Welcome to central Florida

It has been a long time since I've written in this blog. Too long. But since my recent permanent move to Avon Park, Florida, I thought this would be the best way of keeping my friends and family up to date with my daily adventures. For anyone who doesn't know, I recently was hired as a research assistant at Archbold Biological Station, a non-for-profit research station dedicated to the biological exploration and conservation of Florida's endangered wildlife and habitats. I will be working primarily with the red-cockaded woodpecker (Picoides borealis), an endangered species that is found only in mature pine forests of the southeastern U.S., and also with the Florida grasshopper sparrow (Ammodramus savannarum floridanus), a critically endangered subspecies endemic to central Florida and currently numbering only in the hundreds.

I moved down here just over a week ago, and tomorrow is my first official day of work. My hope is that by reading my upcoming posts, you will not only become familiar with the type of work I'll be doing, but realize just what kind of challenges accompany the research and conservation of a declining species. More importantly, I hope to convince you (if you're not already) of the reasons why it's so important to save these little birds, and how much emptier our world would be without them.


http://www.archbold-station.org/

Week two

Whew! What a week to be out working in the Pine Bush! It's been quite a week. Long, hectic, and lots of new things going on.

Much of my time is spent in areas that look like this:

The "classic" Pine Bush is comprised of a mixure of pitch pine and scrub oak. It makes for a beautiful landscape, though the scrub oaks can be very difficult to move around in. The Pine Bush is a fire-dependent ecosystem, and if it isn't burned regularly, the scrub oak will take over entirely and almost nothing else can grow. Unfortunately, only about 25% of the preserve looks like this. The other 75% is deciduous forest. Which in some cases can be a good thing, but in this case it's not. Within five years, the preserve hopes to reverse those numbers. However, the variety of habitats means that many birds breed in the Pine Bush. This is a Field Sparrow nest with eight eggs, the most I've ever seen in a sparrow nest (look sideways).

Some of the other common birds around here are blue jays, crows, chickadees, towhees, prairie warblers, common yellowthroats, chipping and field sparrows, indigo buntings, and bluebirds.

I find the mixture of pine bush and woodlands to be pretty interesting, though a little disorienting at times. One of the sites I had to visit this week started with a trail through a very nice patch of woods, covered in pretty flowers like this one.

Suddenly, a second later I emerged into a clearing that was completely Pine Bush, lupines and all. Most of these sites were woodland originally, but were restored to Pine Bush through clearcutting, mowing, and herbiciding the landscape, then replanting lupines and other native Pine Bush plant species.

The Pine Bush is unique because it sits atop a series of sand dunes. The sand is left over from when this area was covered by glacial Lake Albany. The wind then scuplted the sand into many small dunes, which makes this region a litte hilly.

This means the plants that grow here are pretty unique. They are able to grow on sand, which is very difficult to do. Sand doesn't hold nutrients very well.

Sometimes you can even see leftover bits of shells from the ancient lake.

There are dozens, maybe hundreds of plant species that grow here, including some really beautiful ones like this wild columbine.

This week we began doing some of the real work. Monday was spent counting lupines at a few of the smaller sites. It's EXTREMELY difficult and time-consuming.

Tuesday through tomorrow we've been alternating between surveying for Karner blue butterflies and frosted elphin butterflies. Wednesday was exciting because it was the first day any of us saw a Karner. We each have different sites that we survey, and one of my sites happens to be where the preserve released Karners last year. They're really excited that the butterflies are still there.

Wednesday was also the day we became acquainted with the Prairie Warbler work that's going on. Apparently this species is more indicative of prime Pine Bush habitat than any other bird species that occurs here. So the preserve has been catching, banding, and following the warblers for the last couple years. Over fifty individual birds are banded now. This year, it will be our job to try to relocate some of those individuals (which can be told apart by the color bands on their legs). By seeing how many warblers are still around this year, the preserve can attempt to estimate the survivorship of this population. Pretty cool stuff.

Lupine Festival

Today the Pine Bush held its annual Lupine Festival, so I stopped by for awhile to check things out. It seemed like a great event for children and families. Mostly there were kids' activites, but they also had a "wildlife show." My favorites were the birds, of course.

