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Field notes [ants]
Jun. 27th, 2021 08:49 amWhy not put them here - after all, this is searchable and my blog has saved my bacon on field notes in the past.
Yesterday morning was going to be our last attempt at collecting queens from the "mixed" site (both social forms occur there - the polygynous cooperator queens and the haplometrotic non-cooperator queens). The evening before we managed to get all of 6 queens (were hoping for more like 80). We arrived fairly early - it was cool and colonies were moving fairly slowly. We decided to take the fork to the upper trail, where at 9 am we saw two larger colonies that were very active, with female alates ready to take off. It's impossible to track them once they're airborne, unfortunately. Those two nests wrapped up by 9:15 - they were both larger and out in very sunny locations.
Along the main trail, I also saw about 4 other colonies send off alates, all the way up until we decided to wrap up and leave at about 10:20 am.
We came back at 1 pm, but it was warm enough at that time of day that the colonies were completely inactive - no workers out at all. So we called it and headed back to Arizona.
I'm having a lot of those self-doubts about having left yesterday. We probably should have stayed out one more day. I just wasn't thinking strategically enough about what we could do with the queens we've collected so far.
I learned a lot this trip. We tested out three different campgrounds. A lot of them fill up over the weekends leading up to the Fourth of July, so it would be a good idea to make reservations in advance. The one closest to Julian was nice and provides reasonably good access to all of the sites.
I also need to say "sleeping bags" for future years. Slightly too chilly for the sheets/blankets we brought.
Having access to a DOHRI in Julian was really nice (3 other people needed it for their research projects, which required electricity and relatively stable room air temperatures). Maybe in future years the cabins at one of the campgrounds would suffice.
Ocean Beach in San Diego was awesome - I 100% would do that again as a break from work.
We should probably push our timing back just slightly later, in spite of J saying that everything flies 2 weeks earlier now.
I won't try the Highway 78 route back again. The descent to the Anzo Borrega campground was amazing, but that was too much back highway driving following on a whole lot of back highway driving between collection sites, and I don't enjoy that approach back into the Phoenix area. Too stressful.
Onward to the next phase in the lab.
Yesterday morning was going to be our last attempt at collecting queens from the "mixed" site (both social forms occur there - the polygynous cooperator queens and the haplometrotic non-cooperator queens). The evening before we managed to get all of 6 queens (were hoping for more like 80). We arrived fairly early - it was cool and colonies were moving fairly slowly. We decided to take the fork to the upper trail, where at 9 am we saw two larger colonies that were very active, with female alates ready to take off. It's impossible to track them once they're airborne, unfortunately. Those two nests wrapped up by 9:15 - they were both larger and out in very sunny locations.
Along the main trail, I also saw about 4 other colonies send off alates, all the way up until we decided to wrap up and leave at about 10:20 am.
We came back at 1 pm, but it was warm enough at that time of day that the colonies were completely inactive - no workers out at all. So we called it and headed back to Arizona.
I'm having a lot of those self-doubts about having left yesterday. We probably should have stayed out one more day. I just wasn't thinking strategically enough about what we could do with the queens we've collected so far.
I learned a lot this trip. We tested out three different campgrounds. A lot of them fill up over the weekends leading up to the Fourth of July, so it would be a good idea to make reservations in advance. The one closest to Julian was nice and provides reasonably good access to all of the sites.
I also need to say "sleeping bags" for future years. Slightly too chilly for the sheets/blankets we brought.
Having access to a DOHRI in Julian was really nice (3 other people needed it for their research projects, which required electricity and relatively stable room air temperatures). Maybe in future years the cabins at one of the campgrounds would suffice.
Ocean Beach in San Diego was awesome - I 100% would do that again as a break from work.
We should probably push our timing back just slightly later, in spite of J saying that everything flies 2 weeks earlier now.
I won't try the Highway 78 route back again. The descent to the Anzo Borrega campground was amazing, but that was too much back highway driving following on a whole lot of back highway driving between collection sites, and I don't enjoy that approach back into the Phoenix area. Too stressful.
Onward to the next phase in the lab.
