A point count...

06/07/2007

So I was supposed to have today as my day off until those 2 weather days. I told mom I would call home today… but I obviously couldn’t out here. I hope she doesn’t worry/ is disappointed.
So I did an insane point count route today. The first point was less than .5 km from the road, but it was straight up a steep hill through chest high mountain big sagebrush. The good thing is that I can feel myself getting stronger. I wasn’t winded when I got to the top, and my calves weren’t burning too bad. I’m going to be in pretty good shape by the end of these 2 months, that’s for sure.
So my first point was in a dense stand of mahoganies, which makes it really hard to see any birds, unless they’re 20 m or less in front of you. At least I got to hear a different variety of birds. 3 of my points were like that today. I even heard a Spotted Towhee. By far the most interesting point was the third… I had just hiked down onto a plateau to get to number 2. When I finished, pulled out the GPS unit and compass I found that I had to hike .7 km straight up the closest mountain… and there was still snow up there, and ice on the rocks. It’s a good thing there weren’t too many birds up there (not that I think they would like hanging out there) because my hands were so cold I could barely grip the pen. I was glad to be done with the sight, and super glad that my next bearing moved me out of the wind.
In my travels today I found 2 nests. 1 Brewers Blackbird nest and 1 Brewers Sparrow nest with some rather large nestlings… should be fledglings soon. Their feather tracts had almost completely covered their bodies, not too much pink showing. What was the most amazing was the fact that they survived the storm. I could see them all breathing in their lump of feathers and pink and beaks. Most of all the nest searchers had the majority of their nests fail from the storm. Yay snow in June!
~me