When thinking about plant-herbivore interactions, it is important to remember that not all damage caused to plants by herbivorous insects is immediately obvious. In fact, the majority of herbivory on plants (and the most damaging) is often caused by insects which cannot immediately be seen. Many types of insects live almost their entire lives inside a plant, emerging only as adults in order to find a mate. This can result in entire food chains (also involving predators and parasites) being enclosed within a single stem, leaf, or root, and can make them particularly interesting to study due to the closed nature of the system.
Ganesh collecting galled stems at the native Rappahannock River site
In Phragmites australis, some internally feeding insects induce growth abnormalities in the stem, known as galls. Symptoms of galls are easily recognisable in the field (once you know what to look for), characterised by shortening and swelling of the stem near its tip, and the death of the top leaf (see below). During our summer research trips we collected around 100 stems per site, from a variety of both native and invasive Phragmites sites throughout the United States. We kept these stems on ice and once back at LSU stored the stems in a freezer to preserve the insects inside them.
Galled stems being readied for dissection by removing leaf sheaths
Stems were prepared for dissection by removing leaf sheaths and were then dissected using a splitting tool by cutting the stem from the bottom to the top, examining its inner space for any kind of insect or arthropod species. All organisms found were grouped into a particular recognisable taxonomic unit (RTU - visually distinct species) for each site and stored in vials of 96% ethanol for preservation. We also recorded on a data sheet exactly what we found in each stem and any other relevant information.
The dissection station
So over the course of this past semester, Randee (one of the undergraduate students working our lab) and I dissected a total of 2025 stems. It was a lot of repetitive work and hours under the microscope. Each type of insect we found would be given a funny name for future identification such as "narrow white guy", "claw worm", "orange pupae", "emerging wasp", and "boring brown mite", and we also photographed each new type of insect we found. In total we collected around 240 arthropod samples.
Lipara sp. with inquiline
The organisms which actually cause the galls are fly larvae (immature stage) from a genus called Lipara, of which there are a number of species: Lipara pullitarsis, Lipara rufitarsis, Lipara similis, and Lipara lucens). Three of these are established in the United States. Lipara similis is one of these species, and is easy to identify thanks to the dark colouration at both ends of its body (see picture below). Lipara pullitarsis and Lipara rufitarsis are also established (see picture above), but distinguishing between these two species as larvae is very difficult. Larvae of other insect species can also be found living inside the galls with the Lipara. These are commonly known as inquilines, and while some have no negative effects on the Lipara, some can be predatory or parasitic.
Lipara similis
The next step in this project will be to finalise sorting and identification of all of the insects collected. The identification process will be difficult, as it's notoriously hard to identify immature insects. Once identifications are complete, the data can be used to answer a number of interesting ecological questions. Some of the questions we are interested in is how community composition of the galls differs between invasive and native Phragmites, and also how it may vary with latitude. Results will be forthcoming in the next couple of months, and I'm looking forward to seeing if all our hard work collecting and dissecting stems has paid off. For now, enjoy some of the pictures of the hidden herbivores of Phragmites.
Small gall midge (Microlasioptera flexuosa)
Unidentified larvae and possible predator (top of photo)
Some awesome music was released in 2012, and I've compiled a list of my five favourite records released this year - none of which you will be hearing on the radio anytime soon unfortunately. Check them out to hear the amazing stuff that true musical artists are creating by clicking on the link attached to each of my favourite tracks from each album!
Honourable Mentions:
Mono - For My Parents
Josh Varnedore - Sun Chapter
Jodis - Black Curtain
How to Dress Well - Total Loss
Cloudkicker - Fade
Lights Out Asia - Hy-Brasil 5. Almeeva - EP #2
Something a bit different that what I normally listen to, Almeeva is trancey, up-tempo music mostly created using traditional instruments, but with a minimalist idealism. The pulsing rhythm sections on this short EP of five songs really drive the music, complemented nicely by the spacey guitars. Looking forward to hearing more from Almeeva soon.
