#bastardoftheblade

[foxbirdy]

hi!

just saw your pictures of you doing some marine biology fieldwork and i just wondered if you have any stories about the experience that you would like to share. Im in 1st year uni right now and i have no idea what im gonna specialize in other than “science!!” but i work on boats for my job right now (tallships, very cool stuff) and so marine environment work really appeals to me. If you have the time, I would love to get a picture of what the work you’re doing entails.

(What does the day-to day of marine biology research look like? What kind of stuff are you studying/information are you gathering? Whats it like? Is it awesome? feel free to answer none of these also)

thank you!!

OH, I'm jealous - it's a dream of my mine to get to work on a tallship. & I love to talk about this stuff!

In all honesty, the day-to-day changes pretty dramatically depending on what project work is available. Right now, as a student, a lot of what I'm involved in ties into coursework or research that's happening at the university! I volunteer with a couple different labs, and there's a huge variety of stuff to get in on. For example:

Last Saturday, I spent about six hours pulling otoliths and gonads out of eighty invasive roi, taape, and toau caught by local spearfishermen. Otoliths are the ear bones of fish, and similar to the rings of a tree, they have ringed annuli that can give a lot of information about the life history of the individual species. We cast these otoliths in resin, and then cut cross-sections to look at them under the microscope. The hope is that this information will help us understand when these species become reproductive, and how to control their populations.

The last several Fridays, I've been involved with an effort to collect some water quality and plankton data after a lot of heavy rain. This work was out on the boats, and we used deep and shallow drogues, YSI, light meter, secchi disk, and a couple plankton nets, moving out from the swollen rivermouth and into deeper, saltier water.

Last month, I spent a lot of time on invertebrate snorkel surveys, mostly looking for presence/absence in the nearshore. Next Tuesday, I'll be doing fish surveys in the same location. The Wednesday after I'm hopping on a wetlands restoration project & removing invasive bull grass, and a night snorkel afterwards. Next Friday is a lab day, working to process the plankton samples we've collected, and I'll be in the coral nursery afterwards. That's the really fun thing about university - there's so much different work going on, all the time!

In the summers, outside of school, that work is just as varied. I've really enjoyed having jobs that allow me to do a little bit of everything, and thus far, my supervisors have been very supportive of me in that. Here's some other projects I've gotten to work on, all within just one position:

Servicing passive monitoring systems! These are pictures of my replacing a SEABIRD logger, which has been taking a water temperature measurement every thirty seconds for the past 360 days. This helps conservation managers track heatwaves in sensitive ecosystems. We prepped new loggers with batteries and SD cards and waterproof tape to prevent biofouling, and then used snips and zipties to make the switch.

Scientific fishing! This helps get life history and population data for our target species, large pelagic fish. We collected biopsy samples, placed tags, and released primarily ahi, but also ono, and mahi. (Full disclaimer: this picture is from a subsistence fishing trip and not a scientific one, where people generally have too many things in their hands & are moving too quickly to take pictures. He was a very delicious dinner for our crew, though.)

Other marine tagging! I got to assist with bluewater cetacean tagging of several different dolphin and small whale species, and shark tagging for galapagos, blacktip reef, grey reef, and dusky sharks. Cetacean tagging was done with an air rifle, not easy at high speeds on the boat. Shark tagging was more hands-on, as we had to manually apply the tags.

Coral reef monitoring! The mission of these surveys was to track coral health through heat stress events, and to identify harmful species. I'm looking under the coral head in these pictures for crown-of-thorns starfish, one of the most urgent species threats to reefs in the Pacific.

This is the bastard. Notice the dead coral around him.

Oh I'm about to smack into the photo limit, huh. Please hold!

[feast-of-horns]

Event Contributor: @bastardoftheblade

Art submission

[not-all-dead]

i’m starting one because i feel like it, it’s probably already been done but oh well

from this piccrew!

no pressure tags: @aprettyweirgirl @beifong-enthusiast @dollvix @bastardoftheblade @fyrepheonix @linbeifongismywife @beifongsimp @cherrychonk @lin-beifongs-playtoy @cotilarson98 @mjsharizai @rainbows-and-daisies-and-love @natashaormanoff @helplesslezbeean @whoreforthebeifongs and anyone else who wants to! :D

[pomegranate-seeds-unite]

@bastardoftheblade this is your daily reminder to WATCH ATLA AND LOK !!!!!!!!!!!!

