Armadillo Awesomeness

This week started out full throttle – Monday morning I was sitting around waiting for the others to be ready to go when Ashley mentioned needing to be back early so she could leave by 3pm. I asked where she was going and she said “Possum Kingdom… but aren’t you coming, too?” I had been told we were leaving on Tuesday, but it turns out we were leaving that afternoon! Good thing I pack fast.

Parts of Possum Kingdom State Park burned a few years ago, so we perform point counts there to compare GCWA use of full growth versus burned areas. There are only three trips up there this summer (there were more in spring), so we have one left in a couple weeks. Anyways, Possum Kingdom is beautiful! There is a big lake with campgrounds, hiking trails, and boating areas. Plus, we went on a Monday so the park was pretty empty.

We left Balcones as soon as Ronnisha and Brianna showed up from the Kerr, and then it was a four-hour drive to PK. The drive wasn’t bad – we stopped for gas at the sketchiest little mom and pop gas “station” (options are pretty limited when you wait for the gas light to come on…). We also nerded out when Ashley saw some cool birds in a pond by the road. Fortunately country roads in Texas have minimal traffic, so Ashley was able to just turn around and park on the shoulder. We sat there for a good 15 minutes passing binoculars around the car and check out the phalaropes in the pond. Phalaropes are pretty cool because they swim in tight circles to make a little whirlpool that pulls food up from the bottom of the lake or wherever it is they are. Crafty little guys! Not long after the phalaropes we passed a hawk on a fencepost… and then another… and another… and then we saw a whole field of hawks! It was crazy – there had to be at least 20 hawks of several different species. We think they were grounded because of a low pressure system. Ashley turned around and parked again so we could pass the binoculars and identify them with the help of Ashley’s birding app. Driving around with birders is fun! Most people might see a cool bird on the side of the road and keep on driving, but birders (or at least Ashley) will say “WAS THAT A ___? WE’RE GOING BACK” and then turn the car around to get a better view. When we finally got to PK we pitched our tents, ate dinner, figured out the plan for the next day, and pretty much got in our sleeping bags around 9pm.

Tuesday we headed out at 6:30am – Ronnisha and Brianna took the western half of our point count, Ashley and I took the eastern half, and Dianne mapped GCWA territories. Each pair had 20 point counts to get done by 1pm (our cut-off time, because the birds aren’t as active in the afternoon). The other girls’ region had minimal vegetation to climb through, but they had lots of hills and canyons to navigate. Our region had more vegetation (all of which was much better than the vegetation at Balcones, so I wasn’t complaining). We started our section by driving to the first five or so points to avoid having to scramble over hills (and we only finished at 12:45). We still had some steep areas to deal with, and even though the area burned a few years ago, we got covered in char from grabbing onto burnt branches and logs. Fortunately some of our points took us right next to the river so we got to wash off. It was SO tempting to just sit there and stick our feet in, especially with how nice the weather was (mid-80s at a lake… how perfect is that?). We were near the lake when I saw my first ever wild armadillo! Well… his skin at least :-\ We also saw what Ashley described as “Christmas tree poop” because the coyote had eaten a bunch of beetles so his poop had a bunch of shiny beetle bits in it, like ornaments! I wish I had taken a picture of it… prettiest poop I’ve ever seen.

After finishing our point counts we hiked back to the car, picked up the others, went back to pack up our camp and head home. We didn’t get out of there until 3:15, so it was 7pm before we finally made it home. Brianna and Ronnisha did their data entry first because they still had a three-hour drive back to the Kerr – how sucky! But all in all that was a really awesome trip – we had amazing weather (best they’ve had all season according to Ashley) and got a lot accomplished. Plus it was nice getting a change of scenery!

