Goose Roundup

July 6, 2016

Early Wednesday morning, I got a call from Kirsten, our biotechs, asking if I wanted to come, RIGHT NOW,  and help with the goose roundup. I rushed to the office and found everyone was about to leave, and I couldn't help with the kayak herding, but could help from the bank and with the actual banding. So I raced back to the house and grabbed a hat and water and went dressed as I was, in my shorts and water shoes, which I often wear as slippers.

We traveled down the highway to an entrance to Lake Sealy. As we got to the beginning of the lake, we waited for the three kayakers to get in the water and start the drive. Meanwhile the Youth Conservation Corp (YCC) kids and their leaders had sneaked in to the far side of the lake and one of the leaders, Chris, was in his boat, waiting for the geese to show up in their area. Then the rest of us got out of our car and lined up along the road to wait for the geese and kayakers to appear. Then we walked along the edge of the lake to keep the geese more to the middle until they reached the bottom of the lake where the kayakers drove them into a trap on the levee. We all surrounded the trap to keep the geese from rushing the fence and then picked them up by getting a grip on them at the root of their wings and put them into the waiting pens.

The pen was on the levy- Some of the YCC kids are in the background

From there, we loaded them into pens,  then took turns getting them out, sexing them, then putting a band on them, except for one that had already been banded. We were finished with the whole endeavor in less than two and a half hours. This was a much smaller endeavor, both scope and numbers of birds than are the scaup roundups at Red Rock Lakes NWR. There we survey thousands of ducks in 9 days of roundups. And we weigh them, measure the distance from the back of their heads to their bills and also the length of their tarsus. And, if we catch adult females, who will come back to the refuge to breed, we mark them with colored shapes on a wire through their bills. This allows us to gather information about them in successive years without having to recapture them. If you missed that story, click the link above. 

Me hauling a goose from the pen to the banders

Biologist, Ray helping a YCC girl band her goose. 

Murray is our other biologist - he's also helping with the band

Me getting my goose in place to be sexed

Sexing the goose- I had a male

Getting help with the banding

One of the interesting things I learned is that Moosehorn actually brought Canada geese to the refuge many years ago. In the central flyway, they are regarded more like weeds, than as a valued species.  But they seem to only be here in small numbers, even though they and wood ducks seem to be the most numerous breeders of our water birds. 

And since everybody gave me pictures of me, I even look like I stared in the roundup. But I actually only helped keep the geese in the middle of the lake and herded into the pen, then helped remove them from the pens and give them to the YCC kids except for the two I banded with help. 

The end of a few hours of fun - we released the geese all at once - since this was the last one, I just held it until we dumped the rest out of the pens. 

I'm joining Wild Bird Wednesday.  Click on the picture to read more wild bird blogs from around the world.

On the Hunt for Hidden Culverts

July 11, 2016

One of my assignments at Moosehorn NWR was to survey the trails in the Wilderness Area for places that needed work to make it easier to travel across them. I was looking for trees that had fallen and blocked the trail or for vegetation that had overgrown the trail. Then, after I was already almost finishing marking the coordinates of the problem places, I got the added assignment of finding and marking the culverts, and also measuring the diameter and length of them. (I think this is because, we are trying to remove the signs of man from the areas now designated as wilderness.) So, while, not as efficient in data gathering as I could have been, I DO get to go hike again on the company dollar.

I loved the tree with theses seed pods - but I couldn't make the camera separate a group of them from their background and had to focus on just one

I hoped to get off to an early start, but, after a few days of rain, the vegetation was dripping, so I waited to leave until around 8:00 AM. This was later than most wildlife would be out so, I didn't see much. But the hermit thrushes were still singing their hauntingly beautiful songs as were the oven birds and white throated sparrows. As I walked down the road to the beginning of Headquarter's Trail, I heard begging babies and watched a female yellow-bellied sapsucker fly across the street. I looked for the nest and saw several holes in a birch tree. This was the first day of sun after several cloudy and often rainy days so everything looked brand new.

I found, way-pointed, and measured 5 culverts. I also found a place where water was coming out of what seemed to be a cement culvert – I couldn't actually see it, but when I stuck a stick behind the water flow, the area resonated as though it was a culvert. And even stranger, there was a metal culvert only a few feet further down the trail.