4. Hammock - Departure Songs
Almost a little disappointing by Hammock standards, it goes to show that even an average Hammock album is still so much better than almost any other music currently being released. There are 19 songs on this double album, which makes it a little too long for my tastes, but most of these songs are unbelievably good, with particular standouts being Cold Front, Tape Recorder, Dark Circles, and Ten Thousand Years Won't Save Your Life. This is Hammock's most ambitious album to date, with many songs breaking away from their traditional ambient approach, and much more utilization of percussion and rhythm guitars. It makes for a cathartic atmosphere in this album about loss, and the music video series directed by David Altobelli is a perfect companion. I'm looking forward to Hammock's next release which has been described as the complete anthithesis to this one.
Favourite Track: Cold Front 3. Helios - Moiety
Keith Kenniff is an internationally recognised composer (whose music you have undoubtedly heard in films or advertising but never noticed), and Helios is just one of the many projects he is involved in. He generally takes a minimalist approach to writing music, but there is absolute beauty in the hypnotic and soothing compositions. The production is lush and cinematic, with post-modern piano often taking the forefront but supported by gorgeous guitar melodies and dense ambience I must start checking out the rest of his back catalog soon, but first I have to digest Helios' latest release, a remix album featuring two of my other favourite artists - Hammock and Rhian Sheehan. I guarantee you will lose yourself in this music.
2. Neurosis - Honor Found In Decay
The tenth studio album by post-metal giants Neurosis is monolithic. At its heaviest, the music represents an epic landslide, obliterating all in its path, while at its softest, the listener feels calm and at one with the cosmos. As is expected from Neurosis at this stage in their career, the musicianship and production is simply outstanding. The tribal drumming by Jason Roeder on songs such as At The Well,My Heart For Deliverance, and Casting Of The Ages is something which can be replicated by no other band, the vocal styles of Scott Kelly and Steve von Til complement each other perfectly, and the varied song structures used contribute hugely to the success of the album. Neurosis have always been a band which make you feel a part of something greater, but on Honor Found In Decay they take it to a whole new level.
1. Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Deftones are one of only a handful of bands I listened to ten years ago that I still listen to today. This is quite amazing considering how much my music tastes have changed since I was 15. Back then, the Deftones were my absolute band and not much has changed since then - I haven't stopped listening to this album since it was released on November 12! Koi No Yokan is a Japanese saying expressing a premonition of true love upon first meeting someone, and it aptly describes this album. The production is full and lush, and every band member is at the absolute top of his game, none more so than vocalist Chino Moreno and guitarist Stephen Carpenter. Every song on this breathtaking album is ultimately a supreme lesson in emotional groove and outstanding songwriting.
After spending Halloween weekend at New Orleans last year, I had to go back again. I went with my friends Fallon, Pradip, Bibek, and Whitney, with Whitney's Mum nice enough to let us stay at her house for the night. We had an epic night out on Bourbon Street, hanging around with the thousands of other people in costume!
The two zombies with Cheech and Chong before heading to downtown New Orleans
This semester I'm teaching ecology lab for the first time since I've been at LSU. It is usually taken in conjunction with the fourth year ecology lecture course, taught by a number of professors (including my advisor, Jim). As a third or fourth year course, this lab is a bit of a step up in conceptual difficulty for the students, as well as requiring a fair amount of work for the minimal credit it is worth. The students have a high workload, with three full lab reports to write, three other assignments, and five quizzes during the semester (which makes a lot of marking for me to do). Still, it would have to be one of the most fun courses for both students and teachers at LSU, especially if you enjoy being outdoors.
The labs are three hours per week and each week has basically a similar structure with a short introductory lecture/discussion with the students before we head out to the field or work in the lab to collect data of some sort. Almost every week we aim to get out doing some sort of field work, as for most biologists (including myself) this is the best part of the job! So far we have been to cemeteries in Baton Rouge, gone fishing at streams on and off campus, been trekking through a swamp, and we will be measuring food web related data from lakes in Baton Rouge and sampling insects from various fields during the rest of the semester.
