in the field

Tag: Mexico

When I Stopped Chasing The Dream Job, I Discovered My Dream Career

Re-posting an article I wrote for National Girls Collaborative Project, because I’ve added fun links in this version! You can read the original article published on National Girls Collaborative Project Blog  (submitted by Greta Carlson on April 29, 2016 – 2:20 pm)

Contributed by Allison Lee 

Growing up I never had a clear picture of what I wanted to become. Inspecting insects, creating mud-pies and gazing at the stars were childhood past times and as I grew into a teenager I embraced traveling and learning more about nature. I didn’t immediately connect all of these interests with becoming a scientist. My parents were not scientists. No one in my family had degrees beyond a high school diploma.  I remember wondering if I even needed to go to college. I spent  years frustrated by my lack of vision; finding the dream job I felt contained all of my passions was a struggle.

By the time I turned 30, I had traveled to all seven continents as a Biologist studying a diversity of lifeforms from microscopic algae, to songbirds, parrots, mice, squirrels, big cats, and whales. Obviously I figured something out! Life is funny that way. A hunch paired with the right blend of curiosity, odd jobs, research-focused vacations, volunteer opportunities, frugal living, and luck delivered me to my dream career.

Finding my passion
In my high school senior yearbook I wrote that I wanted to be an astronaut. I thought astronauts traveled the most of anyone on Earth. Inspired, I researched the degrees earned by NASA’s astronauts and found an overwhelming proportion had studied science. I decided to major in biology and geology at the University of Washington. It wasn’t until sophomore year when I had the epiphany that biology was my passion.

The scope of biology is broad and I wanted to learn as many disciplines as possible. Senior year, I signed up for an internship in neuroscience at the Allen Institute for Brain Science and found a part-time lab job in the Immunology Department taking care of a mouse colony. I started learning molecular techniques and computer programs, using fancy pieces of equipment, and doing those things called PCRs and Southern Blots. I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on – but I was doing SCIENCE!

6_lab

Questioning my interests
After I graduated with my Bachelor of Science in Biology, I continued to work full time in the immunology lab. Two and a half years passed. Restlessness set in and I began to wonder if maybe I just didn’t like science anymore. I knew one next possible move was to go to graduate school, like many of my college peers, but I didn’t know what I wanted to commit to studying. I wasn’t inspired by my neurobiology or immunology experiences. I hated doing computer work. I felt stuck. So I did the thing you’re never supposed to do: I quit.

The next two months were spent feverishly searching job boards, institute websites, and email listservs. Because of my interest in many aspects of biology, I didn’t know where to focus my efforts. Regardless, I felt optimistic that my Dream Job was out there. A job posting for a field technician conducting songbird research caught my eye. I didn’t know much about birds, but I convinced the interviewer I could learn bird songs because I learned other languages easily and had been playing music for 15 years. It worked! Every morning I woke at 4:00 AM to get to the field site before the sun rose. I got paid to be outside tromping through the woods looking for birds. It was during these quiet twilight mornings, outside in nature, that I realized THIS was my dream job. I never wanted it to end.

But, as is the nature of seasonal fieldwork, it did. Five months later, I found myself once again unemployed. Turns out, seasonal work is the usual for field technicians. I knew that field biology wouldn’t be the most lucrative career choice, but I felt empowered to commit myself to studying the environment – whether I got paid for it or not.

3_songbirds

The sacrifices
I went on a quest to find as many wildlife jobs as I could. Later that year, I studied forest fire treatments on threatened squirrel populations; I studied the breeding behaviors of endangered parrots in Mexico. Each time, the pay was minimal to none, so I worked side-gigs as a professional baker and bartender to pay my bills. While I was happy to gallivant around the woods for science, working for free wasn’t exactly the dream job I had in mind. I was turning into a poor disgruntled vagabond.

In an effort to gain a sustainable salary, I left fieldwork and went back into the lab to begin a project at the Institute for Systems Biology (ISB) investigating the genetic responses of algae to climate change and ocean acidification. I knew nothing about marine systems but I had skills in the lab and stellar references. Part of me thought leaving the field was a mistake but as I gained exposure to the natural world within a molecular science framework, I saw the impact of a systems approach to research and I was hooked. I still missed going out into nature every day, but I kept an open mind and a positive attitude.

