It's the desert... so it's raining.

It has been raining on and off for the past week out here on Sheldon. This makes for lots and lots of free time since we can't spend the amount of time in the field that we normally would. For example, today, before coming into town, I went out to one of my plots and just checked nests before being completely soaked. It's pretty much useless nest searching in the rain. You can't get good behavioral/ territorial data either. We're suffering from an acute case of cabin fever.



Earlier in this rainy week (the day that it snowed) we made the obligatory trip out to Bog Hot. We spent the whole afternoon there, hanging out with some locals. We covered ourselves in mud, as tradition dictates, and then rocked out on the drive back to Electric Six. Jan and I realized that we were making quite the fashion statement with our stripey NZ spandex over our bathing suits... so we got Ben, one of the point counters to take a picture.



In the few breaks in the clouds we have had we've soaked up what little sun we can get. A short hike up the hill beside the cabin yielded a coyote skull that Keith had been searching for (the subject of an epic Badger Cabin original song), and another afternoon Keith and Berti were charming the baby Cleti with their guitar/ banjo music. That is until Mom decided to pick all four up by the scruff of their neck and carry them elsewhere... one by one.



Things have been a bit slow... and the drizzly weather has made it impossible to play anymore beer bottle bowling. Here's hoping the clouds clear off soon!

Cadger Babin

Life at Badger Cabin, or Cadger Babin, as we affectionately refer to it, has been good. We've found our first nests of the season, and point counts are scheduled to start tomorrow. (They would have started yesterday, but the weather on Sheldon decided to make the sudden switch from sunny and hot, to cloudy and very, very windy.)Aaron came out with me on one of my plots yesterday to give me some pointers, and help out with the nest searching. I was happy though that I was the one to find the first nest of the season on my plot. I found two Brewers Sparrow nests, Aaron found two, and a visiting grad student who was out observing/ getting ideas for his own starting project, found one.

The Sheldon Crew jam sessions have begun again, and I've been thoroughly enjoying sitting out in front of the cabin in the evenings, listening, and watching the sun set over the hill beside the cabin, while sipping some scotch. Matt is becoming quite proficient at the fiddle, Keith has some mad banjo skills, and this year Aaron even made a wash tub base.

Yes... all in all, life is good out on the Sheldon.

3,500 miles from Florida (about...)

Jan and I arrived at Badger Cabin on the 9th at approximately 6:20 pm, pacific time. But before we made the final sprint from the gas station/ bar/ restaurant in Denio Junction, NV, we spent a few days exploring Moab, UT. And by exploring Moab, I mean climbing. And more climbing. The first afternoon that I met her there we immediately hopped into a car with our gear and headed for Wall Street, where we met some other climbers from CO, who we later went out to dinner with. Wall Street is a great area for top roping, with some sport and trad climbing mixed in. It also has an awesome view from the top right over the Colorado River. (Since we were essentially climbing up the walls of the canyon.) One afternoon at Wall Street, when I was cleaning a route, I was the subject of approximately 10 tourists’ photographs as they cruised by on a boat on a tour. Since most of my experience climbing has been bouldering, it was a little strange to rely more on my feet (read: trust my feet), to get up a route. We did some fun climbs though, including one that Jan led, and two that neither of us thought we could do, but pushed through it. This one was particularly sweet… getting over the roof was the difficult part. (That’s Jan rappelling down another route we had just finished to the right.)


While in Moab Jan and I stayed at a pretty nice little campsite cut into a canyon. We even had petroglyphs on the walls not 150 meters from where we slept. At night we’d cook our dinner over an open campfire in a cast iron pan. Car camping can be rather luxurious.


We also made the short jaunt to Arches National Monument one evening to catch delicate arch as the sun was setting. The clouds made for a rather dramatic picture. That’s the La Sal mountains in the background.

Even before I drove to Moab I spent some time with Kirsten in Boulder. We spent a lazy Sunday morning walking around downtown Boulder. Downtown Boulder has a few blocks that have been shut off to traffic, paved in bricks, and lined with all kinds of interesting shops that you can check out on foot. Kirsten and I also played on the animal sculptures…


After lunch we decided to be a bit more active and drove about 10 minutes outside of town to hike in Chautauqua Park. Boulder is basically set in the foothills of the Rockies, and in the park were these interesting rock formations, called The Flatirons, that we hiked up. They’re named the flatirons because… well, they look like a flatiron don’t they?

There were quite a few people out that day hiking, and climbing up the flatirons too.

So… now, Jan and I have settled into Badger. Upon arrival I gave/ received a bear hug from Matt, then made my way down to the old tent party 2k7 wall tent to jump on Berti to wake him up. (Sorry I interrupted your interesting dream about fish, Berti.) Jan and I spent that Friday evening unloading our cars, and semi-unpacking. Saturday (after a VERY cold night… I may have gotten minor frostbite on my big toes…), the guys went to Alturas to get groceries, and Jan and I went out on plot. I showed her our focal species birds, then we came back, ate lunch, and set up our sweet pad in the second wall tent.