Seining for minnows at Foster Creek
Golden Silk Spider, or Banana Spider (Nephila clavipes)
So far we have been to a couple of really cool locations. For a lab on population growth we headed north to Port Hudson, an old civil war battle site now used for reenactments. There we sampled minnows in Foster Creek and used the mark-recapture technique to estimate population size. A really nice natural forest surrounded the creek and there was plenty of wildlife to be found. I saw an eastern diamondback rattlesnake, chipmunks, squirrels and a couple of large banana spiders (Nephila clavipes), a species of orb-web spider, the largest spider family on the planet along with tarantulas. The females of these species are around the size of a human hand while the males are tiny in comparison.They look scary, but their bite is harmless - it's the small spiders you really have to watch out for!
The other sweet place we have headed to do field work is the Bluebonnet Swamp, a patch of land in the middle of Baton Rouge which has been retained as a swamp park for recreation, containing walking trails and an education center. During two labs there we helped remove the invasive plant species elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) from an area of the swamp where it is growing aggressively as part of a community service component of the course. The first week of this lab was made particularly interesting due to a downpour of rain making the swamp a lot more swampy than usual. Some students had more fun than others, with a couple falling into the water thanks to the muddy ground and hidden underwater branches and roots
In the process of passing this course the students get a good footing in a number of topics central to ecology, including population growth, measuring diversity, invasive species, food-web analysis, biogeography, scientific writing, and the all-important use of statistics. It is a really good course, and universities in New Zealand would certainly benefit from including advanced lab courses such as this in their programs, something which is generally lacking. I'm really enjoying the opportunity to teach it, and am looking forward to teaching it for the remainder of my time at LSU.
Students removing invasive elephant ear (Colocasia esculenta) in Bluebonnet Swamp
So I've now been in the USA for a little over a year, and it's been one hell of a ride so far. Time has simultaneously and inexplicably gone fast and slow at the same time. I've had a ton of great experiences during the year I've been here (most of which I've blogged about), met a lot of new people, and traveled to so many awesome places. Most importantly though, I feel like I have made some significant progress towards my postgraduate degree and to becoming a better scientist, largely due to my advisor, Jim, along with other faculty members at LSU. My knowledge base of most areas of ecology has broadened considerably while adding crucial detail to many more specific subjects, as well as gaining more valuable practical experience - but there is still so much to learn and do before I graduate! I can't wait to see what the next year brings, but right now I'm most looking forward to heading home for Christmas and seeing all of my friends and family. I miss New Zealand and can't wait to see it again!
Hurricane Isaac hit the Gulf Coast of the United States about ten days ago, leaving areas flooded and people without power for days, forcing many people to evacuate their homes, and costing nine people their lives. We knew the storm was coming to the general Gulf Coast area at least a week before it hit but initial weather models had it going through Florida, so most people weren't too worried. However, during the week, the models kept pushing progressively westward as the tropical storm built in strength. Around three days from its arrival it made a large jump west, causing major alarm in Baton Rouge and Louisiana and prompting the declaration of a State Emergency. All of a sudden Walmart and other big grocery stores were flooded with people, getting all the bread, water, ice, canned food, batteries, candles, and most importantly - alcohol that they could buy. Liquor sales really shot through the roof thanks to the number of hurricane parties being thrown as school was cancelled for three whole days! Petrol stations had lines of cars bumper to bumper down the street, and people were driving all over the place like madmen. And as the storm drew closer it only got worse, as people evacuated New Orleans, the place expected to be worst hit (and exactly five years after hurricane Katrina), to come to Baton Rouge to further clog the roads and clean out the stores.
