Snowbound Herpetologist

Until I can post the video, this just about sums up Maya's thorny devil ( Moloch horridus ) experience:

Things continue to go well!  Unfortunately, we got an entire group of new people out here at the field station, so our internet bandwidth got VERY overcrowded, so I won’t be able to include as many of our absolutely adorable new photos in this post as I’d like (and what I do include will again be low res)!  We also have some totally hilarious footage of Maya’s reaction to some of our lizard catches - she loves (loves!!) 99% of the lizards out here, but is deathly afraid of thorny devils. We got a gigantic rainstorm here a couple days ago, and several of our sites completely flooded out.  We have some epic photos and video of both the flooded roads and of us bailing 20 liters of water out of every pitfall trap.  We had to close some sites down (i.e., put the lids on the buckets and then secure them so that nothing can get in until the next time someone is out here to run the trap lines), and it changed our plans for next week to go out with some of the traditional...

A momentous occasion - Maya spotted her *very first* lizard COMPLETELY unaided (inside the shower stall), alerted her parents (liz-ah, liz-ah!!!), and helped capture it.  Way to go, Maya - an Eremiascincus ! Plus, some photos - more adventures! :)  (Sorry for the super small file sizes, but we have quite limited bandwidth here.) Me with the giant Varanus from the early days Noosing! This is what I was chasing - and I got him :) The inverts out here are so neat! Checking pitfall trap lines with mom We've taught her how to use the BBQ tongs to check traps One of our coolest lizards so far, a Tiliqua Checking traps with Greg Showing off good tong form The crew this morning!

Since this is the place where I post things that I could never share on Facebook (or with my mom), I wanted to write about the strong feelings of ambivalence (in its precise definition, in that I feel very strongly both positively and negatively) I have about taking the baby into the field with us.  Mostly, things are going reasonably well.  I can run half days of actual work in the field while prioritizing an afternoon nap back at the field station for the baby, and these field mornings are run at a balance of about 25% field work, 75% baby-chasing/carrying.  That said, I've seen some amazing things so far, and she's been an absolute DREAM in the car (we drove her 11 hours on April 1st with only a couple of stops - she didn't cry once, unbelievable). However, every once in a while, something happens where I'm like, "I am the stupidest person alive for bringing a baby into this."  It's amazing how many little things are no big deal for adults (and thus...