Camping nomadically for months is the summer life of many wildlife biologists. This talk will tell the story of a particular adventure of three naturalistic girls who study the melodious warblers in the old-growth forests. To get a taste of their journey, Silu Wang wrote this on her website: “We traveled across coniferous forest of the west, catching each glimpse of smile from the calming dawn, to look for the golden hermits singing at the lush canopy. Muddy and sweaty, at the end of the day, we sit at the campground wrapped by a spring, sipping the fresh selfheal tea from the mountain...”

In Silu’s field journal, however, you’ll find some less-peaceful imagery. Her team was hectically escaping landslides, locked in a private forest, having to hitchhike a garbage truck, suffering from all kinds of bites from mysterious arthropods, getting trapped in a hail storm on a winding narrow mountain road, and digging the field vehicle out of rocks and mud... They encountered contrasting habitats, kind strangers who saved their lives, harmony and conflict between nature and human culture, as well as the beautiful plants and animals that live in their natural homes. After all of this, the girls survived and came back to share what they learned about nature and humanity.