The Magic School Bus

Yup, that's right a big yellow school bus. We found it yesterday at one of my sites called Wildcat Spur. The cows that are grazed on site are transported up the mountain and between pastures in the back of an old rickety school bus up steep, rough dirt roads. I don't know how this is possible, but you can see for yourself in the pictures! If anyone has seen the movie or heard about the book Into the Wild, this bus reminds me of the one the guy lives in while he's in the Alaskan wilderness.

Into the Wild, right here in Dickenson County, Va!!

Long time gone.

Wow, it's been over a week! I have really been slacking. Well last weekend we were in Blacksburg for some R&R, so not a whole lot has been going on. The weather has been good, so we are moving along with bird surveys (only 4 early mornings left over the next couple of weeks). We're trying to focus on getting some other work completed, since we are planning on moving out around July 11. Depending on whether it rains for the rest of the summer, I'll be back and forth occassionally. Now work just consists of checking coverboards for salamanders, doing some site descriptions, and marking points of interest in addition to my survey points (like human impacted areas, active mining, gas wells, etc.) into the GPS units. In addition to field work, we're trying to get all the data entered into a computer spreadsheet before we leave here to make compiling things easier once I get back to Blacksburg.

Well, I've got some more pictures for you. Hope you like!

Wild horses near our one clearcut site. Seems like we deal with livestock more than wildlife sometimes!

Our friends, the cows. The gate is new and this site is now being grazed as of a few days ago (surprise for me!).

Some butterflies hanging out together enjoying the mud.

Interesting track pattern...

Close up. Can you guess the culprit?

Salamander survey and recreation

Well, Saturday it rained ALL day, so it was wet enough to do a night search for salamanders and do a frog call survey. We left the house about 8:30pm and completed 4- 20 minute searches in 4 different cover types. We ended up finding 6 salamanders, which is great! They were weighed, measured, and promptly released. When it's raining or very wet out at night, salamanders that normally burrow into leaf litter or underground come out to feed. It's pretty neat that they are just out walking around! Salamander searching is certainly different from our early birding mornings, stumbling around in the woods in the dark, but it's certainly something different to do. We worked until about midnight Saturday, so we were down for the count Sunday morning and decided to hold off on continuing bird surveys until today.

In recreational news, today we visited High Knob Recreational Area in the Jefferson National Forest, and Flag Rock Park in Norton. Both of these places are probably only about 20 minutes away from Wise. High Knob was really neat- there was a high elevation natural lake that was open to swimming, but minimally impacted by people. We were the only ones there, so it was nice and quiet. We saw newts, fish, and even a couple of water snakes (not close by though, no worries)! We also took a 1 mile hike up to the observation tower (supposedly you can see 5 states from up there- VA, KY, TN, NC, and WV) only to find out that the observation tower burnt down awhile back and is no longer there! It was still a really nice hike though.

Flag Rock is a rocky overlook above the City of Norton (not really a city, in my opinion). An American flag is flying from a rock over the city. You can see for miles around from here, it was amazing! The streets of Norton used to spell out the city's name. It's hard to see in pictures, but you can sort of make it out!

Here are some pictures, enjoy!

Longtail salamander, Eurycea longicauda, captured and successfully released during sampling.

High Knob Lake

Flag Rock Viewing area, overlooking Norton, Va

Flag Rock

Can you see that the streets spell "NORTON?" Yeah, use your imagination!

No news is good news!

Not much new here! Charlotte saw a young bear yesterday while birding- probably a yearling. He was walking around near the road, while lots of coal trucks ran right by him! Yesterday I saw a female turkey and 6 poults (i.e., baby turkeys). I wish I was quick enough to snap a picture, but I flushed them up out of the field and they were gone in a flash.

Birding is going well, it has been hot and dry here for the past week- but the amphibians are in need of some rain! We've got about 3.5 weeks left of birding, after which the breeding season will be functionally over and territories start to break up. Once birds are finished breeding, their detection by song becomes very unreliable, so surveying must be completed by then. The amphibian work could continue through September if the weather stays fairly wet. When it's hot and dry, salamanders are pretty much hanging out underground, and wouldn't be detected in our surveys.

Well, that's about it! More pictures to come soon:)

Coal is loaded up and ready to go!

One of my sites, Wildcat Spur. The grassy area in front was mined- it used to be similar to the surrounding mountains. Currently it is being grazed by cattle.

Coming in to get a closer look (and probably lick the vehicle).

