Day 60

Well, after 5,000 miles of driving, 2 flat tires, 500+ bird survey points, and only 4 cases of poison ivy, it's finally here: Day 60 and the end of our adventure (...or not?).

Tomorrow we will move out of the field house and back to Blacksburg. I am hesitant to say that I'm "done" because I'm nowhere near finished! Now comes the "not-so-fun" part-- putting the information into the computer and using statistics to see what it tells us. Plus, I get to come back next year and do a 2008 field season all over again! And anyway, we still have salamander stuff to do through September of this year.

Well, we finally got some rain (figures, on the last day!). It rained all last night and through this morning. We got to fit in our last hour of birding this morning before the rain started up again, and got soaked while doing our last coverboard check. Boy was that fun! This evening we will most likely go out to do a final frog call survey to finish up.

So, don't be disappointed, the blog is not finished! Things will just be a bit slower now. I will probably come down 3-4 times to work on some salamander surveys, so I will try and take more pictures and write about what I'm doing.

So I thought I would leave you with some beautiful sunrise shots (not sunsets- it's not over!) to celebrate us not being "done."

Day 58

Only two more days of work left! Hard to believe Day 60 is right around the corner. We've been working pretty hard trying to finish up so we can all enjoy a couple weeks of summer before school starts again on August 20. Actually this past weekend we took a quick trip back to Blacksburg to drop off Lupita since she had to get back to Mexico. Chris and I will check out of the house on Thursday!

The past few days have included some amazing up-close ruby-throated hummingbird sightings. The flagging that I use to mark points is orange, so one actually flew right up a few feet from my face this morning, checking out the "orange flower." I would love to get a good picture of one, but they are just too quick. The best pictures can be taken while watching a hummingbird feeder (see my mom for these, she's got some good ones!

http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/224/_/Ruby-throated_Hummingbird.aspx


Chris also had another black bear sighting the other day, a young male probably. I think they are pretty skiddish in the area where we work because it is really remote and they don't come into contact with people very often. I guess that's good for us! Most of the time I think they know we are there, they just stay out of our way.

Modeling some ticks! The newest fashion!! Please note, my right leg was in the grass for a matter of 15 seconds while standing alongside the road, and this is what happened!

How many can you count? Chris holds the record for the most ticks crawling on him in one day- almost 100. Definitely won't miss these guys!

Day 53

Happy Fourth of July!


Well we have 5 more early mornings of birding left in the season! We have to be finished by around July 15 since that is the end of the bird breeding season, when males stop singing as frequently and birds typically roam around more. Following the end of our birding days, we'll check coverboards one more time and check all of the plots to make sure that flagging is in place since these points will need to overwinter until I come back for more bird surveys next year. Granted, most of them will probably get lost (or eaten) before I need them again next May, but we might as well get them ready.

So what's the deal for the rest of the summer? I'll have to come back a few more times in August and September to check coverboards since salamanders will stay active for a few more months into the fall. If the weather works out right, there may be the potential for some night searches, but I really hope not since I will be starting school and won't be too excited about the 3 hour drive down here.

Box turtle in a puddle!

Rasnick Cemetery- a small family plot on top of a mountain. Immediate off to the right of the picture is a 100 acre clearcut (all trees were harvested and sold). I was told the Rasnick family sold out their timber and then sold the property to the landholding company that I am working with currently.

Day 49

So Thursday we decided to take a day to sleep in since the weather forecast called for storms that evening. It stopped raining right before dusk, perfect conditions for our first frog call survey!

Frog call surveys are kind of like our bird surveys in that we visit several points (during frog surveys we target water bodies) and stay for a few minutes to listen for frogs calling. It actually was pretty neat-we had spring peepers, green frogs, fowler's toads, upland chorus frogs, and bullfrogs. We got to watch two beavers for awhile in one of the ponds where we stopped. We also saw a barred owl that we spooked driving up the road, and two barn owls near one of the frog call points. They have this eerie call that just sends chills down your spine!

Listen to the barn owl here! http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/2/_/target.aspx

Find out more about the barred owl! http://identify.whatbird.com/obj/3/_/Barred_Owl.aspx

Yesterday we went to the farther site and did some birding at the pasture plots- its always fun to herd the cows off the plots first- and today we went birding at our two clearcut sites that have been harvested within the past 2-5 years. We're using a couple of clearcuts to compare the bird communities between areas with harvesting disturbances and coal mining disturbances to see if there are any differences.

Tomorrow we will take our last real day off for the rest of the time we are here. We will finish with bird surveys in about 10 days since mid-July is the end of the breeding season. We'll move out of the house here, and then I will return a few times later in the summer and fall to check for salamanders.

