My First BCVI Nest(s)!

I’m happy to report that this was a really good week, or at least that every day had something awesome happen, starting pretty much from when I left Starbucks last Thursday.

On the way home from Round Rock, I was driving on the freeway and saw what looked like a bunch of exhaust billowing off the road a ways ahead of me and thought “man, someone needs a smog check”. When I got closer I realized the cloud was moving, and then I saw several more clouds off in the distance. Turns out they were clouds of BATS! I don’t mean there were like 20 bats… there were THOUSANDS of them! I immediately took the next exit and found my way back over to where they were coming from. I parked in some random mechanic parking lot and walked to the street corner to take pictures of all of the bats that were flying out from under the freeway underpass. (I was definitely that random tourist standing on the street corner taking pictures in some random industrial area.) I had heard of the “bat bridge” in Austin, but I remember it being over water. Apparently there are other bat bridges, just not as populated as the water one. I can’t imagine how crowded that one must get because the one I was at was crazy! More and more bats just kept pouring out from under the bridge. I don’t know how much a million actually is, but I feel like there were a million bats. These pictures absolutely do not do it justice, but it’s something…

Friday I went to Hickory Ridge (the place I went on my first real day in the field) by myself. That was a really good field day, even though I didn’t find any new nests. First off, it was SUPER foggy in the morning which kept the temperature down all day. It also made driving around the property some kind of creepy adventure, particularly because there were now cows on the property, so I rounded a corner and then out of nowhere six cows appeared on the road in front of me! They were super cute a friendly, and they came up to the car to figure out what I was doing. Unfortunately they also stopped right in front of the car in the one area where there wasn’t room to drive off the path and go around them. I took some pictures and listened to them moo, but then I had to start inching closer and honking to get them off the road. Super cute, though, and a nice way to start the day :)

Besides the cows, I managed to find and follow three different BCVI couples that day – finding a couple is good because the females will hopefully lead you back to their nest, either with food or nesting material. Unfortunately none of the females did that that day, but it was still nice to be able to follow them and get re-sights on everyone. They were all moving very slowly over short distances, so they were easy to follow. There was one couple that I thought might give away some secrets about where their nest was – they started shradding (making short, angry calls instead of nice, melodic sounds), which usually happens when you are too close to their nest. Unfortunately, just after I started looking around in the shrubs next to me, I looked through and saw something HUGE moving on the other side – the cows were wandering through the territory I was in! There were about a dozen of them, so I had no idea who the birds were actually shradding at. I was sad that I didn’t find the nest, but it was a pretty comical situation, so it was okay in my book.

(I really like cows... can you tell??)

Saturday was exciting because of the storm that hit in the early afternoon. The morning was rough – I did point counts with Marisa (each point is 400m from the next point in a grid pattern, and we did 16 points… that’s a lot of walking) plus territory mapping, and it was a warm day (I fear what July will bring). We were doing some of our last territories when the rain clouds started moving. Matt, who was also on the property, was heading to his last nest check when a HUGE bolt of lightning struck in the direction that he was going. Marisa told him to skip it and go to the car instead of getting closer. The funny thing was that I WAS CLOSER. I was on the top of some hill and it struck pretty close by, because the lightning and thunder were right on top of each other and the whole sky lit up with that one flash. Marisa told me to forget the territory mapping and get to the car too, which sounds really easy except that I was in the middle of the thickest understory that I’ve had to work in. There were dead juniper branches intertwined with thorny vines and poison ivy. Somehow the desire to get as far away from that hill kicked in, and I managed to blast my way through everything (minimal rips in my clothes and skin) and get to the car (which was half a kilometer away) just as it started to seriously rain. Phew! That storm was timed perfectly because Marisa and I each had another couple hours of work (and it was already 2pm – the time we would get home on a really good day). However, we still had to do nest checks on another property, so Marisa had us wait in the car outside the property for a break in the rain. We only waited 20 minutes, and then we dashed out to get our nests done. I think we only got half of them done before the lightning came our way again and we had to bolt to the car. We didn’t end up getting home until after 4pm, which is a crazy long day considering that we leave at 6:30am and are on our feet the entire time. At least it was an exciting way to end the day!