[girlsmoment]

The 15 Entities as Results from https://theuselessweb.com/ 

stranger - https://weirdorconfusing.com/ 

vast - https://greatbignothing.com/ 

flesh - http://endless.horse/ 

hunt - https://cat-bounce.com/ 

corruption - http://www.beesbeesbees.com/ 

slaughter - http://pixelsfighting.com/ 

end - http://www.patience-is-a-virtue.org/ 

desolation - https://smashthewalls.com/ 

lonely - https://existentialcrisis.com/ 

dark - https://imaninja.com/ 

spiral - https://zoomquilt.org/ buried - http://www.burymewithmymoney.com/ 

web - http://www.donothingfor2minutes.com/ 

eye - https://pointerpointer.com/

bonus:

extinction - http://hasthelargehadroncolliderdestroyedtheworldyet.com/

thanks to @bastardoftheblade for helping out

[not-all-dead]

@bastardoftheblade it’s good to see you finally active on tumblr again

[girlsmoment]

69 for spotify you worm

Do you think you’re funny? Do you think I’m AMUSED?! Do you think you will ESCAPE MY WRATH?!?! I WILL DESTROY YOU IN COMBAT TUMBLR USER BASTARDOFTHEBLADE T̷̨̍H̴͚͆Ï̸̯Ș̶̀ ̶̥̑C̴͚͐Ȓ̴̟Ị̴̇M̸̻͐E̵͝ͅ ̶̯͝W̸̧̐Ḯ̸͚L̷̞̚L̷̼̇ ̶̟͐N̸̻̓O̷̮͠T̴̤̈ ̸̳̃G̷̛̲O̵͒ͅ ̷͙͋Ü̵̝N̸̰̂P̶͎̊Ṷ̵̍N̶̲̈Ḭ̴̎Ṡ̸̥H̸̥̓E̷͍͘D̵̛̘!!

anyway nice my song is two time by jack stauber it’s pretty good https://open.spotify.com/track/7JTGwb6ug0z15F5roNLE0s?si=R-BrvGNaRAaYnAHLLpKkIw

[pirategf]

Do you have any recommendations for easy french podcasts or media? I'm trying to brush up on my french rn but the prospect of actually talking to people in a language I am only semi-fluent in is daunting. Hope your quarantine is going well!

I don’t listen to french podcasts I’m afraid, I can rec you a few movies but since I watched them as a native speaker I don’t really remember how easy the language in them is so apologies for that!

Portrait de la jeune fille en feu / Portrait of a lady in fire

Amélie

Xavier Dolan’s movies if you don’t mind quebecois accent & slang 

120 battements par minute / BPM 

La Haine probably has a lot of slang so might be a little harder but it’s just a really great movie.

little pretentious rec as a treat: Les yeux sans visage / Eyes without a face. it’s a horror movie from 1960 

wait i have another pretentious rec:  La Jetée - experimental sci fi short film made from still pictures

other than that, something that’s great for practising a language is to watch something you already know in your native language but this time in your target language! pick a movie you know by heart but watch it in french. this way you don’t have to think about the plot and you’re able to focus on the language 

i hope this helps! 

[girlsmoment]

Hi everyone! Recently with the help of my friend @bastardoftheblade I wrote a fan statement for tMa! I worked really hard on it and Bast made it so much better! Without further ado I would like to introduce; Washed Up! 

Statement of Edward Lukas, regarding a body he found during his work as lighthouse keeper in Draughanstown, Muir Eireann. Statement given November 18, 1986

[pomegranate-seeds-unite]

@bastardoftheblade watch it i triple dog dare you

[not-all-dead]

i think the degree to which i identify with this duck is probably slightly concerning

(no pressure tags): @69-sheep-in-a-trenchcoat @underground-hellhound @nyamadermont @bastardoftheblade @beifong-enthusiast @beifong-enthusiast @beifong-enthusiast @beifong-enthusiast

sorry a D U C K picrew??

@accidental-spice​ @kanerallels​ @heckin-music-dork​ @authorofemotion​ @bookdragon1811​ @laughingphoenixleader​ @ladygobpire​ and anyone else (no pressure!!)

[imfoamingatthemouth]

@intoomanyfandomsstuff Thank! 💕💝❤💛💗💓💚❣💕💘💗💓🧡💕💘💗💝💟💔❤💕💘💗❣❤🧡💓💚💕💗❤💝💔💘💛❤💗🧡

I pass the nugget of friendship onto @emilyfairchild @avengethebread @heccccccccc @oreosndscones @marinas-universe @bastardoftheblade uhh and anyone I forgot. I'm sorry if I forgot u I am smooth brain.

This is the Nugget of Friendship.

It is not given lightly. Yet I give it to you.

Yes. I mean YOU.

Now shoo.

Pass on the Nugget of Friendship.

[the-one-alone]

@bastardoftheblade you gonna eat these?

Onion and Garlic

oil

[pomegranate-seeds-unite]

@bastardoftheblade :)

oh my god i have such cool friends wow they’re all amazing and i love all of them so much oh my gosh i’m so proud of all of them they’re such cool abs amazing people wow hey @iphegeniah ur a wh*re 😌💞💞

[foxbirdy]

Bird work!!!

