Blog Post 1: Departure

[Author’s Note: Before this summer began I found myself involved in a research project studying California and Gambel’s quail, playing enthusiastic [opinion: my own] assistant to a PhD candidate named David for a few short weeks during the spring. When the chance to come out for another session in the summer presented itself, I could scarcely refuse the opportunity and happily joined the caravan back to California.]

One of the hallmarks of a good trip (in my experience) is the entirely unremarkable way they usually begin. Lists are checked, punctuated by the occasional panicked search for this or that. A simple decision to bring an extra jacket can become an albatross. All the while the possibility that was forgotten looms constantly overhead. The leaving itself is comparatively sedate. Goodbyes are recited, seeming to hit the standard notes: “I love you, I’ll miss you, see you when I get back, stay safe…” and so on. It ends on a hug or a kiss, or perhaps a wave, and in the next moment the door is open and the joined are separate once again. This habit seems inescapable. Such is the way my journey out to California began - more in the anticipation than in the goodbye.

Sun directly overhead, David and I struck out from Boulder and wound our way down to the 70, which we would follow across and out of Colorado. This drive is made particularly pleasant by the topographical majesty of this middle portion of the state. Massive waves of granite and sedimentary rock reach their crest on either side of the sinuous highway, funneling ever westward. The borderlands of Colorado and Utah lie beyond, where the mountains ebb and we are greeted by flat, shrub-specked earth. This forms something of a boundary between the mountains of Colorado and the rust-colored cliffs and canyons of central Utah. Rich green forests and valleys are replaced with sparse and low-lying vegetation until you finally come upon the Great Basin, one of the continent’s largest networks of desert. Here the landscape can be subtle and striking in equal measure. Go further still and you find yourself in the Eastern-most section of the Mojave, a truly American desert best known for its Joshua trees and ‘bohemian’ disposition.

Where we came to rest is the Coachella Valley, an intersection between the coastal chaparral, Mojave, and larger Sonoran Desert that stretches from Mexico into the southwestern United States. Our promised land? A hybrid zone wedged between these three ecosystems, in which two distinct species of quail - California (Callipepla californica) and Gambel (Callipepla gambelii) – come together and have the potential to form mixed social and mating groups. For our part, we are here to the wrangle every last quail, from chick to parent, come hell or high water. From this we hope to glean information on the social, physical, and reproductive makeup of those that call this marginal landscape home. Marginal is the key word here - these species truly exist on the edge of multiple unforgiving habitats, as well as their own ranges, and as such make for an enticing study system. Nested within this is the notion that climate change and human disturbance hold the potential to alter the destiny of biota in this landscape. Changing landscapes and environmental conditions can impact the distribution, population sizes, and genetic makeup of both quail and other organisms that reside within this transitional zone. With robust data collection and analytical methods, we could attempt to track the course of these potential effects. Thus this research could prove to be a powerful predictive tool under the right conditions.

As I write, we have already spent a week in the desert making progress toward just that - to varying degrees of success. Days can start quickly as traps yield immediate results, activity can be nonexistent until the last hour of the day, or it can be somewhere in between. Toil is not without tragedy, either, as handling living creatures isn’t without its risks for the handler and the handled. For this reason the work can be both grueling and heartening, filled with highs and lows as new challenges arise and the old are resolved. Each day dons a new mask in this way. Our hope is that with continual fine-tuning we can prolong the highs and diminish the lows. And with this our summer-long journey continues in earnest.