Hurricane Isaac around 12 hours before making landfall
All of Monday we kept hearing the hurricane was going to arrive early Tuesday afternoon. Come Tuesday afternoon, the sky was still clear with just a little breeze; turned out the hurricane had unexpectedly stopped in the gulf, right as it approached New Orleans. We spent hours during Tuesday night watching TV, and gradually seeing the conditions in New Orleans and surrounding areas become worse and worse - reporters were struggling to stay on their feet and often had to stop reporting to shield their face when the rain became too hard. Thanks to the $14 billion spent on the levees large parts of the city suffered only minor damage, despite Isaac dumping more rain and tidal surge on NOLA than Katrina did!
The storm finally hit Baton Rouge early that Wednesday morning. We woke to some pretty strong wind and persistent rain, which had knocked over some pots outside our front door. After waiting so long for the storm to arrive we now all waited for it to gain in strength...but it never really got too intense. There were occasional strong gusts of wind, and a day of steady driving rain, but most of the city was unscathed, with just a few windblown branches and debris along with minor flooding. At one point we were so bored at sitting around inside we went for a walk around the neighborhood in the rain!
Around 5 pm of the day of the storm, the power went out (we were one of over 900,000 homes to be affected in Louisiana alone. We were well prepared so it was no big deal, and cooked on a gas stove that evening. We thought the power would be out for a day at most, but it ended up taking three days for it to be restored. We were really lucky it wasn't so hot during the rest of the week and the temperatures inside in the evenings were bearable even with the AC off.
So below I've posted a short video of the storm taken from the front door of my house. It was captured around 2:00 pm on August 29, when the storm was more or less at its most ferocious here. Football season is upon us here in Baton Rouge now, and all are expecting LSU to make another bid for the national championship. Let's hope it happens!
Following our New Jersey and Delaware sites, we blasted through our three sites in Maryland and Virginia with relative ease. But again I was stung by wasps, twice, at our Virginia site on the Rappahannock River. This time it was by a paper wasp, from the large nest which you can see in the photo below (I took the photo after I was stung). The stings from these hurt nowhere near as much as the one I got the previous day, and look nowhere as bad either. I wish I knew what sort of wasp it was that stung me at Estell Manor, but I only caught a fleeting glimpse of it as it buzzed away!
The paper wasps (Polistes sp.) which stung me!
We had Monday off as Tim, the Park Ranger at Mackay Island Wildlife Refuge, couldn't take us out in the boat until Tuesday. So we decided to go to Kitty Hawk, a small town in North Carolina, famous for being the the town right by the huge sand dunes where the Wright brothers performed the first controlled powered flight. The main attraction there was the memorial to the Wright brothers, which was pretty cool. It was situated on the actual site where they made their first flights, which were marked out by boulders. They made four flights on December 17, 1904; the first three just 37, 53, and 61 metres, respectively, but the final one was really impressive, at a whopping 260 metres! The memorial also had a nice museum with exact replicas of both their glider and plane which made the first flight. We also checked out what is supposedly the largest sand dune on the east coast, which was pretty cool, but had nothing on the dunes at Mason Bay on Stewart Island.
Hangliding off the top of the dune
The next day we were up at 5 am for an early start at Mackay Island, where we have three sites. We had been dreading this day since the start of the trip due to the waist deep marsh water in some places, high humidity and heat, and the strong possibility of close encounters with deadly and agressive cottonmouth snakes. As it turned out it was actually a pretty easy day. We didn't see any snakes, the weather was cool and the forecast thunderstorms stayed away. We stayed in a hotel literally right beside our final site in Georgetown, South Carolina, nailed that site early the next morning and then had a boring thirteen hour drive back home.
So the trip was ultimately a success; some useful data was collected for all of our research projects, we arrived back in Baton Rouge two days earlier than planned, and I even managed to add another two states (West Virginia and Pennsylvania) to the list of those I have visited, bring the total now to 21. Classes start back at LSU on August 20, but before then we have our six sites in Louisiana left to do!
