The 3D lab

Slow and steady

Posted on September 19, 2014 by lembrechtsjonas

The Costa Brava is full of snails. When it is hot, they are hiding in their house, safe from the heat and drought. They wait, wait and wait, patiently and motionless, until it finally starts raining.

Snail

Rain can be crazy here immediate and drastic, big thunderstorms that turn streets into raging rivers. When the storms pass – almost as quick as they started – nature totally changed its appearance.

After the thunderstorm Hundreds of little frogs and toads everywhere, thousands of snails on the move, all shiny and new.

Mediterranean tree frog

The next day brings on a new burning sun, drying out the pools, pushing the water-lovers back into hiding.

Posted in Spain | Tagged Animals, Costa Brava, Holiday, Nature photography, Photography, Spain, Summer, Sun, Travel, Travelling, Weather, Wildlife, World | 5 Comments

A true circus act

Posted on September 14, 2014 by lembrechtsjonas

The sad thing about being a plant scientist is that those plants rarely put on an impressive show.

Every now and then, I thus have to shift away from the plant- to the animal kingdom to get some more excitement and experience breath-taking hunting skills and the circus act that is the fight for food.

This time, we were on a boat on the Mediterranean Sea, on a trip to explore the offshore beauty of the Costa Brava, with its cliffs, holes, islands and highly diverse sea life.

The boat crew put on a nice show for us with the help of a large flock of seagulls, ready to show of their flight skills.

They caught the fish in mid-air, without any hesitation and never missed one.

You should have seen them, diving, turning, hovering, as skill full as the best. I just gazed, impressed, and flapped my useless arms. Flying might not be my skill.

Posted in Spain | Tagged Animals, Birds, Gulls, Holiday, Nature, Ocean, Photography, Sea, Spain, Summer, Water, Wildlife | 4 Comments

Spain

Posted on September 11, 2014 by lembrechtsjonas

From the high north to the south of Europe.

From the cold-limited mountains in Lapland to the dry rocky mountain slopes of Catalonia in less than a week time.

I am enjoying the end of the summer with a burning sun, admiring once again the power of the surviving plants and animals.

With nothing more living company then some lizards and crickets, we hiked to the top of Nas del Bisbe, an impressive pile of rock overlooking the surrounding lowlands.

It is funny to see how the surviving plants look similar to those in the high north: small leaves to hold as much water as possible, and a stunted growth to stay close to the protection of the ground.

One more week to enjoy the summer, before I have to go back to the office to dive into the pile of data from the field season. But I promise I will get the most out of it!

Posted in Spain | Tagged Catalonia, Hiking, Holiday, Mountains, Nature, Photography, Plants, Spain, Summer | 3 Comments

Holiday break

Posted on September 5, 2014 by lembrechtsjonas

Autumn arrived in the Arctic with fast incoming clouds and drizzling rains, luckily exactly the day when the field season was over! I am now going to celebrate this second field season of my PhD with a deserved holiday to Spain, where summers last just that little bit longer.

Posting on the blog here might get a little bit irregular as I will be enjoying sun and free time outside, but I promise to be back with pictures, science and adventures!

Posted in Spain, Sweden | Tagged Abisko, arctic, Autumn, Ecology, Field season, Fieldwork, Photography, Scandinavia, Spain, Sweden, Travel | 4 Comments

Flying a helicopter

Posted on September 3, 2014 by lembrechtsjonas

Our most remote plots involve hours of climbing on steep mountain slopes, through dense willow shrubs and over dry rocky areas.

But not this time. This time we had to walk for 20 minutes to Abisko’s helicopter base and do the full hour-long walk in less than 5 minutes.

The helicopter was a nice, big red insect that we had seen zooming around over the mountains before. But now, it was our turn to put our luggage in its trunk, put on the huge headset and communicate like true professionals through the microphone.

The flight itself was as exciting as it was short. The helicopter was really stable, so you almost could not feel the lift-off. It sheered closely over the mountains, right past the famous Lapporten gate, and in no-time we reached the top.

There, the helicopter quickly dropped us off – landing on the open Arctic tundra was no problem – and we ran away of its swirling propellers.

That is how we got up on the mountain top at 8:50 in the morning, the earliest we have ever been there. Of course, the rest of the day, working and walking downhill, were the easiest we ever had up here, and we managed to do a lot more work than expected and planned.

If it was not for the money, I would not mind more of this way of travelling in the future!

Posted in Sweden | Tagged Adventure, arctic, flying, Helicopter, Holiday, Mountains, Photography, Scandinavia, Sweden, Travel, Travelling | 1 Comment

Please do not disturb

Posted on September 1, 2014 by lembrechtsjonas

If you leave your experiment behind in the Scandinavian mountains, you will have to deal with the wildlife up there.

We learned that lesson the hard way. It turns out that the high north houses a high density of reindeer, a fact we immediately noticed in our plots: labels destroyed, large footprints everywhere, flowers eaten, even some dung piles… The reindeer seemed to be attracted to our research!

The first few days, we only saw their tracks, obvious as they were. It only took us some time to finally see one in real life.

We thought they might have been hiding from us far away in the mountains, on the highest and less-visited peaks, but in the end our first sighting was right next to the chairlift, on the most touristical location in the whole northern mountain range.