Southport pelagics FTW

Black petrel (Robert Morris, photo with permission)

The Southern Oceans Seabird Study Association, or SOSSA, is a wildlife research and conservation group aimed at encouraging naturalists both amateur and professional to research the biodiversity of the Southern Ocean. Saturday last I was fortunate enough to be part of the pelagic birdwatching experience, and what made Saturday the 9th of February particularly interesting is the recent strong winds and rains (never thought I would say this, but thankyou Oswald!) had blown in a lot of interesting birds to the waters of SE Queensland. Among the birds seen on that day, the highlights for me were the petrels: white-neck, kermadek, black and tahiti petrels to name a few. I was also fortunate to meet a number of enthusiastic and professional birders who shared fascinating stories and knowledge with me. Seeing as I always get a high from seeing new birds, I came away from the trip feeling very satisfied with the whole experience. Will I be going birding out on the open ocean again? You bet your life I will.

Herping season coming to a close

Litoria tyleri, photo taken by yours truly

A few little secrets about me: I am a twitcher (extreme bird-watcher) and a herper ( = amphibian and reptile seeker; "herp" is short for herpetofauna). I absolutely love these two pasttimes, and I have a group of close friends who are also very knowledgeable and keen to find new or unusual animals to report and "tick" off a life-list or regional list of animals seen.
Twitching is a year-round affair; it doesn't matter what day or season you go out, there will always be birds. Rare ones? Well reports on vagrant or unusual sightings of birds are regularly (and reliably) posted on a fantastic bird site called Eremaea Birds (reports are in "birdlines" by regions in Australia only). Herping is a different story. Firstly, to get yourself a reptile or amphibian in Brisbane (QLD Australia) you need the right season. Late Spring-Late Summer is the optimal herp season; for the rest of the year, most herpetofauna are either inactive or brumating (a type of dormancy in reptiles similar to hibernating), so the chances of seeing one is relatively low (seeing as the Southern Hemisphere is starting to cool down at the tail-end of Summer, I am very sad to wave goodbye to the herps for another 8-9 months). Secondly, you need the weather to be in your favour. To maximise your chances of seeing interesting reptiles, you need a very hot, sunny day with no rainfall, and for amphibians, a warm day is preferable, but ideally recent heavy rainfall will bring out all the frogs in a chorus. Herping is an activity best suited to the night; most hunting and breeding activities happen at this time, and as such herps are more likely to be spotted or heard. You also need to know herp "hot-spots", based on local experienced herper recommendations or reports of herps on government sites (for Queensland, Wild Net is a useful guide to what exists in an area), to have a decent chance of spotting your target species. Feel free to ask me any questions on herping or birding in the comments below, and for those of you who have iPhones/iPads and are interested in recording GPS and species information during birding or herping trips I can recommend the "Sightings" app by Stewart Macdonald (author of Australian Reptile Online Database).

Playing it cool

Business cards. I've been avoiding the idea of making business cards, but to date I am not one-hundred percent sure why. Maybe it is the awkwardness of self-promotion, or perhaps I never felt them necessary at this stage in my career. Whatever the reason was before, in the past six hours I have really wished I had some. This sudden desire to have business cards spawned from a tip-off from a good friend that there was a lecturer in evolution and conservation of SE Asian reptiles and amphibians attending the conservation conference she was at. This was exactly the kind of person I wanted to meet - not only out of sheer curiosity about his lab and research, but also for networking purposes. I was invited to attend a poster session at the conference, and whilst the Person Of Interest (hereafter, POI) was not attending the session (but I plan to catch POI before the conference ends), I met so many people doing amazing research that I wanted to share contact details with. As I questioned and spoke with a few people about their research, the topic of future communications cropped up. At this point, the person I was speaking to would leave a lasting positive impression on me by casually gliding a smart business card of their contact info in my direction. I was probably a little too enthusiastic about the cards, and may have disturbed the people with my excitement about the colours, but the point is, I never had experienced the power of the business card before. It was powerful, and oh-so-shiny. I was more than thoroughly impressed and knew immediately I would use the information in my hand. I would contact that person. Then it occured to me - how will I impress POI when I meet him? How will I sell myself so convincingly that I will secure a firm contact? A business card was the answer. Well, if I had one. Which I don't. Lesson learnt? Make business cards. In the mean time, scrap paper and illegible writing will have to suffice!