Some Texas Longhorns enjoying the reclaimed grassland.

Longhorn, up close and personal.

Natural Tunnel State Park

Today we took a little recreational trip down to Natural Tunnel State Park in Duffield, Va. It was pretty neat!

Some info about the tunnel from Natural Tunnel State Park website (http://www.dcr.virginia.gov/state_parks/nat.shtml):

Natural Tunnel, called the "Eighth Wonder of the World" by William Jennings Bryan, has been attracting sightseers to the mountains of southwestern Virginia for more than 100 years. Today it is the focal point of Natural Tunnel State Park, a park which offers visitors not only spectacular sights but also swimming, camping, picnicking, hiking, a visitor center, an amphitheater and interpretive programs.

The creation of Natural Tunnel began more than a million years ago in the early glacial period when groundwater bearing carbonic acid percolated through crevices and slowly dissolved surrounding limestone and dolomite bedrock. Then, what is now Stock Creek was probably diverted underground to continue carving the tunnel slowly over many centuries. The walls of the tunnel show evidence of prehistoric life, and many fossils can be found in the creek bed and on tunnel walls.

See the pictures below!

The Natural Tunnel from above.

From above again.

You can see the ski lift along the edge of the cliff. We took this down to see the tunnel up close.

The tunnel observation area.

Venomous things and other tales

Hello blog readers-

I thought I would provide some more pics for you today (see below). The cicadas are cooking, and so are we, as a matter of fact. It is 97 down here today, which is incredibly warm for the Central Appalachians. We are expecting temperatures in the 90s for the next 5 days!

So I am sure you are wondering about the venomous things as indicated by the title. I had two close calls in the venomous category recently. Well yesterday I was just inches from stepping on a copperhead snake at one of my sites! I am lucky that I saw him and could stumble backwards in time! Really, I think he just startled me more than actually being a threat. Very pretty snake, although this time I didn't stick around to get a picture. I was walking in very tall grass (almost as tall as me now, because of all the rain), so I proceeded for the rest of the morning with extreme caution (probably a bit too much caution, as it took me forever to finish my route).

My second poisionous experience was with this catepillar that has a pretty serious bite. Chris got tagged by one last year and he said it hurt pretty badly, plus the bite swelled up a bit (kind of looked like a beesting). I grabbed onto a tree to help step down a steep area, and then realized that my hand was right next to this thing on the tree trunk.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet. Today we did some habitat work in a clearcut, which is the worst possible thing anyone could do with all the briars and thick vegetation! We only got one plot done because they take so long, and you end up coming out with tons of scratches. Plus it was really hot out there today with no shade!

Slimy salamander, Plethodon glutinosus, found under a coverboard.

Picture perfect coyote track (the GPS is about 5 in. long).

Eastern box turtle, Terrapene carolina.

The cows must have tipped over their water bucket...

And look what was inside!

The 17-year cicada has emerged!

So today was the first day that we noticed this deafening trill while we were birding this morning. "Seems kind of early for cicadas," I said. Well believe it or not, 2008 is the 17-year cicada emergence year in the East. Yup their life cycle is SEVENTEEN years long. And of course their mass emergence is tied to my second field season. Hopefully they don't get any louder because we won't be able to hear the birds! Watch out, Brood XIV is back (and hasn't been here since 1991)!

For more info and pictures: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magicicada

The promised pictures...finally!

Well, we now have internet after 24 days in the field. Hopefully now we can keep a better eye on the weather and save me the aggravation of driving for 2 hours beginning and 4am and arriving to a site on which it happens to be RAINING.

Not much is new- we had our first weekend off this past weekend after 21 days of work. We traveled to Blacksburg to take care of some things there. It was certainly nice to have a break, but really hard to get back to work early this morning! I am hoping that since June has arrived we will see some sunny skies and warm days after this long in the field. This week is the Virginia-Kentucky District Fair in Wise, so we'll be attending tomorrow afternoon! I'll be seeing Bucky Covington perform in the evening.

Hope you enjoy the pictures- I've got to catch up! As always, feel free to post questions or comments on any of the blogs. I'll be sure to stay more current now!

Powell River Project- Virginia strip mining at its best.

The field house at Powell River. And our trusty X-terra.

The "trusty" X-terra. I don't really like driving it- the Jeep was way better!



Cows + X-terra before...


X-terra after. A new meaning of "cowlick." Can't explain why they do this!

A beautiful wild orchid.