Over six years have passed since I went back into the lab and the job has given me more opportunities than I could have imagined. What started off as a lab job performing controlled experiments on algae has evolved into a field job sampling algae from the natural environment. This work has led me all over the Puget Sound area of Washington, as well as to Hawaii, and even as far as Antarctica!

7_cytometerlab

The best of both worlds
As a field scientist working indoors, I still daydreamed about the rainforests. On the weekends, I’d flee to the mountains. With a bit of money saved up, I decided to satisfy my restless soul. I used my vacations to help conduct research on voluntourism projects, like Earthwatch. From aboard a restored rubber boom era steamship, I spent three weeks studying biodiversity in the Amazon jungle. I realized I could save my money, use my vacation time to get out in the field, and still have a paying job in science. It was the best of both worlds!

The plan is working. I’ve volunteered on projects studying macaws with Tambopata Research Center in Peru, biodiversity in the Amazon, big cats in Africa, and whales in Mexico. I love volunteering so much I do it at home too, giving time to local conservation organizations like Conservation Northwest. We work to mitigate human wildlife conflicts in the migration corridors of the Cascades. I also get kids outdoors with the Sierra Club, and spend time with kids through Ocean Inquiry Project, the Woodland Park Zoo, and Pacific Science Center. I speak about careers in environmental science with students to convey my passion for nature and inspire another generation to care about protecting the biodiversity on Earth.

12_planktontow

What’s in a dream?
I’ve come to believe the dream job doesn’t exist for me, and I don’t think it’s beneficial to maintain that perspective. I have too many passions – too much wonder for the potential of science in the world. I find fulfillment in contributing to important work for the environment and interacting with innovative collaborative thinkers. I benefit from an extremely flexible schedule, live in the city, and travel to amazing places through work. And I’ve been lucky to have many other amazing experiences volunteering with local and international conservation organizations. I am continually seeking as many opportunities as I can find, but this time things are different; I’m no longer looking for the Dream Job, I am creating the Dream Career.

1_profile

Allison Lee is a Seattle native who loves coffee, talking to people, and learning new things. When she’s not doing science you can catch her ultra-running, cycling, hiking in nature, traveling, and burning the candle at both ends. At age 32, she has finally realized the differences between working a job and building a career. This summer she will begin a Masters degree in Marine Biodiversity and Conservation at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego California with the hopes of following another curiosity: the social, economic and policy side of marine science. You can follow her and see examples of other inspirational women working in the field at Woman Scientist on Instagram, Facebook, and the Web.

**UPDATE** (April 2018): Allison graduated with her Master’s degree June 2017 and shortly after received funding from the National Science Foundation to support the Capstone project she created with Dr. Maria Vernet (watch the video here). Allison is now in the Biological Oceanography PhD program with Dr. Vernet at Scripps Institution of Oceanography leading the FjordPhyto citizen science project with tourists in Antarctica and the Arctic. She also works part time as a Senior Research Associate at Synthetic Genomics (Target CW) to advance breakthroughs in algal biofuel research.

Share this:
Facebooktwitterby feather

Why I Studied Parrots in Mexico

I wanted experience. I wanted adventure. I wanted to be a field biologist.

I had gotten a taste for that life during two previous jobs I had worked: one season tracking squirrels in Eastern Washington, and one season tracking song birds in urbanized areas within Seattle. I had been filling the in-between-season field jobs baking for a friend’s start up Swedish Bakery and I found that I loved using my hands, baking, and eating my failed experiments, but it wasn’t my passion. It wasn’t field biology.

I had subscribed to a bird jobs list serve and constantly weeded through all the advertised opportunities as soon as they rolled in. There seemed to be so many out there, yet I was coming up short on ideas. Some were in states I didn’t want to live in. Some were studying animals I didn’t care to study. None seemed to be at all lucrative. At that time, age 26, I was married and that also limited my range of exploration. I felt I needed to stay ‘close to home’ for the sake of having a relationship. Requiring a wanna-be-field-biologist to limit the range of stomping ground to urban Seattle proved very tricky. Not to mention, I was born with the wanderlust bone.

If I was going to spend a couple months doing a seasonal job I might as well go big and go international! I started to look through those bird job postings that were short-term in other countries.  I came upon one position in Peru. The woman wanted help during the season mist-netting birds and I thought it sounded fantastic.  I applied AND interviewed. It turns out the graduate student in charge of hiring decided upon someone who already had previous extensive bird experience. I had experience mist-netting songbirds in Seattle but she wanted someone more familiar with her particular bird species.

