Often, we wrap our heads in bandanas and hats as ants rain down out of the trees and into our shirt collars or boots. I smell like insecticide, sweat, mud and the jungle. Late mornings are spent preserving the specimens. I make labels. I free the insects we don't need.
Field research is lots of tedious and small work, details, and sweat.
In the afternoons, often, I schlep around tarps. Once or twice, needing to sleep off the mornings exhaustion and dehydration. Our interests vary from birdwatching to guitar playing, from fishing to local jewelry, from photography to vegetarian cooking. Some love to talk about katydids, some others, like myself, can barely touch the insects. We laugh, at our own excitement, in finding katydids the size of men's feet.