I'm Moving...To a New Website!

Hello Dear Readers!

I have finally created my professional website!

On my site, you will see what is essentially my curriculum vitae, or CV.  I outline my work experience, my and coauthors' publications (I still need to attach downloadable PDFs), and my portfolio of Bird Glamour images and videos.

I am also moving this blog over to my new website! My blog is as much a part of my professional communication activities as is my publication record. I also like having all of my activities under one digital roof, so to speak. This will be my last post for the foreseeable future at this site, but the old posts will still be here!

My Twitter contacts generously shared their experiences and recommendations on their websites of choice for constructing their own professional web pages. Based on their recommendations I chose Wordpress, and so far I am quite pleased with its performance and layout.

If you are thinking of constructing a professional or personal website and are unsure where to start, here's the tweet (and resulting thread) where I received all of my recommendations.

Hello Tweeps! I need to make a personal website for myself (work, FAQs, CV, etc.) Can you recommend websites that you use for this purpose?

— Dr. Lisa Buckley 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 17, 2018

Join me over at my new blog site Birds in Mud! Hope to see you there!

Rocking On In Career Transition

Hello Dear Readers!

Whenever I'm asked, "Do you want the good news or the bad news?" I choose to receive the bad news first. There are two reasons for this. One, I want to know the exact nature of the challenge I must face. This appeals to the collections manager in me, as a lot of what I did as a collections manager involved picturing plausible threats to the fossils for which I am a steward, and then doing my best to mitigate those threats. Two, I am pretty good at turning the good news I receive second into an opportunity to mitigate the bad news. So for this particular post about my in-progress transitioning from Collections Manager & Curator to ????, I'm going to start with the "bad news."

There is still no long-term solution for the continuation of the Peace Region Palaeontology Research Centre since the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation's (our parent non-profit organization) funding for 2018 was denied by the District of Tumbler Ridge in March.

This is the definite low point of the year for paleontology in our part of the world (northeast British Columbia), and this particular low point brought friends. The first Low-Point Tag-Along is the imminent threat to the continuation of the fossil archives (a.k.a. collections) at the PRPRC. Anyone who follows my Twitter account (@Lisavipes) has seen me tweet with some ferocity and vigor on the importance of stable, well-supported natural heritage archives. This isn't for self-serving reasons: museum archives are still poorly understood and little appreciated by the public (although I see this changing) and by the administrators who decide which areas of museum life get support (that I do not see changing as quickly as I would like).

I'll share one of my Twitter threads on the importance of supporting natural heritage archives here.

1st: SPECIMENS ARE BASIS FOR EVERYTHING PPL ASSOCIATE MUSEUMS WITH.
If specimen care goes underfunded, you lose everything they've built.

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) August 10, 2017

This tweet and the associated thread describe why the collections are the foundation of a museum's activities: educational outreach, high-profile research, student opportunities, marketing, displays. Sure, you can have an interpretive center that shows some nice displays of, say, birds in your area (also part of our natural heritage), but all of the information that goes along with the visual imagery of the display originates from research and a collections facility.

(Anyone familiar with my Twitter feed also knows that I communicate in gifs. True Story.)

The "who what where when why and how" of those birds was figured out from a bird scientist (a.k.a ornithologist) looking at birds in the wild and in a museum's collections. Collections don't just preserve individual specimens: they preserve patterns. Collections reveal to you what birds were once common in an area, but are no longer common. Collections reveal that what we thought was one bird was actually two really similar-looking species after the genetic information was studied. Collections preserve specimens collected throughout the years so we can see what toxins might be contributing to the decline of a bird species.

What us scientists call research is really just us figuring out the detailed story of the critters that we study. The collections are the library of ideas and information that make the story (scientific papers, displays, educational programming) possible.

But what we do, as scientists & educators is use OMG discoveries to tell a story thru displays, talks, ed programs.
No specimen, no story.

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) August 10, 2017

We don't really describe the step-by-step detail of how discoveries are made. We usually present the Highlights version of the journey because, let's be brutally honest here, reading about the step-by-step, day-to-day grind of data collection, data analysis, surveying, etc. would be a tedious read. When I was a graduate student, our lab would informally hold a "Tedious-Off" competition. The person doing the most tedious task to tell the story of their fossil research would "win." There were no prizes, but we did get to share with our colleagues some of the slogging that we did to get from idea to science story. Common Tedious-Off entries were editing noise out of 3D model images, finding the one bad data entry in a spreadsheet of 10,000 entries, and counting all of the bumps on the cutting surface of a theropod tooth (that one never won, because we were looking at an actual specimen so that was still cool.) TL:DR is that collecting information and getting the story ready to tell isn't all excitement and surprised gasping at discoveries.

Maybe that's why collections are taken for granted: we don't see every dang step for weeks/months/years specimens are involved in to get OMG

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) August 10, 2017

When I document fossil bird footprints on rock slabs, it's a pretty mellow scene.

Take a look at the above picture. This is a small part of the large bird and dinosaur track surface of the Gajin-ri Track Site in South Korea. The paleontologists who study this site made a trackway map (basically a drawing of all of the footprints as they appear on the surface) by spending hundreds of hours crouched on the surface finding and tracing each individual footprint in low-angle light. This is the standard operating procedure for studying small tracks. I've spent many a day in collections, pitch black save for one lamp, lying on foam pads on the concrete floor as I trace out bird tracks and invertebrate burrows on to plastic sheets.

I can't speak for everyone, but for myself, I am not looking for a new discovery when I'm documenting tracks. I'm simply transcribing what I see on to plastic and paper. It's only when I keep seeing the same "different" thing over and over that my brain starts to think "Hey, that's odd. something's going on here." It's not scientific montage process typically shown in movies, where scientists are looking for X, struggle to find X, and then - against all odds - find X. Perhaps this is why collections do not receive the respect they deserve: their use (except for display specimens: those are part of the collections) is behind the scenes and progress is careful and slow.