I felt frustrated. Not to mention inadequate! It seemed that everyone wanted someone who was trained, but no one wanted to train anyone! Understandably, some projects are on tight deadlines and taking time to train people does detract from the progress of the research.  I had seen workshop opportunities come through the list serve which taught the skills for bird research but those typically charged $400-500 and as a poor field-biologist-wanna-be there was no way I could afford that. What was I to do?!

Keep Looking

I came upon a job posting for field biologists to go to Mexico and study the Maroon-fronted parrot. Camping in the mountains? Learning Spanish? Hanging out with parrots? Sign me up! Only one problem… it was volunteer. So I would get no money AND I would have to pay my way there. But once in country, I wouldn’t have to pay for food or lodging. Interesting. I applied despite this not being a paid-position and was ecstatic when asked to come down for two months (if you ever want to feel worthy and needed, apply to as many volunteer gigs that ask for your money. They will always want you, naturally, and it will wash away the pain of rejections from any other opportunity you tried for and didn’t get.). This time frame would span halloween and my birthday, but I jumped on the opportunity. This was my first experience with international field biology and I wasn’t entirely sure what to expect.

How Could I Afford an Un-Paid Volunteer Position

As excited as I was, I’m honestly not sure if I would have taken the opportunity had I not been married with the financial support of my at-that-time husband. How do people make this contract field biologist thing happen when so many of the opportunities are volunteer based?! (Disclaimer: I’ve done a lot of volunteer jobs over the last 9 years since graduating undergrad, paying with my own money. Even though I agree with this man’s thoughts that volunteer wildlife “jobs” are a bit on the exploitive side,  I do not regret any of them. They do count as experience on a resume and I can at least feel good knowing I’ve given back my time and dollars to help other researchers in wildlife/conservation field (its notorious for being tight on funding). I just keep telling myself that some day it will all count for something.)

None-the-less, I was feeling so stagnant and agitated not being able to gain experiences in field biology that I figured, “What the heck, I’ll just go for this even though its volunteer and hopefully I won’t be shooting myself in the foot or setting myself back career-wise.”

Off to Mexico

I didn’t know a lick of Spanish before going, so I brought a pocket dictionary and Spanish for Dummies. I also started listening to Pimsleur Spanish Language CDs from the library, which I highly recommend to anyone wanting to learn any language.

I arrived in Monterrey, Mexico, alone, with three days to kill before I met my team. The lodging I stayed in had been rented out to a Peace Corps kid and it was hot and muggy. The kind of muggy that clings to you throughout the night. The other field biologists I would be working with, Sarah Brown and el jefe Rene Valdes, had already been on the job out in the field for a month before I arrived.

bed

We would be working on a project in Cumbres de Monterrey National Park studying the breeding behavior of the Maroon-fronted parrot (Cotorra serrana oriental (Rhynchopsitta terrisi)) run by scientists at The ITESM Campus Monterrey.

Serrodelasila

My Field Partner

sarah andi

Sarah and I hit it off immediately. I remember many things about our time together but there are three main stories I like to tell:

Story 1: Sarah had a passion of hunting down and eating every single junk food item we had stashed on days it was too foggy and cloudy to see any nesting cliffs. We would plug in the laptop, huddle under blankets, and eat snack bar after snack bar, cookie pack after cookie pack. Until there was no junk food left.  Rationing was not in her vocabulary.

junk food

Story 2: When we were back in the city refueling from our 1-2 weeks out in the field Sarah loved watching scary movies…while eating junk food, obviously. Once, we attempted to bake a box of brownies in a skillet that we put in a brand new oven we weren’t even sure turned on. After watching this brownie slowly cook for over two hours we realized the best the oven did was reach preheat and we devoured the crusted edges and left the gooey middle. I discovered gooey brownie batter is not as delicious as cookie batter and I discovered that horror movies are really not as scary as you believed they were when you were a child.

brownie

Story 3: I suppose with all that junk food eating you won’t be surprised to hear the last story. Sarah also ran. A lot. Every. Single. Day. In fact.  You have to understand that the areas of Mexico we were in only gave way to bumpy roads full of rocks and roots waiting to twist your ankle.  She would put in her headphones and set off for about an hour running along these mountain roads. I thought she was crazy. At that time I wasn’t a “runner”. She kept trying to convince me that I could do it but I just shook my head no.  Sure I’d go for a jog with her in the city on the pavement for a mile or two. It wasn’t until she convinced me to sign up for a 10k race with her that I started thinking maybe I could give running a try. You can never understand why a runner does the things they do until you also become a runner.

