Of devils, field trips, and conferences

Since getting back from Africa, I have been keeping myself pretty busy. I have travelled around visiting family and friends (although I haven't made it down to see my grandparents yet and I'm feeling very guilty about that). Only a few days after I got home, I ended up back at work so I could spend some time at the FRE to try and spot my Ronan and catch up with my old workmates. I have always loved working at the FRE, with the exception of the ridiculous density of leeches in that area, so I was happy to be back there for the day. In order to spend that day at the FRE I had to first go into the office and fill in some paperwork to be listed as a volunteer. Apparently, that paperwork then went into the system quite quickly because only a couple of days later I got a phonecall from Bill the Biologist inviting me to come on a devil trapping trip at Granville Harbour on the West Coast. The trapping trip was good timing for me because it filled in the couple of weeks that I had no plans for so I agreed to go and help out.

I spent 10 days on the west coast in the pouring rain covered in devil poo with Bill the Biologist and Phil the Fieldy. Despite the weather, and again despite the leeches, I actually had a great trip. We got lots of devils, were kept very busy, and didn't find any with DFTD in the area yet. It was made even more interesting than usual because of Bill the Biologist being badly bitten (check that alliteration) by a devil while doing the tooth measurement. Bill's finger was quite badly injured and he had to go and get medical attention and was unable to measure and handle the devils afterwards so Phil the Fieldy and Emma the Unemployed had the opportunity to be acting biologists and do quite a bit of devil cuddling for the last couple of days on the trip.

I got back fromt the field trip and had a few days to get ready for today's presentation at the Australian Wildlife Rehabilitation Conference in Hobart. I was first speaker this morning and had to deliver my 30min talk to a room full of approx 150people. Thankfully, I quite like talking about devils so I didn't get to nervous before hand. Afterwards quite a few people (19 to be exact - I counted) come up to me at break times to tell me that they really enjoyed my presentation and to ask more questions. I'm very happy with that result. It was quite good being the first speaker as I was able to listen to all the other presentations stress free afterwards and there were a couple of very interesting topics.

All in all, its been good to be kept busy to delay the inevitable boredom that comes with being unemployed. I do feel like I need a holiday, though. Luckily for me my dad has also decided that its time for a holiday and is flying us all up to Queensland for a bit of a break the day after tomorrow.