My summer with the Friends of Blackwater: July 15th -- Welcome Back Day!

Well, today is my first day back from my little mini vacation back home. This morning I met up with Dr. Elizabeth Flaherty, the flying squirrel diet specialist, her Grad student Stephanie Trapp, and her technician Sarah. They went out with me to open up the hair snares on Canaan Loop Road and Flag Run. It was great that they came with me and got to see some of the site that we have out there. They spent a lot of time trying to identify various pine cones, which was good because it helped me learn about the various tree species. Tree identification is definitely one of my weak points -- I'm taking a woody plant class next semester, so hopefully that will help! At one of the hair snares on Flag Run we found an Allegheny dusky salamander hiding under some bark we had on top of the snare!

After they helped me with those two sets, they had to go do their own work -- vegetation plots -- and I had to keep plucking along with my snare work. At Pendleton Lake there was a group of Canada geese near the shore and the shore line was covered in goose poop, it was like a mine field!! I also noticed there are some thistles opening up near the lake as well.

While looking for more salamanders (I've kind of become salamander obsessed now), I lifted a rock and instead found two baby eastern garter snakes! They were so small, thinner than a pencil and not very long, maybe a foot! They slithered away and I put the rock carefully back so I wouldn't crush them. I then started looking under some bark that was laying around on the ground and discovered eastern red-backed salamander eggs! It was a small cluster of about 5-7 eggs, and found the salamander near by.

It was raining off and on all day long so I got a little wet but I didn't get some of the snares open! Tomorrow is another day...