If our posts up to this point have sounded relaxed, or even giddy, it’s because fieldwork rarely goes this well. Birds don’t just fall into your lap (or net) the way they did for us in Moscow and Yekaterinburg. Food just isn’t as tasty (or plentiful) as it was at those research stations. Sure we’ve been working pretty hard, but we’ve also been coasting through Russia on a cloud of excitement and slight disbelief at our good luck.
Well, the other shoe had to drop sometime, and it definitely dropped for us in Novosibirsk. In 3 days of work we caught a pretty respectable number of birds (27), but it was via traditional fieldwork methods- looong hours, very little sleep, and a touch of despair.
Well, the other shoe had to drop sometime, and it definitely dropped for us in Novosibirsk. In 3 days of work we caught a pretty respectable number of birds (27), but it was via traditional fieldwork methods- looong hours, very little sleep, and a touch of despair.
We arrived in Novosibirsk the evening of June 3, after a 19-hour train ride from Kamyshlov. On the 4th we went to the Akademgorodok to meet with our local contacts, Lena and Olga. The Akademgorodok is one of the better ideas the Soviets had- an entire town for scientists, located on the outskirts of Novosibirsk. Novosibirsk itself is somewhat uninspiring; originally built in the 1800’s, it morphed from a remote outpost on the Ob River into a massive industrial center during Stalin’s era, and is now the capital of Siberia and the third largest city in Russia. Its industrial roots and recent, rapid development are apparent in acres of concrete, sprawling high-rises, modern architecture and banks on every corner. But Akademgorodok is mellow and lovely, situated in a huge forest south of the main city and housing 35 research institutes, as well as a university, primary schools, private apartment buildings, stores, bars, and restaurants, all dedicated to the scientific community. We took a minibus from the train station (after some mishaps in the Novosibirsk metro), and met Lena and Olga at the Institute for Nuclear Physics bus stop. Both had recently finished their Ph.Ds at the Institute for Cytology and Genetics, and had been recruited by Pavel Mikhaelovich, a friend of Alex’s, to help us catch barn swallows for a few days.
Packing the Duet We discussed our plans over lunch. Lena had booked us for 3 days at a research station near the town of Karasuk, where she knew there would be barn swallows nesting. We would leave the next day in Olga’s car, have two nights at the station, and then we’d head back to Novosibirsk. If we hadn’t caught enough birds in that time, we could check out some villages closer to Novosibirsk later in the week. This plan sounded pretty good until we realized that Karasuk was 400km away, nearly on the border with Kazakhtan, and the 6-to 7-hour drive was included in our 3-day allotment. That’s not much time to catch 40 birds, but we figured that if we could find a big farm, like the dairy in Yekaterinburg or the horse barn in Moscow, we could make it work.
We left at 8am the next day, crammed into the back of Olga’s tiny Toyota Duet between piles of gear. Earlier that morning, Olga’s dad had driven us to our hotel to pick up our heavy bags. He glanced at Matt in the backseat and started laughing. “You are definitely not Russian,” he said. “No one wears seatbelts in the backseat! Not even police officers!”
Gas station breakfast, before we were sent away We left at 8am the next day, crammed into the back of Olga’s tiny Toyota Duet between piles of gear. Earlier that morning, Olga’s dad had driven us to our hotel to pick up our heavy bags. He glanced at Matt in the backseat and started laughing. “You are definitely not Russian,” he said. “No one wears seatbelts in the backseat! Not even police officers!”
After fighting the traffic ringing the city, we found ourselves barreling through now-familiar countryside: birch trees, agricultural fields, and the occasional cow farm. We attempted to have a picnic breakfast sitting on the curb of a gas station, but were shooed away (apparently eating at gas stations is banned in Russia). Later, after some effort, we found a café for lunch and had our first experience with fast-food, Russian-style: a spare kitchen cooking up two or three different meat dishes as well as some mayo-based salads and a soup. It was all dripping oil, but cheap and edible.
