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!
2 comments:
Loving the pictures Aim... cool turtle. What do the salamander boards look like? I'm having a hard time picturing it... I'm sure you'll get a good bear picture by the end of the summer!
I've got some pics, I'll post them in my next blog! I know it's kind of a weird concept:)
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