"Don't get shot."

This past week was super windy, which wasn’t great for our nest searching efforts. The scrub-jays aren’t great flyers, so when it’s too windy they seem to either forage under shrubs or stay perched in one spot and hold on for dear life (when it’s windy, it’s WINDY). Fortunately there were a couple of good days in there, so I was able to find three more nests! One of those was a pain in the butt – I drove into a territory, spotted one of the birds a few hundred meters away, and tromped out through the vegetation to see what he was up to. I followed that family for over an hour and tried to get clues about where they were nesting, but I wasn’t getting much from them. I lost them a couple of times, and after the third time (when they flew pretty far away) I was ready to call it quits. I made my way back to where I thought the road was, and there they were again! But this time they were pissed. I looked around and immediately saw the female sitting on a nest, right next to the road. I had wandered all around through the vegetation for a couple hours and she was nesting next to the dang road, 30 meters away from my car! Whatever, at least I found it!

The occasional storms meant that I only had good weather for one of my days off last week. I made the most of it and went to Highlands Hammock State Park about a half hour away. That park is beautiful! It’s located a ways off the main road, so there’s not a bunch of traffic driving by. There is a ton of wildlife there and a number of nature trails to explore, each of which seems to highlight a different type of wildlife (reptiles, birds, mammals, etc). It being Florida (and flat as a pancake), the trails were not exactly rigorous, but it was just really nice to wander around and enjoy the scenery. It was fun spotting the creatures that were hiding, but less so when the people I pointed them out to SHOUTED up the trail for their spouses/friends to come see. And of course after that, the group continued to follow me to see what else I would find… while shouting up and down the trail to each other. Fortunately they left a short while later, and then I ran into a park guide who saw me with binoculars and proceeded to take me around the trail pointing out interesting things. It’s great to stand out!

Saturday was the highlight of the week – it was opening day of turkey hunting season, which means there were a ton of hunters on the range who were eager to shoot at anything that moved… and I was going to be tromping around in the areas where they were trying to shoot things. Way to piss off people with guns. Our office manager sent an email out earlier in the week urging us to not schedule field work for Saturday unless it was absolutely necessary. I was originally scheduled to work that day, but didn’t know if that email would change anything. I showed up to work the next morning (Thursday) and my boss said, “Here’s your vest!” and handed me a bright orange vest to wear. I guess that answered my question…

The unfortunate thing was that I was the ONLY one in the office scheduled to work that day, so I was totally on my own. I still had a radio to call Rescue Ops if anything bad *did* happen, but there’s something reassuring about other people being in the office when the range is crawling with hunters. I went out that morning thinking, “Don’t get shot. Don’t get shot. Don’t get shot.” When I got to my first territory, I parked, acknowledged that I’d be totally fine, opened my car door, and immediately heard hunting dogs barking in the distance. Oh Jesus. Fortunately they didn’t sound THAT close, so I got on with my work (and found two of my nests that day!). The biggest problem I ended up having that day was not with the hunters, but a bull. A big, horny, pissed off bull. I was working on trap-training an unbanded scrub-jay by putting peanuts under a drop-trap propped up by a stick (real Wile E. Coyote stuff here) for her to get comfortable going into. This bird is super skittish because she’s the only scrub-jay in the area and so doesn’t have safety in numbers. It normally takes her a good 10 minutes to decide the coast is clear before she flies down to sneak some peanuts. That day was pretty windy, which didn’t help her confidence (harder to see predators when all the vegetation is moving), but an angry, GROWLING bull trotting toward us didn’t exactly help either. SURPRISINGLY she didn’t really go for it, so I had to wait for the bull to move before I could retrieve the trap and be on my way.

Red-bellied Woodpecker

My “weekend” this week was yesterday and today, which was decided when we realized they were the two worst weather days of the week. It’s good in the sense that I don’t have to struggle with uncooperative birds on these days, but bad in the sense that I was basically confined to my trailer yesterday. It was stormy on and off all day with super strong winds, so that ruled out going anywhere. I was able to tackle my growing To Do list, but I ended up eating dinner at 4:30pm, because doesn’t everyone eat when they’re bored? Today started off pretty gloomy, but there are supposed to be a few hours of sun in the early afternoon, so I’m heading out to the lake near town to see if I can lie out on the beach for a couple hours. Just have to keep an eye out for gators…

The funny thing is that I’m in shorts, flip flops, and a swim suit to go lie in the sun, and I look outside and there are people in sweatshirts and beanies, because at mid-70s it’s “cold” in Florida!