Yes, there is a culvert running just under the white card and my GPS which is average the way points - it will be tough to get it out from under several trees. 

This culvert was much easier to find

Another lagniappe - pink mushrooms growing on a fallen birch tree 

I was completely enthralled by a rosy maple moth I found.  It was sleeping in a little evening primrose. I took it's picture, then pulled it out and photographed it on my finger, then tucked it back to continue sleeping.  What a cooperative subject. 

Primrose moth (Schinia florida) - must be closely associated with primroses

Moth posing on my thumb - love it's "do"

I decided to come back by refuge roads, a most serendipitous choice, because when I investigated movement in the ditch, I found a porcupine which eventually climbed a tree. Unfortunately, this was around eleven o'clock and the light was very contrasty so he was either in too dark or too bright a place.  I also scared a sunning garter snake who leaped up to crawl away, then just stopped to see if I would come after  it. 

Garter snake

The only fireweed I'd seen -but now there are fields of it

Porcupine climbing tree

And then sitting on a branch

I need help identifying this flower.  It is just now coming into bloom - it is under a foot high and grows in the ditches under the shade of trees

A most impressive evergreen

I came back tired and hungry, having walked over ten miles. Now I only have one more trail over which to hunt for culverts. But I'm diverted from that job by my milkweed which are now ready to transplant. So I've been working eleven to thirteen hours a day for the last five days, to get them in pots. That is going well. BUT the bad news is that I have 35 dishpans full of seedlings and only have the planting mix and pots to transplant about eight of those bins.

And that's my excuse as to why I didn't get my Wednesday blog up.

I'm putting the finishing touches on this blog from the town of Eastport, Maine, where I went to visit a farmer's market.  I have free range eggs, lettuce, beet greens, kale, Swiss chard, and service berries. I planted another six flats of milkweed, leaving only the last four flats to finish this evening.

And tomorrow I plan to visit the Coastal Maine Botanical Garden, which is three and a half hours south of me.  

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

July Fourth Party

July 4, 2016

Two of the summer workers are local women, so I'm getting a lot of good information as well as good invites. Bridget invited us all to her parent's house in Lubec for Independence Day. Christina and I accepted and arrived a few minutes before the FIRST parade, which came right pass Bridget's parent's house.

It had fire trucks and rescue vehicles from a few of the surrounding towns, as well as from Campobello Island, in Canada, but only about a half mile from Lubec.

Firetrucks and rescue vehicles led the parades

Some of the party folks watching the parade from in front of the house

We even had a mermaid enter the parade

The only music was provided by this group

This float somehow tied kayaking and Indian dancing totems together 

A nearby town offers carriage rides and sent one to this parade

This was the only horseback rider 

After that parade, some folks hung around and visited, while the rest went off with plans to come back for supper. Bridget iced cupcakes while Christina and I supervised. Then we toured the entire two block downtown and stopped by a local micro brewery to listen to the live music.

We came back for the better parade  at six o'clock.  No one had to register ahead - just show up. Again it started with firetrucks and some rescue vehicles. But it had several amusing floats. But NO music.

Never quite figured this one out

Who you gonna call?  GOATBUSTER'S

Hilary was in jail, Trump #3 (for the parade) was in the middle, and Bernie was in the back

Then we stuffed ourselves with all kinds of food, including pulled pork from an old pig from Tidemill Farms, which produces the organic unpasteurized milk and Greek yogurt I love. We also had several kinds of salads, corn on the cob, and desserts, as well as appetizers before the parade. I was still feeling a little stuffed and sick Tuesday morning.  But as I'm writing this mid-day Tuesday, and am starting to feel better.  (I ate a few items with wheat in them which messed up my digestive system and made me feel very lethargic.)

Some of the spread - more continued to arrive for another half hour -
required lots of revisits

We ate and visited so much with the forty plus guests that we were late getting to Campobello Island to see the fireworks put on at Eastport. (Lubec, a town to small to have a police force and who gets a visit from some law enforcement once a month, also cannot afford their own fireworks. ) So we spent almost as much time passing through Canadian and American customs as we did watching the fireworks which were several miles away.

