The season starts and you head to the field. You hire a few field assistants to help with the work. You also act as a mentor for a few undergraduates, bright-eyed youngsters interested in becoming field biologist themselves. They all arrive as strangers that you've emailed with briefly or talked to once or twice. Then you eat, sleep, work and play with this small group of people for months, while having very limited contact with the outside world. They share your failures, celebrate your successes and laugh at you and with you through the season. Then, all of a sudden, the season is over and you're saying goodbye to everyone as we all go our separate ways.
I may see a few of them down the road if they stay in the field, it's a very small world. Some you'll get the occasional email from. But most of them, you'll never hear from again. They'll immerse themselves back into their lives while you do the same in your own. At the end you're left with the memories, and you'll tell their stories to the next group the next year, and so it goes. On and on, year after year.