Later that afternoon I was in the Cabin, doing something, when Jan yelled out to me from the picnic tables in the front… there were Western Scrub Jays hanging out by the spring! I promptly dropped what I was doing, and chased the birds all over the hill behind the cabin. They’re not as friendly as Florida Scrub Jays, but their calls are pretty similar. I could hear them this morning, they’re still around... We think they may be nesting somewhere around the cabin. If they do, I’m going to find it.

Apparently a day or so before Jan and I got to Badger, the guys and Aaron constructed sleds out of scraps of wood around the cabin, and then tested them on a hill just up the road towards all the plots. (There is still a bit of snow in Sheldon in spots.) In a stroke of genius, when we realized Jan had her skis, we decided that we were going to ski it. So in the afternoon we packed up the skiis, hiked them up the hill, and did a few runs. Skiing in Sheldon National Wildlife Refuge in May. It’s going to be the new craze I’m sure…




Living out in the middle of nowhere with no electricity and running water is the mother of invention. Your only form of entertainment is yourself, and the people around you. As a result, we tend to make up a lot of games. Last summer it was Rally Ball. This year, the toy of choice has been the "High Bounce Pinky." A rubber ball about the size of a lacrosse ball that cost 99 cents has given us hours of entertainment. Just add the flat road by Badger Campground, and 10 empty beer bottles and you have high bounce pinky bowling. We played two games yesterday... I won the first, Keith the second.

On the road...

I am typing this in my hotel room in Amarillo Texas. You don’t really realize how far it is across the country until you drive it, that’s for sure. On Thursday I was on the road for about 16 hours, driving from Archbold to Memphis Tennessee. Really, if you drove straight, it’s like 14 hours, but I stopped every few hours to get out and stretch… try to remain sane. Yesterday I drove from Memphis to Amarillo. Today I’m making the trek to Boulder Colorado, which is a shorter, about 8 hour drive. I took the chance to sleep in and relax a bit.

I thought I’d bring you some fun/ insightful observations from the road.

1. Like squirrels are the road kill of the East, Armadillos are the road kill of the southern Midwest/ West.
2. Drivers in Oklahoma and Alabama are really nice. In Alabama I almost missed a turn at one point, and the first driver that saw I had my blinker on to get into the proper lane let me in. In Oklahoma road construction deemed it necessary to drop traffic down to one lane. Everyone, (and I mean everyone) lined up in that single file line ONE MILE before the actual merge sign and construction began. No cutting off, or trying to jump ahead by racing up the side.
3. Going in to a gas station, or other place of business I am a little weirded out, wondering if the people here think I have an accent… (I think I confused a gas station cashier yesterday. I guess I talk kind of fast.)
4. It is really windy in Amarillo… I don’t think I saw more than 10 trees from when I crossed the OK border on I-40 to when I got here. That said, it’s kind of scary when passing an 18 wheeler you come out the front and suddenly get buffeted by a blast of wind that was previously blocked by the truck.
5. I go insane at about hour 12 on the road. (read: the permagrin appears for no apparent reason, I start bopping around in my seat, and generally being giddy.)

6. I do not fit the demographic of the most common visitor to Elvis’ birthplace in Tupelo Mississippi. (and the statue of the 13 year old Elvis is kind of creepy.)


Toejam has been enjoying the ride. As you can see here, he was working on his Godzilla impression for OK City.


Now I've got to go get ready for another day on the road...

The mealworms are next to the milk.

The best way to find fledglings that are hiding in the scrub is to feed their parents and helpers at the nest mealworms. Live ones are best. So we keep ours in the refrigerator in a nice cotton sack next to the milk. Finding fledglings is harder than I thought it would be. You feed the adults in hopes that they will then fly off to give those tasty morsels to the fledglings… but they’re just hoping you’ll leave… so they can fly off and give those tasty morsels to the fledglings. I went to a territory to find some fledglings the other day that have a super dad. When Travis was doing provisioning watches on their nest almost nothing could distract him from flying to the pasture nearby to get some food, and then making a bee-line for the nest, over and over again. So needless to say, these little guys were well fed. When I finally located one of them in a scrub oak the little guy flew about 6 meters to try and get away from me. This is huge in Scrub Jay fledgling land. I was only briefly amused though, as I still couldn’t read his bands, and needed to figure out who it was. This is the look that says it all… “Maybe you can’t see me if I sit reallllly still…”


I’ve been out to do “Day 11s” with Travis and Michelle a few times. “Day 11s” are done when the nestlings are 11 days old, and consist of banding, taking blood samples, and taking morphological measurements. The second territory we went to today had some particularly whiny little nestlings. I enjoy how their little heads bobble around and their gangly legs kick, somehow thinking they might get away.


I also went out with Travis one morning to watch him capture an adult male, again, to take blood samples related to a project he is doing, and morphological measurements. To capture the adults we use wire traps. You bait the trap with peanuts, and then watch for when the Jay can’t resist the pile sitting just out of reach, and hops into the trap, tripping the door. The male we trapped was surprisingly quiet. I expected him to make a fuss and be squawking quite a bit. You could tell he didn’t like it. But as soon as he was released with a peanut he seemed a bit soothed. Peanuts make it all better…


In other news, I still hate prickly pear cacti. But they are pretty in bloom.