Animal blind on one of the properties (hunter sits in the seat up top) - very crafty!

I don’t actually remember much of Sunday, but that night was our Mexican-themed group dinner! Michaela made enchiladas, Marisa made guacamole and mango salad, Matt made rice and some kind of bean and bell pepper stir-fry, Chelsea had taco basics, and I made Mexican caramel sundaes for dessert. It was super yummy, and the first thing we’ve done as a group. It was kind of in honor of Matt’s last days at Balcones – yesterday was his day off, and this morning he left for Oklahoma.

Rock quarry on Younquist property

The four nestlings in my first nest!

Yesterday was a really good day – I found my first (and second) BCVI nests!!! Chelsea and I were working on Simons, which is a really nice property. The first territory I went to had a TON of birds, which was nice because I got to see a bunch of different species, but annoying because it made it way harder to pick out my bird’s song among the racket. A bit later I went to an area known as “the clump” because the shrubs tower over you and are more densely packed than any other territory I’ve been in. There are not pathways between them, but rather crawlspaces below them… if you’re lucky. Apparently every year all the birds try and grab some space in the clump, so this year there are about six BCVI territories in an area that might be enough for only one or two territories in a less densely-packed area. The first bird I tried to follow liked hanging out in the middle of the clump, so after a little while I decided to go in after him. Big mistake. I got five meters in before being trapped on all sides by thorny vines. Every part of me was being held in place by some dang vine. All of the effort to get unstuck pretty much scared off any bird nearby, so there was no hope of seeing mine. I gave the second bird a lot more space and mostly wandered the outside of the clump. Since I couldn’t see him, and he was being relatively quiet, I lost him pretty quickly. After not hearing him for a good 20 minutes, I pretty much gave up and was ready to call that territory quits. I was on my way to my last territory (in a more open area) when I heard the second guy again and was able to follow him for a little while. I got to a spot between two giant shrubs when he started shradding nearby, and then flew over to a branch a couple meters away to shrad AT me. Bingo! I HAD to be close to a nest! I was crawling on my hands and knees for a good ten minutes with him shradding at me the entire time before I finally found the nest (in a completely different tree). I WAS SO HAPPY!! I walked around to check the contents and saw the female sitting in it, and she would NOT move. I got within a half meter of her before she finally flew off, and that’s when I saw four nestlings inside!! My first nest AND my first nestlings!!! BOOYAH!!! That was super exciting and I was walking on air for a good half hour. Yay :D (Turns out that finding a new nest means a lot of paperwork, so enjoy the feeling in the field because it’s kind of annoying when you get back home :P )

My day got even better when I went to my next territory in the south part of the property – I wasn’t in the territory for more than two minutes before hearing my male, looking up and seeing he was with a female, getting re-sights on both of them, watching the male forage for a worm, following the pair to one… two… three different trees, and seeing the female drop to one of the lower branches in the third tree, putter around for a minute, and then fly off with the male. I went over to check out what she was messing with and saw a clump of spider webs on a branch! I know, I know – spider webs, big deal. You’ve probably got more in your house than there were on that branch (no offense, I’m sure you have a very clean house). But the female returned two more times with more webs, and I could see her arranging them with her beak. That is totally the start of a nest if I ever saw one! Usually we find nests that are >30% complete, as in they have the basic nest shape but need more material for structural integrity. This was so incomplete that she must have started it no more than a few hours beforehand. I won’t be surprised if she doesn’t end up building a nest there (BCVIs sometimes build a nest in one location, decide it’s not right, take that nest apart and build a new one in a different location), but it was still exciting to discover!

Female BCVI in her nest

The last wild thing of the day was the snake I nearly ran into. It was towards the end of the day and I was wandering around doing nest checks, crossing a flat, rocky area when this gigantic, tan snake starts moving out of nowhere a couple meters in front of me. I have seen many snakes, both captive and wild, but this was the biggest (and fastest) wild snake I’ve ever seen. It was at least 1.5m long and it took OFF! Have you ever seen a snake really move? Caged snakes don’t have anywhere to go, and the snake that I saw on the ground last week just sat there. This guy could MOVE. He took off so fast I nearly choked on my heart. A small part of me thought “well I saw where he went… I could follow him and try to get a picture” while the rest of me could barely move, let alone think. I told Chelsea about it and, with the help of her herpetology book, she is pretty sure I saw a Lined Snake. Not venomous or anything, but big and fast. Field work definitely keeps me on my toes!

