Day 7

Well, yesterday we got up and did another round of bird surveys. The best part was hearing a barred owl! Lupita and I heard it at our first point around 6:10am, and it was unmistakable (really close too). Then we had to take a trip up to Blacksburg (a 3 hour drive) to pick up the coverboards for part of the salamander study. What a pain! So we drove 3 hours to pick up 100 boards that barely fit in the Jeep with us and to meet with my advisor who says "add more points, survey 400 habitat plots on top of wildlife surveys, blah blah blah". Even more work, yay. I did get to stop at my apartment for 20 minutes and pick up some things I forgot and to bring my car down here with me.

Today we decided we were all too tired to get up and go birding at our site that is 1.5 hours away. Instead we started laying out some salamander coverboards and working some habitat plots at the closer site (only 20 minutes from Wise). Good thing we did through because we got a rain storm about 2pm. We got soaked since we wanted to finish the plot before we left!

So tomorrow we'll have to go survey the other site for birds and lay out more coverboards. That means we are leaving the house at 4:30 am tomorrow morning. So I better get to planning tomorrow's schedule and get to bed!

Sorry about the lack of pictures, I hope once we get high-speed internet at the house I can upload some.