Vertebrate Biology - Birds

So today in our Vertebrate Biology class, we got to dissect some ducks! I was able to grab the best duck (a beautiful adult male wood duck). I couldn't help but pluck a few of his nicer feathers to add to my collection that I've started. Too bad a lot of them were covered in blood already.

Here he is! With his neck all broken...

Look at those colours!

Here's a better picture of his head.

The aftermath. (SORRY FOR THE GORE)

It's a pity he couldn't have been mounted or anything :( Ah well. Thanks to him, I understand the anatomy of birds and ducks. Thank you wood duck!

Ode to Dorothy

Ok, so Dorothy is my 90 year old land lady. She is QUITE the character. In this post, I just wanna highlight a few of her behaviours and quotes.

The other day during lunch, she was asking me: "Who's the coloured lady that speaks?" it was a pretty random question and I just blurted out "Oprah?" and that was who she was referring to.

I have a roommate and close friend of mine named Glen who Dorothy often refers to as Kevin, which was the boy who used to occupy the room Glen is in now. She's always bouncing back and fourth between Kevin and Glen. Glen can't help be worried, because she might get the wrong idea that Kevin isn't paying his rent.

She goes to bed at 7:30 pm and wakes up between 1-2 am. Need I say more?

She often yells at her TV, claiming "If only I was mayor" or "You're all going to hell!". I hear her often since my room is the closest to the living room.

When ever Dorothy finds something broken, she always blames it on our roommate Chris. We can't help but think that it's because of his long hair.

I think the loneliness must get to her when she's not renting out, cuz once she gets started talking, she doesn't stop for a good hour. I'm worried one day she'll make me late for class.

So this is a glimpse of living life with Dorothy. I'll be sure to post it if there are any new outrageous things Dorothy does. After all, I've only been here for a week!

Nothing new to report.

The last few days have been pretty dull. I've basically just been working my butt off catching up with school and trying to find a decent place to live. I would also like to correct something I said in a previous post. I mentioned the food that the 90 year old land lady makes for us was good... far from it. I was mistaken from one meal. The rest haven't been that great... and I've heard worse is to come. Ah well. Hopefully I'll be out of here in less than a month. Till then, my stomach better be able to handle it!

Tomorrow is my Vertebrate Biology class so hopefully we'll do something interesting like dissect a squirrel or something. Look forward to my next post haha.

A Limnological Day

Today I had some mandatory field trip for my Limnology I Class (Limnology means the study of freshwater ecosystems). So I woke up at 6 am to catch the bus at 7:30 am. We arrived at Shelter Valley Creek around 9 am and we were there until about 4:30 where we finally arrived home at 5:45. We basically spent the whole day electrofishing, surveying the creek, doing water chemistry, catching aquatic invertebrates and... making art with reeds! The latter was more or less a product of my friend and I being extremely bored with completing repetitive water chemistry procedures. What a day!

Dead baby Pumpkin Seeds :(

Baby Mottled Sculpin!

Beautiful young Rainbow Trout

Look at all the Trout!

Identifying the Rainbow Trout

Northern Brook Lamprey!

So creepy!

He was very slimy and snaky

Squirmy Wormy!

Reed Art! It's a fishing rod with a fish on it!

Living in a Box and Out of a Bag

So I'm moved in to my new place... and the room is WAY too small for all my stuff. But hey, the bed is very comfy and the meals that the 90 year old land lady make are pretty damn good (especially the homemade apple pie for dessert).

This is the mess of my room.

My desk is a disaster...

So me and my new roommates (two are friends from last year in residence and the other two are new) went out and bought a 50 dollar remote control helicopter that can shoot missiles in hopes of shooting one of our roommates in the eye. Now that's fun! Mind you it took us a while to figure out how to charge and balance the thing and then it takes 30-40 minutes worth of charging for 5 minutes of flight. I guess it's worth it?