Yesterday I defended my thesis & become Dr. Kaeli Swift. For a little girl who couldn’t read until she was 8, who for so long thought she was doomed to academic failure, this is a huge moment. 2nd person & 1st woman in my family to boot. I’m really fucking proud of myself.
Wow. Just wow. The outpouring of support here has kind of blown me away. Thank you all so, so much.
I have to say in some ways finishing my grad program is bitter sweet. Sweet for your obvious reasons, but bitter because, well, I freaking love crows and I want to study them forever!
And while determination can get you a lot of places sometimes you also just need to pay the bills. Which is another way of saying while I’m not asuimg working that with crows again is impossible, I’m not ~banking~ on it.
That said, I will /always/ be here to play #CrowOrNo and answer crow or animal death questions and for my own sake please keep coming here for that!
So, yeah, I’m sad to say goodbye to the crows for now. But...I’m not yet saying goodbye to the corvids altogether. I’m thrilled to share that in less than a week I leave to start a year long PostDoc in Denali NP to study Canada (grey) jay foraging behavior!!!
Which is exciting not just because Canada jays are ADORABLE (look at that lil face!) and important climate change indicators, but because I’ll get to do more of what I didn’t have the ware with all to do with my crow work...show and tell more stories from the field.
The #DenaliDaries start next Thursday! I hope both my old and new followers stick around for them. If the experiences from my March trip were any indication...it’s going to be awesome.
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
For new followers/crow fans, both crows and ravens have blue eyes as babies. It transitions to the adult brown around 3-4 months. Some species OTOH, have brown eyes that turn blue!
Here’s the thing about red squirrels...I dig their whole vibe. Here’s a thread of me just being delighted about them.
An explanation of their cache sites or middens. FYI I totally blanked on the word “scales” (you can tell by the long pause) but I meant to say scales not leaves.
My favorite midden yet!!! BTW did you know they can chatter without stopping for up to an hour?!
It’s Wednesday, right? For sure? I’m not falling for this “it’s Wednesday, but not really” nonesense again today.
Ok well since it is actually a Wednesday...let’s get our #CrowOrNo on! New players: just tell me if at least one of these birds is a crow or not before 5:30ish PST. After that I post the answer and ID tips. Good luck!
You folks ready for your #CrowOrNo answer? The bird on the right is not a crow, it’s a raven! But the bird on the left is...
These responses make me want to crawl under a rock. Honestly I don’t even know what I want to do which is terrifying enough, but add the “it took 5 years and 100+ applications” to the mix and it feels completely fucking hopeless.
Do I even want to stay in academia? IDK! I can’t imagine not doing researching but at the same time academia makes me so unhappy sometimes. And maybe I just want to stay in research because it’s the only life I’ve known.
Then there’s the whole issue of uprooting my whole life again and again over the next several years to chase something I don’t even know if I want. How do people with families swing that? Like they obviously do but...how?
This is a bleeding tooth fungus or Hydnellum peckii. Despite their deadly appearance these mushrooms are nontoxic, though they’re very bitter and bad to eat.
They are also key players in healthy forests because they are symbiotic with the trees around them, exchanging nutrients and fixed CO2. Kind of like some lichen species this fungus can indicate polluted or unhealthy forests.