Day 9

Well today we had our first inevitable black bear encounter (and second, and third?). This is our story.

So we left the house at 4:30 to get on the site to start birding at 6am. We stopped the jeep on the road and walked about 100 yards up a forested hill to the first bird sampling point. When we came back to the car about 10 minutes later, there was a pretty decent sized male bear in the road ahead. I think we startled him a bit, and he ran a bit, then turned and looked at us. He ended up just sauntering away, deciding that we weren't too menacing.

So what about the second encounter? Well...Lupita and I dropped Chris off at his first sampling point and continued driving down the road. Little did we know a large momma bear and two cubs were right over the slope of the hill where we dropped him off (we literally drove right by them!). Chris said he was nervous about being between the cubs and mother, but it turns out they all took off when they saw him.

And third? Well kinda. Lupita and I drove down the road to our next point, and who do we see? Mr. male bear again munching on some greenery not too far from our first plot. We must have caught him earlier on his trip out of the forest and into the reclaimed mine. They really must like all the vegetation and berries they can find there, and obviously we're likely to run into them since we're there at dawn when they are active. He didn't seem to mind us there though, we got out of the car and were looking at him and obviously making some noise, but he continued eating away. I kept an eye on him while Lupita did the bird survey to make sure he didn't come over and surprise us!

So today was bear day (although we did see alot of birds too!). Tomorrow will be our first day off since we've been down here. Not sure what I'll end up doing, hopefully something fun and also getting some much needed sleep.

I did get some pics of the bear for those of you who are wondering! I am working on setting up the high speed internet, then hopefully I can post them!

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.

Day 5

So today was our first day of sampling. When I say sampling, I mean we go to points that I have selected previously because of their cover type or age, and we look and listen for birds. The hardest part is moving between sites (and of course remembering all the bird songs!). So overall, today went pretty well. We were all dragging when we woke up this morning. It's certainly hard to be functional at 5am! We saw quite a few birds and were only unable to identify a few. We also saw some huge bear poop! Hope we don't run into that guy any time soon. This afternoon we did some vegetation data collection on some plots in the areas we sampled. We see what kinds of trees and shrubs are there and what the cover is like on each site. It takes some time to get good at it, but we did pretty well.

So tomorrow we'll go out for birds again tomorrow. Then we need to head back to Blacksburg and pick up some coverboards that weren't ready when I left last week. Coverboards are rough-sawn pieces of wood that provide artifical cover for salamanders (and typically make them a bit easier to find).

More to come later!

Day 3

Hello friends-

I apologize that I haven't written sooner- we are still without internet at our field house! We're all pretty bummed since we wanted to stay in touch with many people (but hopefully it will be hooked up soon?). So for those of you who don't know, I should fill you in about what I'm doing. Here it is in a nutshell:

I am living in Wise, Virginia (10 miles from the eastern Kentucky border) and working on two sites that have formerly (and are currently) being mined for coal. I have two assistants working with me from Virginia Tech- Lupita, another graduate student from Mexico, and Chris a wildlife undergraduate student. Basically I will spend this summer and next summer looking at wildlife communities on these sites after they have been through the required reclamation process under law. We will be looking at different types of reclamation type (e.g., forestland vs. grassland), age since reclamation, and vegetation cover composition and structure. Now for the wildlife part- we'll be sampling birds, salamanders, and frogs on most of these sites to find out what species are there and how many.

So that's it. Sounds easy, right? haha. I dare you to get up at 4am everyday to be out on the sites at sunrise to count birds. Or to memorize a hundred or so common bird songs. Or to stumble around in the dark while it's pouring rain searching for salamanders. So wildlife research isn't for the faint of hearted. Not a surprise.

I really hate ticks! I've rarely ever found one on me, but myself and my field assistants have been pulling them off us left and right. The areas where we work are very rocky with tall grass, perfect for little buggers like ticks and poisonous snakes! Fun stuff.

Our field house isn't too bad at all. We are staying on the campus of the University of Virginia's College at Wise, a smaller satelite campus of the larger UVa. The house is close to campus, has 3 bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, and a nice yard (it's supposed to have internet!). I also am using a vehicle from Enterprise as our field vehicle (since VT didn't have any 4-wheel drive available). So we got a 2007 Jeep Liberty- really nice! I feel badly that we have to get it so dirty and put so many miles on it. She'll be well broken in when we turn her back in August.

So the past few days have been spent getting settled in the house, marking out plots for sampling, and practicing our birding skills together. We will get to start officially sampling in a day or two! Unfortunately, the birds don't get many days off, so neither do we! Busy busy busy.

Things have been really stressful (since apparently, I am the one in charge?), but it's going alright thusfar. Well, I will write more later- I'm having some trouble posting pictures, but I'll try to get some up soon. Peace-