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!