Fieldwork

Last wednesday (woensdag) I join to my supervisor, the other student of him and another guy from the naturalis to do fieldwork. We went to the dunes, a sand region near Katwijk, by bike. It took about 20-30 mins but it wasn't as easy as I expected. In contrast with the rest of the country I've seen and the trip to Keukenhof, it was plenty of slopes. Besides, it was a quite windy day, making more difficult to pedal.

Once we got there, we stop at one of the ponds of the park to collect material, in this case beetles, larvae and bugs. The method is quite simple. First, soil and the things present in it and the water are collected using kicknets. Then, it is pour into a tray to sort the mud and the plants from the bugs, and take them. They were collected in alcohol if they were larvae or in tubes if bigger. We didn't have to take everything, so the supervisor and the other guy told us what they wanted to collect and how much individuals, more or less.

After spending some hours there layed in the ground looking at all kind of live beings of the water ( i must say that the amount of them present in the water, not very much water, is astonoshing and countless) we moved to another site in the park. Because there were no trees nor nothing, basically, the effect of the wind while riding was more effective on us. In this point I was already tired and slower than the rest.

This place was sloped, so it wasn't very confortable for laying/sitting down in the ground. We had to do exactly the same as the other place. However, in this case a surprise took place. A wild fox appeared and started to move closer to us.

After spend another couple of hours in this pond, we went back to Leiden. As you can imagine, if I was tired before, in the return I was exahusted and the slowest of the group. It was harder than I expected, but it was nice to see how the fieldwork is and have a better idea of how the whole process of the research is.

My legs were hurting for the next two days! So if planning to move to Then Netherland train your bike skills as much as possible ( or at least get used to do sport).

Fijne Dag!