Five years ago over beers at the Grad Club, the three of us decided to start a blog. The purpose of the blog was to share stories about fieldwork: why we love it, why we keep doing it, and why everyone should get the chance to experience it. At that point in time, two of us were knee deep (or maybe neck deep??) in PhD fieldwork and the third was managing a lab, which included lots of fieldwork as well.
Fast forward five years, and we are all still out in the field, where we love to be…but things have changed (more than a little). Catherine and Amanda both defended their PhDs and have since started working for Bird Studies Canada and the Nature Conservancy of Canada, respectively. Sarah wrapped up her work as a lab manager and has since started a PhD in ecotoxicology at the Institut national de la recherche scientifique (Université de Québec). But the adventures of new jobs, new studies, and re-locating, combined with busy field seasons and all the other quirks life brings, meant that we all ended up pushing the blog to the back burner.
However, as we started to wrap up the 2019 field season, we reflected on all the great things that have happened in the field this summer…and realized we wanted to share those stories (and more!) on Dispatches. So with renewed excitement, we are happy to announce that we will be back to our bi-weekly posting schedule effective October 2019! You can also look forward to some updated features on the blog and even a new layout.
And if you can’t wait until October to get your fieldwork stories fix, check our Twitter feed, where we will be travelling back in time to feature some of our favourite posts from 2014, the year it all started.
We are all thrilled to be back and just itching to share the many adventures of our recent #fieldwork with you! And we’d love to hear about your adventures as well…so if you have a story you want to share, shoot us an e-mail!
Dispatches from the Field 