June 27th -- Blackwater River Road Trail Day!

Today Judy and I picked a location to put 10 more hair snares!  We decided on an area in Blackwater Falls State Park that we had scoped out on Wednesday.  We also bought some special bait that is supposed to target flying squirrels specifically -- it should come in by next Wednesday!  I'm really excited about that and cannot wait to try it out!! 

Before we placed the new hair snares I did my normal routine of checking snares that are already out.  I wore my cowbell today at the Canaan Loop Road site since we got pictures of bears on the trail camera.  I knew before we got the pictures that there were bears in the area from things like scat, and knocked down traps, but the images just make it more real.  I don't mind working in bear country, it has just heightened my bear awareness -- plus I finally have a can of bear mace -- WOO HOO!  It's supposed to spray 30ft and it creates a cloud of mace between you and the bear, hopefully, giving you enough time to scamper away!  Hopefully I never have to see if it works, but it's nice to know I have it just incase.  Noise is my first defense, hence the cowbell, but I also sing and clap my hands while I'm out there hiking.  People who are not bear aware probably think I'm crazy when they see and/or hear me, but that's ok! 

On Yellow Birch I got two perfect hair samples of red squirrel and flying squirrel!  I was so excited because Judy and I were talking about taking pictures of the hair for future interns to reference to...alas, my camera won't take a good picture of them :(  -- any suggestions on how to use a point and shoot camera to take pictures of small hair strands would be appreciated!  :)

 Saw this fat snake on the Davis Trail...thinking it's some variant of garter snake...

 Red squirrel hair

The beautiful stamps Judy bought me!  They are so pretty it will be a shame to use them!

June 26th -- Another Water Monitoring Day!

Today I did not check any of the hair snares because I had to work on the quarterly water monitoring project.  Lori, Martin, and I headed out around 10:30am to 13 sites that we monitor monthly.  This includes checking pH, conductivity, temperature, salinity and TDS.  Since it is the quarterly check we also take flow measurements and collect samples from each site to send off to a lab to check levels of iron, calcium, manganese, and aluminum.  Martin came from Fairmont, WV which is almost 2 hours away, so we could use his flow meter -- it was very nice of him to drive all this way to help us out, Thank you Martin!!  With the meter you have a pole that has a bulb attached to the bottom that is the sensor.  This pole also takes a depth measurement and you want to take reading about every 2ft across the whole width of the river and you want to average about 16 readings per site.  If the river is not wide enough to get 16 readings every 2ft then you lessen the distance between each reading.  The meter measure the flow in feet/second (ft/s).  It was really fun to check and neat to see the flow rates, and he even let me use it at one of the sites (sadly we did not get any pictures of me using it). 

After we collected all the data and the water samples (which need to be kept on ice until the lab comes to pick them up tomorrow) we headed back to the office for a late lunch.  Martin and Lori headed off and I finished fixing the rest of the hair snares that were in the office -- 13 in total today!

 Martin using his flow meter at our first test site for the day

 Almost all the way across

 Martin stretching out the measuring tape and me collecting water samples for the lab!

 Me using handheld meter to check the pH, salinity, conductivity, TDS & temp.

 Martin sampling, me recording

All done! 

June 25th -- Another "Normal" Day!

Nothing too exciting happened today...I usually like having some excitement, but I'm not going to lie, having none felt pretty darn good. 

I checked the hair snares as normal -- Yellow Birch was pretty productive -- and pulled all the hairs, put them in their little envelopes and into the refrigerator and fixed some more of our snares.

For the snares we are changing the zip ties that hold open the locking mechanism to a non-chewable wire and then we are cutting out the plastic bottoms so squirrel feces and urine will not collect in the bottom anymore -- thank goodness because they were getting pretty darn STINKY! 

 The inside of a hollowed out tree...those are the branches!  Cool looking!!

 Only some of the hair snares to be fixed....

What they looked like before

 After adding the wire

I started cutting out the bottoms

June 24th -- Snare Pullin'/Fixin'/Replacing Day!

