Happenings on the Refuge

This is my third visit to Red Rock Lakes National Wildlife Refuge so much of what I am seeing and doing is old hat. We are also down to only three staff so everyone is stretched thin.   I was the second volunteer to arrive and took over the cleaning and inventorying of the volunteer and tech quarters. I also took over the bluebird survey until another volunteer got here.  Another job was detailing  a few of our vehicles. And the best thing that happened is that my boss is letting me survey our bees. We are going to send them in to the Fish and Wildlife Bee Center for identification, so we won't know what bees we have for several years.

Other jobs I'll be doing is helping to spray invasive weeds.  Got to get in shape for that one as it requires lots of walking with a backpack sprayer.

So here are some scenes I've found while driving around the refuge.

Bombus huntii

Pronghorn

Shambo Pond - I take a picture almost every time I drive by in the early morning or late evening

Early morning mist at Shambo Pond

View of my living area - I have a trailer behind the right front building - a bunkhouse 

Driving back from Lower Lake is beautiful

Elk seen just past dawn at a great distance

Pronghorn antelope are the easiest animals to find

I'm forced to drive over to Widgeon Pond every two weeks to survey bees

The last cup of 24 set out full of soapy water to drown bees 

It's a job, I tell you - gotta keep track of our three eagle pairs. 

Another one of my favorite spring views at Red Rock Lakes NWR

On my first bee survey, as I was driving back from picking up my bee cups, I found a mother moose wth a baby still extremely tottery on its feet.  I had my camera but had been charging my battery in the office and drove off without it. So I can't share it with you.  But I had gone to check the outhouses at Upper Lake Campground and found a couple with a low tire. I had them follow me to the office, but stopped at Shambo Pond so they could enjoy the Shambo trumpeter swan pair. Then we saw the two year old moose twins. I was only able to get this shot of one of them.

We now have two volunteer couples and, this week,  will get some guys from Denver that are doing some mapping of Upper Lake. One of the ladies that ride the valley and check on the cattle will also be staying with us. And June 6, the University students and professors will arrive for the summer courses they offer here. Our little village will increase at least ten fold over the winter count.

Playtime At Moosehorn

School finally finished up last week for the children of Washington County.  As in all the schools I've been involved with, the children get to to on field trips.  We had 60 children from our nearby town of Calais come to the refuge.  I was on the team that planned a set of environmental activities that the children could cycle through.

We had three teams of two people each that ran the activities.  Because I was running an activity, I didn't get to get pictures of the other ones.  But one activity was to play a predator-prey game.  The next one was to learn facts about deer.  Bridget and I played the game Oh Deer, with the kids. About one fourth of them start off being deer, while the rest of the children are habitat. At each cycle, the deer decide if they need food, water, or shelter, while the habitat group get to decide to be one of those pieces of habitat. While their backs are turned to each other, the kids make their signs for each part of the habitat. Then they face each other across a field, and the deer run to a child making the same sign.  Successful deer bring their habitat child back to the deer side, so the numbers of deer rise and fall, based on the success of getting what they need.

Bridget leading one of the groups in Oh Deer

Even under cloudy skies, the kids enjoyed the hike

I missed the grab shot, so this is posed but shows their Scavenger Hunt sheets

I don't know what they found but it was fascinating

The last activity was done by the by the teachers.  We gave them sheets of things to find and then sent them on one of the trails to see what they could find. All the children seemed to have a fantastic time. But one sad thing for me was, during the introduction, Peggy, our Office and Environmental Educational Manager, asked the children, who all live within 20 miles of the refuge, how many of them had ever been there. Only a fourth or less had.

Then yesterday - I'm writing this on Sunday morning because of a long day of work and play  - the Refuge held their annual children's fish derby down at Cobstock State Park which is on refuge land in our Edmunds Division, which is about 30 miles south of the Baring Division where I live and work.  Those of us working met at 8:00 at the maintenance area and hauled down tables, bags tof goodies to hand out to the participants, extra fishing poles, worms, hot dogs, buns, chips, cookies, drinks, ice and other materials to run the Fish Derby.

Families started coming in a little after nine and the excitement built as each participant  picked what they thought would be a winning spot.  around a large, stocked pond at the park headquarters. Parents set up chairs, and many opened tackle boxes, although all the kids fished with earthworms.

Finally ten o'clock arrived and the staff greeted everyone, went over the rules, and sounded the opening siren.  Fishing commenced, broken by announcements of prizes given by a drawing.  There were also prizes for the first fish caught and for the most weight of fish caught. The kids could fish until the siren ran at noon.  Then they brought their trout, which they put in the bags we gave them, in to be weighed.  Then the kids in three age groups who had the most fish by weight also won prizes. About eleven o'clock, Ray was grilling hot dogs, the red-skinned ones that are a Maine delicacy, and people were starting to trickle in to pick up a hot dog, chips, drinks, and cookies. It was soon a flood.  I helped dispense hot dogs in buns.  But by about twelve-thirty, most people had eaten, the prizes had been given out, and we were ready to load up the left-overs and head back to the refuge.