Seabird colony monitoring! We did incubation counts and growth staging for chicks, and tracked habitat usage and preferences for about eight different species. Which leads into:

Bird tagging and banding! We took blood and feather samples, and put accelerometers and cameras on some of the larger species, too. This was done to track diving/feeding behavior patterns. And:

Servicing acoustic monitoring systems/attractors for bird colonies! Song meters record bird calls, and we use software to sift through the noise & identify the presence of extirpated or endangered species, which tells us which habitat to prioritize. We also have speakers that amplify and broadcast the calls of these extirpated birds to try and attract them to nesting grounds. That last particular song meter lost its raingutter, so we improvised with a piece of marine debris.

Bonus picture of me and my crewmate passed out in the galley after eight straight twelve-hour days at the height of the research season 💀

I could add things ad infinity to this post - marine debris removal operations! Invasive species removal! Nudibranch surveys! Seabird rescue! Marine mammal stranding response! Intertidal monitoring! Algae sample collection! Coral reef mapping! I have tons of stories, funny, spooky, scary, silly. There's just so much diversity in what you can do in field science, and all of it is so fucking cool. I won't lie and say that it does suck sometimes, but even the sucky parts have their charm. Type 2 Fun or whatever.

This post is already entirely too long, but I hope that gives you some sense of the kind of stuff I've been able to get into!

hi!

just saw your pictures of you doing some marine biology fieldwork and i just wondered if you have any stories about the experience that you would like to share. Im in 1st year uni right now and i have no idea what im gonna specialize in other than “science!!” but i work on boats for my job right now (tallships, very cool stuff) and so marine environment work really appeals to me. If you have the time, I would love to get a picture of what the work you’re doing entails.

(What does the day-to day of marine biology research look like? What kind of stuff are you studying/information are you gathering? Whats it like? Is it awesome? feel free to answer none of these also)

thank you!!

OH, I'm jealous - it's a dream of my mine to get to work on a tallship. & I love to talk about this stuff!

In all honesty, the day-to-day changes pretty dramatically depending on what project work is available. Right now, as a student, a lot of what I'm involved in ties into coursework or research that's happening at the university! I volunteer with a couple different labs, and there's a huge variety of stuff to get in on. For example:

Last Saturday, I spent about six hours pulling otoliths and gonads out of eighty invasive roi, taape, and toau caught by local spearfishermen. Otoliths are the ear bones of fish, and similar to the rings of a tree, they have ringed annuli that can give a lot of information about the life history of the individual species. We cast these otoliths in resin, and then cut cross-sections to look at them under the microscope. The hope is that this information will help us understand when these species become reproductive, and how to control their populations.

The last several Fridays, I've been involved with an effort to collect some water quality and plankton data after a lot of heavy rain. This work was out on the boats, and we used deep and shallow drogues, YSI, light meter, secchi disk, and a couple plankton nets, moving out from the swollen rivermouth and into deeper, saltier water.

Last month, I spent a lot of time on invertebrate snorkel surveys, mostly looking for presence/absence in the nearshore. Next Tuesday, I'll be doing fish surveys in the same location. The Wednesday after I'm hopping on a wetlands restoration project & removing invasive bull grass, and a night snorkel afterwards. Next Friday is a lab day, working to process the plankton samples we've collected, and I'll be in the coral nursery afterwards. That's the really fun thing about university - there's so much different work going on, all the time!

In the summers, outside of school, that work is just as varied. I've really enjoyed having jobs that allow me to do a little bit of everything, and thus far, my supervisors have been very supportive of me in that. Here's some other projects I've gotten to work on, all within just one position:

Servicing passive monitoring systems! These are pictures of my replacing a SEABIRD logger, which has been taking a water temperature measurement every thirty seconds for the past 360 days. This helps conservation managers track heatwaves in sensitive ecosystems. We prepped new loggers with batteries and SD cards and waterproof tape to prevent biofouling, and then used snips and zipties to make the switch.

Scientific fishing! This helps get life history and population data for our target species, large pelagic fish. We collected biopsy samples, placed tags, and released primarily ahi, but also ono, and mahi. (Full disclaimer: this picture is from a subsistence fishing trip and not a scientific one, where people generally have too many things in their hands & are moving too quickly to take pictures. He was a very delicious dinner for our crew, though.)

Other marine tagging! I got to assist with bluewater cetacean tagging of several different dolphin and small whale species, and shark tagging for galapagos, blacktip reef, grey reef, and dusky sharks. Cetacean tagging was done with an air rifle, not easy at high speeds on the boat. Shark tagging was more hands-on, as we had to manually apply the tags.

Coral reef monitoring! The mission of these surveys was to track coral health through heat stress events, and to identify harmful species. I'm looking under the coral head in these pictures for crown-of-thorns starfish, one of the most urgent species threats to reefs in the Pacific.

This is the bastard. Notice the dead coral around him.

Oh I'm about to smack into the photo limit, huh. Please hold!

[pomegranate-seeds-unite]

@bastardoftheblade do it :) (aggressive)

@bastardoftheblade this is your daily reminder to WATCH ATLA AND LOK !!!!!!!!!!!!