A peregrine falcon, fastest animal on earth.

A Cooper's hawk, which is actually threatened in New York State. I didn't know that, and now feel even worse about the one that died hitting my window a few weeks ago.

A female red-tailed hawk, one of my favorites.

And a very grumpy-seeming great horned owl. Although I suppose they always look a little grumpy. Something about the wide, staring yellow eyes and "ear" tufts.

These birds had all been injured (by cars mostly, I believe) and are no longer able to survive in the wild. So instead they are used for educational purposes, to help convince the public how wonderful and fascinating these creatures really are.

First week

Well, I've made it through my first week at the Albany Pine Bush!

Unfortunately it rained during almost our entire period of training. And since this is a field job, it meant a lot of time spent slogging through areas that looked like this:

But it's all good fun. So far, I think this is a really neat place. It's completely different from anything I've done before. I've always worked in places that were very remote, like on an island in Maine or in the middle of a Saskatchewan prairie. The Pine Bush, however, is an example of an urban ecosystem. Not originally, of course, but now the remainder of it is fragmented and interspersed with both housing and commercial developments. In other words, houses, businesses, and sometimes even malls can be seen from many of my study sites. It's unusual for me, but good, too. Not all habitats can be preserved in far-off places. Sometimes the most important are the ones right in people's backyards.

Most of the work I'll be doing this summer involves surveying for butterflies. Namely, the Karner blue butterfly, which is federally endangered, and the frosted elphin butterfly, which is threatened in New York State. The Karner blue, in particular, depends on lupine plants.

The Karners don't actually feed on these plants, but lay their eggs on them. No lupines = no Karners. Luckily, lupines are really beautiful, and I think most people wouldn't mind having them around.

The lupines have particular habitat requirements, needing sandy soil in which to grow. The Pine Bush is the perfect place, because it's made entirely from sand dunes! I just love these flowers. Occasionally, I'll come across a white one as well.

The Pine Bush is home to many threatened or rare species, which is what makes it so special and so important. This plant, called a birdfoot violet (for the shape of its leaves) is found nowhere else in New York State.


There are some really neat critters here, too. Yesterday, on my first day out by myself, I found this awesome little guy:


It's an eastern hognose snake, which is threatened in New York State. I've actually only seen its cousin, the western hognose, so I was really excited to find it. They're probably my favorite snakes. When they get scared, they puff up and hiss, which is what this one did when I picked it up. They've also been known to roll right onto their backs and play dead.

And that wasn't my only cool find of the day:

I stumbled right on a Song Sparrow nest! A couple years ago, I never would have found this nest. But my graduate work on prairie songbirds in Saskatchewan was entirely based on my ability to find nests on the ground. A lot of that ability comes from recognizing when a bird is flushing from a nest by observing its behavior. When I was walking along yesterday and saw a Song Sparrow fly very suddenly from close by on the ground, I knew there had to be a nest, and within a few seconds I found it!

What I found especially interesting is that these eggs look exactly like the eggs of both Savannah and Baird's sparrows, which I studied out west. I'm willing to bet these species are all closely related (clay-colored and Brewer's sparrows eggs, for example, are a solid robins-egg blue).

I might be doing some nest-searching for prairie warbler nests later in the summer. That will also be a bit different for me, because prairie warblers nest in shrubs that are off the ground, instead of right ON the ground.

Springtime in NY

Welcome back!

As I proved last summer, I'm not great at keeping up with these things. But I thought I'd try again this summer, as I'll be in a whole new place and doing some entirely new things. In a week and a half, I'll be heading to the Albany Pine Bush Preserve in NY's state capital to do some work with Karner blue butterflies and prairie warblers, to name just a couple.

But before I get to that, I thought I'd share some of the beauty of springtime in my hometown of Greece, NY.

Despite the rainy conditions we've been having over the last week, the warblers seem to have arrived in full force. Without even having to leave my yard, I've seen yellow, yellow-rumped, blackburnian, black-throated blue, black-throated green, mourning, and northern parula.

