The 3D lab

Bringing nature to the office

Posted on November 29, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

The main advantage of being a field ecologist is the field. You have to go outside to collect your data. The main disadvantage, however, is that this fieldwork takes at most 10 percent of your time, while the other 90 you are still looking at the screen of your computer. Trying to read everything that exists, trying to proof something that you have seen or trying to write something that convinces other people from what you have seen.

If lack of free air is driving you insane, it helps to bring nature closer to the office. I am lucky to have a window overlooking a forest, for it helps me feeling a little bit connected with the nature I study. It is however just a small patch of forest, so to make things a little bit more exciting (I aim at my own personal National Geographic documentary), I put out some bird food. Today I got my first visitor, which of course made me really excited.

Great tit

I even saw this little beauty from a distance longing for the food, so I hope I can get him a little bit closer the next days.

Squirrel

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Animals, Birds, Garden birds, Office | 2 Comments

Walking with the death

Posted on November 27, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

One of the main places worth seeing in Punta Arenas serves the death, not the living. It is intriguingly beautiful for a city with so few attractive places. So impressive that it even got listed by the CNN as 1 of the 10 most beautiful cemeteries in the whole world.

The cemetery really deserves the nomination, because the Chilean people take good care of their deceased relatives (at least those who can afford it). The cemetery serves as the eternal home for some of the wealthiest local families from the 19th and 20th century. Even some of the real pioneers of the region from whom the whole population descents, found their final resting place here.

One of them was Sara Braun, the extremely wealthy and (as the rumours say) beautiful wife of one of the pioneers in sheep cattle raising in the area. According to the legends, she declared the main gate should stay closed forever when she finally went through it to be buried in her marvellous chapel. So it remains till today; secondary entrances are everywhere, but the main gate is hermetically closed as an honor to the last wish of Sara Braun, who on her own provided most of the grandeur the city has today.

Posted in Chile | Tagged Abroad, Adventure, Cemetery, Patagonia, Punta Arenas, Subantarctic | Leave a comment

Dressed like a scientist

Posted on November 26, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

I finally bought something I already needed for a very long time: I got myself some nice, warm, cosy, wind-protecting clothing. All this time I had been working in the field without the appropriate jacket. Try to imagine! How was I ever going to become a field ecologist without a real jacket!? It’s a shame, it really is. The comfort of the scientist makes or breaks the research.

But from now on, I am perfectly prepared for all possible circumstances in the field. A whole day of rain? No problem! Winds that even throw your whole backpack from the mountain? I don’t care at all! Even the snowy conditions on the Chilean mountains won’t scare me anymore, I just crawl safe and warm back into my jacket with adjusted fleece sweater.

Posted in Belgium | Tagged Adventure, Fieldwork, Scientific equipment | 3 Comments

Pictures from Chile

Posted on November 23, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

I’m currently safely back in Belgium and found some time to look at my favorite views from my visit to Chile. I’ll add some of them to this post and upload more interesting pictures to the photo gallery ‘Punta Arenas’ on my homepage.

Posted in Chile | Tagged Abroad, Adventure, Punta Arenas, Subantarctic | 6 Comments

Wind chill

Posted on November 19, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

Imagine a nice day in the middle of spring: sky is blue and the sun is gaining power every day. You can feel its warmth on your cheeks as you turn your head towards it. The good live…

But all of a sudden a strong wind starts to blow. before you know it all warmth is blown away from you. The sun is still as warm and the temperature is exactly the same but before you can feel the comfort, the warmth is already gone. Even the heating generated by your own body gets lost; you can no longer maintain the warm layer of air around your skin.

The temperature remained but the strong wind gives you the impression that the day is much colder than it is in reality. That feeling is called the wind chill factor, a significant dropping in the experienced temperature on a day with strong winds. It is everyday reality in Punta Arenas, city of whirling winds. This makes field work a lot harder, because the wind chill makes you experience temperatures way below freezing point even when the actual temperature is around 5 °C.

This wind chill is in addition to the pure force of the wind that even shapes trees permanently. Being an important reason why a place on the same latitude as the Netherlands gets conditions that resemble the harsh situation in the north of Sweden. That is, of course, one of the main reasons why we chose this place for our experiment.

Posted in Chile | Tagged Abroad, Fieldwork, Punta Arenas, Subantarctic | 3 Comments

The other side of the peninsula

Posted on November 15, 2013 by lembrechtsjonas

On our devoted search for field sites, we decided to cross the peninsula and approach the mountains from the other side. We would not be too far away from our other sides, but it would be a long drive on gravel roads to get around them.

Luckily, we had the beauty of the Patagonian nature to save us from a boring trip. I could never imagine that a country could have so many birds of prey packed so close together. Every hundred meters, another one flew up from a pole or showed its marvelous acrobatic tricks in the air. In between, large amounts of majestic geese, beautifully coloured ducks and on the horizon even two pink dots that seemed to be flamingos. The further we got, the better the view…

The other side - geese

As soon as we crossed the inland, a splendid view on the bay unfolded before our eyes. In the far north, we could see the snowy peaks of Isla Riesco, the southernmost part of the Chilean Andes. The waves, guided by strong southern winds, crashed on the shore and giant black petrels floated above the shoreline. The cows, horses and sheep that were regularly startled by our passing car warned us that this was no true wild nature, but we won’t easily find any better in Europe.

The very moment we thought to be as far away from civilization as possible, the happy face of another candidate for the upcoming elections smiled at us from the trunk of a dead tree, right before a typical Chilean farmer approached us on his horse, eager to help us on our hunt for accessible mountains. At least the Chilean landscape makes you forget itif the fieldwork brings you bad luck.