Our farther site, PALS (Public Access Lands for Sportsmen) is open to the public for hunting use. This is a scene from a hollow (or holler in the local lingo) that was mined around 10 years ago and reclaimed.

Nice white-tailed deer track next to my clipboard.

View down the railroad tracks- straight ahead just a few miles is Kentucky!

Day 46

This week has been pretty slow- nothing real exciting to report. I found a deer tick in my head today (the bad ones that can carry Lyme disease), so hopefully I got it out quickly enough. We went birding the past 3 mornings since the weather was good- we also did salamander coverboard checks but didn't find any this week. We had a little bit of rain on Monday evening, but not too much. There is a chance of thunderstorms for tomorrow, so hopefully we will get enough rain to go out salamander searching, or at least go out and do a frog call survey since we haven't been able to yet.

As usual, some pictures of interest. Most of our days aren't too long now that we have all of the habitat data collected. Now most of my days entail sitting in front of the computer for a few hours inputting data. We've got about 2.5 more weeks of intensive stuff before I get to go back to Blacksburg! As long as the ticks, bears, snakes, etc. don't get to us first!

Holy kudzu! This invasive vine takes over EVERYTHING. For scale, the path in front of the brush is a one-lane road. This thing is huge.

Frog tracks! Not often seen- these could be green frog or wood frog most likely.

The promised picture of the water truck next to our Jeep! HUGE!

Day 43

Well, I'm sorry that I haven't written in awhile! I got to take this past weekend off and head down to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park with Scott to visit my friend Tom who is working on a black bear project in eastern Kentucky. Cumberland Gap is unique for 2 reasons- 1. the park includes parts of three states-Virginia, Kentucky, and Tennessee. 2. Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road is found here, or the route that early pioneers took to cross the Appalachian range and establish settlements in the wilds of Kentucky.

We got to see several great overlooks, tour the Gap Cave by flashlight, hike up to Tri-Peak and sit in Ky, Va, and Tn all at once, and camp in the campground at the national park. By far, the best part of the whole weekend was the food. Tom took us to Heavy's BBQ in Tennessee. It literally was a shack in the middle of nowhere down by the river that served barbeque and rented canoes. And it was the best pork barbeque that I have ever had! We also went to Webb's Country Kitchen in the town of Cumberland Gap (also in Tn) for a night of bluegrass music and excellent country cookin'. It was so nice to have a real weekend, and I definitely enjoyed my trip down to Cumberland Gap!

Scott and I at Cumberland Gap.

Tri-Peak- the border of Va, Tn, and Ky.

Hike up to Tri-Peak- I am in all three states at once!

The Wilderness Road that pioneers traveled through the Appalachians.

Wilderness Road State Park in Va- they had a living history museum of John Martin's frontier waystation along the Wilderness Rd. around 1775.

Coal is life down here- for me and the locals.

Day 39

Salamanders!

It finally rained yesterday for a few hours, so we were able to go out last night for our first salamander search. Basically, this involves setting a designated time limit (mine are 20 minutes) to search at each point of interest for salamanders. Most are small and cryptic in coloring (except for the bright orange ones), but they are out foraging when the leaf litter is wet, so all you have to do is walk around and look for them. This is definitely an interesting situation- stumbling around in the woods in the dark while it's wet and raining! I guess is was something different for us to do, but it certainly clashes with our birding schedule of getting up early in the morning. Needless to say, we didn't return to the house until 1am, so there was no way I was getting up at 4am to go birding!

Coverboards in action!





Northern red salamander, Pseudotriton ruber

Southern two-lined salamander, Eurycea cirrigera

Red-spotted newt, Notophthalmus viridescens

Eastern box turtle, Terepene carolina, laying her eggs along the side of the road!

Day 36

Sorry for the lag here! I got to spend this weekend back in Blacksburg taking care of bills, apartment stuff, and paperwork at school (and missed out on a few days of blogging). At least yesterday I got to spend the day by the pool! It was a nice relaxing weekend and I did get a lot of the business-type stuff done, which was nice.

Not too much new with the field work. We got to have a 3-day weekend (definitely great) but I think we'll all be dragging tomorrow morning. This week we will start doing coverboard searches for salamanders more regularly since we will have some more time once we finish habitat surveys on Tuesday. By the end of the day Tuesday we will have completed our 400 habitat plots! WOW! Best of all, I have a visitor coming this week! Scotty is coming to visit next weekend and we are going to Cumberland Gap National Historic Park to visit my friend Tom who is a field technician down there (working on black bear stuff). Very excited for a little side trip!