A curiosity question for me: is there anyone out there that would truly be interested in seeing an unedited video of a researcher like a paleontologist doing the Tedious-Off portion of their work? My working hypothesis is that the answer to that question will be chirping crickets.

When I gave the occasional tour of the collections facility, there are one of two reactions:

"Oh my God this is so important! Look at all of our heritage!"

...or...

"So how can we make money off of this?"

Maia demonstrating the Head Blanket, because sometimes Head Desk is too hard.

When I attempt to explain to this type of responder with how collections are the source of the displays and discoveries, I see eyes glaze over. I have not yet found the right combination of words that can break through this attitude.

As a result, I am now faced with the very real scenario of having to find a stable home for the fossil archives. We do not "own" the fossils. The town does not "own" the fossils. They are technically the property of the Province of British Columbia, and my colleague (and fellow termination notice holder) and I are the qualified stewards of the fossils.

The second Bad News Tag-Along is that there will be no paleontology field exploration done this summer. One misconception that I encounter is that field paleontology is cheap/free to do. This might be because the field survey methods are not necessarily high-tech. Fuel to get to field sites costs money. If you find something large, moving that specimen costs money. Also, our time has a cost associated with it. Just as artists can't pay the bills using Exposure Bucks, paleontologists can't pay the bills using Excitement of Discovery Bucks. And no, despite what people believe, making big discoveries does not make it easier to find funding to continue work. Media exposure =/= money in paleontology.

So, those are the Bad News items. Now on to the Good News items.

1. Tomorrow is my one year Bird Glamourversary! To celebrate this milestone in my journey as a science communicator, I will be launching a Bird Glamour YouTube channel that will combine me applying the Bird Glamour looks with cool facts about the featured bird! Once the link is live I will include it in this blog post!

UPDATE: Here is the link to the Bird Glamour YouTube channel!


2. I am working on two non-fiction book proposals! One book is purely in the proposal stage, while the other book has a couple of sample chapters already written. When I feel a bit more certain about the process and the progress, I'll talk about those projects here!

3. I am collecting the information I need for gaining certification as a professional geoscientist in British Columbia. It's a long process, but with the combination of schooling and 15 years of experience as an active paleontologist, I think that I have a great chance at succeeding.

4. I will be working on some post-secondary program development. Once the details of that project are ironed out, I can talk a bit more about the projects.

5. Of course, I am applying for jobs. I'm constantly reminding myself that it is not my job to tell myself I'm not right for a posted position...within reason, of course: I'm not going to apply for a physics or a botany position. I am making a conscious effort not to select myself out of potential opportunities.

That is my life in the sciences at this point in time! I am excited that I have the opportunity to explore options and opportunities within science communication through Bird Glamour and book writing.  Who knows where these opportunities will lead?

Bird Glamour and Scicomm: The Almost One Year Review

Hello Dear Readers!

I'm not going to try to gloss over the situation, but March and April have been less than glamorous. The District of Tumbler Ridge denied the annual operational funding request of our parent organization, the Tumbler Ridge Museum Foundation, because...well, I'm not really sure why Dear Readers. The reasons we are given (and that are stated in the media) keep changing in moving goalpost fashion. There's potential for a "because...Reasons" meme here. So, I'm sitting here with a termination notice in my pocket (the TRMF had no choice but to issue all of its employees, including me, the notices.) I'm not done writing about this, but that will be a future post, and one filled with more information than the "because...Reasons" that we have been given. Stay tuned.

This development happened in conjunction with a series of talks me and my colleague Dr. Richard McCrea gave in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. First, we helped open the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's newest permanent exhibit Footprints In Time (link to the Beaty Biodiversity Museum website here) on the University of British Columbia campus. This was an excellent partnership: we made the trackway replicas, and then worked with their display and scicomm team to create the interpretive text. The displays look spectacular! Below is a picture of one of the trackway replicas, a 130 million-year-old track slab from northeast British Columbia that contains the natural cast (track infills) trackways of a large theropod (likely an allosaurid) and an ornithopod (likely similar in size and shape to Iguanodon.) That evening Rich gave a talk on dinosaur tracks from British Columbia (with a focus on the Six Peaks Dinosaur Track Site, follow the link for our YouTube video) for the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's Nocturnal lecture series.

One of three dinosaur trackway slab replicas (original specimens currently curated at the PRPRC) now on display at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum on the University of British Columbia campus!

I gave four talks over two days at Science World in Vancouver (that may also be the subject of a future post), and then I gave a presentation on what we know about dinosaur behavior from tracks and traces (a.k.a. ichnology) for the Beaty Biodiversity Museum's "Way Cool" series. Then we gave talks on track research in British Columbia in Courtenay for the Vancouver Island Paleontological Society.

Whew.

I can now talk about the subject of this post, which is my reflections on my almost one year anniversary of when #BirdGlamour took flight! Bird Glamour is a scicomm and sciart project that I developed to introduce people to the wonderful diversity and life history of our present-day theropods, a.k.a. birds, using a rather unconventional medium...COSMETICS!

My most recent #BirdGlamour is the Osprey (Pandion haliaetus)!

Each Bird Glamour post comes with a cool fact about the life history of the subject bird, ranging from migration to food preferences to feather pigments: basically, any tidbit of information that I think people would connect with. I launched Bird Glamour on June 9, 2017, with a very simple post.

I'm new to eye makeup, so I'm asking birds for tips! Short-eared Owl (Sibley image) recommends & uses a Dramatic Smoky Eye! #BirdGlamour pic.twitter.com/9o2DJDxov5

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) June 9, 2017

To be honest, I had no idea how the linking of ornithology with cosmetics would be received. Some people in science are not exactly open to the idea of Science Selfies; however, read the strong rebuttal to this on the blog From The Lab Bench entitled "Why We Scientists Do Instagram." My concerns were unfounded. Bird Glamour is a hit!

