Tina, Loren & Michael looking for degus
Sunday was our first day in the field. We got the truck, it stopped raining, and there was no riotous football on the schedule. All of us new kids went out with Loren to Rinconada, which is a little less than an hour from downtown Santiago. It is an interesting matorral (equivalent to the chaparral of California) landscape with acacia trees and some really large cacti. It actually looks a lot like parts of California.
Degu burrow with "runways"
We saw lots of degus running around and their burrow systems with little “runways” between holes. We practiced our radio telemetry skills by hiding a little radio collar like the ones that have been put on some of the animals and I got to “be a degu” and run around the field while Morgan tried to track me. Michael also decided to be one with the coruro (the subterranean rodents he and Monica are studying) and was crawling on the hillside for a better look.
Michael sneaking up on coruro
In our field site we saw a couple of eagles, a ton of hawkish looking birds called caracaras and even a burrowing owl! He was cute and very grumpy.
Morgan with the radio tower to track degus
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