I've been on the station now for almost 2 days. I drove the final leg from Sarasota to Archbold on Thursday afternoon. I made it in time to drive right into a rainstorm. But before that I saw my first Crested Caracara! That was one of my goal birds for this trip. He was sitting on a fence post looking over a field on a ranch on the drive out. the 18 wheeler in front of me startled him off the post. I saw a flash of yellow legs and dark wings with white tips, along with that tell tale head and I just knew it was a Crested Caracara. I swore. Then kept driving. Of course with a big grin on my face.
Friday I had a "scavenger hunt" like check list of people I needed to meet and things they needed to show/ teach me. I got everybody who was at work on friday, including my ATV training done. So Friday afternoon I was off with Travis and the other Michelle for some preliminary training. We drove out on a fire break for a bit before branching off on a side road. We had driven only a little bit when Travis suddenly stopped... And there was my first Scrub Jay! It was a male. We threw him some peanuts and he called for his mate, who promptly appeared. They "bleaked" at us, which according to Travis and Michelle is a happy call they make when they see people. (They know they'll probably get peanuts)At the bleaking call one of their young from the previous year showed up and checked us out as well. I know corvids are smart, but you can really see it in these birds. I also got to experience some of their tricky ways when I went out nest searching with Travis this morning. One male led us to a nest from the previous year and was pretending to defend it. Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of all these characters. I didn't bring my camera last night, and this morning I was too busy wading through armpit deep palmetto at high speeds (or as fast a speed as possible chasing a bird through dense brush) to think about snapping pictures. I'll get on that soon.
On a non-bird related note, the soil here isn't even really soil. It's sand. Beach sand. It is harder to walk across the fire break roads than it is a beach, you sink right in... almost up to your ankles. However, this sand is perfect for lying down in when you want to take a face to face picture of a Gopher Tortoise who happens to be moseying across the road as you almost speed by on your ATV. I had to swerve today to avoid hitting a little guy. He was probably only the size of a medium apple.
And the vegetation... oh, the vegetation. Palmetto and scrub oak abound, as well as thorns and prickly pear cacti, which I am quickly going to hate. I currently have 3 small puncture wounds in the back of my left calve from one that attacked this morning. If it were not for the Carhartts I was wearing it may have been worse. The spines were at least 2.5 inches long.
That's basically all the news from Archbold for now. Well, besides the fact that my sweet farmers tan is already appearing again.
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