Our cabin at the Karasuk station We made it to the Karasuk station around 3:30, after stopping for groceries and beer (“Is 4 liters enough for tonight?” Lena asked). Vladimir Alexandrovich, the director of the field station, welcomed us warmly and told us they had a group of 11-year old students visiting for the weekend. He hoped that in an hour we would meet with them and have a question and answer session. In the meantime, he'd make some calls to local villages and see if he could find us some barn swallow nests. We were antsy to get to work, but of course couldn’t refuse a meeting with a bunch of kids…which is how an hour later we found ourselves at a full-blown press conference, complete with glasses of water, two interpreters (Lena and Olga), and three people taking videos and photos. The kids were hilarious, and after about 30 minutes of enthusiastic questioning (“How many hours a day do you spend in school in America?” “What subjects do you study in America?”), we were treated to a song in English and then another 20 minutes of photos- each kid needed an individual photo with Matt and I. It was pretty cute.
At 5:30 we finally set off to search for birds. This marked the beginning of our first (but likely not last) night of barn swallow despair. We first headed to a large town about 10 minutes away, where Vladimir Alexandrovich had a friend with a nest in his barn. The net set-up would be easy, and we asked the house owner if we could come back the next evening. Several more pairs of birds were hanging out nearby, so the owner took us around to talk to his neighbors. For the first time on this trip, we encountered resistance: one lady refused to let us in, claiming we would rob her. A second guy showed us the nest in his shed, but when we asked if we could catch the birds, he looked at us with horror and told us that if we made the barn swallows angry, they would bring flaming sticks and burn down his house. There was no way to argue with that. We left, and later named the evening “the night of the burning barn swallow.”
Not optimistic in Karasuk We next checked out a smaller village, as well as several large cow barns. The barns all looked promising- big doors, some windows, not too many people around- but there were no barn swallows anywhere. We even found a dairy, not as big as the one in Irbit, but big enough for 10 pairs or so. There was nothing. An enthusiastic (and possibly drunk) cattle wrangler insisted that Matt ride his horse, which was cool, but he also told us there were no other dairies near by. Where were all the birds? Lena said that it had been an unusually cold and wet spring, and indeed, the promised hordes of mosquitoes had thus far not materialized. Maybe the birds were still hanging out farther south, waiting for the weather to get better and more food to emerge?
As we drove back the field station around 9:30, the only barn swallows we saw were sitting on wires in front of people’s houses. This did not bode well- if we had to knock on doors and catch the birds one pair at a time, it would take forever. A spectacular 10pm sunset made us feel a little better, but by 11:30, when we’d finished with dinner and Olga and Lena had gone to bed, Matt and I were sitting in our cabin gloomy and miserable. We discussed worst-case scenarios-what if we caught 10 birds in Karasuk? Would that be enough? Could we find more back near Novosibirsk? What if we caught less than 10? Shit, what if we got skunked entirely? We had one shot at getting the data we needed- we couldn’t exactly come back to Siberia to try again next year. What would happen if we had a big hole in our sampling? We made a plan: we’d get up early and try to catch the two pairs we’d found nesting at the field station. Then we’d get Lena and Olga, go to the smaller village, and just knock on doors and hope for the best. We set the alarm for 5AM, continuing our long streak of less than 6 hours of sleep a night in Russia.
-Liz
up next: Novosibirsk part 2
As we drove back the field station around 9:30, the only barn swallows we saw were sitting on wires in front of people’s houses. This did not bode well- if we had to knock on doors and catch the birds one pair at a time, it would take forever. A spectacular 10pm sunset made us feel a little better, but by 11:30, when we’d finished with dinner and Olga and Lena had gone to bed, Matt and I were sitting in our cabin gloomy and miserable. We discussed worst-case scenarios-what if we caught 10 birds in Karasuk? Would that be enough? Could we find more back near Novosibirsk? What if we caught less than 10? Shit, what if we got skunked entirely? We had one shot at getting the data we needed- we couldn’t exactly come back to Siberia to try again next year. What would happen if we had a big hole in our sampling? We made a plan: we’d get up early and try to catch the two pairs we’d found nesting at the field station. Then we’d get Lena and Olga, go to the smaller village, and just knock on doors and hope for the best. We set the alarm for 5AM, continuing our long streak of less than 6 hours of sleep a night in Russia.
-Liz
up next: Novosibirsk part 2