Last night it was just Matt, Chelsea and me at the house – Michaela and Marisa were at the university. We celebrated Matt’s last night by eating leftover Mexican food, watching whatever channels we could get on TV, and staring out at the giant thunderstorm moving in. Yesterday will be a hard day to beat!

First "Week" in the Field

I survived my first week (and a bit) at the field house! And what a hectic and crowded time it was. Saturday (4/13) I dropped my mom off at the airport and then went back to the house (Flying X Ranch). There is an older couple (some volunteers) staying in a trailer next to the house. They both came out when I pulled up, introduced themselves, and offered to help me carry things into the house. Very nice couple. Chelsea, another research assistant, was the only one home, so we chatted as I unpacked in our room upstairs. She told me about the Bluebonnet Festival that was going on in Burnet (that’s BURN-et, not bur-NET… we were definitely corrected by several Texans), so later that evening we went with Marisa, one of the grad students leading the research.

Our field house! My window is on the 2nd story, facing the sun.

Our backyard!

My corner of the room - note the antlers under my bed that I found on my first day.

The festival was really cool – there were carnival rides, booths with trinkets and whatnot, and food. We grabbed dinner and, due to a lack of seating, sat at a picnic table with an older couple. Once we told him we were all from out of state, he went on and on about how great Texas is and how many things there are to do here. Really friendly guy, and really chatty, up until his wife dragged him away to see the rest of the festival. After finishing dinner (a pizza), I grabbed a dessert consisting of a bucket of lemonade and a fried snickers, which I split with Chelsea (good thing because I could already feel my arteries clogging). Then we drove to where they were hosting a demolition derby! That was exciting because it was my (and Marisa’s) first demo derby, but there were only four cars so it wasn’t *amazing* (all the regular spectators were pissed because apparently last year there were ten cars). One interesting thing that I saw was how Texans (or at least the guy at that derby) do the national anthem – before they actually sing the anthem (and EVERYONE sings), the announcer gives a spiel about America, freedom, peace, etc. It was kind of weird at first, but also kind of cool how much patriotism and pride everyone has. I feel like you don’t find that very much in other areas. I definitely haven’t seen that in California. Another interesting thing that I saw – the Texans in front of me were making fun of the southern accents on some passing spectators. I’ll just leave it at that.

So that was my first night at my field house – small town festival, bucket of lemonade, fried snickers, bought some jerky, and went to a demolition derby. Hello, Texas!

The next day I met more people who had shown up overnight – Brianna (another field tech, who was actually sleeping in the third bed in our room when we got back from the festival), Ronnisha (another grad student who is based in Kerr Wildlife Management Area), Matt (the last field tech – he got in late and didn’t want to have to figure out where to sleep so he slept outside in his sleeping bag; someone leaving early the next morning was given the warning to not hit “that guy sleeping in the driveway”), and then Michaela and Diane (grad students) who I had met briefly on Friday. We spent the morning chatting about work we’ve done and random other stuff, and then Chelsea and I went back to the festival with Brianna so we could watch the wiener dog races! I did not know that so many people in such a small town would own wiener dogs. I also got another bucket of lemonade, tried my first pork rinds, and bought a cowboy hat!

Monday (4/15) was our first day of training, and it started off with a big breakfast prepared by the grad students! There were pancakes, biscuits, fruit salad, eggs, bacon, and orange juice – so delicious! We spent a while learning about the house rules, research objectives, the birds we’d be studying, field equipment we’d be using, etc. After lunch all of the grad students had to drive to Texas A&M for their one weekly class (which sucks for them because it’s a 2.5 hour drive to the university), so Ashley, a PhD candidate who supervises the research, took over the training by taking us on a field trip! We went in a restricted area past some kind of nature overlook, but didn’t exactly hear our birds on that trip. We got stopped by a Fish & Wildlife Ranger who saw our “abandoned vehicle” in the parking lot, though! He kindly escorted us back to our vehicle (hand on taser, because five people wielding binoculars is terrifying, apparently) to check that we had the proper paperwork authorizing us to be in restricted areas. We found out where all of that paperwork is kept, so I guess that was still a learning experience. After that we went back to the house, ate dinner, listened to bird calls, and met Drew (she was a field tech on this project last summer and is back to lead the research at the site in Oklahoma).