Some pics for your enjoyment (these were all taken by Fangyee, the student from Taiwan that visited us last week):

This is what happens to overworked grad students.

A very attractive shot of Lupita, Chris, and I doing a habitat survey.

Red-spotted newt, Notophthalmus viridescens

The infamous ticks that love us so much.

Day 31

Wow! It has now been almost 5 weeks since we began- and there have been lots of neat wildlife sightings, and, of course, lots of headaches and early mornings.

Today's headache was our second flat tire (sorry folks, I didn't stand around and take pictures this time...I had to help believe it or not!). Not only did we get a flat and had to change it in the middle of the woods, we also broke the handle to the jack and had to take a ride all over southwestern Virginia to find a replacement this evening. I have to thank the nice mechanic that handed us one for free and told us not to tell his boss. Seems like there still are a few people that will help others out without expecting anything in return. I am certainly grateful, because he told us that to replace the handle would be about $89! Ridiculous! I guess now instead of having a universal jack design, car companies make theirs specific so you have to buy the replacement parts from Jeep, for example.

And my team was so enthusiastic that we dropped the Jeep off at the Ford dealer to get the tire replaced and took Chris' truck out to the closer site to do habitat plots. I was a little disappointed thinking that we would lose a day of work (even though we did get our bird surveys in this morning before the flat), but everybody came through for a productive day anyway.

Not much else new- no new animal sightings yet! My poison ivy is starting to get a little better, which is a nice relief. Few more days of work, then a short trip to Blacksburg!

Mountain laurel, Kalmia latifolia

Day 29

I think this is multiflora rose- not sure though!

So, anything new with me? Just more poison ivy! Yaaay!

Yeah I've got a good sized splotch of it on my arm now- so much fun. Probably a result of the poison ivy patch that we did habitat surveys on with my advisor on Thursday. So far no one else has come down with it though!

Not much else is new really- yesterday we did a bunch of habitat surveys, which I was really glad to get done. We have about 30 more points to do habitat surveys on (which is 120 more actual plots), so I think we should finish the habitat stuff within 2 weeks. However, it has been really dry here, so we have not had any good weather for salamandering (what we wildlifers call the process of performing a salamander search at night in the rain). Most of the time, if the conditions are not right, the salamanders will stay buried in the ground until the soil and leaf litter is wet enough for them. The birding surveys are progressing very well, since each day has been clear for good birding.

Today we are taking a day off to catch up on some sleep and get a few things done. Next weekend I am taking an overnight trip back to Blacksburg to work on a few things with my current and new apartment, banking, etc. since I can't do much of that out in the sticks.

Well, its back to birding tomorrow morning! There is no significant chance of rain this week, so the drought continues (that was the headline story on the newspaper here, which is appropriately called the Coalfield Progress). Check back for more updates later!

The cattle eating one of my plots. You can see the orange flagging in the tree- I had an orange flag in the ground, but they ate it!

This is the water truck- he waters the roads to keep down the dust and carries water to the mining site for coal cleaning. I wish I had another car in this picture for scale, because the truck tires are bigger than our Jeep!

Day 26

So my advisor was down last night and today to visit and check up on me (i.e., my boss making sure I'm doing my job). My technicians did a good job of defending my work thusfar! He was mostly pleased with everything- we'll have to move a few points and re-save them into the GPS units since what I have is not accurate enough. He did help us with some habitat sampling problems we were having in areas that we too small or too steep to sample appropriately. Anyway, apparently the solution to that is to just shrink the plots, which means we still have to climb the slopes. I fell a bunch of times today while we were doing some habitat stuff- once was about 15 feet down a cliff on top of Lupita, haha. Good thing it was funny and no one was hurt!

So a few people have asked me for more information about the coverboard surveys. Basically, all a coverboard is is a rough sawn piece of wood (about 1" x 2" in size and 2" thick). These are placed in small groups (for my study its 6 boards to a group) in areas that we want to sample. Really, they are best for long-term studies since the longer they sit in the woods, the better artificial cover they provide for salamanders. Most salamanders hang out under cover objects and will only come out to forage when the soil is very wet (since they breath through their skin they can suffocate if their skin dries out). Also, many species are very territorial, so only 1 salamander may inhabit each board. Anyway, once the soil under the boards gets moist and cool, it will be great habitat for salamanders! I know what I do is kind of different, so if you ever have any questions, post them on here or email me and I'd be happy to answer them!

Coverboards before they were laid out at the points.

Also, the fair was great! And so was Billy Currington! I'm thinking about going back tomorrow night to see Danielle Peck:) See some pics below.