The research field trip is well and truly underway. Our trip into Canada was fairly uneventful, including both of the dreaded border crossings where we passed through without even having to pull over to have our car searched - quite a contrast to last time! We didn't have a lot of time for anything other than research-related activities, the three days were pretty fully on: Day 1: Drove north for eight hours, did two hours of field work (one site), then drove three more hours back south to Quebec. Day 2: A total of six hours driving and six hours of field work (three sites). Day 3: Four hours of field work (final two sites) followed by an eight hour drive back to Portland.
Big aphid colony with a predatory hoverfly larvae
Thanks to New York City traffic, the seven hour drive from Portland got turned into an eleven hour one, crawling southwards with everyone heading to Atlantic City for the weekend. Sadly we wouldn't be joining them, heading straight to our paired native and exotic Phragmites sites at Estell Manor Park in New Jersey. This is a really picturesque park and would normally be great to work in. However, this time it was littered with debris from recent storms, was hot and humid, and I was stung by a wasp while sweep-netting, my first wasp sting since I was around ten years old. Sadly, as we progress south the weather conditions are only going to become more severe, and we will have more dangerous things to worry about than wasps - chiefly the famed cottonmouth snakes which we will undoubtedly see at Mackay Island...
The start of the Fall semester at LSU is fast approaching, which means it's time for the second and final big research trip of the summer. This time we are doing our North American transect in reverse, starting with our northernmost sites in Maine and Canada and working our way south to Louisiana. For this trip, Jim, Ganesh, and I are joined by Randee, an undergraduate who has worked on the Phragmites project in our lab over the last 18 months. It's great to have an extra person along for the trip, but by the time we put all our luggage and sampling gear into the truck there really isn't a lot of room, especially for a lanky guy like me!
To get to our start point in Maine we covered 3100 km in three days, a total of around 32 hours driving. As Jim flew in to meet us in Portland on the 30th, he was kind enough to let us have a couple of days holiday before he arrived, so we decided to go check out Acadia National Park again, hoping for some better weather than the dense fog Ganesh and I experienced last time. The first morning there we had booked a whale watching trip out into the Gulf of Maine, hoping to see some humpback, fin, or minke whales. The first hour or so of the cruise was spent bird-watching by various islands around the coast. We saw puffins, terns, guillemots, shearwaters, bald eagles, and even a peregrine falcon, along with a couple of seals. We then headed out to the open water to spot some whales. It was drizzling steadily and a little foggy, so our chances weren't particularly good, and we didn't spot any whales for over an hour and a half. Literally just as the captain announced we were heading back to Bar Harbor, a humpback whale surfaced about 50 metres from the boat. While the crowd was busy rushing off to the side of the boat I was lucky enough to see two more humpback whales breaching spectacularly about 200 metres in front of the boat. It was an amazing sight to see a 30-odd tonne animal launching its whole body out of the ocean! I took a video below of one of the whales going for a dive - it's much better than any of the pictures I managed to get.
Thankfully the next day had the near-perfect weather we had been hoping for, and we made the most of it. We started with a trip up Cadillac Mountain, the highest mountain on the East Coast of the USA, where we took in some pretty spectacular views. Then we headed down to Sandy Beach, which was crowded with people - a bit different to the last time when we were the only ones there. I even went for a quick swim. The water was cold, but I've been in much colder back home so it was bearable. We also went for a walk across the sand bar to Bar Island and checked out the Otter Cliffs walkway. Pretty awesome way to start a field trip really, but now for the hard work, starting with a three day trip into Canada!
Bubble Pond
Sandy Beach
View from the summit of Cadillac Mountain (much better than last time)
It's too hot in Louisiana to do much field work at the moment so I've been spending my time in the lab processing insect samples and I now have a start of a collection going on, as you can see in the pictures below. It's a real challenge trying to properly preserve and identify the insects, but ultimately very rewarding as well when you finally manage to identify a sample or when you find a cool insect you've never seen before.