Tuesday was another day of training, but without a fancy breakfast. We went over all the different protocols and practiced territory mapping, nest searching, re-sighting banded birds, and setting up nest cameras. Territory mapping is where you find a bird and record its location over some amount of time to determine the areas it is using. Our protocol is to take 30 minutes upon entering a territory to hear/see a bird. If no birds are detected in that time, you move on to the next territory and it is a “no detection”. If at any point during those 30 minutes you detect a bird, that’s when you start a new, hour-long timer for how long you have to map the bird’s territory by taking GPS points of its location every 2 minutes (when you actually know where the bird is). So an individual mapping could take anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours.

Black-capped vireo nest

Nest searching is what it sounds like – go find a nest! Conveniently they had some nests from last season that they were able to hide in the shrubs near the house for us to find. It wasn’t like there were three shrubs to choose from – it was a 100x100m plot with “shrubs” taller than people. Needless to say it took awhile… even with the help of foil-wrapped chocolates inside! Real eggs are cool, but if these birds were laying Cadbury Crème Eggs, I might be extra inclined to find some nests…

Re-sighting birds is simple enough in theory – some birds have colored bands on their legs (up to two per leg), and some don’t. You just have to get a look at their legs and see if the bird is banded, and if so, what the color combination is (order matters – left top, left bottom, right top, right bottom). It gets trickier when you consider that these bands are basically on toothpicks that keep turning in place (don’t confuse left and right!) and hopping around through thick shrubs or tall trees, right in front of the sun or hidden behind leaves.

The nest cameras were pretty easy, except for the fact that they are just as finicky here as they were in the jungle. Everything might be plugged in right, but then it turns out your battery is dead, or the wires were chewed through by some animal, or for some reason you just need to unplug and re-plug everything… it’s something new every time. Fortunately we won’t be dealing with nest cameras for a little while though (I think).

Tuesday night there were a lot of people coming and going – a couple of women (the supervisors on the whole project, I think) showed up to help out on Wednesday, and Ronnisha, Drew, and Brianna moved to the Kerr. So here’s the deal with our locations – there are three main sites for this project: Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge (the central location, NE of Austin), Kerr WMA (outside of San Antonio), and a third location in Oklahoma (I don’t even know the name, we just all say Oklahoma). Marisa and Michaela are the grad students based at Balcones, Ronnisha is the grad student based at the Kerr, and Drew came back for the summer to lead work at the Oklahoma site. It sounds like Ashley and Diane will be bouncing between the three sites all summer as needed. So one of us techs (Brianna) will be at the Kerr, two (me and Chelsea) will stay at Balcones, and one (Matt) will go to Oklahoma. We have no idea how they decided who would go where, or if we’ll be switching at some point during the summer. We’ve heard conflicting things about how we would rotate locations throughout, but also that we might only have week-long trades (which seems like a pain). We’ll see what happens.

Wednesday was our first official day of work! We were up at 6:00, ready to leave by 6:40 (that’s an extra hour of sleep compared to TRC!). I spent the day with Marisa at a property called Hickory Ridge, which only has black-capped vireos (BCVIs). We had about seven territories to check out that day. It was a pretty overwhelming day because we learned everything individually in training but we had to put it all together in the field. It was a tad difficult to record GPS points every 2 minutes WHILE keeping an eye on the bird(s) WHILE writing things in your notebook. Plus, having a second person there (we usually do all of this on our own, but we each had a grad student with us on the first day) actually made it more difficult because we weren’t sure who was supposed to be doing/recording what. I’m happy to report that it was really just the first day that felt like complete mayhem.

The walk to one of the territories - pretty happy with my commute.

