A Note on Leeches, Cartoon Bears, and Science Fiction Impersonators

We haven't seen much wildlife in the last few days, well at least interesting/noteworthy wildlife. It is almost as if the animals wanted to show off for us in our first week here, and now that we are no longer a novelty, they all went back to their business. My boss did receive an email from our landlord however, telling us that there is a bear wandering around the resort so we need to be careful. But the closet thing to to a bear I've seen lately was a cut-out of Yogi and Boo-boo on our drive to the river. All I can picture now is waking up one morning to the resort bear stealing our pic-a-nic basket!

Speaking of bears, there is this t-shirt at the Wawa General Store that says "you don't have to outrun a bear, you just have to outrun your friend". Well I figured out who out of the four of us on the team will be the one who gets left behind and eaten by the bear...can you guess?...It's ME! We went back to Wawa to (FINALLY) install the thermologgers in the Magpie River. This is the first time I had to hike into the access points and I trailed behind everyone else by at least 10 mins! Normally I wouldn't make to big a deal out of it, however the access points on the river are SURROUNDED by blueberry bushes!! So once they start to bloom I will be a sitting duck. If I had my hiking boots on I might have a chance, but in waders? I can barely bend my knees let alone run! I should just surrender myself now! Maybe if I bust my butt and manage to keep up with everyone and then outrun (cough-trip-cough!) the person carrying the Electrofishing Backpack I won't be the one eaten lol.

Lately, underneath de l'eau is where it is happening! Snorkeling is going a lot better. I am gaining my strength back in my arms and I am really starting to get a hang of seeing and identifying fish while snorkeling. While it is strenuous to the body climbing against heavy currents, quite frustrating to find fish, and overall a very slow process, the plus side is it gives me the perfect opportunity to practice my Darth Vader impression :P

Through Snorkel: points to a Trout (heavy breathing) "The force (to avoid the electrofisher) is strong with this one"

A piece of advice for those of you who like to snorkel in freshwater rivers- When snorkeling in the river, even if you where all the neoprene in the world, you won't be saved from leeches! So watch out! Make sure you check the inside of your wetsuit when you remove it. The one I found today, while fortunately didn't attach to me, attached to the INSIDE of my suit. And I wore a full length wetsuit, gloves, boots, and a hood!! How did it get in?! Can you say EWWWWW!!

Finally, I would like to leave all of you with a little guessing game. When we went to Wawa the first time we had a lot of trouble finding the access points (encountering washed out roads, mounds of dirt blocking roads etc). Can you guess which is the actual way to the river? Don't worry it threw us for a loop as well!

Sincerely,

Your thoroughly amused, sometimes bored, and wanting-to-avoid-getting-back-into-the-wetsuit Field Biologist