On the non-warbler sides of things, I've been having the usual chickadees, robins, cardinals, and grackles, as well as white-throated sparrows, hermit thrushes, and at least one VERY persistent eastern phoebe.

I even had a few Canada geese visit my yard yesterday.

And one VERY cute baby bunny, which I suspect is living under our wood pile.

Unfortunately, with all these birds coming through, some tragedies are bound to happen. The back of my house has many large windows, which have been the demise of more than one bird through the years. Luckily, most of them do live to fly away. But last week, a very loud BANG led me to find this poor guy:

A beautiful juvenile Cooper's hawk. He died quickly, but it still saddens me to see such a wonderful bird, and such a young one, meet its end.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences this summer in a whole new place. All the field sites I've worked at in the past have been extremely remote. As the Albany Pine Bush is right on the outskirts of a major city, it will definitely be a change for me, but a good one I hope.

To the North

It has been so nice being back in Winnipeg for the end of the summer. The weather, for the most part, has been beautiful, and early migration is already under way.

This is the first time I've been able to walk around Assiniboine Park while the gardens are still flowering, and the change from the normal dead leaf- or snow-encrusted visage is magnificent. The riot of color and smell is enough to transport you from the everyday mundane into a world of beauty and transquility.

The place is also virtually a birder's paradise at the moment, though much patience is needed to successfully ID the small birds flitting amongst the trees and flowers. To add extra difficulty, many of the birds are still in juvenile plumage, while many more are in fall plumage... meaning they are much more drab-looking than normal. Warblers in particular all look very similar once they molt their breeding plumage.

Nonetheless, during two trips to Assiniboine Park during the last two weeks, I've managed to pick up American Redstart, plus Tennessee, Nashville, Chestnut-sided, and Yellow Warblers. There have also been Red-eyed, Warbling, and Blue-headed Vireos hanging around, as well as Indigo Buntings, House Finches, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, and Chipping Sparrows.

A female Ruby-throated Hummingbird dining on red flowers.

A female American Goldfinch munching old seed heads.

A juvenile Chipping Sparrow.

An immature American Robin.

I'm getting very excited because on Monday, August 30, I leave for a week-long field course that takes us all throughout Manitoba, ending in the famous tundra town of Churchill, nestled against the Hudson Bay.

Our first stop will be the Delta Marsh Field Station on Lake Manitoba, where we will learn about the wetland and the waterfowl research that takes place there. Next is Riding Mountain National Park, where we will learn about park management and ecological integrity. Onward to the Duck Mountain Provincial Forest at Swan River with an emphasis on forestry and resource management. North-ward takes us to The Pas and learning about northern agriculture and Aboriginal self-government. Then to Pisew Falls Provincial Park and Thompson, where we will learn about mining and hydroelectricity. And finally... an hour plane ride will land us in Churchill, the polar bear capital! Besides polar bears, Churchill also boasts beluga whales, some fantastic birds, and a rich Native heritage. It can only be reached by plane or train.

Thinking of the distance between Winnipeg and Churchill (1465 kilometers) really brings home how incredibly large Manitoba is. In the time it takes to drive to Churchill from Winnipeg, I could almost drive from Winnipeg back home to Rochester, NY!

Anyway, I believe this will be a trip of a lifetime, and I cannot WAIT to get started. I'm looking forward to seeing all that Manitoba has to offer, and itching to do some boreal and tundra birding.

Winding down

Although I haven't kept up with this blog for quite some time (for various reasons such as internet problems and lack of time), I've been wanting to share some thoughts lately.


Saturday night, our local buddy Kevin invited us out to a wedding dance in Val Marie. I had my reservations, as it seemed strange to crash some stranger's wedding. He shrugged it off though, saying that anyone could come. It was definitely the oddest wedding gathering I've ever seen, and one of the most memorable. For one thing, no one besides the bride and bridesmaids were dressed up. Jeans and cowboy hats seemed to be the order of the day, which was just fine with me. A live local band played country music all night, while people two-stepped along. I've been taught how to two-step now, and I think I can keep up alright. It was a LOT of fun.


