Nino the fish

Ping got a new toy! It came from Cedar Point, where Ping's brother won some game.It is an orange smiling fish!

But then hor, it is too bright for the family lah! It becomes the focus point because it is sooo orange! Hehe.

Worm hunting

Was walking on campus taking photos when we came across this bird. It is just one of the regular birds you see everywhere (haha, yet Ping don't know what it is called!). Typically, Ping would not pay attention to it but since it was close enough, it would be a good subject to practice the DSLR on (yes, it was when Ping gets to play with John's camera :P).

First shot...it just caught a worm!

From Birds

It then flew to the pavement and wait, it has more than one!

From Birds

No, it has a whole bunch!! Fat worms too! That sure is a huge meal!! Wonder if that is its normal amount or it just happened to be a lucky day.

From Birds

Isn't this amazing? Definitely Ping's first time seeing a bird hunting for worm! Wonder how they can see the worms in the jungle of grass...

Kellogg Bird Sanctuary

Ping have always wanted to go visit the Kellogg Bird Sanctuary but every trip to the Kellogg Biological Station requires that Ping goes back to lab as soon as possible to process the soil sample (we don't want the microbial community to change too much so that we can capture the 'close-to-field' condition. Yes, by removing the core is already a major disturbance but we don't really have a choice at this point. Unfortunately, the well-known quote by field ecologists - If you choose to do field study, you have to live in the field - does not work for microbial ecologists because we can't see our subject of study!).
Now that Ping is actually staying at KBS, Ping gets to go explore the area a little. Besides the bird sanctuary, there really is not much around here except for really nice nature trails and agriculture fields. It is a good place for nature photography though because there are so many birds, squirrels, chipmunks and insects. Haha...after having experience a taste of zoom lens and DSLR camera, Ping can't help wishing she has one whenever she sees a bird resting on crop residues or up on a tree. But, Ping still managed to capture quite a few nice shots and had lots of fun at the Bird Sanctuary!

There are two lakes in the Bird Sanctuary and are kept enclosed, probably to prevent people from getting too close to it. But, since most of the ducks/geese that resides there can fly, you do get to see them upclose. The Canadian geese are pretty huge but this little boy sure is not affected by it.
Besides the boring Canadian geese, there are quite a few swans too. While they look pretty when sitting down or swimming, they have huge and ugly looking feet. :P Reminds Ping of the term mummy and tua ee always say - 'tua kah poh'.























There is also a mum swan trying to hatch her eggs but the dad swan was very mean to Ping.
The highlight for Ping is the goslings!!! There were two families just sitting on the grass and Ping was slow and still enough that they did not feel threatened when Ping get down to their level!
Aren't they cute??? They are so fluffy, makes you want to cuddle them! Hehe. Check out how they sleep...

From Bird Sanctuary

Doesn't that seem like it will be hard for them to get up and run when a potential predator approach?

There was also two families of black swan. They were much more protective of the babies because there were other black swans who would not let Ping near the families at all.
Besides the free-roaming ducks, geese and swans, the Bird Sanctuary also has a few owls and close to endangered birds that are caged. One surprising thing - owls eat rats!! Guess Ping have never really thought about what they eat so was surprised to see there were dead rats in their food bowl! Ewww!!!
Oh, there was also an owl that makes chattering noise like when Ping gets cold! Am pretty sure the owl was not cold because it was a very hot evening. It must have meant something - maybe like 'Go away and don't bother me'. Hehe.

The one above looks mean but this one below looks much nicer, like a grandpa type. Hehe. It reminds Ping of the Owl cartoon that taught us ABC when we were a kid. Arghggh! Can't remember the name of the Owl now. (Mei Ling: You know which video tape I'm talking about right???)
Of course, there was also the chipmunks. There are tons of them at KBS!!
A nice quote on a bench...
All the way from Malaysia (actually, this one is from Indonesia). It is funny seeing this rooster in a cage when in M'sia, they are just walking around the kampung.
The one thing that was missing was the ducklings! Ping didn't see any at all! But there are tons on MSU campus that Ping will have to go visit when Ping get back on campus!

好安謐

我現在在Kellogg Biological Station 拿一趟科, 也順便進行一些研究. 在這裡做研究很容易因為很靠近我們的採樣站. 雖然還是不習慣常常找不到需要的東西, 但還滿喜歡這裡的環境因為沒人來打擾.

工作方面, 真的很積極的環境. 如果芒的時候, 時間過的好快, 早上出去採樣, 回來process sample, 一下子到吃飯時間了. 吃飯過後就是上課時間. 上完課, 忙著工作在實驗室裡. 晚上就要回顧那天學的資料. 今天不一樣....4.30 以經上完課了. 在外面走一走, 拍照, 享受那平常遇不到的環境.

Gull Lake

坐在湖邊, 感覺這裡的世界完全不一樣.,如果給我那選擇來到這樣的地方工作, 我會選嗎? 可能不會把. 那個平安, 安寧的感覺, 不是免費的.是於孤單寂寞的感覺.這種的安寧讓我想要有個人陪在身邊. 可以一起看日落, 看小鴨子長大, 或是一起享受那平靜的風景. 其實, 不管到哪裡去, 有一個人陪在身, 感覺總是不一樣. 那, 如果我一個人留在美國, 我做得到嗎? 在美國, 可以做自己喜歡做的工作. 但沒有朋友或家人在身邊. 我會開心嗎? 如果會去馬來西亞, 有家人, 也有朋友們, 但可能找不到自己想做的工作, 或許自己的expectations 要減小. 那我也會開心嗎?

