The last days have, like the rest of the Swedish summer this year, not been the best for hoverflies. We did find a few yesterday but so much fewer than in Sikkim, India. Since Suhrid is here, there are a lot of memories from the Himalayas going around. A lot regarding the lovely weather we had there. Well, I thought we had lovely weather, Suhrid said yesterday that this weather here was "even worse than in Sikkim". Not even comparable I think. I remember the first day there when we used sunblock 50 and still were burnt within half an hour. That memory has also been present when we have been fighting with the Jaz, i.e. the spectrophotometer. Ours seemed to have some problems measuring in the UV-range so we gave it to OceanOptics to check it. Meanwhile we have had a machine that we have borrowed from them. However, this borrowed one has been weird since it is a little bit different and the instructions we got for it didn't add up and Malin was the one who got the instructions but she hasn't worked with it ever and blah blah problems along the way. Unfortunately we lost a little bit of data because of that. Thankfully, our own machine is now back after almost two months! And they didn't even find any problems with it. The good thing is that David, a postdoc at EBC here at Uppsala University has been working with damselflies in Colombia with interests similar to ours (when in comes to the spectrophotometer). He said that there actually is rather little UV. At least too little for most machines to measure today. They will probably improve in sensitivity over the years. At least now I can do multiple tests with our own machine, to see if the machine is wrong or if we just thought so. As soon as it has been charged =)
We have a new guest that will come with me, Erik and Suhrid in the field. Here he presents himself:
My name is Amadeus and I will study insects here at the University. It's my first day of work today and it will probably be really interesting and fun! I'll be here to 15 08 08 and learn before I travel to India for working from there. Today we have been out in the field and studied hoverflies which is what I will work with. Ever since I was little I have been very interested in animals of all kinds. But there is something extra with insects, I stuck to it. I went to high-school focusing on painting of vehicles. But I feel I would rather work here at the University because it really is something I enjoy. The reason I got this chance is because my uncle's wife (Shannon Olsson) lets me work in India with her so I can learn really how it is, what we do and how it works. It will be an experience of a lifetime. I will stay and work for at least 6 months there. Once I am back I will apply to get in to the University here in Uppsala. I am so excited and really looking forward to the days here at the University!! //Amadeus Finally better weather! Sure, it hasn't been all bad before either but the flies are terribly picky. Before 10 am they also seem to sleep. But Suhrid brought some sunshine from India and today we have at least sen three hoverflies!
Suhrid Ghosh, that I worked with in India and the Himalayas in May is arriving today. Tomorrow we will start working in Sweden. Hopefully he brought some tropical climate. We sure could need it...
A quick translation from the Swedish page pollineramera.weebly.com and here we are! I will now blog in both languages, in different sites.
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