The interesting part of that day was when we got lost on the property. I’m not talking about wandering around in the wilderness with no compass or anything… we were in the Jeep following what we thought was the only road. Marisa must have taken a wrong turn somewhere because we found ourselves going down a rocky cliff. Maybe not a cliff, but a path steep enough that you couldn’t actually see the road you were about to drive down from the top. Marisa decided to go for it, but then couldn’t actually get the Jeep back up it when we realized we had gone too far. So we continued on, encountering more and more forks until we hit another similarly-steep hill, at which point she called someone affiliated with the property to get us directions out of there (something I’m not used to – needing directions out of someone’s back yard). To give you an idea of how lost we were, we got home 1.5 hours after we should have. Good first-day experience! That night we also found out that we’d be getting our first day off a bit earlier than anticipated due to thunderstorms predicted for the next morning. So we had two days of training, one day in the field, and then a day off. Nothing like working hard at a new job! I think Ashley and Diane left that night, which put us down to five in the house – Marisa, Michaela, Chelsea, Matt, and me.

Thursday I slept in until 6:45 (woo!) but didn’t get my butt out the door until 11:00. I had to complete several online training courses required by Texas A&M, but because that would be “data intensive” (come on, guys, the training is not going to be any more interesting with your completely unnecessary use of Flash), I had to go into town and use the free Wi-Fi at Starbucks. Unfortunately the training took about three hours, and THEN I did my own things, so I was there for about five hours that afternoon. Now, I’ve spent a lot of time at different coffee shops over the years, but never have I seen so many cowboys in a Starbucks before. Seriously – every other person was wearing a cowboy hat! The four guys at the table next to me were all wearing cowboy hats, boots, talking about diesel in their pick-ups… and drinking Starbucks coffee. That was super weird. Texas, you never stop surprising me.

Friday I went to a territory with Michaela that had both BCVIs and golden-cheeked warblers (GCWAs). BCVI territories are nice because they nest in shrubs and it’s usually pretty easy to walk between the shrubs (not always). GCWA territories are more challenging because they nest in tall trees that seem to all have scraggly low-hanging branches which will rip your skin to pieces. There are obviously other benefits/drawbacks to each type of bird/territory, but that’s the general picture. At one point Michaela radioed me to have me help her follow a GCWA. She was only about 250m away, so I thought, “perfect, I’ll be there in a couple minutes”. TWENTY FIVE MINUTES LATER I found myself stuck in a scraggly-tree-and-thorny-vine-filled ravine, feeling like Frodo when he was caught in Shelob’s web in The Return of the King. Every time I tried to move forward I could feel that another part of me was caught in something. I kept checking my progress on my GPS, happy that I was slowly getting closer… and then Michaela updated her location and had somehow moved 150m further away. Great.

BCVI territory (shrubs over 6ft, but pathways between)

GCWA territory... and this section didn't even have the thorny vines.

This was my first day in GCWA territory. Not too bad, but considering that's a daily thing, even through my pants, it's not great.

That trek was worth it, though, because when I finally got to Michaela I managed to spot a female GCWA by sheer coincidence. We couldn’t hear any GCWAs in the area, so I looked down to put my notebook in my pocket. When I looked up, the female landed on a branch about 3m in front of my face in direct sunlight (that was a National Geographic worthy pose), looked at me for a few seconds, pulled some bark off of the tree trunk (nest material), and then flew off. That was awesome, and Michaela found her nest within 10 minutes, so that was even more awesome. Other highlights of the day: saw 6 deer, a gang of wild turkeys, and a hunting blind made out of an old car body.

Saturday was a particularly terrible morning because of the thick understory I had to navigate through. I feel like I lost a significant amount of hair that day and I came home with sticks in every pocket. I don’t mind getting scratched now and then, but when the branches are so dense that you can’t move through it, it makes it really difficult to keep track of the birds. I did get a full re-sight on a bird, though, so that was cool.

Pulled this out of my hair after the fourth grooming.