There have been great highlights in the short life of Bird Glamour. One was my first video tutorial, developed with Audubon, for a Halloween-themed Bohemian Waxwing Bird Glamour!

I was also asked to do a promotional Bird Glamour for The Urban Interface, a non-profit wildlife and nature education center. They have lovely wildlife Ambassadors for which they care and train for educational purposes. Their Ambassador Pandora, a Swainson's Hawk, is a lovely Bird Glamour model.

Meet our #BirdGlamour model Pandora, Swainson's Hawk Ambassador for @TUIWildlife! Swainson's Hawks do long-distance migrations from summer breeding grounds in North America to winter homes in Argentina! Learn more about (& support!) the Ambassadors here: https://t.co/bSGretxubO pic.twitter.com/ejSySTYUmU

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 16, 2018

Now that I'm nearing the one-year Glamour-versary (oh yes, I went there) of Bird Glamour, I wanted to fly a few ideas past Twitter to see if some new styles or techniques would ruffle any feathers. I went to the polls!

1. Most respondents were quite eager to see me migrate to other continents to glam it up!

Question 1: With the exception of the vultures and the Harpy Eagle, to date my focus has been on birds of North America. Would #BirdGlamour (makeup + facts) for birds from other areas/continents be of interest as well?

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 21, 2018

I definitely agree! There are so many exciting birds and cool bird diversity to explore!

2. In addition to my usual style of Bird Glamour, people are interested in seeing me do makeup tutorials while I chirp about the bird being glamoured!

Question 2: Would watching/hearing me talk about the birds featured in #BirdGlamour as I apply bird-inspired makeup in video format be of interest, like a tutorial for the specific finished looks I post?

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 21, 2018

YouTube will be a new adventure for me. I'll admit that I feel nervous on camera. I also recognize that I shouldn't feel this way: I've been interviewed many times for documentaries and media. I'm hoping this nervous feeling will fade with familiarity.

3. There is interest to see how these Bird Glamour looks could be transformed to every day looks, or at least a fun evening look!

Question 3: #BirdGlamour looks are VERY dramatic (as are the birds!) However, these looks could be tailored for experimental "everyday" wear. Being forewarned that I am new to makeup, would me experimenting w "everyday" versions of #BirdGlamour looks be of interest?

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 21, 2018

I will definitely experiment with everyday Bird Glamour looks. I am not an expert in applying cosmetics, so if you're also new to makeup, we can learn (and possibly laugh) together.

4. This poll on incorporating female coloration into Bird Glamour was almost neck-in-turkey-neck. To date, the looks have focused on male plumage (or those birds that have similar male and female plumage).

New poll question! I've focused #BirdGlamour looks on male breeding plumage bc, for ppl new to birds & birding this is a good intro to bird ID. Female/non-breeding plumage is often subtle, w many species looking alike. How would you like to see female plumage glamoured?

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 23, 2018

I agree with keeping the male and female plumage colors separate. However, I will glamour cases of gynandromorphism, the condition where an animal shows both male and female characteristics. Animals with bilateral gynandromorphism look male on one side and female on the opposite side. A recent case of bilateral gynandromorphism that hit the bird news was the gynandromorph Northern Cardinal.

5. My last question involved beak color. Given the array of lipstick colors available, I think people wouldn't mind part of my makeup bill being used for Bird Glamour lipstick!

New question! Some birds have very distinctive beak colors. What would you think of adding lip colors (aka beak colors) to #BirdGlamour?

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) March 26, 2018

You'll be proud of me, Bird Glamour fans: I have started acquiring fun lipstick colors!

Which birds do you think I will glamour with this lip color? #BirdGlamour pic.twitter.com/8uti809pdl

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) April 3, 2018

I also did my first Bird Glamour post that includes lip color: the Herring Gull.

Herring Gull gives #BirdGlamour tips for looking for food! A species of Low Concern (populations decreased 3.5% per year from 1966-2015) Herring Gull uses no-nonsense white & grey, with a dab of red on the bill, for feasting on invertebrates and taking opportunities to scavenge! pic.twitter.com/DnZB6clLn2

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) April 6, 2018

Gulls are the perfect bird for incorporating lips into the Bird Glamour look. Many species of gull have a fairly standard adult head color - grey-white - but there is color variation in the stripes and spots on their beaks!

Reception of Bird Glamour

Online Reception - The sheer number of positive comments and encouragement online is both staggering and humbling. I am thrilled that Bird Glamour speaks to people. Science art (sciart) is a powerful tool in science communication: there's a reason for the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words." Images are a powerful and effective way to transmit complex ideas. The idea of Sketchnoting relies on the information-delivery power of illustrations to highlight key concepts. Using a different style of illustration - makeup - allows me to highlight birds that people might want to know more about.

Bird Glamour also starts some great conversations about bird lives and biology. The most frequently asked question is "Why do so many birds have a black stripe around their eyes?" That's a good question! There was a study done on what the Masked Shrike uses its bold black eyeliner for. Is it to reduce glare for hunting? Does it make the eyes of the shrike appear bold and scary to deter predators? Does it help the shrike camouflage itself for sneak attacks, or hide the eyes so its prey doesn't know it's being watched? When researchers temporarily painted some Masked Shrike's masks from black to white (they Bird Glamoured an actual bird!) the shrikes with white eye masks had more trouble snagging prey and did most of their hunting facing away from the sun. It turns out black eye masks act as sunglasses for birds, at least for Masked Shrikes.

Public Reception - How do people react when they see me in public all Bird Glamoured up? It depends on the setting. I did a Bird Glamour version of the feathered theropod Anchiornis huxleyi, know for its striking black, white, and rusty red plumage, for attending the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology Annual Auction.

