Month: December 2020

Field | Žumberak Mountains 2020

Mina1 Comment

In a previous post about my time at the Žumberak Mountains I mainly focused on my time with the Crustacean group, but today I’d like to write a bit more about my general experience out there in the field. As I already mentioned, I was unable to attend for the whole week, and instead opted for four days only, but all of those four days were completely filled with exploring and socializing (which was, at the time, allowed in our country and county).

Žumberak Mountains, and its Nature Park, is only one hour drive away from Zagreb, however, due to the proximity to the Slovenian border, GPS can steer you in couple of wrong directions, so after collecting some extra things for the campsite, I called Petra, one of the camp leaders, to give me right directions. Everything went rather smoothly, until I almost hit a llama that was chilling in the middle of the road, just behind a steep curve. After my initial confusion cleared up, and the llama left the road, I cautiously continued to drive, wondering what all these llamas were doing in the middle of Europe anyway. As it turns out, there is a bio-park in close proximity, and I guess they escaped their enclosure.
Couple of kilometres down, the road suddenly turned into a macadam, as I basically entered the woods, followed by the sound of a strong stream that was following the road. Well, the road followed the stream, more or less. That evening wasn’t very eventful – I was mostly talking to colleagues and taking pictures; it was rather cold, so we lit up a big fire in the pit, the only one I experienced during my time in the camp.

  • Buphthalmum salicifolium – ox-eye
  • Araneus diadematus – cross spider

As for sleeping arrangements, we had a huge meadow where most of tents were already erected. However, despite bringing my own tent with me (and later borrowing it to my friend Iva), I actually decided to sleep in the car. For one, I was already too tired, and it was way too dark for me to set it up, and I also hypothesized that, since everyone was in a very good mood, people could be loud at night, returning to their sleeping places. Since my strict medication schedule requires interrupted sleep, I rolled down my passenger seat, changed into warmer clothes, and slipped into my sleeping bag. I remember falling asleep slowly, feeling as if I was in a horror movie, as branches were slowly snapping and the big drops of rain were hitting the car.

My next day was a big crayfish adventure, as was the day after it. Honestly, remembering it after all this time, both days somehow melted into one big experience of driving around, asking for directions, walking too much for my taste, and laughing in the car, courtesy of the Crustacean group, who are ones of the funniest people I’ve met.
What I would like to write in a greater detail than I did in my previous post, is the “night-hunt”, or night-time crayfish catching & release session. We started the walk when there was still light out, but it got dark even before we reached the stream; during this year, due to heavy COVID-19 restrictions I couldn’t go anywhere, and it seems that I also forgot how dark it can actually get in the woods. Literal pitch black.
That, however, didn’t stop the group from catching crayfish (they also visually inspected them for the signs of the crayfish plague). We all had lamps, of course, but like I already pointed out, crayfish are surprisingly fast – catching them with your bare hands definitely requires skill!

My last day at Žumberak was magical as well. It was actually a day off, so most of groups decided to just go see-sighting, including the Crustacean group. We drove for an hour or maybe an hour and a half to reach a road with many stunning waterfalls. We set our own pace, and set to investigate and take as many pictures as possible. I wasn’t able to enjoy it as much as I wanted because I had a really persistent abdominal pain (at one point, I couldn’t even walk properly anymore, and had to wait in the car), but despite that, I still managed to take some photos and videos. I hope you’ll enjoy them as much as I did!

With the year we have, with pandemic still raging, this expedition is the only one I was able to be a part of, but I surely hope 2021 will bring new expeditions, new adventures, and new opportunities 🙂

Asplenium scolopendrium – hart’s-tongue fern


Reading | Savage Harvest

Mina2 Comments

Today’s book I would like to share with you is Savage Harvest: A Tale of Cannibals, Colonialism, and Michael Rockefeller’s Tragic Quest for Primitive Art by Carl Hoffman. For my Twitter followers, me writing about this book is surely not a surprise – I mentioned it couple of times already, praising it both on- and offline.

As a huge true crime buff, I was intrigued by the disappearance of Michael Rockefeller and stumbled upon the book recommendation on a subreddit. I have a habit of immediately searching for the book, which led me to the Amazon store, with a discount for Kindle edition. I clicked as fast as I could on that “one-click” buy button and then… Life got in the way, as it usually is with me and books. I think almost a year has passed before I started reading it, and couple of months before I finally finished it – not because I found it boring, but because my studying, and at times, health issues, were taking up the most of my time.

Still, a true crime book and slow reading tempo don’t really equal a book review on a science blog, right? Well, that would be true, if the book was only about that. Savage Harvest is actually a blend between a biography, travelling diary, and anthropological research. I went into the book expecting to gain insight into Rockefeller’s life and death, but I learned so much about the indigenous culture in New Guinea; Hoffman also gives an astonishing historical overview of the political and cultural situation, the discovery, and tribal relations of the New Guinea.

When I was a child, I used to watch many documentaries, and the word “cannibalism” was often mentioned in rather hush tones, and as the only descriptor of certain tribes. No rituals, no gods, no traditions mentioned, just… cannibalism. By the time I started reading Savage Harvest, I was aware of the complexities that followed a culture, any culture, and especially one as complicated as the culture of New Guinea seemed to me. But reading this book, I learned so much more; the people of New Guinea weren’t some distant islanders on a spot on a map far away anymore, they became actual people, with their intricate system of believes, complicated language, and centuries-old traditions.
The book also touches on racism and culture clashes, and how, for centuries, indigenous cultures were merited through the western lenses, forced to adapt to our rules and religion; New Guinea was not an exception to this rule, as it was colonized by various European countries for years, mostly notably the Netherlands, which claimed the western part of the island.

As a non-native English speaker, I always rate a book by the flow and how easily I can understand it; this book is getting my highest praises. I also really liked how some chapters were written in the present (author’s) time, and some were purely in the past, but all of them worked perfectly in coherence. Furthermore, it’s obvious that Carl Hoffman tried to immerse himself as much as possible, in order to gain a relatively objective insight into the tribal culture he was investigating; he learned how to speak the Indonesian language and even lived with the tribe in the southwest of New Guinea, the same place which Rockefeller was visiting, collecting cultural artifacts, and ultimately disappeared from.

The whole book is, to me, a fascinating insight, and a fantastic mixture of genres that I didn’t expect to work that well together. I recommend this book to everyone who loves to read, even if they don’t have a big interest in topics this book deals with.

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If you read this book, I would very much like to hear your thoughts and opinions; did you like it as much as I did? Will this book find its way to your reading list? Let me know in the comments!