Wednesday was much less exciting, but we did learn the protocols for vegetation surveying. It seems like it should be a simple thing – go to a point and look at the vegetation around you… but that would be too easy. We have to mark the four cardinal directions five meters out from a vegetation point. At each of the five locations (four cardinal points and center) we have to use a tubular densiometer to estimate the canopy cover (which basically means looking through a piece of PVC pipe and estimating how much of the view is obstructed by vegetation), stick a pole on the ground and estimate how much of the pole is being obscured by different types of vegetation at different heights, estimate the amount and type of ground cover in each of the four quadrants, determine and measure the closest shrub and tree to the center point in each quadrant, and a few other random things that I can’t remember at the moment. It gets really confusing when you find out that cacti count as shrubs for certain measurements but not for others, and that a particular plant might count as both a shrub and a tree. There are lots of little things like that that will just take time to learn. Oh, and I should mention that if any of your five points ends up in a crazy mess of tree branches, you still have to climb in there to get the measurements – better take everything you need the first time so you don’t have to fight your way in a second time. These veg points are spaced 200m apart, and there are additional points that get added in territories where we find nests. Michaela guessed that we will have over 1,000 veg points to survey by the end of the season. My first one only took 20 minutes… 999 more to go!

Thursday was a really easy day – my birds were being cooperative, I got to re-sight several banded birds (banded birds are way more fun than un-banded birds), and a couple of non-detections meant that I finished by noon. Dianne finished 15 minutes after me, so we went out to try and find a bird that I only partially re-sighted. No luck with the bird, but just before calling it Dianne heard rustling in the bushes and we found ARMADILLOS! LIVE ONES! We watched them for a couple minutes and then they disappeared into a hole – we found their house! Not only did I see my first (live) wild armadillo(s), but we found where they live. Dianne told me to record the location so that we could keep an eye on the area, because two armadillos in an armadillo house means armadillo babies in the near future! Definitely the highlight of my day. Actually, it was pretty satisfying to get home before 1:30… and 10 minutes before it started pouring! Armadillos, you have tough competition.

That night there were more crazy Texas lightning storms – we could see flashes of lightning from about 8pm until 6am! At one point the thunder was so loud it shook the house. I’m from California so I was freaking out, but Chelsea is from Kansas and said it was nice having the thunder put her to sleep… what the heck!

Friday we woke up at 5:20, but as soon as Michaela heard us moving around she came to tell us that field work was cancelled because the storm still hadn’t let up, and was predicted to continue randomly throughout the day. So we went back to bed for a couple hours (or in my case, watched Dexter), had a nice long breakfast, and spent the day in our PJs doing data proofing. Data proofing is exactly what it sounds like – we make sure that everything on paper matches what is in the computer. Doesn’t sound that bad, but IT IS TEDIOUS. We have to check that the times stamps on the data points in GIS fall within the range indicated on the territory sheets, the times in GIS and the sheets don’t go over one hour, everything on the sheets matches everything in the database, the nest cards that we take into the field match the nest sheets that stay in the house match the nest database, etc. Since we were correcting other peoples’ work we had to make a list of everything that was off so they could check it out. Fortunately I was on the main computer, so I was able to edit the small things (a missed check box here, an extra space there (yes, spaces are important in GIS)), but everyone else had to write everything down so we didn’t end up with five copies of the files. Sheesh.

We got a bit of excitement in the afternoon when bees started getting in the house! I saw one by the window next to me, and then two more. I found a gap in the sliding door so I taped it up with duct tape and we swatted the bees. Done? Nope. A few more bees were flying around the living room. Chelsea swatted those too, but as soon as she killed three, about seven more showed up. HUH?? We all got fly swatters and killed the bees, but more just kept appearing. We saw a swarm of them outside, so we figured there must be a cracked window somewhere, but couldn’t find one. Then we noticed they were crawling up between the rock wall and the wood beam outside… AND INTO THE LIVING ROOM FROM BEHIND ANOTHER WOOD BEAM. We duct taped that up and killed the rest of the bees, which had to be 40-50 in total. All I can say is that it’s a good thing we were home that day, because it’s one thing to see the bee problem evolving, but something a whole lot worse to walk into a house filled with bees.

This week Chelsea and I got a TWO DAY WEEKEND, so we decided to take a trip to San Antonio! We’re still here, and we’ve had a crazy awesome time. So awesome that I need to write about it later, because the weekend isn’t over yet. :)