It’s been nearly two months since I arrived on Sheldon this season… and I just turned 23 (yikes.) Although, I know, I really should not be complaining about that. I think it’s just that there’s so much that I want to do and time just seems to fly by. (Note: the above picture is of a sunrise, not sunset. You tend to be up early when work starts 20 minutes after sunrise…)
I’ve finished up my point counting duties of the season, besides the vegetation analysis on my share of the points, and have moved back to nest searching. Things are really busy out on plot. In the past 3 days I’ve found multiple Brewers Sparrow nests, a Vespers Sparrow nest with a Brown Headed Cowbird egg in it, a Rock Wren nest, and most likely today a Spotted Towhee nest.
That’s the Vespers nest with the BHCO egg… quite a difference. It will be interesting to see what happens to this nest if it isn’t predated.
Since this year has been wetter than it was last year there has been a plethora of ticks. More so than the population that seemed to be running rampant last year. It’s always entertaining to see someone when they realize that they have a tick crawling on them somewhere. The methods of dealing with the offending blood sucking insect vary by where the tick happens to be making its way around on your body, searching for a nice place to bite down. On your stomach? No problem, a quick lift of the shirt and pick off is standard. In your pants? A bit more complicated. If the tick is below the knee, it’s easy enough to just pull a pant leg up and pick it off. However, if it has made its way higher (which they frequently do), You’ve got to go find a more private spot to remove the stow away. One afternoon I made the short jaunt down to our wall tent to remove one unwelcome guest, and had just finished, when Jan came bombing down to the tent, zipped up the fly, unzipped her fly, and pulled down her pants, pulling one off in nearly the same place I had just removed one from. We’ve all got our favorite methods of killing them. I particularly enjoy burning them if some matches are handy… watching their little bodies turn to a crisp and their legs curl up… But a pen is my most frequently employed method. Just stick it on your clipboard, and apply pressure. I just can’t bring myself to squeeze them between my fingernails. Keith recently developed a new method for dealing with the offenders. When out in the field one day he stumbled across a hill of the most vicious ants on the refuge, who, were apparently in a feeding frenzy, and had somehow taken down a cicada. (Which is probably about 20 times their size.) Then he discovered a tick on himself. So he threw it to the wolves. The ants would rip off a few limbs, or an antennae, before realizing that the tick was not good eating, and move on. With the whole swarm working on the tick I doubt it lasted too long.
Ticks, feral horses, vicious ants, and mountain lions aren’t the only things we need to be wary of on the refuge. We also need to watch out for the outhouse door, or as we affectionately refer to it, “The Spa.” One afternoon when it was still cool enough to nap in the afternoon in the wall tents everybody was settling down for a little siesta. All the guys were snug on their cots, and I was just settling into my own for a mid afternoon’s rest, when out in the spa arose such a clatter…. I poked my head out of our tent, and saw that the wooden latch on the spa door had somehow fallen from vertical to horizontal. Trapping Jan inside. (I let her out… don’t worry.) This clearly is not something that you want to ever happen to you. Especially if you’re alone at the cabin at the time, or in the middle of the night. Ben and I decided that if either of those situations arose we would sacrifice the spa door for our sanity. (Did I mention it’s starting to heat up out here?) On that note, here are some pictures of pretty wildflowers…
And horses when they were not threatening to run me over.
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