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!