On the other hand, it can be infuriatingly frustrating and such slow progress at times when trying to make correct identifications. So to keep me calm and stop me losing my mind over whether the hind trochanter is elongated or not, if the pronotal lobe is adjacent to the scutellum, whether the hind tarsi has four or five segments, or if the front tibia has two or three apical spines, I often listen to chill music. Top of the list is almost always Hammock, and they released a new song and music video a couple of days ago, called Tape Recorder. At the same time they also announced that their new album will be a double album entitled Departure Songs, to be released in October. Judging by this song along with snippets the band has posted on Facebook, this album should be impressive (and I have a suspicion they will be releasing a video for every song as well)!
Off on our lab's second east coast census trip of the summer on July 26, can't wait to hit the road again...
My parents came to visit me this June, and it was so great to see them after 10 months of living away from New Zealand and only having contact through emails and Skype calls. There is only a certain amount of time you can spend in Baton Rouge before you run out of things to do, so we decided to meet up in Boston, where Mum and Dad have friends, and make our way back down to Louisiana.
I had a day in Boston with Mum and Dad which was a good way to start the trip. I managed to see a bit of the city, including Beacon Hill and Harvard, but I definitely have to go back there again. The next day we took a bus to New York, arriving in time to get out in the early evening and see the Empire State Building, Grand Central Station, Times Square, and to go up the Rockefeller Center Tower and check out the stunning views of the city at night. The next day we packed in a lot of sightseeing in the city - walking the Brooklyn Bridge (great view of the city), visiting the 9/11 memorial (really good), taking the Staten Island ferry past the Statue of Liberty (and right back again), and biking around Central Park (which was huge).
Looking out at the Empire State Building and NYC
The Statue of Liberty
Phragmites in Central Park!
The next morning we caught a bus again to Washington, D. C., where we met and stayed with Jim Close, a really distant relative from my Mum's side, and his wife Alice.They were great hosts and with their help we were able to see a lot of D. C. in just one day. We spent the entire day just walking down what is called the "mall", a central area housing all the important US political landmarks (Capitol Building, the White House, Supreme Court, etc.), Smithsonian Museums (Natural History, Air and Space, American History, National Gallery of Art, etc.), and impressive monuments (Washington, Lincoln, Jefferson, Korean War, Vietnam War, World War Two, etc.). The buildings were really a sight to behold, with magnificent architecture and the weather was perfect (as it was the entire trip - we were so lucky), making for an excellent day. With sore feet, which we were now accustomed to, we headed back for a delicious dinner and to try some excellent Breckenridge beer brewed by Jim's son in Denver. That Saturday night I was also lucky enough to meet up and have a drink with my mate Sean, a dude I studied with at Lincoln University back in New Zealand, and who is now finishing up his Master's here at Virginia Tech.
Where Mr. Obama lives
Inside the dome of the Capitol
After Washington, we rented a car and headed for the more laid-back south, stopping in on the way to visit Garth, an old work-friend of Mum's, and also at a small town in Virginia called Colonial Williamsburg, which is essentially a town set back in time by 200 years where you can walk around and see how Americans lived back then. We arrived at Myrtle Beach later that evening to visit more distant relatives from the same family, Peggy and her husband Frazer. Myrtle Beach was a nice beach town, a bit touristy, but it provided us a good chance to relax after so much sightseeing the previous few days. We went swimming a couple of times in the really warm Atlantic Ocean, and also enjoyed a marsh walk and lunch beside a river.