I had no idea what to expect and I hadn’t brought running shoes with me to Mexico. This didn’t stop Sarah from reeling me in. We promptly went to a shoe store and I had to use my pocket dictionary to communicate my desires to try on and purchase a pair of shoes. I walked out with a pair of Nike Pegasus Running Shoes. And socks.

The race was hard for me. Brutal. I cramped. I stalled. I held in a bit of Montezzumas revenge. Ultimately I had a blast.  I was amazed at the organization of the event, and the fact that they were handing out beer at the finish line.  I was also amazed that running 6 miles could feel so brutal yet rewarding.

(For your information, six years later, I am now a marathon maniac, having run multiple marathons in places such as Antarctica, Chicago, San Francisco and Seattle, 50ks, and ultra-marathons including the completion of 95 miles in 4 days. I am proud to say my race running career got its start in Mexico. I blame Sarah for all of it ;))

rake stretch

A Typical Day

Any field adventure has to start with a good trip to the grocery store. Shopping in a foreign language is an incredibly entertaining experience like a kid on a scavenger hunt.  We lived off of ‘avena’ oatmeal, ‘aguacate’ avocado, ‘atun’ tuna, and carrots. Items that won’t perish easily. We started our meals with tasty things like shrimp ceviche, then move on to chicken dishes, and by the week’s end we were eating canned food and rice. We usually never had desserts around, as they quickly got consumed early in the week, especially on foggy days.

grocery

Our boss, Rene, knew all the nesting sights and each day we would camp together near a cluster of sites then split up during the day to individually observe a specific cliff.

We woke before sunrise. Standard practice for field biologists. We threw on warm clothes and began our 45 minute hike up the rocky desert slopes. It was important to avoid brushing up against the spines of the agave cactus as a tiny scratch could leave a wound for weeks. We reached our cliff site panting and sweating. Not only was the terrain steep, we were also at elevation which made any athletic person feel out of shape.

hike post

Sarah and I had walkie-talkies which allowed us to communicate the couple of meters we were separated. The days sometimes felt long. Some days were blistering hot, other days were freezing cold. We had come ill-prepared and went into town to purchase more warm layers.

cloth

After a 12 hour day we began our hike back down to base camp, just in time to make dinner before dark. I did my best to take that down time to study Spanish but at night there wasn’t much to do, so we would drink cup after cup of chamomile tea in an effort to put ourselves to sleep. Field days = early to bed, early to rise!

Set up before we realized our tent leaked during rainstorms

Set up before we realized our tent leaked during rainstorms

tent

Relocation of the leaky tent, erected in its splendor within the empty cement building.

Boys, Guns, and Pecans

One day, observing a nesting cliff up a dried river bed, two young boys with guns emerged from the bushes. I was nervous. What was a gringa, attempting to tan in a sports bra, knowing no Spanish, doing in the middle of nowhere. “How is this going to go?” I worried. They seemed just as bewildered to see me there and stood next to me for 20 minutes as we awkwardly tried to communicate. I tried to explain that I was there to observando las cotteras por el institut tecnologico de Monterrey and all I could manage to understand from them was something about being afraid. Afraid of what? Oh please don’t let me be afraid of you and the guns! I gathered from the word ‘oso’ that they were chasing after bears. I didn’t even consider bears in the area! They soon left and I thought I’d remain alone. A few hours later they came back and handed me ‘un regalo’, a gift, of hand-picked pecans from their farm.

They were the best pecans I’ve ever eaten.

pecan

Mountain Folk

Since we were in the mountains we ended up staying with a number of mountain farmers. Young couples, old couples. One young girl would come visit us and we would say nothing to each other. We’d just sit in silence pantomiming a gift offering of tangerines or chamomile tea while she smiled and waved us off. One day she came to us and showed us her skills in embroidery. She had been stitching colorful parrots onto napkin cloth and wanted to sell it to us. We, being broke volunteers, had absolutely no money on us and couldn’t help her out in that way.