Virginia-Kentucky District Fair, Wise, Virginia.

Cute Momma and Baby donkey at the fair.

Billy Currington concert! He's the guy with the backwards cap.

Day 27

Another bear encounter! This time alone.

I had 9 points to visit along a back road while Chris surveyed a few in another area (Lupita was sick this morning, so she didn't come out). I had the jeep since my points were farther apart, so I was driving to my last point, and I see a black object (a beef cow?) lumbering along on a hillside. No, it was a bear, and a good sized one! As I watch, I realize there are two bears, the second one was huge- one of the biggest ones I've seen alive in the wild, probably 400 lbs. or more! Holy cow (well, not a cow- a BEAR). And both of them are in my last plot. So I reach around to get my camera from the backseat, and right at the same time I run over an old plastic bottle in the road, which makes a loud noise and spooks the bears. If I had got the camera more quickly, I would have had a good picture of them both, because they were CLOSE. Sad to say, no picture to go along with this bear story.

Other wildlife sightings included a black snake and a box turtle. Chris and I did a salamander check at all of our coverboards- nothing yet. It rained for about 15 minutes yesterday, but the boards are not saturated (i.e., the soil underneath them is still dry and is not good habitat for salamanders yet). The longer the boards are out there, the better the habitat.

We came back a bit early today because I'm about to head out and check out the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair and see Billy Currington tonight! Luckily tomorrow we are only taking habitat data and not birding, so I don't have to get up as early! My adivisor and another Tech student are coming down tomorrow to check on things, so we'll see how much additional work comes out of that visit!

Day 24

Well, June is here! Good because things are moving along, but a reminder that more has yet to be done!

Well the most exciting information to report is my slight case of poison ivy (which we walk through, and end up getting all over us every day). I'm really glad that its a very mild case, and it hasn't caused me much trouble at all except that I can't wear my watch on my wrist. We found the largest patch I've ever seen of it today- it had to be close to an acre- so knock-on-wood, we'll all get by without any problems.

We worked pretty hard the past two days (yes, we work weekends)- its been really hot and we've been out there doing habitat surveys and looking for birds. I'm excited because the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair is taking place here in Wise next week! Billy Currington, Danielle Peck, and some other country artists (as well as bluegrass bands, my new southern influence) will be playing there. I hope to get some time in the evenings or maybe a half day to spend at the fair!

Check it out at http://www.vakydistrictfairandhorseshow.com/!

Day 22

So those of you who have been following my summer adventures know that we are due for a new blog today (since I am so very faithful to writing one every-other day).

The Jeep tire has been replaced and, even though it took two hours at the shop (everyone and everything moves a bit slower here in Wise), we were back in business yesterday. Today we had a really productive day- birding this morning and then we did 4 habitat points, for a total of 16 vegetation plots. Pretty good.

Funny story- Lupita is getting very good at identifying the birds and plants/trees we see, even though she's not familiar with them being from Mexico. Today, she was helping to measure some trees and usually if she is unsure, she brings a leaf sample to Chris or me. So she shows us a leaf sample while standing next to the tree she pulled it from and wants to know what it is. Our answer was, "Well the tree is a dogwood, but the leaves you are holding are poison ivy!" She couldn't believe that is was really poisonous, but we assured her that if she didn't wash her hands soon, she would be very sorry she touched that plant.

Not much else is new really- today we saw a yellow-billed cuckoo up close which was pretty cool. They look like they belong in the tropics or something. More of the same tomorrow- but June is here! Only 6 more weeks of intensive stuff before I can catch a break:)

Some views from "my office". These were taken at the top of a mountain of rocks with a 78% slope. Always a good time climbing at 6am. The sunrises are great though, I hope to catch a good one on camera soon!

Day 20

Six ticks and a flat tire. This is today's story.

Well we had a couple of days off last weekend since I got to go back to NJ for my friend Lisa's wedding for a day, which was a nice visit even though it was way too short. Anyway, today was back to work. And we were tired. Really tired.

We had a pretty good day in the field overall, its really started to get hot here. Today it was over 90 degrees by noon, so we were REALLY hot out there. Birds surveys went pretty well and we did more habitat sampling on 10 year old reclaimed mine site. I took a neat picture of a hardened track in the mud (along with my gps unit for scale, its about 5 in. long). We actually think this is a cat track, probably a bobcat, since there are no claws visible. The larger mammals really must get around on that site- we see scat and prints everywhere (bear and coyote, mostly). Luckily, we haven't run into any aggressive ones yet!

