Life and Death in the Field

First, a correction: last post I said that I nearly ran into a lined snake – it was actually a coachwhip. The lined snake is the one that I posted a picture of on April 25^th.

As for where I’m located, we work in the Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge. If you want to check out the area around our house, search “Flying X Ranch Airport” in Google Maps. There isn’t actually an airport in our backyard, but maybe there was as some point. As for our specific study locations, we survey on the NWR property nearby, as well privately owned ranches up and down FM 1174 and especially FM 1869. For reference, the Shin Oak Observation Deck off of 1869 is where we got stopped by that wildlife ranger during training. A couple days ago I had to wander through that giant green patch of shin oak looking for BCVIs, and I got dropped off so I didn’t have the car with permits nearby. Pretty happy the ranger didn’t decide to stop by then…

The green arrow is the Flying X Ranch Airport, and the A pin point is the Shin Oak Observation Deck.

Painted bunting, thanks to Wikipedia.

Anyways, this week had a lot of random and interesting things. Wednesday I was following the usual birds all morning, but in the afternoon the BCVI that I was following flew into an area packed with painted buntings. I had seen a couple of them in the previous week, but this time there were 10 or 15 of them around. Painted buntings are BEAUTIFUL and apparently very skittish around people, because they would NOT stay in a visible area. It probably would’ve helped if I wasn’t tromping through the shrubs to follow my bird, but who knows. Maybe I’ll use one of my days off to go out in the field and take pictures of things that aren’t my birds!

Thursday there were high wind warnings issued for the next day or two, and they were not kidding! I believe the high that day was mid-50s, and that was about 3pm in the afternoon… we start work at 6:30am, so it was mid-30s when we went out. Normally I enter a territory and wander around the previously recorded location points looking and listening for birds. That morning I wandered around looking for the biggest shrubs to serve as a wind break, and then hunkered down for the remainder of the 30 minute detection period trying to stay as warm as possible. There were absolutely no birds (of any species) making noise that day because of how windy and cold it was, so I didn’t feel too bad about doing that. I got no detections in seven of my eight territories, and the other researchers got similar results.

I may not have found any birds that day, but I DID find some kind of animal dumping ground, or the place where animals go to die. I was going to my next territory and saw something among the rocks that was kind of shaped like a knee joint. Thought that was pretty weird and assumed it was a bone from something, so I kept walking. Then I saw some other random bones that blended in well with the rocks – a rib here, a flattish bone there… and then I saw part of a jaw, teeth and everything! Not far from that was a full skull! I finally stopped and looked around and counted about a dozen skulls, several sections of spine, ribs, other miscellaneous bones… and that’s when I got the heebie jeebies. It was overcast, cold, quiet, and I was standing on someone’s private property in an animal death zone. That realization, and the presence of hunting blinds around the property where someone could easily be watching me through a scope, put an end to my photo shoot pretty quickly… I think I’ve been watching too much Dexter.

Friday we had Diane and Ashley back at the house to help with the work. Another field tech, Christian, also showed up that evening. I believe he’s only here for a few days to get trained, and then he’s going up to work at the Oklahoma site. Matt, by the way, says it’s incredible up in Oklahoma. I’m hoping that I’ll get a chance to go up and check it out at some point, and the Kerr, too. I may actually see Brianna (the field tech who went to the Kerr) again this week – there is another trip to Possum Kingdom, and I’ll be going on Tuesday! Brianna may or may not be going, but I guess I’ll find out when I’m there. Hopefully this trip to camp in a remote location goes better than the last time I camped in a remote location… I guess I need to finish writing about my last month in the jungle for most of you to understand that. I SWEAR I’M WORKING ON IT…

Yesterday I was back at Hickory Ridge – I really like that property because it was my first property, it’s easy to navigate, and it’s a one-man job so I don’t need to keep coordinating with people via radio – I can just be in my zone and work my own pace. Anyways, I found a nest that morning, and it had 4 eggs in it! I’m pretty proud of that find because it was not an easy one. I’ll even make a game out of this post – here are two different angles of the nest. Can you see it? Next post I’ll circle it in red or something.

This is the angle that I found the nest from.

A slightly easier angle

That night Chelsea and I celebrated another night-before-a-day-off by getting fancy and going to dinner at Chili’s. We sat at the patio bar and had an amazing view of the river. After that we went to a piano bar where I discovered that Marble Falls is not really a young-person place. I think we were the youngest people there, with most people in their 40s or 50s (so sorry to everyone I just insulted by saying that 40s/50s are “old”… I’m sure you’re young at heart). We stayed for the opening entertainers (who were apparently the reason that most people were there, because the place emptied out after they finished), and a bit of the piano guy, but we were both pretty tired so we left by 10:30. Wow… my Saturday night out and I bailed by 10:30… the times they are a-changin!

Today is just a typical day off – several hours at Starbucks followed by a grocery run. At least they have frapuccino happy hour going on – mind as well save some money while keeping up this blog! Side note: they rearranged the layout of this Starbucks in the last few days and I feel like someone moved things around in my house without permission. I think I spend too much time here.