This year, prepare for PhD awesomeness

The forgotten and ultimate survival tip for PhD

It's been a while since I've posted anything, and it is mostly due to me taking two months' leave from PhD. As such I have had literally nothing to comment on relating to my research. This post is in honour of someone who pointed out to me the key flaw in my "survival guide to PhD" post, that is, I didn't mention that a PhD student should never give up (although, life circumstance or job opportunity or any preferable change of direction in life are good reasons to quit). But for all of those out there with a general feeling of intellectual or motivational inadequacy, and are languishing over their PhD being a disaster and a dog's breakfast, you are not alone. Myself and so many others I know doing a PhD feel the same way. With the realisation that my PhD is likely to go for four years instead of three, I am currently coming to terms with a sense of failure, to myself and my supervisor, which is most likely unwarranted. I suspect it has a lot to do with high expectations for myself. This guilt and feeling of inadequacy and the fear of a sheer mountain of research and writing that has yet to be done, on top of a relationship breakdown and poor health, has literally caused me to breakdown. I've taken a break from PhD, but I won't give up. I know I shouldn't feel guilt at not being able to finish my PhD in three years, after all, if the government only wants to fund me for three years, that doesn't mean a PhD absolutely must be done in three years. Things take time, there's lots of waiting, and life happens. I've promised myself I'll get this PhD, and I'm going to do it. A close friend of mine has a great (and aptly Australian) definition for tenacity: "holding on for dear life, even when your dead", and I'll do my best to stick to that definition.
If you have a PhD story of dread or let-downs, feel free to share it in comments, after all, sharing the pain helps with the healing.

Alas! Poor Yorick

Homo sapiens (Cro-Magnon, 10000-30000 YA)

The primates include apes, monkeys and prosimians (bushbabies and lemurs). The main features that unite this group include a proportionately large brain, an opposable thumb on the hand, five fingers and toes, a long heel, nails instead of claws and forward facing eyes that provide binocular vision and good depth perception. Yes, this is obviously the group we (Homo sapiens) belong to. Specifically, humans (or Homo) belong to a tribe known as the Hominini, and within that, the subtribe Hominina. The reason I have bothered to mention all this information is because I want to share with the world the Bone clones rotational series, which gives you free access to a set of 3D and rotatable images of selected hominin skulls. It even has the fake "fossil" skull of Piltdown Man that was "found" in 1912 at Piltdown in Sussex, England that was hailed as the "missing link" between apes and humans (it wasn't until 1953 that it was proven to be fake). I have just spent the last half hour playing with the different skulls, so for those of you who are interested - Enjoy!

PhDs: a survival guide

 A five-step survival guide for all those who are about to start a PhD.

1. Eat healthily and exercise regularly. I know this sounds kind of intuitive, but your mental health is likely to take a beating throughout your PhD, so you might as well ensure you are at least physically healthy. Regular exercise is always a pain and a struggle, so perhaps consider joining a club so that the exercise is regular and there are people motivating you to push on. Also, don't fall into the trap of eating junk food because it is convenient, plan ahead so that when you are about to collapse after a long day at uni there is already a frozen meal ready to re-heat. Trust me, sitting behind a computer or a microscope all day, you will put on the pounds if you don't look after yourself.
2. Make time for social events. Without your mates you will have no one to bounce ideas off and just let off some steam with. During your PhD, it is likely your friends become your surrogate family, but to have friends you have to be a friend. So, try your best to turn up to events.
3. Organisation from the beginning. You've all heard it before and I reiterate: if you fall behind due to unforeseen problems, prior planning and staying on top of things will likely help you to meet that deadline or give you some time to come up with a contingency plan.
4. Choose a supervisory team and your readers wisely. So often I have seen students who have supervisors that are too busy, or just plain too scary to talk to. Furthermore, a friend of mine was dragged over the coals by an annoying reader for no apparent reason, there were no criticisms or feedback, just contradictions to the other readers because he/she could. If someone gives you a tip-off that a potential reader or supervisor is busy or unlikely to give you good feedback, can them. Don't waste your time.



If something doesn't seem right, it probably isn't...

5. If something doesn't feel right, stop, and reconsider your options. We've all heard a story about someone who did something in their PhD because their supervisor wanted them too, even though the student didn't feel it was right, then 3 years later the student finds out their gut feeling was right and they wasted 3 years doing something fruitless. IT'S TRUE. I know eight people where this has happened to them. If you feel uneasy or there are too many gaps in your experiment or model, sort the problem out immediately. Don't wait it out just because your supervisor says it will be fine. Time is a precious, precious commodity.