I can’t help but feel that they’re playing tricks on me at the museum. I’m the subject of some form of scientific ribbing, an elaborate joke – are diatoms even real? It’s all starting to feel a bit surreal – I do most of my collecting with a spoon. I collect mud. But this month I spent a glorious day on Anglesey; taking in Trearddur Bay, Holyhead and Porth Tywynmawr. The weather was amazing – and I count my lucky stars that my work day looks like this:
On the other hand, it does sometimes look like this. Hmmmmm Sea squirts!
But there I was, on a stunning beach, on a glorious day – at my mentor’s instruction, washing rocks!
It’s all in the lighting…my dirty stone water looks fabulous!
Gez (my mentor) tells me that this is an important collecting technique. She also says that we are going out diatom trapping. I can’t help but think that this is the scientific equivalent of fetching a can of tartan paint or elbow grease.
I was wondering if this is normal so I went out with Tony from Entomology at the museum…turns out its not just me.
Are you sure you’ve done this before, Tony?
I had a visit from John last month. He came to see how I was getting on and all the things I’ve been learning so I showed him how to walk the net – he was a natural.
We then concluded the tour of my sampling sites at the beach. It was somewhere between digging in the sand and the double scoop ice-cream cone that I realised that this is quite possibly the best job in the world.
But, unlike my friends in the other Natural Talent placements, my fieldwork is fleeting; over all too quickly. This is a mild source of jealousy for me. In other fields you can include others in the majority of your discoveries there and then, instantaneously. “Come and look at this rare such’n’such. Isn’t it cool? It’s related to the greater spotted thingymobob. You can tell by this squiggly bit here”…High fives all round.
Okay, maybe not rare…but incredible nonetheless
The funny thing is that the anticipation of what you might find after you have unlocked each samples secret is a very exciting aspect of my study. It’s hard to explain – and must look quite odd to an outsider. The rewards come after the event – sometimes a month after – that’s when I can delve into my own unexplored habitat, sifting through a kaleidoscope of shifting jewels, or searching the endlessly changing faces of the moon! These are snapshots of an unseen world that I have frozen in time, for all time (touch wood).
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