Well, today Judy came in and we had one mission -- pull the snares from Shay Trace and Yellow Birch, remove some zip ties and replace with wire, and get them back out into the field. 

Our plan was going pretty well and it took us around 2 hours to pull all the snares from Shay Trace and Yellow Birch.  We pulled them from Shay Trace because that site has not been productive -- we weren't getting any hair.  We pulled them from Yellow Birch just to swap out the zip ties that hold open the locking mechanism with non-chewable wire so we hopefully won't have another red squirrel incident. 

When we got back to the office we decided to eat our lunches and then a big rain storm decided to roll in.  While we waited for the rain to pass we worked on the zip ties, and rewrapped a bunch of the snares in the black plastic -- we do this to create a safe environment for the squirrels that is free from rain and wind and things like that.  We finally decided to head back out to put the snares back up at Yellow Birch and by that time it was already 1700 (5pm)!!  We got them all back up, re-baited and ready for another day!

While out and about, on the Davis trail we saw a magnolia warbler and it was so pretty!  I think there was a nest nearby because he was clearly not happy about our presence there and was chipping and flying at us!  I didn't get a picture, but I will find one online to put on here so you can all see what they look like!

 Saw some raccoon tracks today! 

 Little mushrooms

 This mushroom looks like a pancake!!!

 All loaded up with the freshly fixed snares to be put out!

 Judy's got a load too!

 A magnolia warbler (this photo is from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology)

June 23rd -- Goodbye Red Run Day!

I started off today by opening the snares on Yellow Birch and checked the snares on Canaan Loop Road -- I usually close them on the weekends since I don't check them on the weekends.  On Canaan Loop Road I pulled the SD card from the camera we have out, and on one of the other snares there were some interesting hairs!  It wasn't squirrel hair or bear hair...Judy and I were thinking possibly some species of weasel.  If it is weasel this would be bad, because weasels eat flying squirrels!!  I was also very sad today when I checked my dark-eyed junco nest...the eggs were gone, all 3 of them! 

On Yellow Birch while I was walking down the trail all of a sudden there was a bird acting very strange...walking in circles, making lots of noise and flapping its wing...then I realized it was doing what killdeer do...killdeer are ground nesters and when you get near their eggs they act injured and make lots of noise to distract you from the eggs.  Well, I made note of the birds characteristics -- small in size, short tail, dark brown back, creamy belly with dark brown streaks, and a bold white "eyebrow" line -- to look up later, and I found out that it is a northern waterthrush, they are in the warbler family.

Today I also finally met up with Kurt -- the volunteer who was going to help me pull the snares from Red Run.  I was getting worried because it was starting to look like rain, but we managed to finish just in the nick of time, because as soon as we got back to the van and started driving, it started to POUR!  We got all the snares, pulled all the flagging, and I grabbed the trail camera.

When I got back to the office I checked the SD cards from both the Canaan Loop Road camera and the Red Run camera, and what should I find on both of them??  BEARS! 

Also, I keep forgetting to mention this -- if you click on the photos it will make them larger and easier to see!

 An empty dark-eyed junco nest :(

 This large spider decided to make its home in the box of the trail camera...great...

 Bear scat...it was a little pile so I'm thinking a cub...I'm not sure what type of seeds those are

 BEAR!  Climbing the tree...all of these next photos are the bears

June 20th -- Scoping Sites Day!

Today started off like any other day -- checking snares, pulling hair then lunch.  After lunch I decided to head out to the Monongahela Forest to scope out some areas to possibly place some more snares.  We are trying to get a total of 100 active snares out, right now we have 40...well probably more like 43 because I have some in the office from the bears knocking them down :/

I drove down Canaan Loop Road which goes through the forest and when I first turned on the road I saw something run across and into the woods.  I pulled up slowly and saw that it was a black bear!  Sadly, I couldn't get to my camera fast enough to get a picture before it scampered deeper into the woods.