Fireworks and lights from the town of Eastport, as seen from several miles away at
Campobello Island

Then Christina and I had a final adventure when I realized I'd forgotten to buy gas and was running on empty. We ended up driving past three CLOSED gas stations before deciding to make it to Calais and look for gas. We did get to an open gas station under our own power, but it was a close call.  We had to drive about thirty-five  miles to the station.  I was driving slowly and carefully and ended up averaging 45.6 miles to the gallon. Hopefully, I'll keep my car over half full in the future.

Hope you had at least this much fun.

The Start of July Fourth Celebrations

July 2, 2016

Bridget, Kirsten, Kristina began the Fourth of July Celebration at St. Andrews, a little town near us in Canada on Friday night, while I was picking up my car in Bangor. But I was able to join them for a fun day at Eastport.

We started our day by making a small detour to visit Sipp Bay Preserve where we enjoyed the view, although we were still under clouds and fog. We enjoyed watching a common loon eat a fish, and then forage for more.

Kirsten and Christina

Our next stop was hike a trail just before we got to Eastport. It wound through a forest to overlooks to Lubec and Campobello Island. We also watched large ships serving a salmon farm. As we hiked, the sun finally got most of the fog burned off and the rest of the day was beautiful.

Trail View

Boats tending the salmon farm

The boats were using big hoses to either add something to the fish pens or to take out fish

A closeup view of the hose

The ladies enjoying a view towards Eastport at the end of the trail

By the time we got to Eastport, we had hiked five miles and were getting hungry. But first we had to stop a a wonderful little mustard factory where we sampled mustards and I bought Heavenly Jalapeno and Chipotle honey mustards, as well as a jar of bread and butter fiddlehead pickles. YUM! Then we went to lunch, where I got the best bowl of seafood chowder I think I've ever had. The other women had hamburgers. Kirsten rushed to eat so she could run back and climb a climbing wall before it closed. I got there in time to get lots of pictures of her as she worked on harder and harder trails – the color of the holds defined the difficulty.

Mustard Factory Sign

A few of the many flavors of mustard manufactured here

Visitors can tour the mustard factory at 2:00 and 3:00 P.M.  We planned to come home but got distracted by the festival and didn't make it back for the tour.  But I'll get there sometime.

The waterfront area

The ferry that runs from Deer Island to Campobello Island - hopefully the site of another adventure

Bridget and Christina admiring the controversial statue of a mermaid

Kirsten climbing the hardest side of the wall

Then we visited the vendor craft booths and a candy store before it was time to watch the pet competition which included prizes for the the best rescue animal, for the best dressed pet, as well as other categories. Most of the pets were dogs, but there was one cat, one goat, and one ferret. But the funniest entry was Larry the lobster, who his owners said was a rescue pet. When asked, where he was rescued from, the answer was IGA, a local grocery store. He was also one of the best dressed pets. The judges were so impressed that they decided to add a Best in Show category and gave that award to Larry.

The cutest kid/dog pair

Kirsten petting the pig dressed in a hula skirt and a lei

This was a beautiful Maine coon cat -  I love the look of love the owner was giving it

Another darling pair 

The ferret

Larry the rescue lobster

We'll continue our celebration on Monday, when we will all join Bridget's parents and watch the Lubec July Fourth Parade from her yard, then get fed before enjoying the fireworks.

On the personal front, I'm all excited because I have sprouting milkweeds. My swamp milkweed is up. I had lots of leftover seeds, so on Friday, I hoed a large patch near Bridget's garden and planted the already sprouting seeds. Hopefully, that spot will provide a stockpile of seeds for future plantings around the refuge. And I'm delighted to have a car back. Also I bought a fishing license and a couple of bass lures to use with my fly rod and hope to get in some fishing this long weekend. Kirsten and I had to go to our boss's house this evening to secure his chickens so I'll be getting up early Sunday morning to get this blog posted.

And this morning I found I have milkweeds SHOOTING up.  YEAH!

Happy Fourth. Hope you have a bang-up one.