First Day in the Field!

After our normal morning briefing about the current day’s weather and objectives, we all collected our outdoor gear, put on our waders, and headed out to the coast. Today was a sort of special day because we had a small filming crew from the Winnipeg Zoo come and film us for a video in their polar bear exhibit. Before the team stepped out of the van, Ben Cash and Kat checked out the horizon for any polar bears to be safe. Once the coast was clear, we all began walking towards the chosen wetland to examine its water quality, specimens, and physical data. Right before we started working on the wetland, Ben said he spotted a polar bear out in the water, so the team and the film crew walked back to their cars, and we ventured to another wetland. Once the new location was checked clear of polar bears, we began running data collections of three different ponds, one at a time. Cecilia and I were in the physical data group, so what we had to do for each pond was measure the circumference, fifteen points of depth, and the exact location of the ponds. The dip net group and the water quality group also finished, and we drove back to the CNSC to have lunch.

Having gained some more energy from the delicious lunch, we went back out into the fields hoping to collect data from the very first pond we went to in the morning where the polar bear was spotted. On the way there, we saw another polar bear, or maybe the same one, far in the distance lying on some rocks in the water. We stopped and tried to identify that it was in fact a polar bear and photographed a couple blurry but exciting photos of the bear. We turned the car around and went to a different location not very far and examined three more ponds. Many frogs, fish, and tadpoles were found in the morning ponds and also in these later ponds. I held one large one for a few seconds when Ben threw it on my data notebook, and it was very cold and wet, but still cute. We left that area and tried to find the polar bear again because it was seen by another group closer to the coast; however, he or she seemed to be hiding behind some huge rocks, and we had no luck in seeing the bear. Back at the study center, we are doing the lab work from our collected data, like water filtering, which is a pretty tedious process, and sorting out specimens from the wetlands. Dinner is about to begin, and we all have worked up an appetite from the rewarding and hardworking day.
See you soon, Dora