Teamwork Posted by Olivia Perkowski

Today was a day like no other. We learned to work together in a way that none of us have ever experienced before. Sure, we’ve worked in groups in school or played on a sports team, but teamwork like that is different. Working out on the field and stepping out of our comfort zones is new for each and every one of us. 

Today was about being aware and prepared. We each had a different role in every situation and staying focused and alert was very important. Our day started out with a scavenger hunt after breakfast. We broke off into teams of three and began to search. The goal was to identify the five different species of trees that our teachers had flagged, write down the coordinates of where the tree was located and explain how we knew the species. Considering how new we all are at being botanists I would say we all did a pretty good job. 

To many people field work with owls may seem a little simpler than it really is. Personally before this trip, I thought how hard could it really be. I didn’t realize how much equipment and further knowledge was needed. For example we learned how to use a spherical densiometer today. We learned the formulas for counting vegetation and for sky and how to fill all that information onto the data sheet. Once we finished practicing that we realized that we now had all the information to practice filling out the entire data sheet including calculating the dbh, finding the UTM, the type of cavity and tree, and so on. Later, in the afternoon we went out further into the field and practiced setting up a 50 meter cavity plot. Doing this requires a team effort and every one of us had a different role to accomplish. We split up into two teams half of us with Nikki and the other half with Dave. The two teams together made one whole cavity plot and although it wasn’t all perfect we were proud of what we now knew how to do. After dinner we went out for our daily night hike which resulted in us catching a whiskered screech owl and listening to two other different species. At the end of the day we all discussed how working together and working efficiently is beneficial for everyone and although we already knew how important teamwork and communication was, today we reached a new level of understanding.