Anchiornis is at the #2017SVP auction! Anchiornis is a feathered dinosaur for which we know color: black, rust red, white!#BirdGlamour pic.twitter.com/CZEi8J5PM0

— Lisa Buckley, Ph.D. 🦃🐾 (@Lisavipes) August 26, 2017

I had several people who approached me to say they enjoyed the Anchiornis Bird Glamour. There were also some smiling looks, but perhaps starting the conversation of "Hey, why is your makeup like that?" felt too socially awkward for them. I completely understand. Starting conversations with people I don't know is difficult for me as well. Running up to people, waving my arms and shouting "HEY WANT TO TALK ABOUT MY EYES AND ANCHIORNIS?" seems a bit intense, so I need to work on that approach. There were also some unsmiling stares and quick look-aways. That I also understand: Bird Glamour doesn't have to appeal to everyone. Or perhaps they thought I was unprofessional or strange. Well, as my readers and social media friends know, I am strange, but I am completely comfortable with expressing my interests and passions.

Family audiences are very receptive to Bird Glamour. When I did a presentation for families at the Goseong Public Library on Cretaceous bird track types found in both Canada and South Korea, the public reception was great! I had my picture taken with a lot of families! The people in the makeup department at our closest Shoppers are also interested: more than once I've gone in with a picture of a bird and asked "I'm looking for this color. Do you have anything like this?" On seeing some of my Bird Glamour posts, one commented: "Wow, so you're an artist!" That took me by surprise: I have never identified as an artist before. I can pencil sketch with enough accuracy to satisfy my eye, but art is not something that I have ever done professionally. All I could do was stammer for a bit and then say "Huh. Yeah, I guess I am!"

I am planning something super fun for my official one-year Glamour-versary in terms of setting and the bird, and a great bunch of Bird Glamour pictures to share from our West Coast trip.

What birds would you like to see for future Bird Glamour pictures? Do you have a science specialty that would make a great Glamour? Itati (@itatiVCS) has started #EcoGlam #MachineFacts to share how she uses various equipment to do ecology research! I'm going to enjoy following this hashtag!

The Licor6400 is a portable photosynthesis system that uses gas analysis in real time to measure rates of gas exchange on whatever plant you clip it on. You can also convert it into a soil respiration measuring device by replacing the head w a chamber #MachineFacts #EcoGlam pic.twitter.com/ZSMIo8TKzK

— itati “toby” vasquez chavez santamaria (@itatiVCS) April 16, 2018

Stay tuned for more Bird Glamour!

The $0.00 Field Budget Season - Heavy Bird Tracks

Happy August (YIKES) Dear Readers!

Yes, August caught up with us. We've been as busy as a $0.00 field work budget season can allow us to be: this means no multi-week or multi-day expeditions to work on our many large-scale projects. I outlined a small list large projects we should be doing this summer in my last blog post. Spoilers: like all work of value, working to protect, preserve, and interpret fossil heritage has a price tag. Anyone who thinks you can do field work for free is lying to themselves and others.

We have a great member of our field crew, Dr. Charles Helm. To say that he is a passionate and avid outdoors person is an understatement. To say that he is one of our most dedicated and passionate volunteer is an understatement. Medical doctor by training, Charles has authored books, been an author on some of our scientific papers, and is now first-authoring his own papers on an ichnology site he has been surveying for years (stay tuned!)

We have a list of "Helm Sites" that we check out every field season. On August 01, after checking out a report of ankylosaur tracks from Conuma Coal's Wolverine Mine, we visited three other sites to confirm fossil tracks that Charles found and, of course, to look for more!

This expedition fell on a Tuesday, which is the day of the week I run #NameThatTrack on Twitter, the fun ichnology game!

Confession time, Dear Readers: I work on Cretaceous-age bird tracks, but until now I had never found a really clear Cretaceous bird track in the field. Don't get me wrong: I'm perfectly happy sciencing the heck out of Cretaceous bird tracks found by others. It's just that the irony of never having found a Cretaceous bird track was not lost on me.

All of that changed on August 1. Charles and Rich were checking out different parts of the outcrop, and I looked at what I obsessively look at: really fine-grained bedding surfaces of rock. My lack of personal Cretaceous bird track discoveries was not for lack of trying, my friends. I posted tweets of tracks we were coming across.

Lighting is EVERYTHING for tracks, and even more so for small tracks. Dim overcast light, or super bright straight-on light, will wash out shadows that highlight subtle surface relief. The lighting was not exactly on my side that day...but I finally got to post this tweet:

Now, drumroll please: did I finally find fossil bird tracks in the field? I DID!! Here's my happy track face! #NameThatTrack pic.twitter.com/tZQRC4rW3q

— Lisa Buckley, PhD (@Lisavipes) August 2, 2017

Based on the geology of the area, these tracks are Early Cretaceous in age (about 100 million years old), and are similar in age to bird tracks that we research in Alberta, the United States, and China. Here's a close-up of one of the tracks!

You can see (barely) one of the toes of a bird track right above the third black square from the left of the scale. This was horrid lighting for a picture.

Our only problem with the specimen was this:

At over two meters long and half a meter thick, this slab of rock must have weighed close to 400 kg (Note: at the time, we thought the whole slab was only 300 kg. Oh, were we wrong. So wrong.) There was no way Charles, Rich, and I could move it in its current state. But we needed to collect this specimen.

Fast forward to August 5. We were scheduled to be interviewed for a news broadcast on the work our Research Centre has been doing in the region since 2003. Rich asked the reporter, Kraig Krause, if he would be interested in including the recovery of the bird tracks in his segment. He was definitely on board, so we planned a morning tour of the research centre and then off to collect the bird track slab!

We arrived at the site around 12:30 pm. It was starting out to be a hot day, with no cloud cover in sight.

