Jen's favorite quotes


"I'm selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can't handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don't deserve me at my best."— Marilyn Monroe

Friday, February 19, 2010

Friday Flashback

This is my first time joining in the Friday Flashback. I've been following it for awhile now over at Tia's blog and this week's theme is pets. I don't have any old pics of pets on my laptop so I thought instead I'd post a few pics of me at my first field job. I'm a Biological Technician which means I get to travel around and take random, temporary jobs working with wild animals. The bad news of course is that I have little to no job security. :)

This pic was taken in WV where I was working on a Cerulean Warbler project. We were funded by the State DNR and they called one night because they wanted to come trap bats on the land where we were working. We showed them around and helped them set up their mist nets. Then we setled in for a long night of waiting.

This is me holding a Little Brown Bat I think. These were taken back in 2004 so I can't remember exactly. You have to wear the heavy gloves to pull them out of the nets so they don't bite you and so you can hold them down so they don't get hurt. The membrane in their wings is very delicate and can tear easily. Its also pretty cool in that you can shine a light through it and see if the bones are fused yet to tell if its an adult or youngster.



It looks like he's snarling but he's really just trying to echolocate. I imagine he's thinking something along the lines of: "What the hell just happened??? Where's that moth I was chasing?? Why does this girl look so tired???"

It was 3am, Bat. I'm just saying.

Anyways, despite my tired face I was super excited to be holding him. This was my first time holding a wild animal and not just looking at birds. Somewhere around this time is when I decided that I definately wanted to be in this field and definately wanted to be holding more wild critters.

Head over to Tia's for more Flashbacks!
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3 comments:

  1. wow! sounds like a cool job.. something i would definitely be too chicken to do!! but you'll probably rack up a lot of neat experiences with animals most regular people won't ever even come close to!

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  2. Thats crazy!

    I mean, not for you, since you do cool stuff like all the time, but for us regular folk, who don't typically go dancing with bats at 3am... its crazy.

    Very cool flashback. Welcome to the party!

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  3. Wow thats really neat! Found you through Christopher and Tia.

    http://mothertobee.blogspot.com/2010/02/flashback-friday_19.html

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