One of the older couples, whom we called abuelita, made us cups of chocolate milk, nescafe, stovetop beans, and to-dye-for salsa verde. We asked for her secret recipe but weren’t convinced she told us the whole secret. All she mentioned was the need to boil tomatillos. One night we watched her and realized she was adding at least a half cup of oil and a dash of salt and pepper.  It all made sense then.

abuelita moutain

The Parrots

The Maroon-fronted parrot is native to Sierra Madre Oriental mountain range in Nuevo León, northeastern Mexico. There are only 2,500-3,000 in the wild and their conservation status is Endangered due to overgrazing and habitat loss.  Sitting in front of one of the largest nest sites, El Taray, felt like being in the front row of the movie theater.  The parrots were most active during the morning and evening, but during the middle of the day the whole flock would take off and disappear. I have no idea where they went or what they were doing. I also think GPS-collaring parrots and macaws can be expensive and difficult because they are constantly preening themselves and each other.

parrot

twoar

The goal each day was to match up a hole in the cliff (a nest sight) with its location on a marked map of the cliff (each hole had a number). We would scan back and forth with binoculars and count how many parrots we saw at each hole. Over time more voices started to echo out of the holes. Chicks! Once nesting sites were marked with chicks we watched the entrance like a hawk. Literally. The biggest threat to these chicks upon emerging is being swooped up by a Red-tailed hawk. Inevitably we would miss the event because the chicks were smart enough to wait until it was foggy to fledge. Too foggy for us to see, too foggy for the hawks to see.

Celebrations

While I was in Mexico we celebrated Halloween, and my birthday. We were in the mountains with no costumes so to make the best of it we used what we had. Sarah dressed as a caterpillar using a sleeping bag and I dressed as a trash mummy using toilet paper and garbage. For my birthday Rene and Sarah were really sweet to surprise me with a mini-cake from a delicious bakery in the city.

bday

Yes this trip happened in 2009 and I’m just now writing about it 6 years later!

hall

The Aftermath

When I got back to Seattle in November I started looking for jobs. By January, only “suffering” two months of unemployment, I found employment at a Seattle-based non-profit called the Institute for Systems Biology where I’ve been the last 5.5 years studying the response of algae to climate change scenarios. How did all my background in field biology ever land me a job in oceanography?! Turns out that worry about shooting myself in the foot by taking a break from lab science to do field biology worked in my favor as it was exactly that field experience that convinced my current boss I wouldn’t be just another lab tech; I was a person who actually cared about the environment.

Moral

You never know what experiences you will gain or when they will work in your favor. The important thing is that when you take a little leap and try something seemingly risky or adventurous and new, you will never regret the experience. You will never regret the time you spend outside.  You will never regret wildlife. You will never regret travel. And you will never be as lucky as you are on the days  you wake up surrounded by nature.

coffe

sunrise

 

Want to see even more photos from this trip? Check them all out by clicking this link here.

Word from the author: Back in 2006 Facebook was still just a thing for college students. Blogging was also just emerging to become more mainstream. I guess that is why I never ended up writing about the time I spent on my first international field biology trip studying parrots in Mexico. Today I give you that story. Its a long one, so I hope you had enough coffee to make it through. Thanks for reading!

Share this:
Facebooktwitterby feather

Algal biologist takes a look at the whales.

You ask me if I want to leave my day job to escape dreary Seattle and spend vacation observing whales in the sunny Bay of Loreto, Mexico?

“Ummmm DUH!!!!”

I booked my flights immediately.

 

You see, I actually love macrofauna but somehow I’ve managed to spend the last five years working with microfauna – algae – phytoplankton. The invisible ocean forest. Estimated to be responsible for over 50% of the Earth’s Oxygen production.

Diatom_Centric_Scanning_C_Sardet

What a beauty! Glass shelled plant cell, a diatom, called Thalassiosira pseudonana.

I have learned so much about the importance of these little creatures. They are plant AND animal, and make up the base of the food chain indirectly supporting nearly all other forms of life. Pretty important little guys, in my opinion.  I’ve grown very fond of them over the years. But this post isn’t about them, it’s about the whales, so let’s keep moving!

Phytoplankton are eaten by Krill.

krill

And Krill are eaten by Baleen whales.  One large family of Baleen whales includes the Rorquals (such as Blue Whales, Finback whales, Minke Whales, and Humpback Whales to name a few)!

 rorqual

Blue Whales happen to be the largest of the whales and also happen to be the largest animal EVER to exist on earth. You’d think to be that big you’d have to eat some pretty big food.

But they don’t. They survive solely on krill. Tiny tiny little things.  HOW?! WHY!?