 

Sunday was our first day of point counts for the month (I think we have 3-5 days of point counts every month). I went out with Marisa, and between points we would map any territories we passed through. During training I had been warned about wild hogs in the area, but I just thought, “what’s wrong with a cute little pig?” I kept imagining something along the lines of Babe wandering through the trees. Shoot, if Babe had wandered by I’d have stopped mapping territories in a heartbeat to play with and cuddle him. Turns out wild hogs are not like Babe – they can weigh over 200 lbs and will get pissed if you get between them and their babies. I still stopped mapping in a heartbeat because I heard what can best be described as a low growling coming from the shadows 10m away (my first thought was a bear). In fact I nearly wet myself before bolting in the complete opposite direction. Turns out you can blast through the understory pretty well when you think there is an angry, gigantic hog chasing you down!

Snake in my path - and I didn't drive over this one!

Monday (4/22) was a really good day, but first a little more background – in addition to the three main sites that we are collectively located at, there is a fourth called Possum Kingdom (about three hours from Balcones). There is not a permanent team living at PK, but instead a couple people from certain sites will go there for one or two nights per month to do point counts and a bit of territory mapping. Matt and Chelsea were picked to go on the first trip, so Ashley, Diane, and Drew stopped by around 3pm Monday afternoon to pick them up. Remember that Mondays are also when the grad students have class, so they left the house around noon. That meant that after 3pm I had the house to myself (until about 10pm)! That was really strange after having up to 12 people around the previous week, but it was nice (and will probably never happen again). Yes, so because Matt and Chelsea had to be ready to go by 3pm with their data from the morning already entered in the computer, we had to work fast that day and cut corners when possible. We ended up getting home by 2pm, which was so much nicer than our usual 3-4pm (especially when you consider that we’re literally on our feet that entire time, starting at 7am).

Checking a BCVI nest with a nest mirror

Tuesday was another good day of work, partly due to light rain in the morning. None of the birds were out because of the weather, so all of us had no detections for our first couple of territories (not great from the data point of view, but nice from the labor side). Things cleared up in the afternoon, though, so I got a couple of re-sights on the guys that did venture out, and I checked a nest that had four eggs in it! On the way home we also stopped to check out a caracara nest on the property. Caracaras are among the smaller birds of prey, but they seemed huge compared to the BCVIs and GCWAs that we follow every day. Pretty cool that there’s a nest right there! The morning of no detections meant that we finished pretty early and were home by 2:30, which was really nice. The group from PK got back by 3:30, about 4 hours earlier than expected, because there were really high winds at the site (can’t hear birds during point counts), so they called it and came home. Too bad considering what a trek it is to get out there.

 

Wednesday was FREEZING (maybe not actually, but the morning definitely started in the 30s). It wasn’t raining or anything, but it was so cold that most of the birds weren’t out (which was good considering I couldn’t feel my hands and therefore probably couldn’t write very well). So much of my time that morning was spent finding patches of sun through the trees to stand in. That day we also had Ashley and Diane helping out with point counts, so I think we got a lot accomplished. That evening Chelsea and I got dressed up and went out to dinner in Marble Falls. Conveniently enough one of the work vehicles needed gas, so we got to take that into town rather than our own cars. I definitely need to plan my trips into town based on the refueling of the Jeeps…

That brings me to TODAY! Today is my (and Chelsea’s) day off. It’s not a particularly beautiful day, so we didn’t really want to go to a park or anything (plus, we spend almost 50 hours wandering around in the wilderness every week… spending my free time doing the same thing does not sound particularly appealing at the moment). Instead I turned this into chore day – went to REI for some gloves for those cold mornings (Did you know that they have gloves that are technology compatible, as in special thumb and fore-finger tips that enable you to use your touch screen devices? Nifty…), IKEA (did not actually plan on buying anything (did anyway), but I just drove an hour to get to this town and it was right next to REI), Barnes & Noble, Starbucks (internet, of course), and then grocery shopping after this. And when I get home I plan on getting in my PJs and watching Dexter all night – turns out Chelsea brought 50+ movies and all of Dexter with her. Hooray! I’ve only seen a few episodes of Dexter (something like the last episodes of season 7), so I get to start from the beginning. Definitely creeped my out last night after realizing our house is miles away from the neighbors with plenty of unused land, perfect for disposing of bodies… *shudder*.

BOOYAH! All caught up. Since I’ll probably be going into town at least once a week (groceries or whatnot), I’ll try to have updates ready so I can post them quickly at Starbucks. Until next time!

Here's the deal...