Kursten sets up the fishing poles we loan out 

Organizing the mess from unloading

Setting up the food table

Laurine, the OTHER volunteer setting up posters to give away

Bridget on left and Kristina registered everyone

The first fish caught - loved that it was a little girl and she won a PINK fishing pole

Fishing time  - that's Ray - one of my bosses, in the tan shirt,  helping his two boys

They start 'em fishing REALLY young up here

Amanda, our Law Enforcement Officer, supervises Mike who was chief hot-dog griller 

Murray, another boss, was the official fish weigher

We knew this day was to be the BEST day of June so far, so I planned to go to Campobello Island after I finished work. Bridget,  an intern, spends her weekends with her parents in Lubec, just across from the island,  and she invited me to stop at her house and see the foxes that live at her neighbor's house and the crows and ravens that her parents have named and feed. I then invited Kristina, another intern, and Kursten, a seasonal tech, to come with me.

We had a fabulous rest of the day, touring the Roosevelt summer cottage, a three story house with eighteen bedrooms, hiking and doing other touristy stuff. But that story will have to wait.

A Bounty of Bees

I'm now deep into collecting bees and  processing them. I still haven't learned the vocabulary of their structures to begin to identify them.  They will eventually get to an expert who will do the identifying.

I set up a transect that I will redo every two weeks. We discussed 12 sites but I can't easily get to several of them and  I am finding that there are so many bees and flies on each site, that it takes me several hours to process each site. So I think I'm going to do 11 all the time and will take my bee collecting supplies and GPS and do one-time collecting when I'm off camping. (I'm about to set off camping today.)

Once I drive in a stake and take a set it up as a way point so I have the coordinates of that point, I put out 14 little cups, full of soapy water,  about 5 meters apart. I also have to label 2 each of 3 kinds of shrubs  and write up the data on where they are in their life cycle, i.e. new leaves, buds, blooms, spent blooms, etc. Then I come back in about 24 hours and collect everything from all the cups into one sample. I rinse the sample with clean water, then put it into  a little bag and cover the sample with ethyl alcohol. . I bring them home and store them in the freezer until I'm ready to pin them. If I can find bees on flowers, I tray to catch several of them, trying for different looking ones so I get samples of different species.

When I'm ready to process the bees, I strain the bees out of the ethyl alcohol, and save it.  Then I wash the bees in soapy water in a closed container which I have to shake to get the pollen of the bees. Then I pour them back into a net and rinse them thoroughly.  I shake off as much water as I can and then dip the bees and net into a bowl of ethyl alcohol.

The bees are then drained on a paper towel and patted with another one.  After sorting out the flies and butterflies/moths, I dry them with a hair dryer and finally pin them. Since most of the bees are less than 1/4 inch long, this is the hardest part.

 I also have a butterfly net and kill bottles to use to capture bees and kill them that way.  When they drown in the soapy water, they pull in their mouth parts, which are required for ID in some cases. I'm also trying to get pictures of live bees.  Eventually we plan to collect and dry plants bees are using, then glue some of our bees on the flowers. We'll also have pictures of bees. in our display of pollinators.  I plan to also pin some butterflies to use in our display.

This is our most common bumble bee.It has a central orange stripe. I've found it all across Malheur NWR

Next, I dump the sample onto a paper towel, gently spread theinsects out, and remove flies and butterflies. Flies have two wings and bees have 4.  This gets hard to see when the bees/flies are less than one-eigth of an inch long. I'm awed by how many bees I'm getting from some sites.  I have between 50 and 100 from a couple of sites and the season is just starting.

My last step is to pour the bees into a container and dry them with a hair dryer for about 5 minutes.  Then I'm ready to pin them and try to pull out all their legs and wings so they can be seen.  I have to finish this last step the following day.

Finished bees from three sites. I'm getting 4 to over 120 from a site.

 I haven't pinned all the bees from any sites because I haven't had a microscope or lens and can't distinguish tiny bees from flies.  I can put these bees back into a bag of ethanol and keep them for later.

This bumble bee is all yellow.  I've only collected two specimens

This bee has a gorgeous rusty orange on it's thorax. It's about the size of a honey bee. 

 I expect bees to be fuzzy but many of my bees are metallic and blue or green.  One is the color of my favorite childhood dress, it is emerald green with turquoise and bright blue highlights.

This bee is tiny and metallic blue

This bee is about the size of a honey bee and has a metallic abdomen

This bee has metallic colors from emerald to blue

This is my largest species of metallic green bees - skinny but almost as long as a honey bee.

Next, I dump the sample onto a paper towel, gently flatten it out, and remove flies and butterflies. Flies have two wings and bees have 4.  This gets hard to see when the bees/flies are less than one-eigth of an inch long. I'm awed by how many bees I'm getting from some sites.  I have between 50 and 100 from a couple of sites and the season is just starting. I haven't pinned all the bees from any sites because I haven't had a microscope or lens and can't distinguish tiny bees from flies.  I can put these bees back into a bag of ethanol and keep them for later.

This is the most fascinating job I've gotten to do. I'm about to go camping and I plan to take along my bee catching supplies and my GPS and collect a sample of bees in Malheur National Forest.

And yesterday, I got a digital microscope with a camera lens.  I'll be able to capture close-up pictures of the mouth parts, eyes, etc, of the bees. I'm going to learn how to use it next week.  I also have a system of camera mount and lights that I'm going to use to take pictures of some of my pinned bees. So little time and so many bees.