National Wildlife Refuge to see the migratory waterfowl that I had heard were present during the winter. Unfortunately, the birds apparently didn't like the cold snap we were having because I only saw a handful of them. I drove around to a different part of the property and saw many beautiful bald cypress trees, instead of birds.

Post-Louisiana catch-up

Upon return, I've been as busy catching up on what I missed as when I was getting things squared away for being away.

On this past Tuesday, I met up with the LSU folks and went to the Shelby Forest boat ramp on the Mississippi River and met up with Darrell and the Sea Arc. As Darrell put the boat in, he mentioned that he was concerned about one of the engines. Sure enough, when he got the boat into the water, the engine didn't work, and the boat had to be immediately loaded back up.

I apologized profusely to the LSU guys that had driven up from Baton Rouge to do this field work. They did seem to appreciate that it was not my fault if Darrell suspected that the boat engine might have a problem and failed to inspect/ repair the issue during the month's notice he was given for this trip. At any rate, it was a day's field work totally lost, in a most embarrassing fashion.

I sent in my first conference abstract last week for a poster at the National SWS conference in Salt Lake City at the end of June. I am hopeful that it will be accepted. I also did a little write-up about the visit by the Japanese for the Biology department newsletter.

On Friday, we went to Alice in Wonderland, my first 3D movie. Saturday morning, Madison had a closing event for her 6-wk painting classes at Memphis College of Art, which was really awesome. Afterwards, Maddie and I went to Melissa's baby shower at Katie Nichols' house. Madison and Reyna, Melissa's oldest daughter, helped entertain Iris and Rose, Katie and Sam's 5 year old and 18 month old. All of we ladies had a lovely time.

The other night, Andrew used tweezers to remove more than 15 thorns stuck in my butt from falling into a bramble thicket while in Louisiana.

This week is Spring Break for UofM, which has consisted of going to the Mississippi River field sites (no boat required for these sites, thanks goodness) to take DBH and of going to the National Sedimentation lab in Oxford to grind plants. The rest of the week looks like it will be more of the same.

We're going to Kentucky this weekend. Madison will go to her dad's, and we will get to see Carter, Rachel, and Noah. All three of us will stop through Grandma's on our way back to Memphis. It should be fun.

Louisiana research trip

It's been an intense couple of weeks! We finally got to have Madison's birthday party at Seize the Clay on the last Saturday in February. The date had been rescheduled once due to snow and a second time when Maddie was sick. So this was the third date and fortunately well-attended. After about an hour of painting their pieces, we transitioned to pizza, ice cream cake, and present opening. She had a blast, and her friends really enjoyed themselves. We picked up the finished pieces after they had been fired, and they turned out really great!

Madison and friends at Seize the Clay

The next day, Sunday, was shaped by the plans for the Japanese to arrive in town. I had the 7 passenger university van, and Andrew came in my car to carry the luggage. After waiting in the lobby for a while, I checked with the airline desk agent who was able to determine that the Japanese did not board their connecting flight from Atlanta, and they were to fly standby in the morning and due to arrive at 9:30am.

I was able to switch to the 15 passenger van before heading to the airport Monday morning. The Japanese crew arrived and checked into the hotel to change before the symposium we had arranged for them to present their research. The talks were quite successful in spite of the language barrier of varying degrees. The nice slides with pictures helped clarify many points. The presenters and audience went to RP Tracks for lunch. After lunch and the symposium closing, I took the Japanese to their hotel until dinner that night at Bahama Breeze with Dr. Pezeshki, our guests, and Sam and Melissa. Finally, at 9:30pm, I had to wrap up dinner so I could get home to pack and finish my stats homework after dropping off the gang.

I was up until 1am and got up 3:30am on Tuesday morning. I was packed but still not quite done with stats homework, which I'd spent about 10 hours on by that point, over several days. I loaded my luggage into the van then went up to school to work on stats until 7:15am, when Burton arrived. My homework was good but wasn't perfect when I slid it into the mailbox of another grad student who had agreed to turn in it for me. We picked up the Japanese and Justin (fellow grad student who was helping out by returning the van to the university), and we headed to the airport.

The flight was fine, and we picked up a 12 passenger van from Alamo. We stopped by the site in New Orleans East, near the Vietnamese village. We saw a guy working in the illegal vegetable plantation, but we could not get back to sites from the last trip, which were now under about 0.5 m of water.

Burton surveys the scene in New Orleans East

Chinaberry regrowth from September to February after coppicing

Chinese tallow after coppicing in September

We headed to the Piggly-Wiggly in Bogalusa and then out to the field station. We settled in to our accommodations and made plans for the following day. Fumiko gave Burton and me a Japanese version of the ball-and-cup game, called kendama. Drs. Yamamoto and Sakio showed off their skills in catching the ball in various ways. Messing with that toy kept me busy until bed.

