Four Years in the Forest, One Bird, No Sleep

I thought finding the spotted ground thrush would feel like something. Four years of walking the same trails, pretending every rustle was hope, logging data that mostly said 'absent.' I started to hate the sound of my own boots. Today, we caught one. Everyone cheered. I smiled for the photo, but all I could think about was the hours I spent convincing myself it was here, that I wasn’t just wasting time and grant money. I wanted to believe this mattered. I still do. But all I feel is tired. We’ll write the report. The data will look clean. But no one will see the nights I lay awake, wondering if I’d ever be enough for this work, or if the bird was just another story I told myself to keep going. #Science #ScienceFatigue #FieldworkTruths