Step 1: Build a temporary bridge over the ditch. This part was simple. We weren't worried about the steep part leading down to the bridge: after all, there were four of us, and the slab would be much lighter. What could possibly go wrong?
(Note: I can feel every field person cringe at that statement. You never, ever ask that on an expedition.)

Dr. Richard McCrea (left) positioning the temporary bridge boards while Dr. Charles Helm (right) brings over more bridge material.

Step 2: Trim the track slab. We needed to remove at least half of the track slab thickness to make it portable. Here's the specimen before the trimming.

Removing some of the thickness from the slab was easy: there was already a fracture in the rock that we could exploit, and the bottom half of the slab separated with three chisels and maybe half a dozen hits with the crack hammer.

Success Part 1! Now we needed to drill holes to separate the non-track surface part of the slab from the birdy-goodness part of the specimen.

The next step was to remove the eroded (no track surface) part of the rock at the bottom of the picture. Rich and I took turns: one would drill holes along the bottom edge of the track surface while the other watched the track surface. Rotary hammers cause vibrations that could shake loose bits of track surface.

Dr. Rich McCrea adding punch holes to the non-track part of the slab, while Dr. Charles Helm selects more potential specimens for careful viewing later.

Kraig Krause getting some footage of the slab trimming process while Rich drills the punch holes.

Of course, when you're in the middle of doing a delicate job such as track slab trimming, you hope there isn't going to be a big "Oops!" that ends up on camera. Thankfully the trimming went smoothly, and the non-track part of the slab came off easily.

The piece off to the left was at least a good 30 kg that we didn't need to carry.

Step 3: Haul the specimen.
This was the Hard Part: hoisting the slab on to the wheelbarrow. First we wrapped it with a heavy tow strap to give ourselves more hand holds for potentially hand-hauling the block over the ditch bridge. Then we muscled the specimen on to one of the 2" by 8" boards so that the specimen would sit evenly across the wheelbarrow. Then...HEAVE! That specimen was heavier than we anticipated: it had to be close to 225 kg.

Kraig (top), Charles (middle), and Rich (bottom) preparing for the mighty lift while I brace the wheelbarrow.

Then Rich noticed an issue with the wheelbarrow: the cotter pin that keeps the wheel from slipping off of the axle was missing for the left wheel. The last thing we wanted to have happen was the wheel fall off while we were moving 250 kg of solid rock. Before we continued, Rich improvised an ersatz cotter pin out of a small awl.

Walking the track slab down to the bridge was a group effort: we made sure that the slab wasn't going to bounce or slide off as the wheelbarrow jostled over uneven terrain. Then we approached the ditch.

Because of how steep the bank of the ditch was, we had to slide the track slab off of the wheelbarrow to get it on to the bridge. We stood around the slab, not really relishing the thought of pushing it across the bridge and then putting it back on the wheelbarrow, when the thought hit us: we have a field truck and a tow strap.

New Plan: pull the track slab the rest of the way across the bridge and up the ditch slope on to the road, and then lift the slab into the back of the truck.

We hooked the tow strap up to the truck hitch...

Notice another field improvised pin?

...and then pulled the track slab gently on to the road.

Charles keeps an eye on the front of the truck while Kraig and I keep an eye on the track slab. The surface on which the tracks are found is facing up, of course. Success!

After the specimen was on the road, we positioned a 2" X 8" under the end that was closest to the truck crossways. This gave all four of us enough room to lift the front end up to tailgate level. Once the front end of the specimen was airborne, Rich left us to hold the front end up while he SLOWLY backed the end of the truck as close as possible. One great HEAVE and the specimen was resting on the tailgate!

Whew. The whole operation was finished by 2:30 pm.

Now that the track slab is back at the Research Centre, we get to do the fun part: examining the surface! This will involve turning off all of the overhead lights and shining a low angle light across the surface to create shadows from the small-scale surface details. This really makes small tracks POP. We'll also use the same technique at the field site: we're planning an overnight at the outcrop where we can examine all of the potential track surfaces with a flashlight in the evening. Once we do the low angle light examination, we'll have a better idea of what type of bird tracks these are.

Until then,

Strange Woman.

Story-telling in Science Doesn't Mean You Make *#%& Up.

Hello Dear Readers!

I have been a busy Strange Woman lately: giving talks, visiting family, writing abstracts, collecting data for papers...you know, the usual stuff.

I've also been - rather unsuccessfully, I might add - trying to influence science communication. I was asked to review the text of a tourism information sign. The purpose of the sign was to "engage visitors and get them excited to see the dinosaur track attraction." Now, I've reviewed such signs before - mostly for our local hiking group - and they have been both interesting and factually correct. I was expecting such quality when I opened the document (done by an organization not associated with the hiking group.)

Friends, I had to check my calendar to make sure that I was not in some April Fools' Day prank.
It. Was. Bad. I won't go into all of the details of how bad it was, but here are two examples.

First, it was painfully evident that the author did not actually look into any of the public work that had been done previously on the site in question, as the dinosaurs were misidentified. We're not talking a lower specialist "Oh you're just being picky type of identification." We're talking "saying ankylosaur tracks are duck-billed dinosaur tracks" type of boo-boo. It would be akin to me saying that a cat was a bear.

Getting the visitor interested: 4/10, but only because there are theropods.
Accuracy: 5/10, but only because they got the theropods right. The rest was made-up malarkey.

Now, this site has both theropod tracks (our carnivorous dinosaurs) and ankylosaur tracks (herbivorous armored dinosaurs) preserved on the same surface. One of the first questions people tend to ask is "Were the theropods hunting the ankylosaurs?" The answer is likely not. A dinosaur track surface is like a farmer's field in the winter. You'll see all sorts of tracks: deer, coyote, dog, cat, person, snowmobile, etc., all made at different times. The surface collects these tracks over time like a doodle scratch pad next to the phone. Just because you see snowmobile tracks in the same field as a dog trackway does not mean that they were made at the same time, or that snowmobiles are viciously hunting dogs and people.