LaPlace research site

Wednesday, we went to the LaPlace sites where we took tree cores a couple years ago from bald cypress and water tupelo trees. This time we collected water tupelo seeds for them to take back to Japan and experiment on. Here we saw an owl in the daytime. We got some lunch at a place on the western shore of Lake Pontchartrain.

Check out the cypress knees along the railing

We also stopped at the Tangipahoa River and checked out the riparian area. For dinner, we picked up 25 lbs of crawfish and corn n taters from a trusty gas station. Everyone enjoyed eating crawfish and drinking lots of Abita Amber.

The lovely Tangipahoa River

The lovely Tangipahoa River

The lovely Tangipahoa River

On Thursday, we went on the Honey Island swamp tour. Before the tour, we got lunch at a greasy spoon in Pearl River that was yummy. The tour was great fun. The alligators were hibernating (brumating, actually), and we didn't see any out, except for the baby one that the boat captain had in a cooler and passed around. The swamp was very beautiful but of course not as green as in the summer when we visited 2 years ago.

Honey Island Swamp

Me and my new friend, Little Bit

After the tour, we returned to the New Orleans East site and collected seeds from Chinaberry and Chinese tallow. That night, the Japanese students made dinner for everyone. Dr. Sakio entertained us by playing the South American bamboo flute.

Friday morning began with checking out the Maurepas Swamp WMA trail near LaPlace. We didn't find sites we could use, but we did see the aftermath of a prescribed burn along the trail. We got lunch at Middendorf's (recommended by Chef Angela), which was greatly enjoyed.

The train bridge was down as the coal train went by

The way the bridge usually looks

That afternoon was spent in several inundated sites which were extremely mucky. Of course, I got profoundly stuck at the second-to-last site. One of the better ways to get a boot unstuck from thigh-high mud is to get down on your hands and knees and work the stuck boot out with the leverage. I quickly discovered that the piece of wood in front of me which I was using to stabilize on concealed a fire ant nest. While working myself out of the quicksand-like conditions and avoiding fire ants, I managed to pull a muscle in my lower back. The strain wasn't as painful as others I've inflicted on myself but has slowed me down considerably since then.

After finishing at the sites, we hit the drive-thru daiquiri shop in LaPlace and headed back to Bogalusa. On the road to the field station, we ran into a DWI road block, which required me to pass my daiquiri to the back seat and provided an interesting experience for the Japanese.

On Saturday morning, we packed up our stuff, cleaned up the field station, and headed to a site in New Orleans East where I got the Suburban stuck in the mud on the last trip. Here, they took a few tree cross-sections while I stayed with the truck - both because I was injured and because of the sketchiness of the area and all our luggage being in the van.

From there, we got lunch at Rocky & Carlo's, a family-style Italian deli type place that was also recommended by Chef Angela and was really great. Then we were off to the French Quarter to check into our hotel, located on Chartres and St. Philip. Dr. Yamamoto, Fumiko, and I went to take the van back and got a taxi back to the hotel, as well as arranged transportation to the airport in the morning.

We headed out straight away, but I haven't seen the Quarter this crowded before, although I'm sure it was nothing compared to a few weeks before with the Saints winning the Superbowl followed by Mardi Gras celebrations. We met up with Burton's local friend, Chris, who had joined us for the festivities during our last visit.

Marching band performing

We had planned to go to Ralph & Kacoo's for dinner, but they were lined up out the door. We milled around for awhile, catching a marching band performing (stationarily) in front of Antoine's, then we went to Pat O's for hurricanes. We had planned to go to Preservation Hall (Dr. Yamamoto's favorite), but people were lined up around the block before the start of the show, easily exceeding the 60 or so person seating capacity. Instead we took the Japanese to the Maison Bourbon for some Dixieland jazz, while Burton, Chris, and I people-watched on Bourbon Street. I got a 190 daiquiri around then, and my recollections of the evening's activities get pretty fuzzy after that.

After leaving the music venue, we ventured to the Chartres House Cafe, a kind of unremarkable restaurant large enough to accommodate our party of 9. Everyone was pretty tuckered out by this point, and we were wrapping up the visit since the Japanese were leaving for the airport at 5am, while Burton and I were checking out at 9:30am. Then we headed back to the hotel and hit the hay.

See what happened at the restaurant while we were waiting for our checks

In the morning, I woke up and got everything ready to go then headed down to Cafe du Monde for a cafe au lait and encountered a marathon along the way. While waiting in line at the take-away window, I looked up and saw Burton headed toward the end of the line, a total coincidence. We got a table and our drinks and beignets. I ducked out a little before Burton because I wanted to stroll and take some pictures on the way back. Somehow, I got turned around on my return trip and got only a couple pictures and wound up back at the hotel after Burton, and the taxi had arrived. We loaded up and headed to the airport, the end of another exciting international research collaboration. I love science!

The research team, from left to right:
Yuka, Fumiko (on ground), Dr. Yamamoto, Kazusa, Burton (on ground), Dr. Sakio, me (photographer)

Check out my interactive map of the trip.

View Louisiana Research Trip in a larger map