I’m 75% sure I saw a Coral Snake this morning, and apparently Travis saw Edward and Brad going at it again.

My time here at Archbold is almost done. In a week I will be making my way out west for the next chapter in my adventure. The return to Sheldon, and Badger Cabin is on the horizon… I wonder if Cletus is still there…

The first rule of Gopher Tortoise fight club is…

So this evening when I was driving out on my ATV to get in 2 last nest checks, (I had come in early to hear one of the plant lab, and one of the invert lab interns give their final research presentations), I saw what can only be described as Gopher Tortoise fight club.

Well, not really. It was merely a territorial boundary fight between two males. But it was still pretty cool. Travis, the Schoech lab’s resident herp expert, spotted them on the way out. I guess a fight ends when one of the tortoises manages to flip the other onto its back. The larger of the two, who I will call Brad, almost managed to do this a few times to the smaller of the two, who I will call Edward. I always root for the underdog, so naturally, I was a bit disappointed when Edward backed down and trundled away. (Trundling really being the best way to describe the way they move.)
It was a bit surprising to see how aggressive they were during the encounter. Most of the time I see them they’re either trundling, or grazing on grass. So naturally, as Edward moved off, Brad trundled about 3 feet and began to graze. Like nothing had just happened.

In other strange, (and slightly creepy), news from Archbold Travis found a single grave stone out in the scrub while nest searching at ERRX. Finding the stone is not really too surprising as the section of the station in question used to be a very old town, which has now been reclaimed by the scrub. (I’ve actually found a few interesting little glass bottles out there while wandering around myself.) What makes the gravestone creepy is the following facts: The gravestone has been burned multiple times, presumably from the prescribed burns used by the land manager at the station to keep the scrub in optimal shape, and next to the gravestone is an unburned clay pot… you know, the kind that people plant flowers in. So… There’s a grave out in the scrub, that we cannot make out any inscription on, that has obviously been there a while, either forgotten, or unknown to most, and someone may know about it and feel the need to place flowers by it. Creepy? I think so. I’ve got the sneaking suspicion that field biologists must have one of the highest recovery rates of dead bodies of any profession. This incident just brings to mind Aaron saying that he found a body out in the sagebrush of Wyoming a few years back, and mine and Viddy’s hesitation at recovering a large white tarp out in the sagebrush of Sheldon for fear of what it was hiding. (Nothing, by the way.) Tomorrow Travis, Michelle and I are making the trip out to the stone together to attempt to make a rubbing… because none of us really wants to do it alone.

And in more lifelike news… I have seen my first fledglings! They are incredibly cute. See the little guy sitting on the branch?


I have yet to hear the characteristic begging squeal, but I’m sure that will come soon. I’ve already gotten to hear its approximation, complete with gratuitous wing shimmying, from a few demanding females of their male partners… and once directed towards me when I refused to feed a hand tame bird while trying to nest search. (How am I supposed to observe nesting behavior when all they want to do is eat and cache peanuts?)

a few random facts...

Here’s a few fun facts that I’ve learned while working on Archbold…

1. When riding on an ATV at approximately 30 mph, it hurts when a dragonfly (or any insect for that matter) collides with your face. A lot.
2. If someone comes back from the field looking like they’ve been in a fight with a plethora of black eyeliner pencils, they’ve been nest searching at a territory with burnt snags.
3. Scrub Palmetto likes to grow just tall enough to stab a person of my height up the nostril.
4. If you can ride out to nest search in the morning without a long sleeve shirt on, or some layer other than a t-shirt, it’s going to be a miserably hot day.
5. The best way to dry a pair of dew logged binoculars in the field is to hold them up in the sun while crashing through the scrub.
6. Gopher tortoises are the biggest road hazard on the station. (Although it is amusing when they trundle along in front of your ATV.)
7. Florida Scrub Jays are fascinated by human bodily functions. Sneeze, and they’re instantly more interested in you. Think you’re alone, and decide to take a leak… and suddenly they’re sitting right behind you, watching… and grunting.


That’s all I can think of right now. I’m sure I’ll have more later.

For a very brief while we thought that NHMP was going to be no more. First their nest was depredated, then the nest at TP54, which is the territory they budded off from as non-breeders, was also depredated. Travis found gobs of feathers, and three broken Scrub Jay egg shells… and no sign of the TP54 female.
The TP54 male was then seen courtship feeding the NHMP female like crazy… trying to take his son’s girl. But apparently she rejected him. One minute she was accepting his food, the next she’s only taking it from the NHMP male. And today I found the new NHMP nest.

It’s crazy to think that in less than a month I will be back in Sheldon again. I’ve begun to think about the trip out there… I’d like to save money by camping along the way. That would also be much nicer than staying in sketchy smoky motels… I’m going to try and stop at the highest point in elevation in Florida on the way out. Apparently it’s about 400 feet, 2 miles from the AL border. I’m also hoping to get some longer days in in the beginning so I can get out to CO and UT. See Kirsten and Jan. And maybe get some climbing in. Then it will be Badger Cabin time!