By 4:30 AM though, things started to get ugly. It has been my experience this summer that a mixture of booze, small towns, and social gatherings tends to bring out the worst in some people. A fight began to break out, with many people jumping in to defend one side or the other. Eventually everyone was kicked out of the hall, and the tensions began to escalate in the street. Small groups broke out, each one trying to hold someone back while they shouted at someone else. The rest of us stood back, watching it develop. Kevin assured us that no one would even remember what the fight was about come morning. Indeed, everyone involved were either friends or relatives! It was a fascinating, and scary, thing. Amazingly, no punches were actually thrown. I was very impressed. By 5:30, everyone had finally dispersed to sleep it off. We slept for a couple hours ourselves, then headed back home. In the course of the night, I also had discovered that people from one small town always seem to think differently of people from the next small town. As in, "people from Val Marie are always a little crazy." Maybe it's just pride in one's town that brings out this attitude, but I found it amusing nonetheless.


That night (Sunday), Debbie and Brian invited us over for dinner and horse riding. These were the people who had hauled Amy and I out of the road when her truck got stuck earlier in the summer. I swear, that was the best thing that happened to me this summer, as it led to me meeting these wonderful people. Dinner was absolutely wonderful, and afterwards we saddled up the horses and set out into Brian's land.


On one side of the horizon we could see a distant storm shedding rain on the land. On the other side, we could see the sun setting in a blaze of brilliant color. The evening was utterly peaceful, and taking in this perfect scene from the back of a horse, I imagined that life could not get any better than this. At the end of the evening, Amy, Kevin, and I rode his horses back to his house, a couple miles up the road. As I had been dying to lope on a horse all summer, and we were finally on even ground, we decided to give 'er. I drove my horse into a canter, and I swear I felt like I was flying. I had never in my life ridden like this before, and it was one of the most exhiliarating experiences I've ever had.


My final summer here is drawing to a close, and I approach it with mixed feelings. On the one hand, I will be very grateful to get away from the crowded living conditions, which have not always brought out the best in me these past months. On the other, I will miss experiencing the wonders of the prairie every day. One of my very favorite things about field work is that you see so much more than you would if you were just visiting a place. Some things can only be seen when a significant amount of time is spent in a place. You get to know the rhythm of the land; the sounds and smells and feel of it. You get to hear the waxing and waning of birdsong throughout the season, as the birds first establish their territories, then depart them. You get to watch the growth of the mule deer's antlers from week to week, until you feel amazement that such huge racks can be supported on such dainty skulls. You see the rippling bloom of wildflowers, each synchronized perfectly, as the colors of the prairie move from purple, to white, to orange, and finally to yellow. You see things being born, living, then dying as their seasons are spent.


A first for me, I will also miss the local people I have met here. These people are so hardy, living each generation on land that is unforgiving and often cruel. Yet it gives them a strength that others don't have. And more importantly, it gives them a sense of family, community, and generosity that I have never before experienced from those living in suburbs or cities. One thing that continues to make me sad, though, is the ranchers' attitudes toward many animals living here. If you speak to a rancher, you can feel immediately how much they love this land. It is their life and their well-being, and they would fight to preserve it. Yet they hate many of the land's creatures. I find this such a heart-breaking contradiction. They see "land" as only the landscape and the rooted things that grow there. Yet I see "land" as an amalgamation of all the things, living and not, that exist there together. It is so difficult for me, because in getting to know them and their way of life, I can understand their point of view. Coyotes take their livestock, costing them thousands of dollars. Badgers and ground squirrels create holes that their horses can fall into and break a leg, making the animal essentially useless. And having ridden horseback through areas with gopher holes, I can appreciate all too much the stress and anxiety (and danger) caused by leading a horse through a pockmarked landscape. But as an ecologist and environmentalist, it hurts me to see such little regard given to animals that are only trying to eke out their own existences. I wish with all my heart that I knew how to reconcile these two very conflicting ideologies.


That is all I have to say for now. Immersing myself in ranching culture as I have tried to do this summer has given me a lot to think about, and offered the opportunity to speak with and understand people with very different lives than my own. I think that of my entire two years being spent in Canada finishing this degree, that has been the most rewarding part, and the part I will carry with me the longest.