That did not stop Skippy (I needed a name for the author, since I have no idea who it is) from pulling the sadly predictable of "the vicious theropods stalking the ankylosaurs."

Getting the visitor interested: 1/10. Who hasn't heard that tired old chestnut trotted out for EVERY site with a theropod involved without any way to back it up? Snooze-ville.
Accuracy: 0/10. With no evidence to support a hunting scenario, they would be essentially lying to the visitors.

I've read and written A LOT of public education materials. I give A LOT of public talks on fossil tracks. I tweet voraciously.  Do you know what I've found out during all of this time?

1. People are interested in the facts! We have not found it that difficult to tell people accurate information about our track sites and our research and to get them excited about it. Heck, that's where most of our research funding comes from: getting non-specialists excited about the projects. We're good at this. There are lots of different groups and media outlets that do ask us to fact check, because they know we aren't going to BS them with fanciful nonsense.

2. People don't like to be patronized to. Infantilizing information, or the infamous "dumbing down," is basically telling people that they are not bright enough to appreciate the facts. Most people really do want facts when they are visiting a science place or going to a science talk - heck, that's why they are there! - and it is a direct insult to the audience if you assume that they are not going to get it unless you add nonsense. Every time we give a talk, we have an audience that is excited about hearing the newest information. They're in the know, and they end up wanting to know more.

My comments on the document were longer than the document itself. The response: "This is a method of storytelling to get people engaged."

According to Skippy, making stuff up about a science site is A-OK as long as people get interested. So Skippy, what happens when the visitors do get interested, and do their own investigations, and find out you fed them the science communication version of used tissues? Is this still engaging storytelling?

In my frustration, I took to Twitter. Here is what I posted:

Public Science Writing Service Announcement: "Storytelling" does not mean you make s**t up. It still has to be factual.

— Lisa Buckley (@Lisavipes) February 27, 2017

That post struck a chord with people: I've never had a viral tweet, but a lot of people agreed with this approach. To me it's a sign that people are getting a bit tired of the same old insulting scicomm that marketing types and large-platform media are offering.

I cannot blame them. When a TV program, documentary, billboard, tourism brochure, marketing strategy, etc., presents a cheap and lazy science story to engage their target audience, they are not doing it from a place of respect. They are demonstrating that they do not respect either the science or their audience.

I am angry and frustrated at this lazy, disrespectful approach to science-related engagement. Anyone feeding you a sensationalized story "because it's engaging" is essentially lying to you. They don't want you to know that they think you are too thick to appreciate the facts. People should be insulted when they are presented with sloppy advertising, cringe-worthy network programming, and Barney-fied displays. You're being insulted right to your face, except the people doing the insulting get to hide behind their networks and billboards. For every "Hunting Bigfoot" show and use of Jurassic Park imagery to push dinosaurs, you are being told your interest is worth the minimal effort. They are using their large platforms to decide FOR YOU what you have the smarts to understand. If someone wearing a Big Network badge walked up to you and said "You are too dense to understand the real information," would you accept that? I hope not, and I hope you don't accept it when it's presented to you in the form of a sign, TV show, or tourism campaign.

The people who push these insulting narratives don't actually believe - or want to take the time to find out - that the facts do make a story interesting! People visit historical sites, read non-fiction biographies, and watch documentaries: they want to know what happened. People also want to know how and why we know it happened. This is no different when applied to promoting dinosaur sites and museums. We don't have to "trick" people into being excited about science, and we shouldn't ever be approaching this from a "tricking" or "sneaking in the science" perspective. Again, that doesn't come from a position of respect.

I'm in the process of collecting #SadSciPromo examples: the signs, promotions, and shows that are supposedly science-based but make you do the eternal head desk.

Do you have any examples of #SadSciPromo that you have encountered? Please let me know. The more of these that I collect - and the more people who indicate that they are fed up with this type of insulting media - the more background information I'll have to demonstrate when needed that we need to respect our audiences more than those who call marine reptiles dinosaurs, or those who think fake documentaries on mermaids are good for public science literacy. We all deserve much, much better, and should demand it.

Until next time,
Strange Woman.

Raven Regurgitates: Strange Woman Now Collects Bird Barf

I'm already the strange woman in the ditch looking at bird tracks, and the strange woman dashing on to the middle of the road to pick up roadkill, so I might as well be that bloody strange woman walking along the bridge on the highway, picking up raven barf.

We all have our hobbies, after all.

Yesterday (Sunday, May 15) our dojo did our annual highway cleanup. Having recently received the renewal for our institution's wildlife salvage permit, I was on the look out for recent roadkill. Birds and small mammals are all my recovering dermestid beetle colonies can handle at this point (thanks, wolf spider), but besides a couple of very flat mice, there was no roadkill to be had.

Wuz in ur coloneez, nomming ur beetlz.

What we did see, when walking over one of the highway bridges close to the local boat launch, was a railing full of raven traces in the form of poop (yes, it's feces, but poop is more fun to write) and regurgitated pellets!

Most people are familiar with owl pellets or regurgitates. Owls tend to swallow their prey whole or in large chunks. Bone, fur, feathers, scales, skin, exoskeletons, and anything that the prey was eating (seeds and vegetation) are all swallowed. The gizzard of the owl compacts all of this hard to digest and indigestible material into a pellet, which the owl later regurgitates.



Owl pellets are fascinating, and form the base of a really fun educational activity: owl pellet dissection! It's a wonderful way to demonstrate the food web and predator-prey interactions, and predator diets. Owl pellets are also an invaluable source of dietary data for ornithologists studying the prey of target owl species. Owl pellets can also provide insight into the preservation of small mammal fauna from Cenozoic sediments: a paper by Terry (2004) examines what happens to the pellets of extant Great Horned Owls (Bubo virginianus) as they break down in a temperate forest environment. This another great example of how studies on modern ichnology (pellets are traces of an organism, so they are 100% in the realm of ichnology!) give us a better understanding of fossil ichnology.