I checked out a number of possible snare sites including a gas line (this would be good because I could walk up the line and cut into the forest every 50m...makes for easy access), an area called pointy knob, plantation trail, and a I stopped at a couple of camp sites and hiked in a little ways. 

Judy came into the office around 1700 and then she took me out to Blackwater Falls State Park so we could investigate the Dobbin House trail -- it's a nice trail and we think we found a good area to place some snares up in there.  While we were there, this trail is on the border between State Park land and National Forest land. It was kind of cool to have one foot on State Park and one foot on National Forest...I guess I'm a dork like that.  We also found a tree on the corner of the National Forest land that had a plaque on it that designated it as a bearing tree.  A bearing tree is used to help land surveyors identify the edge or border of property -- so I thought that was pretty nifty to see!

I also checked on my dark-eyed junco nest...still 3 unhatched eggs!

 the gas line

 pointy knob

 another part of pointy knob

 random woods behind a camp site I found

 cool bark!  I'm not sure of the tree species

 a pretty meadow I cam across!

 the name of this lake has escaped me!!! 

Bearing tree!

June 19th -- "normal day"

Well, today was pretty normal -- well as normal as working in the wildlife field can be.  I had to push back pulling the snares from Red Run because the weather was not on our side.  All day there were thunderstorms, and man were they FIERCE!  Between storms I checked the snares but I didn't bait shay trace since there was heavy bear activity in that area.  So I just checked Yellow Birch and Canaan Loop Road.

We had a conference call today with Judy Rodd, Dr. Winston Smith, Dr. Elizabeth Flaherty and myself.  We were just talking about the bear issue and came to the conclusion that no matter what we do bears are going to mess with the snares...kind of discouraging, but we will keep moving forward...we won't let the bears bring us down! 

I checked on my dark-eyed junco nest today and the female was sitting on the nest and I was able to get a picture!  She flew off for a minute and I was able to see that there are still 3 eggs...they should be hatching in less than 2 weeks!  I'm so excited!! 

I didn't get very many pictures today, so I apologize for that...

 Female dark-eyed junco on the nest

 Mountain laurel

June 18th -- Justice Day!

What a day, what a day!  I started off with the Shay Trace set and there were 4 snares down -- 1 of which is completely missing.  I didn't feel as bad about it this time around because one of those snares has a camera!  I was so excited I was jumping up and down because ever since this, what I'm calling a "bear-splosion", I have not been able to capture one on camera!  On a side note...I STILL need to change the date and time on the camera so the images say 2011, but believe me...they are from last night!!

Nothing else too exciting at the other sites.  I found what I'm thinking is a barred owl feather on Yellow Birch, and at Canaan Loop I discovered a dark-eyed junco nest with eggs!  I plan on visiting the nest daily and taking notes...I can't wait until they hatch, it will be awesome to watch the hatchlings grow! 

One of the head PhD's on this study, Dr. Elizabeth Flaherty from Purdue University has sent me pictures of what the squirrel hair looks like under a microscope -- I thought that was pretty neat and it's nice to see the difference between northern and southern flying squirrel hair!  She also informed me that the picture she sent of the northern hair, IS from one of my sites WOO HOO!  As I'm working along I am finally getting to a point where I can confidently say it is flying squirrel hair, by eye.  I cannot differentiate between northern and southern though because they are so similar; however, there is a microscope in my office!

Tomorrow morning I am picking up a volunteer to help me pull all of the snares from Red Run.  We have decided to cut our losses with that site since there is heavy bear traffic in that area, and we don't think it's safe for me to be out there alone.  I'm glad to have someone else come with me to get it done because there is just something about that area that puts me on edge.  Even knowing that there are bears at all of the other sites doesn't bother me...but Red Run, it just really freaks me out! 

 The culprit!  A black bear!

 What I believe to be a barred owl feather

 I used the ruler on the back of my handy-dandy Rite in the Rain notebook to show size

 There's a red squirrel sitting on top of one of my snares!

 I believe this is a dark-eyed junco nest and eggs!

 The nest

 The eggs are tiny!

 Northern flying squirrel hair

Southern flying squirrel hair