Luckily RadioLab answered this question and did an amazing bit on the whole cycle. You HAVE to read it here.

whale poop whalerecycle

Kinda makes ya wanna get your hands on some of that whale poo, doesn’t it?

I spent days feasting my eyes on blue whales and humpback whales. I got to spend 5 magical seconds petting a gray whale mother and on two occasions got caught in a pod of hundreds of common dolphins leaping on the bow waves.

IMG_0115

IMG_7724 Magnificent Blue Whale pigmentation and the mouth of a Humpack Whale. 

IMG_7736

Allison petting the Gray Whale mother on the snout in the Pacific Ocean side of Baja. Gray Whales are baleen whales but are not part of the Rorqual family. They are the only living species in its genus and family Eschrichtius robustus.

IMG_2979

Snapshot of some of the hundreds of common dolphins swimming under our boat.

I was there to identify visiting whales by performing marine transects above and below the water. Gathering this scientific data is important to help better understand the  present environmental and biological conditions of Bay of Loreto Marine Park.

Baja Whales Presentation_Raven Adventures 2015.pptx (1)

World Heritage Site

Bay of Loreto Marine Park was created and approved on July 19, 1996 and in 2005 was inscribed by the United Nation’s list as a 2,065 square kilometer protected World Heritage Site in the Sea of Cortez.  There are over 800 species of marine life inhabiting the sea, many of which are currently endangered.

Because of many political dramas and lack of resources in Mexico, enforcing any rules and regulations for the park is something that still needs attention. Even with decline in fish stocks and the re-routing of the Columbia River (which used to feed the Sea of Cortez) many animals exist here and I feel so lucky that I got to see so many whales on a daily basis.

IMG_0060

These whales travel up to 10,000 miles a year just to get to the breeding grounds! This whale is a Gray Whale on the Pacific Ocean side of Baja. Gray Whales are baleen whales but are not part of the same family as Blue Whales. They are the only living species in its genus and family Eschrichtius robustus.

IMG_0059

Baja Whales Presentation_Raven Adventures 2015.pptx (1)

We didn’t do any tagging but the ways in which we did collected data included the following:

  • Photographing and filming above and below water – helps identify individuals using pigmentation, fluke tears, and scars and see who returns year after year.
  • Collecting sound recordings using hydrophones.
  • Collecting data on water and air environment.
  • Helping update museum identification catalogs.
  • Collecting plankton samples for studying available micro-fauna.
  • Assembling skeletons and other display pieces for a small museum.
IMG_3228

Recording whale sightings and how frequently they came to the surface to breathe became difficult once there were more than 4 whales in one area!

My micro-fauna and microscope skills came into good use once we took plankton tows of what was floating around in the water column. We used an 80 micron net which is still pretty big for collecting any phytoplankton. Back in Seattle we use 15 micron nets and I work with algae that would even slip through a 10 micron net!

IMG_3180

Every day we kept pulling up these mysterious gel balls. At first we thought they might be fish eggs but as the days passed no vertebrate like structures developed.  At one point we noticed some of them had little tentacles poking out and they squirt propelled themselves forward, so we got our hopes high that they might be Humboldt Squid eggs! I spend hours back in the museum trying to photograph these invisible mysteries.

IMG_7653

IMG_3144IMG_3145IMG_3156IMG_3162IMG_3150

Along with other pleasant microscopic treasures

IMG_3201

Microscopic sea shells

IMG_3211

copepods

As well as not so pleasant not so microscopic creatures

IMG_3036

Definitely decaying. Perhaps a Moray Eel.

I had posted some of the mystery gel photos online and some of my more knowledgeable marine friends suggested they might actually be marine gelatinous creatures called Salps. Whats?! Salps. Barrel-shaped planktonic tunicates that moves by contracting, pumping water through its gelatinous body. Apparently salp jet propulsion is one of the most efficient in the animal kingdom. Who knew!

Baja Whales Presentation_Raven Adventures 2015.pptx (2)

The verdict is still out and what exactly these gel balls are still remains a mystery!

The trip was amazing and I was privileged to hang out with such amazing creatures.

 

IMG_7567

My abode and view 

IMG_7734

I forgot to mention I spent a day in a small town called Agua Verde where I also got to hold baby goats

Share this:
Facebooktwitterby feather

© 2024 woman scientist

Theme by Anders NorenUp ↑