Owls are not the only birds that regurgitate pellets: birds of prey, gulls, herons, cormorants, shorebirds, and corvids. Bird species that consume a great deal of indigestible material with their meal are likely to hack up pellets.

This morning I went to the bridge to see how many raven pellets I could collect for our institution's summer educational activities. We already have a Barn Owl pellet dissection activity, but Barn Owls are not native to northeastern British Columbia. The Common Raven, however, is ubiquitous in our region.

It was easy to see which side of the bridge the ravens preferred to perch on: the side that is closest to the boat launch. Our local ravens figured out that where there are trucks, there are people and the tasty things that people leave behind.

This Common Raven watched me from the boat launch the entire time I was rummaging around their bridge perch.

Clearly ravens spend a great deal of time on this railing.

I set to work choosing my samples. It was clear which deposits were pellets, and which ones were raven poo.

I did not arrange these deposits for the photo. The deposit on the far left has passed through the digestive tract and was deposited via the cloaca: you can see the white material (uric acid) and the small mounds underneath the uric acid. The deposit in the center is a nicely intact pellet. There is white material in the pellet, but it is solid, thin, and fragments of a once larger object. Our working hypothesis is that it is eggshell that this particular raven picked out of the trash. The deposit on the far right is full of fibrous vegetation and uric acid. It may have been a pellet that was later pooped on, or it was fecal in origin and has weathered a lot before I came across it.

I collected two intact pellets, and have passed them on to our Education Coordinator who will now heat sanitize the pellets. This site is easy to access, so we have the opportunity to collect more throughout the year. Once the pellets are sanitized, the kids participating in the Owl Pellet Dissection can compare the diet of a Barn Owl to that of their local Common Raven.

Wish me luck in finding more local bird pellet locations!


References

Terry, R. C. 2004. Owl pellet taphonomy: a preliminary study of the post-regurgitation taphonomic history of pellets in a temperate forest. Palaios 19(5):497-506.

Spring Cleaning for Demestid Beetles

Hello Dear Readers!

Spring is in the air, and with spring comes the traditional Spring Cleaning. Spring Cleaning is not something one thinks about when they think "flesh-eating beetles", but in our case it was high time that the Homeworld Colony received a thorough mucking out.

Dermestid beetles do like to frolic in their own filth, but sometimes that filth (beetle feces, chewed up bits of paper and foam, hair and feathers from specimens they process, shed carapaces/exoskeletons) builds up to the point where either 1) the beetles can reach the top of their enclosure and mount a Great Escape, 2) they become so busy with roaming around the catacombs of their filth that they forget they have a job to do, or 3) their much-loved filth becomes soggy, matted, moldy, or plain unnavigable. At that point, it is time to muck out the colony.

Let's look at the brief history of the Homeworld Colony. This colony used to be home to my colony of Dermestes maculatus, the Hide Beetle. These are the most common dermestid beetles used in laboratories and museums for defleshing skeletal specimens. I have two experimental colonies of Dermestes lardarius, the Larder Beetle or the bacon beetle. These dermestids were wild caught, and by that I mean I collected them from around Maia's (my cat) soft food dish, or they were given to me by very understanding friends. NOTE: you know a person is a really good friend if they don't mind you crawling around their baseboards and kitchen looking for beetles and their larvae.

Two years ago I took both the Hide Beetle and the Larder Beetle colonies outside for an education activity to show kids the difference between the two types of beetles, and to show them the skulls. It was a warm day, and I found out the hard way that our local Larder Beetles fly at a much lower temperature (around 20 Celsius) than the Hide Beetles. Larder Beetles are not the most graceful or speedy fliers, but enough managed to fly from Miranda Colony (yes, I am a Firefly fan) to Homeworld (also a Babylon 5 fan) to form what I can only describe as an invasion colony. The Larder Beetles out-competed the Hide Beetles, and now I have three colonies of Larder Beetles.

Except that Homeworld's processing speed started to lag. No progress was being made on any of the specimens. I could see beetles in the colony, but the colony was not teeming with activity. This past fall we discovered that a Wolf Spider had entered the colony. I have no idea how long it was in there, but I'm sure it had a fine time snacking away on my defenseless beetles.

J'accuse! The offending spider.

There are many reasons a colony can collapse, and sometimes it is necessary to give the colony a "fresh" (if that term may be used for dermestid beetles and dried heads of animals) start. Today our field assistant Linda and I decided to hit the colony's reset button and give it a good cleaning.

Here's what Homeworld looked like when we started.

Dermestid beetles living graciously.

You can see that there are several layers of beetle activity captured in this colony. Foam, cardboard, fur and feather form an organic stratigraphic column that shows when each specimen was processed. This colony had not received a thorough cleaning since it's start date in 2013.

First we brought everything outside, and donned our eye protection, particulate masks (I do not want to breathe in beetle poo), and gloves. Next, we removed all of the in progress specimens from the colony and placed them in the receiving bucket. This included a cougar skull, a wolverine skull, a White-winged Crossbill, a Purple Finch, and a Swainson's Thrush.

Once the specimens were removed, we had to sift through the refuse to salvage as many living beetles as we could. We did a couple of handfuls by hand...

Beetle waste.

...before we said "Hey, we're not just biologists: we're also geologists! We have screens!" and brought out a 2 mm screen. This saved us a lot of time and the lives of many larvae and adults.

Before sifting.

After sifting. It was much easier to see scampering beetles and wriggling larvae with all of the feces removed.

We made sure to save the beetles "apartment buildings", or the foam in which the larvae like to burrow to pupate.

If you store anything precious in polystyrene foam, check on it occasionally: if you have any resident dermestids, they will find the foam.