Early morning fisherman having a go while we swam
Atlanta was a really fun city as well. which was our last major stop on the way to Louisiana. On the way we visited Charleston, a historic city in South Carolina, which was cool. We made it to Atlanta too late to do much, but walked around the park built for the 1996 Olympic Games, and checked out our amazing hotel, which also happened to house the entire CNN studio! The next day we were up early to check out the famous Atlanta aquarium. It was the best aquarium I have been to so far and featured many amazing displays, with Beluga whales, African penguins, sea otters, Japanese spider crabs, and many species of frog. But by far the most amazing attraction was the huge tank housing four whale sharks (the biggest fish in the sea) and also a number of giant manta rays. After a couple of hours at the aquarium we moved next door to see the World of Coca Cola, appropriately located in the birthplace of the drink itself. The highlight of this was taste-testing all the different drinks that Coke produces from all over the world (Coke is sold in over 200 countries).
River tank at the Atlanta aquarium
Finally after a nine hour drive we made it to Baton Rouge, where we would be spending the next couple of days. I gave Mum and Dad a tour of the city, where we checked out the Mississippi, State Capitol Building, Old Capitol Building, and Magnolia Mound Plantation, before I gave them a long walking tour of the LSU campus. A tour of everything cool in Baton Rouge only takes a day, but it was definitely cool to show them around where I've been living. The next day we headed west into the Atchafalaya Basin to take a swamp tour. I still hadn't been on a swamp tour myself and it was a great experience, speeding around through the beautiful old swamp on an airboat - you can check out a video below. We got to see a couple of alligators right beside the boat. The guide had been feeding them for about five years - not chicken, not beef, not fish, but marshmallows!
The next day we arrived in New Orleans, where we stayed the night before Mum and Dad flew home the next day. Our amazing hotel (nicest I have ever stayed in) was right on the corner of Orleans and Bourbon, in the middle of all the action of the French Quarter. We wandered around town for a while before taking a cruise on the Natchez, the famous steam boat of New Orleans, followed by a couple of drinks at the hotel bar on Bourbon Street, and a walk down the famous party street itself. Being a Sunday night it was pretty quiet though.
It was a great experience to travel the east coast at a more leisurely pace than when on a field trip, and it was even more special that I was able to do it with my parents. It was great to see them, and hopefully we can travel some more again soon!
I knew about the importance of the fourth of July in America since I was young, entirely due to a Will Smith movie I owned on VHS with the same name as this blog title. In the movie aliens invade earth on Independence Day (July 4), with the movie ending with the sort of fourth of July fireworks you would expect from Hollywood.
My fourth of July experience didn't feature alien motherships blowing up entire cities and being fought by space-jets, but it was a holiday, and it was definitely an experience to remember. My friend Pradip had just moved to a new place and his new roommate Whitney had invited him and a couple of friends (one of which was me!) to stay at his holiday house just out of New Orleans. It turns out the house was part of a really cool little fishing camp situated on a bayou in John Lafitte Preserve, which could only be reached via boat.
The camp in John Lafitte Preserve, just south of New Orleans
It was such a unique experience to stay at this camp. Some of the houses were just holiday houses, but others live there permanently and made their living off the land and bayou. Whitney took us to meet his friends who live, fish, and hunt in the area and introduced themselves as "swamp people" (as in the TV series - VIDEO). They showed us their soft-shelled (blue) crab tanks and we grabbed some which had freshly shed their shells, fried them whole in fish-fry batter, and ate them between two slices of bread with hot sauce. A true Louisiana delicacy apparently!
We packed a lot of fun into the two days we were there. We messed around on the water a lot; cruising around in the boat looking for alligators (we saw a couple), canoeing, kayaking, fishing (no luck), and the most fun of all - being towed behind the boat in an inflatable tube! We also relaxed in the cool of the house to escape the heat, had a BBQ and beers to celebrate fourth of July, and watched fireworks from afar. In all, I couldn't ask for a better first Independence Day. Now, back to doing a bit of hard work instead of travelling - at least until August when we redo our east coast Phragmites field survey!
