Bird Watch, Catwalk: An In-the-Field Fashion Show

We’re pretty much in the middle of nowhere and there aren’t many events around to keep us entertained in our few hours off everyday. So we have to invent our own entertainment, which can include things like taking showers, doing laundry, and learning the statistical program R. This week, however, we decided to spice it up a little by putting on a fashion show of our field wardrobe. Keep in mind that it is very limited because this is all that would fit into our already full backpacks!



And now for a bit of Terry Pratchett…
“‘Don’t tie it so tight! Don’t tie it so tight!’
There was a bickering behind Susan as she sought along the shelves in the canyons of Death’s huge library…

‘Okay, okay. How does it look?’
‘Miss?” said the raven, seeking a second opinion.
Susan looked up. The raven bounced past, its breast bright red.
‘Twit, twit,’ it said. ‘Bobbly bobbly bob. Hop hop hopping along…’
‘You’re fooling no one but yourself,’ said Susan. ‘I can see the string.’

‘Maybe I should sit on a snowy log,’ mumbled the raven behind her. ‘That’s probably the trick, right enough.’”

(Pratchett 1996, p.96, Hogfather)



NEXT: A Day in the Life of a Crow Researcher in New Caledonia

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Human Journey


Meet the Author
For my PhD at the University of Cambridge, I studied what birds in the crow family do after they fight: do they make up with each other or go to someone else for support? Now I am a Junior Research Fellow at the SAGE Center for the Study of the Mind at the University of California, Santa Barbara. With the help of a National Geographic Society / Waitt Grant, I study what birds know about their physical and social worlds. (Photo copyright Rod Rolle)