Montana Conservation Corp Meets the Bees

Summer, 2013

Note: I was looking for information in an old blog and found this  sitting around as a draft.  This was my all time favorite summer activity and bees are always on my mind, so I think it is still useful and interesting.  I'm again doing a bee survey for Moosehorn NWR but not pinning the bees. 

When the National Bison Range biologists heard that I love working with Citizen Science Projects and that I'd done a bee survey at Malheur National Wildlife Refuge last year, they decided it would be fun to let the Montana Conservation Corp have a day each week when they would participate in a bee study.

And the refuge is also interested in finding out if their bee populations are in decline. So I got to repeat my favorite job, with an even better twist - I get to find out about the bees we have here and also sell kids on helping to protect them and provide habitat for them. And if this catches their interest, they may be encouraged to become biologists or at least participate in Citizen Science Projects as adults.

So far, I've had three groups of high school age MCC kids, two of them at once. Last week was really hectic with twelve of them plus their leaders to show how to net bees, and also to take them to collect the bees from the bowls I had set out the previous day.

I have to put out the cups the morning before I meet with the MCC.  I now do it around  6:00 A.M. because I usually help with the Talk-to-a Biologist Program on Tuesday mornings.

We find the cups, then pour them through the net

These cup only had three bees- rest are ants or other bugs

We spend most of the morning visiting the refuge and netting bees from wherever we find lots of flowers.  We also take time to just enjoy the tour.

Everyone gets fabulous views along with the fun of capturing bees

Waiting for a bee to climb to the top of the net

Staffer Kelsey coaching on how to get bees from net to kill jar

Waiting to pounce

And along the way I get to tell them interesting things about the flowers or bees we come across. One of the stories that is the biggest hit, even with the Refuge Staff, is the how the lupines make the bees go ONLY to the flowers that still need pollinating and prevent them from revisiting the flowers that have already been pollinated.

The bees can't see red, so the lupines start off with white nectar guides. The bees land on the flower and then walk along the guides to drink the nectar and gather the pollen. After the flower is pollinated, the area turns red, effectively hiding the entry to the pollen and nectar from the bees. So when I show the kids the lupines, they can see that the lower flowers have a red spot, while the higher flowers still have a white spot.

Me telling the lupine story of the red and white dots

Then we come back to the bunkhouse, where I've set up tables, chairs and a projector,  and break for lunch.  After lunch, I show them a short movie on how to pin bees and then we get to work.  We try to sort our bees into groups of like ones, then pin them and put them on a Styrofoam pad. Then I collect the bees and put them into the insect boxes.

We have fun looking at magnified bees

Part of what we have to do is to decide if we have a bee, wasp, or fly.  Flies have only two wings and bee have four wings and at least a few hairs, while wasps have four wings and  are smooth. Our hardest insects are bees that look a lot like wasps.  But if we use a side light and magnification, we can find hairs on them.  And I tell them , "when in doubt, just pin them."

Sometimes we make educated guesses as to the group the bee might belong to

One person's bees

I have to fill in a database that represents where they were collected and how they were killed. Then I'll print out labels and add them to each bee.  Later they will get a second label that tells their genus and species.  That will be done by a bee expert.

The first week, we had a professor come to see the kids and do a little reflecting on how their lives are different from the lives of many of their peers. Since he met us in the field, I sat in, and was very moved at the kids' attitudes and how they feel about doing good rather than striving for material things.

Professor-in chair- leading the reflection

 The second week, the groups sent me a thank-you card.  One of the groups had each youth leave me a personal message.  That was another reward, especially the message from Will. "NOT THE BEES!, Just kidding, it was lots of fun".  When I met the MCC on the first day, and told them they would be helping us find out what kinds and numbers of bees were living on the refuge, Will said, "I hate bees".  I told him he needed to change his attitude because bees were responsible for a third of his food.  Later we talked while he was netting  bees and I found out he had been traumatized by a sting as a child. I told him I really respected him for catching bees when he was scared of them. And then he really got into pinning the bees. So he did really change his attitude during that one day.

Thank-You Note

And a BIG thanks to Ally for giving me  a copy of  all the pictures she took of our day.  I am so involved in collecting and processing bees and helping kids get their bees out of their nets and keeping up with the time so I can have them where they need to be,  that I don't get many pictures taken.  But her pictures really tell the story of what the bee survey is all about.

So far, I've only made one really big mistake.  I was trying to save money and only ordered seven nets which I thought would be one for each kid and one for me.  But the leaders also want to net and now we have three weeks of double teams.  So the head biologist let me order more. (He knew  personally how much fun they are because he  caught several bees when Talk-to-a- Biologist Program was on pollinators.)  And now, at least some of the time, I'll get to net bees too.