It was a great day to be outside. We were treated to a serenade by the European Starlings. These starlings had quite the repertoire of songs: we heard mimicry of Red-tailed Hawks, American Robins, and a Western Meadowlark.

We also saw that love was in the air, bird-style. A male and female House Sparrow landed on our garbage bin and proceeded to mate in front of us. Linda took a couple of photos and a video. The video shows the last of five matings.

"Birds do it, bees do it..." Photo and video credits: Linda Amos.

After all of that sifting and sorting, we did not find as many beetles in the lower layers of the colony as we had hoped. The colony was slow in its processing speed simply because there are not enough beetles in there for visible progress. All of the newly found beetles will be added to this colony to give it a boost while the survivors slowly rebuild their numbers. Stay tuned for progress reports!

All "clean"! Homeworld 2.0 is ready to process the wolverine (bottom), cougar (left), Purple Finch (top left), Swainson's Thrush (top right), and White-winged Crossbill (right).

Why I Will Always Give New Students Scut-Work

Hello Dear Readers!

This is a brief post, partly to dust some of the cobwebs off of the blog after a hectic summer, partly to post something before I dive into a rather intense period of publishing, and partly because there are just some things that steam my clams, boil my tea, and burn my toast. In other words, welcome to a rant.

This issue keeps popping into my mind, and clearly the only way to exorcise this demon-thought is to write it out. [UPDATE: This issue also came to mind as I spent two days scraping plaster off of a sink and counter, and attempting to peel a latex mold that someone had left a plaster cast in. I have never given birth, but removing a forgotten plaster cast from a latex mold is what I imagine it feels like.] The issue is one of menial tasks, mindless tasks, and those jobs that can be best described as scut-work. You know the jobs: they range from filling out the same words over and over and over again on to the acid-free archiving sheets with a pen tip that is not forgiving to any level of pressure, to mopping the floors and scrubbing plaster off of counter tops and out of sinks. [NOTE: don't wash unhardened plaster down the sink. That stuff hardens under water, and will cost you a heavy plumber's bill and a scolding from said plumber.] These are the jobs that, if they are not done, either progress is inhibited and/or the place turns into a bloody pit of filth (usually both).

We operate in a small, rather remote community, and with small communities the volunteer/student pool on which to draw is understandably small. In general there are two categories of volunteers: the Community Volunteer and the Prospective Student. The Community Volunteer is an interested member of the community who is either retired or has the capability to donate their time. The Community Volunteer tends to be older, experienced in their previous field, and has a great deal of accumulated experiences. The Prospective Student is looking for paleontology/geology/museum studies related experience because they are interested in pursuing paleontology/geology/museum studies as their career.

There is one major difference that I notice right away between the Community Volunteer and the Prospective Student. When the subject of workspace cleanliness is addressed, the Community Volunteer understands immediately, and I never have to remind them about it after that initial orientation. The Prospective Student, in general (doesn't apply to every and all students, but to enough that this post entered my brain), needs to be reminded. Many times.

I used to have serious reservations regarding "ordering" someone to do scut-work. I am not into the  "I did it, so now you have to" or the "That's what students are for!" attitude when assigning work to students. These are future colleagues, not servants. My work philosophy is that I don't assign chores that I wouldn't or haven't done myself, and I lead by example when rolling up my sleeves and participating in said scut-work.

I have to do this because scut-work never ends. Never. It's not just something that you are subjected to by a crusty old lab tech or professor and then, once you have served your time and have proven that you are capable of mopping, you are done with menial tasks forever.

I have tried leading by example. I have explained, multiple times, why we must keep our labs and stations clean. Here are some of my go-to examples:

• Safety. Clutter hurts. Sloppiness can kill. My favorite real-life example is a student who did not realize they had spilled acetone on themselves, and then decided to use a tiger torch (no one was hurt). 
• Equipment longevity. Tools that are not properly maintained and stored break down sooner. Tools are more expensive to replace than to maintain. Improperly functioning tools are also dangerous (see previous point).
• Specimen integrity. Let's say you are prepping a bone, and a piece becomes loose and free. It falls on the work station service. What is easier to find: a bone fragment on a clean surface, or a bone fragment in a pile of refuse?
• Efficiency. If you spend most of your time sifting through clutter and mess to find what you need to do your job, you are wasting both my time and yours. 

I have now reached the point where scut-work is part of any training program for new students and/or volunteers. Some students do not like this. I had a parent of a prospective student, with student in tow, ask me to detail what the very first tasks were for new students. I had to answer with data entry and collections foam cutting and sorting: those were the tasks I needed done right away, and I would be working directly with the student on this. I explained this was for the ongoing fossil collections reorganization project. The eyes of both student and parent glazed: they wanted to jump into the field and prep dinosaur fossils right away. I explained this is a tricky task that we don't throw immediate recruits into (our rock requires the use of pneumatic tools - we have no simple toothbrush and solvent preparations.) I never heard from them again.

There is another good reason to give everyone a hand in the scut-work: how people approach the "not fun" jobs is a very good indicator of the attitude they will bring to the "fun" jobs. Do you approach cleaning the lab as a chore, with copious amounts of whining, glares, and snide comments? Or do you realize that this is a necessary, if maybe dull, part of the entire experience of working in your field, and roll up the sleeves for the collective good? Our best preparators, tour guides, and gallery hosts have been those who have attended all the tasks, from floor mopping to prepping, with the same thoroughness and thoughfulness.

My advise to students? You are not being punished with scut-work. Whether you are told this or not, you are receiving training in your field, but a part of your field that is not portrayed by the documentaries or other media. Scut-work allows for the exciting discoveries to happen, because the cool science can't happen if the focus is on repairing the plaster-clogged sink or sending the tools away to be refurbished due to neglect.

Now, time to break out my favorite broom and give collections a good sweep. The glue that I peeled from donated archival-quality foam left its-and-bits all over the floor.