So we're getting ready to leave and there is this extremely steep and rocky road that we have to climb. Seriously, its about 2000 feet elevation done in maybe less than a quarter of a mile- its crazy steep. So we get to the top and I take off the 4-wheel drive since we're on a regular gravel road (we've done this many times before). Anyway, we drive a little ways down the road, and pop! there goes the tire. Good thing Chris and Lupita were expert tire changers. They changed the tire (in record time I might add) and I supervised (and took pictures). Luckily since we are using a rental car, the cost of the new tire is covered, but we have to wait until tomorrow morning to get it done. So my schedule for the rest of the week is all messed up since we won't be out early enough tomorrow to survey birds. It's always something.

Chris and Lupita working on the flat tire on the dirt road in the middle of nowhere.

Speaking of pain in the butt- the ticks were really bad today! I had tons of spray on my clothes and still had to pull six ticks out of me when we got back!! Nasty little buggers. Not one of the nicer parts of the Great Outdoors.

Day 16

Well, we've been here about 2 weeks now. Things have been busy, I think the project is progressing along. We're expected to be finished bird surveys by mid-July since that is the typical end of the breeding season, but salamander surveys can be done into the fall, so I'll be making some weekend trips down here in the late summer and fall. The habitat data collection is also going well- I have around 100 points, each of which has 4 associated habitat plots that take about 15-30 minutes to count trees, shrubs, grass species, etc. It's a lot of work, I guess that's really what we spend most of our time doing. Everyone hates doing habitat stuff, but we all joke about it to make it a little bit easier (Lupita's new one is "No trees, no shrubs, no problems!" after Kenny Chesney's song "No shirt, no shoes, no problems.")

This morning while doing bird surveys we found a nestling Carolina chickadee on the road. He was really cold and almost dead when we found him, so Lupita carried him around for a bit to warm him up. Then he seemed to perk up once he got warm, he was eating pieces of apple from us (we even fed him the ticks we pulled off us!). He seemed to be doing ok, but when we got him back to the house, he kinda just got quiet and died. I'm assuming the mother bird probably pushed him out of the nest when she realized something was wrong with him. The unfortunate truth in the bird world.

"Chicky" the Tickeater.

Tomorrow we will again do a bird survey in the morning at the site closer to Wise (we get very excited about this because we can sleep til 5am and still get there by 6). This time I'm remembering my camera to take a picture of the sunrise!

Day 14

Well today was interesting! We decided to take a day off from birding and focus on some habitat data collection. Yay for sleeping in until 7am today! This morning we ran into a bobcat in one of the forested areas adjacent to the mined areas we are working on. We were walking down the road and I guess we startled him and he ran away from us and back into the forest. I wish I was quick enough to snap a picture, but by the time I recognized him and thought about it, he was gone. That's a pretty lucky sighting since bobcats are very elusive.

We also had our first poisionous snake experience (see first black bear encounter in earlier blog). We approached plot 24 to take some habitat data. Its really brushy and full of thorny stuff. We were sort of making our own path through the vegetation and I spotted him right next to where we were walking! It was funny because Chris must have walked right by him and didn't see him! He was a copperhead, and I've never seen one with such a bright colored head. So needless to say, we decided to survey plot 24 another time! Of course we didn't leave until I could snap a few pictures!

Day 12

Well today was an early morning! No bear sightings this time though. I think we were all dragging a little bit this morning (being that it was Monday and we were coming off of a relaxing weekend...and the fact that we had to leave the house by 4:30am). Today we sampled some pastureland and did some habitat plots (I was proud that we did 20 of them, even though there weren't any trees to count).

Saturday we decided to take a day off, and I took a ride to Breaks Interstate Park. It's one of only two state parks in the U.S. that has shared management and involvement between multiple states. So Breaks is right on the border of Virginia and Kentucky, about an hour north from where I am staying. But it was certainly worth the ride! The views were spectacular and it was a clear and beautiful day. I even got some recreational birding in, where I wasn't constantly counting individuals and estimating how far away they were from me.

Yesterday we spent a half-day laying out more artificial habitat coverboards for salamanders. The boards aren't too big, but they are rough-sawn timber so they're pretty heavy, and its hard to carry them up hills and over rocks. We did pretty well setting them up too! Things have been moving along!

The weather predictions for this week are good, so chances are we're in for some good birding!

You're looking at Kentucky!

Now you're looking at Virginia!

Pictures!

The field house on the campus of UVa-Wise in Wise, Virginia.

The faithful Jeep Liberty.

A black rat snake we found on the road.

The male bear at Wildcat reclaimed mine site.

A fuzzy view of him through my binoculars.