Postscript: A few weeks after I wrote this blog, I took one of my favorite pictures of all time - again of the MCC kids off to capture bees. On this day we also had a pronghorn antelope that followed us, just off the path, and acting like a little dog, to the top of the High Point Trail. 

The bee survey team being surveyed by bighorn sheep rams

Season of the Elk

The elk are in their rut and have been putting on quite a show for the last several weeks. ( Elk ruts can last up to twelve weeks, depending if young elk are breeding - they become breeders later than do older elk.)  Elk are the second largest members of the deer family - moose are the largest - and are very beautiful to watch. Their bugle includes a grunt at the beginning, which can only be heard a fairly close distances,  and a whistle at the end. Their rut period lasts up to twelve weeks.

The largest males are extremely stressed from having to defend their harems from marauders.  Our most dominant male now has a herd of about 30 cows and calfs.  He spends most of his time keeping his harem together and moving from one end of the harem to the other bugling out his warnings to get lost, NOW.

The other evening, while closing the refuge, I found two young males fighting through a cross fence.  Then a big male came their way.  The  young male on the same side of the fence suddenly had an important appointment elsewhere. However the young male on the far side of the fence kept talking trash. I didn't stay to see the outcome of this encounter.

For the last few days, the most dominant male is holding his harem behind the visitor center. I had good enough light on this morning, to get pictures of him defending his harem and chasing off a younger male.

Bull with part of his herd.  He patrols constantly and will push his harem closer if
another bull comes near

It takes a lot of work to get and keep the girls

Warning bugle

He has tightened up the harem - notice the calves

Then he had to chase off a competitor ....

into the staff parking lot

Where the inttruder takes a breather - all those puncture wounds gotta hurt

Another bull from a week ago, at Mission Creek

His harem was smaller

There is hardly time for eating - the bulls are watching, walking, bugling, and herding females

Another wanna be

On a personal note, we are all rushing to get ready for Roundup.  My jobs today included going to town and picking up supplies for cleaning, doing the biological work on the bison, and painting. I also used 4 gallons of bleach to disinfect a large room in the old slaughter house that has been invaded by pigeons.  (Thankfully, this was the third cleaning - I bless Bob for doing the really dirty cleaning. ) We'll be using the room to centrifuge the blood samples we'll take from the calves.  It was too windy to clean the bathrooms that are full of dead bugs, so I plan on doing that very early tomorrow,  as well as sweeping and rinsing the room I worked on today.  I also have to paint some new parts in the coral tomorrow or Friday and work in the Visitor Center a few hours.

I'm not going to be very regular with my blogs for the next few weeks since I'll be leaving here next weekend and going to visit my old boss and friend, Cindy. for whom I worked at Okefenokee, at Dinosaur National Monument, and then will be heading to Texas for a long paddling weekend with lots of my friends at Caddo Lake. But eventually I'll get time to edit pictures, write blogs and get back on the Internet.

But I will tell you all about roundup before I leave here.

Bird Sightings Shared Via eBird

I thought I'd share some of my Sunday activity with you.  There are three of us assigned to work on Sundays at the Visitor Center,  but two of us are plenty.  So our boss lets one of us drive around the refuge.  We can start as early as we want and only have to show up in time to relieve the others for lunch.  I wasn't supposed to drive, but the automatic car used by the volunteers has to go to the shop.  I share the truck I'm assigned with them,  but it is a standard. Both the guys are learning to drive standard but the on-duty driver wasn't comfortable driving on our hilly route. So he offered the drive to me.

WOW! TWO Sundays in a row to play.  Last Sunday I ended up spending two hours with eight bighorned sheep.  This Sunday, I hardly saw any wildlife, even though I had left at 6:30A. M.  So I ended up back in the headquarters area by 8:45 A.M.

I decided to spend a little time checking out the birds.  The first ones I found were the yellow-headed blackbirds. The I found two young sora's.  One of their parents remained hidden, but gave its loud call which is described sounding like a canyon wren on steroids.  But the babies were just giving a one-note alarm call.  I got both their pictures but had to shoot almost directly into the sun.  Then  I was able to catch one of several common yellowthroats sitting on a fence post with the sun on him.

Then, as I was driving down the road, I thought about our owl fledglings and looked to see if I could see them.  I saw one brown blob, which turned out to be one of the babies, when I looked through my binoculars.  I drove down the street by the bunkhouse and found four baby western kingbirds.  We also have lots of Eastern Kingbirds but I didn't notice any babies.