View from outside the house
Nice bit of swamp, no gators though
Soft-shelled crab - you fry and eat the entire thing
So much music by some of my favourite artists has been or will be released this year but there's a few bands in particular which have either impressed me with a new album or that I'm particularly excited about:
Jakob
Probably the best New Zealand band of all time, these guys are slowly getting the international recognition they have long deserved. It's been six years since they last released their last album Solace, but they have a new album in the works which should be released late this year. Below is a teaser of snippets of demo tracks they recorded a while back, which sounds great. Having heard three of the new songs live in Auckland last June I know this album is going to be killer!
Sigur Ros
These guys are one of my all time favourite bands and have been around since 1994, releasing a number of quality albums in that time. They're well-known around their world for writing hauntingly beautiful music and the incredible singing in Icelandic, Hopelandic (an invented language), and even English of their chief vocalist, Jonsi.
They released a new album this year titled Valtari which a return to form for them and bit of a departure from their previous album Með Suð I Eyrum Við Spilum Endalaust, which was their weakest effort yet. To accompany the release of Valtari they came up with the awesome concept of commissioning a music video to accompany each track from different artists all throughout the world, giving them a small budget and giving them complete creative freedom to produce whatever the music inspires from them. Three of the eight videos have been released and the one below, by Inga Birgisdottir, is my favourite so far. It's a really simple, clever, and well-executed video and the song is probably the best on the new Sigur Ros album as well, combining for an awesome visual and auditory experience.
Mono Mono are another well-known stalwart of the post-rock genre, with a number of epic albums under their belt. They are one of the greatest exponents of the post-rock crescendo and are going to be releasing a new album on September 4. From the looks and sound of the trailer they recently posted to YouTube it's going to be epic!
Hammock
Tied with Jakob for the title of best band ever, Hammock will also be releasing a new album sometime this year, which is currently being mixed in Australia. I'm super excited about this as pretty much everything they've ever released has been 100% quality!
Lights Out Asia
A very recent release (June 5th), Hy-Brasil follows in the tradition of this band to release huge-sounding and sonically-appealing songs of electronically influenced post-rock. All of their previous albums have been awesome and have got a lot of listens from me, and this one sounds like it will be no exception after the first few listens. They also released a music video to accompany the song They Disappear Into The Palms, which you can check out (and try to make sense of) below.
I'm really loving the frequency with which bands are releasing music videos to go with their songs, and not just boring old videos of them playing. When an accompanying music video has some sort of artistic quality to it, it really can draw the listener deeper in to the music and provide a whole new listening experience.
Big Meadow in Shenandoah National Park (click to enlarge)
So, finally after 16 days on the road I'm back in Baton Rouge. The trip saved the best for last with Ganesh and I spending five hours of the penultimate day driving through Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. This park has one of the most famous roads in the US, Skyline Drive. It's 105 miles long and slowly winds its way through the mountains of the national park, with stunning views of nearby mountain ranges and the plains below. It took us so long to drive as we were always stopping to check out the view, because they have overlooks every couple of miles. After a few more hours of highway driving we finally got to our hotel in Knoxville, Tennessee, exhausted and ready to be back home in Baton Rouge. The last day of the trip was spent driving the 11 hours southwest to Louisiana and unpacking the truck, before finally heading home to catch a good and long night's sleep.
Typical view from Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park
In our travels for this field trip we passed through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Maine, and Tennessee. Florida, Texas, and California can also all be added to that list of states I've now visited, so that's 19 out of 50 that can now be ticked off!
In total we drove about 10,300 kilometres (6,400 miles) and we will do it all again in two months or so for the end of summer census. Using Google Maps I more or less mapped our journey and you can check it out below. The colours represent each different day of driving and where the colours overlap and look strange is from us driving the same highway twice or more. The details of the roads taken aren't particularly accurate, but it definitely shows the huge extent of trip.
My parents are coming to visit during June and I'm incredibly excited to be seeing them for the first time in ten months. I'll be flying up to meet them in Boston and then we'll be roadtripping back down to Baton Rouge over the course of the following ten days or so. Until then I'll be relaxing in Baton Rouge as much as possible, and tidying up loose ends of my research work from the spring.