The path by the lake.

每一年都有朋友畢業或許搬到別的地方去. 很少於朋友靠得很近的我, 兩年前見到了一個讓我可以很放鬆的做自己的朋友. 雖然我們只認識兩年多, 她懂我比以前認識的朋友好多了. Pei, 我很開心你得到了一個很好的工作, 也很靠近你爸媽, 但我一定會很想念你!!! 那一條很長的路, 我們要個走個的了. 但, 我還是會想著你的!!

Meeko the raccoon

Was walking around campus yesterday evening when Ping saw this raccoon (浣熊). It is the first time Ping saw one at such close distance!!! Ping didn't dare to get too close to it initially but after a while, realized that it was just looking for food and has no interest in us humans. Although it is commonly thought of as a nuisance, it is actually pretty cute! When Ping saw its face, Ping thought of Meeko right away. Doesn't it look exactly like Meeko?

Lucky thing that someone threw away some bread because 'Meeko' gets to eat! It would climb into the rubbish bin and hunt for food, then bring it under a bush to eat it. We were so close to it and yet, it seems oblivious to our presence. It did that a few times and when it could not find anymore food, it ran away and hide.
Super cute Meeko!

A few more photos that John took of Meeko -
Really cute one 'protect the raccoons' shot.
Now you see, now you don't.
When the raccoon first went into the rubbish bin, it came out 'owned' by Nike!

Flowers

Yuppy, the tiny perennial flowers are all over campus now. Ping just learned how to do masking on Adobe Photoshop so took the flowers photo to play around since those are easier to mask with the flower in focus.
This pink one is one of the most common flower on campus. From far, the entire tree looks like it has only pink flowers and barely any leaves.

This one is one of Ping's favorite because it is like the flowers we tend to draw in art class back in high school or whenever Ping draws a flower. They seem to be found only at the garden on the north side of campus, spreading on the ground.
This is a weird looking one! Found this at the Perennial Garden on campus. It looks like someone took a can of yellow paint and sprayed it from the top. Wonder if the flowers trigger the yellow pigment production from the leaves...but wouldn't that reduce the photosynthesis efficiency? Hmmm....
Here's a white one. This one comes in bunches but Ping likes how it looks from this angle because it seems to resemble a princess' crown! :P

Kellogg Biological Station

Part of Ping's research involves sampling for soil to measure bacterial respiration and productivity. Ping obtain the soil from a Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) site at Kellogg Biological Station (KBS). KBS is a field station with both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. The LTER site is just one of the sites available at KBS. There is a variety of LTER sites, ranging from cold deserts in Antartica to agriculture sites like the one at KBS. These sites provide us scientists with a large dataset on a variety of ecosystem characteristics such as gas fluxes, soil properties and it also allow collaborations between scientists from different fields of study. And if the only association with the name Kellogg you have is Kellogg's Cornflakes, yes, it is the same Kellogg.
While Ping is not a big fan of driving 1 hour to get to the site, Ping do enjoy the sceneries throughout the drive and being there sampling. The atmosphere out at the country side is so different from the city. There is also an ice-cream place to stop by halfway - Mooville - where they have Ping's favorite type of duck - the white ones with yellow feet. Ping gets to spend 2 weeks out there this summer as Ping will be taking a class that is held there.
The plots that Ping have collected soil from are:
The agriculture plot.
It is planted with corn, soybean or wheat during the summer. Ping will be going out there to get more soil in a week! It will be wheat this year. Ping have yet to collect soil when they are growing soybean - never thought Michigan would have that much soybean but on the drive out to KBS, you can actually see quite a few soybean farms. Yummy edamame! Ping first had it when daddy served it for snacks one night when Ping was visiting the parents at Beijing - 毛豆. Love it ever since and it is one of Ping's favorite stuff to put in a salad!
The successional plots. This one was just taken about a month ago.
There is nothing much on these plots except grasses. Ping was in one of the early successional plot one time when Ping saw a snake coiled up and asleep. Hehe...definitely did not prompt Ping to think of 'taking picture' but 'turn around as quiet as possible and run!'. Ping still think about it when Ping have to go through one of these plots late in the summer when the grasses are about as tall as Ping's waist. But still gotta go get the soil!

The forest plots.
The forest plots are a lot more fun because it is like walking through a nature trail. Ping likes working with forest soil too because it is so much easier to sieve them! Hehee...

Besides the plots where Ping collect soil, there is also a nice garden by Gull Lake and all the tiny chipmunks!
The Gull Lake is one of the cleanest lake Ping have seen in Michigan (not that Ping have seen that many though).

Chipmunk

They - from the genus Tamias (花栗鼠) - are the cutest rodent ever!! It must be play time for them at the Kellogg Biological Station because they were all over the place! However, chipmunks are pretty hard to capture because they are soooo tiny - which means we have to get pretty close to them - and they run very fast!!!

Ping did capture a few while they were busy rummaging through the mulch.
Can you find the chipmunk?

The best one was when Ping was walking up the stairs
It is probably one of those nuts from the trees but it is just hilarious that the tiny little one can fit such a huge nut into its mouth.