I probably should have posted this a week ago, but better late than never! I'm here at my field house where there is no wifi (at least not for non-work, or data-intensive things), but I am using the magic that is 4G on my phone. If we want to use the Internet for those things, we have to drive to the nearest library/Starbucks, which are a 30 minute drive away. Since I have my own data limits (and would hate to write posts with my thumbs), my plan is to write up my posts on my laptop during the week and then go to town on my day off for Internet, groceries, etc. Fortunately my next day off is Thursday, so I'll have my next (real) post up sometime that day. And maybe I'll make random posts on my phone if something particularly awesome happens!

So hold on, Doreen, just a couple more days!

Crossing the Southwest

Tuesday we drove from Las Cruces to Carlsbad, with a stop at White Sands National Monument. White Sands has endless rolling dunes of perfectly white gypsum sand. It was kind of crazy how white everything was. That day was especially white because it was cloudy and overcast, so even the sky was white/gray. It was also incredibly windy so there was a lot of sand blowing over the tops of the dunes, which meant that they kind of blended in with the sky. Even with sunglasses on it was blindingly bright, so sometimes it was hard to tell if you were about to head up a dune or down one – there was just absolutely no perspective!

So hard to tell what was dune and what was sky!

The fast dunes can move up to something like 30 ft / year.

Close up of the ground - streaked from all the wind.

We rented a “sled” from the gift shop and went sledding down some of the dunes. That was hilarious because it meant that we had to climb up the dunes. I think I did pretty well – there was a lot of what seemed like walking in place as the dune kept collapsing under my feet, but I always made it up. My mom, on the other hand, had a bit more difficulty. At one point I look back and see her trying to crawl up on her hands and feet while laughing about how she wasn’t getting anywhere. Then she rolled onto her back and decided she would let the dune slowly move her down rather than use the sled. Eventually she made it to the top and sledded like a champ, so that was good.

After that we drove the rest of the way to Carlsbad, passing through some quaint little town on top of some mountain – some SNOWY mountain! While heading up I noticed that some of the cars in the other direction were covered in snow, and then it started snowing! Totally unexpected in the middle of New Mexico, but I suppose we were at something like 7,000 feet of elevation. It was funny because some of the snow covered hills looked *exactly* like the white sand dunes from earlier. That was definitely a nice surprise in the middle of a monotonous drive.

Oh, and the quote of the day was on our way to White Sands-

Me: “Speed reduced ahead.”

Mom: “To 65? That means I have to speed up!”

Does that give you a better idea of her driving habits??

Wednesday we left for Carlsbad Caverns. It was a brisk 41 degrees when we left the hotel and it didn’t get much warmer than that all day, so we practically ran into the cavern just to get somewhere warmer. We opted to take the scenic walk into the cavern instead of taking the elevator straight down, and it was absolutely amazing watching this gigantic system of rooms open up before us. It turns out that the caverns are something that you need to enjoy in person. I took over 200 pictures but couldn’t figure out the correct orientation of a third of them after looking at them on my computer. The lighting is also terrible for taking a picture of an entire room, but the sights are incredible in person. Despite these obstacles, here are just a few of the pictures that I have:

The winding path into the natural cave entrance.

Stalactites (hanging from ceiling) and stalagmites (growing from ground)!

Fortunately for us it was pretty empty that day (we even had a good 30 seconds of actual cave silence because no one else was nearby). A ranger told us that the busiest times are July 4^th and spring break, which was a couple weeks ago. The sucky thing for spring break visitors was that they were/are in the process of fixing/remodeling the large elevators, so they only have two tiny ones operating (each one can maybe fit ten people). With the huge crowds and the lack of large elevators, the ranger said that there was up to a two-hour wait to take the elevator back to the top. Jesus! Can you imagine having to sit around in a cave for two hours (after already wandering around for three) waiting in a line to see daylight again? Though, there is a gift shop, snack shack, and (surprisingly nice) bathrooms underground (which is just a very strange sight), so it’s a somewhat comfortable wait.

