A helping hand

As the previous post mentions, I have a lot of work ahead of me!

As I am visually screening thousands of trains (the word used to describe echolocation click groupings), often being required to process false-positives quickly throughout a day which requires navigation through a right-click menu, I decided to seek out software to ease the workload.

After spending 6 hours yesterday screening a single file that spanned the recordings of 5 months I was seriously thinking that I may suffer from repetitive strain injury after several months of going through the same motions. The software I found to be most effective for my needs was a macro recorder by JitBit (Macro Recorder: available here: http://www.jitbit.com/macro-recorder/) which allows the recording of a series of mouse or keyboard commands to be played back later when required. 

In all honesty I have only created one macro so far, but that is all I require at this point, and I'm sure that further down the line I will create more to aid my CPOD analysis! This software has probably saved me hours of clicking, and it was incredibly easy once downloaded. Obviously it isn't going to make its way into the acknowledgements of my thesis, but I am grateful for its existence. Anyone reading this may think I am going on about the software way too much, and that would be because JitBit say that if a review is provided on a blog then a free version of the software will be provided (hopefully) saving me from withdrawl symptoms and repetitive strain injury in 40 days once the free trial has expired! So forgive the grovelling, and I hope that JitBit decides that aiding a post-grad student in scientific research and reduced stress is a good move!

Moving on, I am back in Scotland this week to attend, and present a quick talk about my thesis at the UK Regional Student Chapter about marine mammals, hosted at SMRU in St Andrews (http://synergy.st-andrews.ac.uk/ukrsc/meetings/). I hope to meet some interesting people conducting great research, and learn where the future of marine mammal research lies!

Half way there

It has been a crazy and very full on 6 months of taught masters, covering a great range of interesting and wonderful topics. I honestly feel as if I have learned more in the past 6 months than I did in my 3 years of undergraduate, although being awake through lectures probably contributed to that! I've now gained professional certificates in sea survival, VHF (very high frequency) radio communications, power boat handling, and first aid. I've sat two sets of exams, written a long list of assignments, reports and papers, and have recently returned from my second adventure to Millport on the isle of Cumbrae off the west coast of Scotland for a field trip to study benthic organisms and the distribution and size differences in the edible periwinkle (Littorina littorea).
Now that the taught portion of the course has come to an end, I have thrown myself straight into working on my thesis which currently has the provisional title of:
"The comparative analysis of passive acoustic CPOD detections with seasonal visual observation effort of dolphins within Broadhaven Bay, Ireland."
This study requires me to move up to Belmullet, a small town in County Mayo, where I will spend 5 months helping Coastal Marine Research Centre with field work whilst working on data that their cliff-top observation teams and passive acoustic CPOD stations have recorded since 2009.
This means, for the next few months I will be staring at screens to determine if sound files of click trains are indeed the echolocation of dolphins, or if the software has falsely classed them. The main false-positive detections come from porpoise "masquerading" as dolphins, where the narrowband frequencies of porpoises have been ignored and thus have been classed as a dolphin which although share the higher frequencies alongside porpoise; their frequency range extends far below as well.

A click train of a dolphin, shown in CPOD software, under a Sound Pressure Level view.

Updates

The masters course is fully underway, and very enjoyable; yet keeps me insanely busy. It is now normal for me to be a Uni all day, and then continue to work on coursework into the night at home. It is a small price to pay though as I am learning a lot, and I am already looking forward to starting my thesis. The general idea of my thesis is to determine the effectiveness of a passive acoustic monitoring device on the study of dolphin presence. I will post further information on this later once it is underway!
This post will be rather fragmented; with various snippets of information. Blackfish aired last month on CNN and was watched by over a million people, with many more watching it on catchup or online. The fallout on twitter has been phenomenal, with multiple petitions being signed, people articulating their views and opinions, and boycotting SeaWorld and it's associated partners. Seaworld has already seen a drop in ticket sales, and this will no doubt continue with increased publicity and follow-on documentaries. With SeaWorld being such a global organisation, with multiple offshoots, it will take time to put an end to cetacean captivity and shows, but this is an impressive start!

Staying with the captivity theme, I managed to find time to take a weekend off to show my girlfriend around Cork; and took a trip to Fota Wildlife Park. It was a rather moist day, although we made the most of it. I was instantly impressed with the park; expecting it to be fairly small and basic. For the most part, enclosures were well planned, with monkeys and lemurs having "open" enclosures, on islands, and many animals such as Mara and wallabies free-roaming around the park. There were a good number of staff on hand to answer any questions, and an adorable young cheetah cub on display (Video). I would definitely recommend it for a cheap, educational day out in Co. Cork.

