Wash up and wrap up

It has been a very long and fruitful season of research on the urban Crowned Eagles.  Because of their very long breeding cycle, the fieldwork pretty much continues throughout the year, from nest building and nesting in spring, and fledging and post fledging survival until the following spring, the intensity of the monitoring is winding down to a relative quiet spell.  The youngsters from the 2012 season are fledged, and they will no doubt be around their respective nests for some months to come. The adults are still flying into the nests with food, as evidenced by the nest cameras which are still operating for as long as this proves productive. But the climbing is thankfully tailing off as the cameras are on a minimal service schedule.  So after a long season it was time to give thanks to my climbing gear, and give them some tender care and a thorough clean.

Nikwax TechWash has been the recommended cleaner by the good folks at Bush n Bundu, where I dare to go when my wallet feels happy.  The guys know their outdoors and their climbing, and so they recommended this Techwash to clean and revitalize my equipment and ensure that none of the strength and integrity is lost.  A clever little technique that Caesar described made scrubbing my 170 meters of rope much easier. Taping two hard-bristle brushes together and running it many times up and down the rope in hot soapy water. I must have scrubbed half a kilometre of rope once I had scrubbed and rinsed it all. It was a little horrifying to see just how much filth came out of the ropes and webbing tapes.

So the early months of post fledging monitoring is as much of a lull in fieldwork as I will see.  With both the risks of mortality to the 2012 juveniles, and the need to monitor new breeding attempts will see the fieldwork speeding up again in May.  So from late January I have used that time to club some writing, getting wholeheartedly into the literature review of the thesis, Chapter One.  This work progressed well, and once handed in, the first draft was quickly returned with a sea of red scrawls across it.  It has been many years since I had tried this academic writing caper, and there is a lot to improve on, in quality and efficiency.  As well as revising this draft, I need to plan data collection for other aspects of the thesis, and write up some methods sections for others.  It has been intensive, and stressful, and a daunting task to look at the seemingly endless work set out ahead.  And thus justify’s the next post.