After that we ate a picnic lunch in the car (still too cold to picnic outside). I also caught a glimpse of my first snake on the trip… before accidentally driving over it… in a national park. Some biologist I am! It wasn’t long until we hit the Texas border. To give you an idea of how empty New Mexico/Texas are, I was able to come to a dead stop on the highway so my mom could take a picture of the sign. That is slightly ridiculous, but also awesome because there is no one else on the road! I used to think that the 5 in central California was awesome… I now dread the thought of ever driving on it again. Something else that is driving-related and awesome is that we hit a section that had a speed limit of 80 mph. **80 mph!!!** That’s amazing, and the fastest posted speed limit I’ve ever seen (though apparently other parts of Texas have up to 85). Ironically enough I think my average speed was slower in this section than in the 70mph zones. It felt like some kind of trick so I was nervous!

Last interesting driving thing – we noticed that whenever I got close behind someone or tried to pass them they would pull off the road and into the shoulder (while still maintaining highways speeds). I’m not talking about three feet into the shoulder – these people were full on using it as another lane. And this wasn’t just one person, this was 90% of the drivers… INCLUDING big rigs. Sometimes people coming in the opposite direction would also pull over to their shoulder. The really random thing was that a couple of drivers just chose to drive on the shoulder rather than in the lane (there was one lane in each direction). We asked the guy at our hotel about all the people pulling onto the shoulder and he said that’s what they do to help you pass them – they basically clear the lane so you can go around them more easily! The same goes for people coming in the opposite direction – they just want to give you more room to pass. How awesome is that?! I guess it makes sense considering that every 5 miles there are “Drive Friendly” signs on the road. Anyways, after the guy explained everything, he asked, “don’t y’all do that in California?” to which my mom replied, “ummm, people usually speed up when you try to pass them”. I didn’t think I’d say this, especially not after only two hours, but Texas seems pretty cool.

Thursday we drove to San Antonio, Texas and went to see The Alamo! First we checked in to our hotel and from there walked about 20 feet to the river walk. The river is below street level so there were no cars – only pedestrians and boats. There were a TON of little restaurants and shops along the river, as well as a bunch of trees and ducks and stuff, so it was a beautiful (and shaded) place to wander around. We ate lunch next to the river (and had ducks poking us for food), then wandered back up to street level to get to The Alamo. It was really interesting to see where the old walls stood based on the marks in the current streets, and also the bullet holes (well, not actually bullets, but whatever those little spheres were called that they were shooting) in the walls of the old chapel. There are also parts of the original foundation that are preserved around the plaza, so there’s more to see than just the obvious Alamo chapel.

The Alamo! This was the Old Chapel.

Indication of where the original walls were.

Bullet - or whatever - holes in the side of the chapel!

After that we made our way back to the hotel where we encountered a charming gentleman and his friends. We were standing by my car in the hotel parking lot when a guy turned the corner in his truck and tried pulling into the spot next to mine. He didn’t quite make it in the first time, so he backed up and then hollered out the window, “better look out, I been drinkin’ all day!” Considering that all the signs in Texas say “Drive Friendly” and not “Drive Safely”, he was doing exactly as he was told. Thank you, sir, that *was* quite friendly of you!

Inside the hotel we feasted on a free smorgasbord. Seriously – they have happy hour where they give 3 free drinks per person per night and free “snacks”, which included salad, baked potatoes, hot dogs, chicken tenders, chili, and mac & cheese. So basically it was a free dinner and drinks. Amazing! My mom offered one of her extra drink tickets to the guys at the table next to us. The younger guy hesitated, but the older guy said “sure, we’ll take it!” Then my mom realized that he was the guy from the parking lot earlier! Apparently it made his day that he made my quote list.

Today (Friday) was pretty calm – we checked out and did the river walk one more time, then we drove to my field house in the Balcones Canyonlands Wildlife Refuge! It’s in a really nice area – lots of trees and lots of green. The house is huge, but apparently there will be up to 12 people in it this first week while everyone is getting trained. After training it will clear out a bit as each of us are assigned to one of three sites where we’ll be staying for most of the summer. After chatting with the three girls who were there when I showed up, my mom and I made our way into Austin to get some BBQ and finally check into the hotel. Tomorrow I’m driving my mom to the airport and then going back to the field house to get semi-settled before starting work on Monday!

What a fun road trip this has been!