The present

A swan attacking on Cork Lough

That brings us up to the present day! I am now living in Cork; awaiting my Masters degree (MSc) in Marine Biology to start tomorrow. I have been here for two weeks already; but I have been reading a lot of scientific papers on the acoustics of Delphinid species, and getting my head around how exactly to tackle my research project. I shall be updating you on my progress over the next year!

The return - final

A popular surfing beach on the Peninsula that I called home.

My final stop, was in County Mayo, Republic of Ireland. I was providing staff holiday cover for the Coastal & Marine Research Centre, with an office based in Belmullet. In the two weeks that I was there, we only had good enough weather for two field days; cliff top visual scans using a theodolite for tracking. On the other days, I was in the office repairing databases, and providing help with Cpod data analysis. I may also be centering my Masters degree's final project on the analysis of CPOD data from this site. More on that later.

The return - Part 2

A Common Seal pup at Dingle Seal & Wildlife Sanctuary, Ireland

The next stop this summer was Dingle, Republic of Ireland. I was again volunteering with the Atlantic Whale Foundation; but this time not in Tenerife. This project has only just started up, and was understandably a lot smaller. At the peak, there was 8 volunteers, which is quite a contrast to the 70 in Tenerife. Most of our time was spent working at the Seal Sanctuary on the outskirts of Dingle. This is a totally volunteer run sanctuary, that is open year round; caring for abandoned and injured Common seals during the summer, and then Grey seals during the autumn / winter. Alongside this, some of us also did visual observations from cliff tops, and surveys for daubenton's bats.

The return - Part 1

Photo of Bottlenose dolphins from the cliff top.

So; it has been a very long time (around 2 years) since the last post. Yet again, I had forgotten about the existence of this blog! I am determined to carry it on this time, now that I am actually more involved in the animal world. I have been up to a fair bit since the last post. I have spent this summer fulfilling several placements. The first in Cromarty, Scotland; working with the University of Aberdeen at the Lighthouse Field Station. I was carrying out research for a PhD student, doing visual observations of Bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus) from a cliff, which was used in conjunction with a Cpod to look into the effects of shipping from the oil rig repair station in Nigg bay, on the behaviour of the dolphins. Whilst here I also managed to help analyse Cpod porpoise recordings from another project, help with photo-id of birthing common seals at Loch Fleet, and also participate in Photo id surveys of Bottlenose from the survey boat. While here, we also saw a juvenile minke whale; which was around 4 metres long (Video can be seen here ).

Random

I have decided to widen this blog to not only nature related posts, but it will now also include a random documentation of events in my life, along with suggestions and reccomendations for others. I came to this conclusion when realising that no one was reading this, so I may as well include things about my own life to look back on in the future if needed.
A bit of an introduction to my life:
I am a 20 (almost 21) year old who is literally about to finish my Zoology degree at Anglia Ruskin University. I live with 6 other guys, with the usual squabbles of living with anyone. I am  currently applying for a lot of jobs, hoping to get one that I will enjoy, but knowing that I will have to settle for a rubbish job to pay the rent for a while.
On Friday I will be travelling to Millport on Cumbrae up in Scotland for a week for my last ever university field course. Looking forward to it in some ways, not in others.
To start the reccommendations: I couldn't sleep earlier so I decided to get up and make a cake.... using this recipe (very roughly.... im not a fan of scales at midnight) http://eatliverun.com/no-bake-nutter-butter-nutella-pie/
Have to wait to see what it is like in the morning when it has set, but the filling tasted awesome when it was being made.

Sun Bears

Well it has been 8 months since the last post, and I have now almost finished my degree! Just concluding my dissertation today for hand in possibly Monday, if not Tuesday. I do not know if it is purely because I check the environmental / sciencey news more often now, but it seems like 2 polar bears  have died in captivity in close succession. First Knut the polar bear in Berlin zoo (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12939434) died from a brain swelling leading to drowning; and then Mercedes in Edinburgh zoo (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-13116179) who was put down "due to health problems".
It just seems a bit weird as I saw knut when he was a cub in summer 2007, and I've seen mercedes multiple times at Edinburgh zoo before she was moved to the highland park.
On a happier note, summer weather is finally rearing its beautiful head!