But Monday, as I was walking up to close the gates, I noticed three eastern kingbirds on the fence across the road.  As soon as I started walking on the road, one of them dive-bombed me. So I think those two left sitting on the fence were babies.  Their future white fronts are still a little grey.

I copied and pasted the following directly from my eBird record I turned in Sunday.

Location

Natinal Bison Range Day Use Area, Lake County, Montana, US 

Date and Effort

Sun Jul 14, 2013 8:45 AM

Protocol:

Traveling

Party Size:

1

Duration:

2 hour(s), 15 minute(s)

Distance:

0.5 mile(s)

Observers:

Marilyn Kircus

Comments:

N/A

Species

29 species (+1 other taxa) total

2	Great Blue Heron Ardea herodias
1	Red-tailed Hawk Buteo jamaicensis
3	Sora Porzana carolina Age & Sex Juvenile Immature Adult Age Unknown Male Female Sex Unknown 2
1	Ring-billed Gull Larus delawarensis
13	Rock Pigeon Columba livia
15	Eurasian Collared-Dove Streptopelia decaocto
3	Mourning Dove Zenaida macroura
1	Great Horned Owl Bubo virginianus Note:  The last time I took his picture, he was still a cotton top.
2	Downy Woodpecker Picoides pubescens
8	Northern Flicker Colaptes auratus
1	Western Wood-Pewee Contopus sordidulus
5	Western Kingbird Tyrannus verticalis
9	Eastern Kingbird Tyrannus tyrannus
5	Black-billed Magpie Pica hudsonia
13	Tree Swallow Tachycineta bicolor
5	Barn Swallow Hirundo rustica
2	Cliff Swallow Petrochelidon pyrrhonota
2	Black-capped Chickadee Poecile atricapillus
4	House Wren Troglodytes aedon
2	Western Bluebird Sialia mexicana
40	American Robin Turdus migratorius
2	Gray Catbird Dumetella carolinensis
7	Common Yellowthroat Geothlypis trichas
1	Yellow Warbler Setophaga petechia
11	Vesper Sparrow Pooecetes gramineus
7	Red-winged Blackbird Agelaius phoeniceus
2	Western Meadowlark Sturnella neglecta
6	Yellow-headed Blackbird Xanthocephalus xanthocephalus
3	Brewer's Blackbird Euphagus cyanocephalus
3	House Sparrow Passer domesticus

And here are a few more pictures from my birding time. Sometimes I get a little distracted by other creatures or plants. 

A young teasel seed pod in the making

Yellow-headed blackbird

Cabbage white on huckleberry bloom

  I decided to share my eBird record with you for a couple of reasons.  One, I spent a lot of time entering my data and wondered if I could open the record up, copy and paste it and not have to re-upload the pictures I included.  That answer is Yes.  And I didn't have to retype any part of the record, either.

The other reason is to encourage you to share all your sightings through eBird. If, when you travel and stop to visit a location, just keep the records of what you saw there that day.  Don't keep one list for several locations.  This date is VERY valuable and each little piece is helping us understand the locations where species are flourishing or in trouble.  Researchers looking for species of concern use the data to figure out where to find the species they want to study. 

You have a great way to keep your own records and  locate them at any time and from anywhere you can access the Internet.  And with a smart phone, you can can enter your birds as you find them, in the field and don't need to carry a separate notebook and paper. Another asset is that your data is filtered by a sort of mechanical filter.  It will ask you are if you are sure you saw a species or saw the numbers you reported. Then a human will check again and sometimes ask you for more details of what you saw or for pictures. Then, if you made a mistake and entered the wrong species, he will help you figure out what species you actually saw.  This is a great learning tool for me and might also help you identify birds.

Entering multiple trips to your own favorite areas really fills out the life histories of each of the species of birds found  there.  This data helps give ever more accurate arrival and departure dates and can help us find out which species are being impacted by global warming.  We can also see how a changing habitat is effecting the different species of birds.

After you upload your pictures - Flickr is perhaps the easiest now - you can just copy/paste the link to that picture.  (I asked Google how to insert a picture in eBirds and the directions popped right up.)

And as an interesting side note:  I met a lady who works in the Houston, Texas zoo.  She is helping to raise Attwater Prairie Chickens for release back into their habitat. For an interesting video on the effort to save this species, click  here.   I have a very soft spot in my heart for these birds because the hardest volunteer job I've ever done was to spend a morning beating tall grass with a net to catch the grasshoppers.  I think I only collected two or three gallons of bugs.  That year, there were eleven hatches and each mom and babies ate a two-gallon container of bugs every two hours during the day.  So it's a tremendous job to catch enough bugs for all the new babies.

And after all that hard work, I got to leave early and didn't have to close - my least favorite job on the refuge.  A very good Sunday.