We took a Sunday morning ride through the refuge. We saw 8 Ms. Sandhill Cranes in the North Gautier Unit and 6 on the South Gautier Unit. We saw plenty of pretty blooms, birds, and other critters.
We worked a little bit this afternoon loping limbs at HQ getting ready to mow tomorrow.
Monday was Mow Day. We mowed grass at Headquarters, Dees Trail, Camp Crane, Bunkhouse, and Crane Lane. Luckily, we had enough rain to settle the dust yesterday and it was not quite as hot and humid as it has been.
After a Walmart run, we sat around the rest of the afternoon listening to a male Cardinal singing.
We also are hearing a lot of noise inside the Red-bellied Woodpeckers nest cavity when the parents are bringing in food. As busy as the parents are, we should see the babies heads peaking out before too long.
Tuesday morning we reported for frog duty at 8 am. We assisted Erin and Angie with weed-eating around the tanks before removing 8 DGFS. We lowered the water levels and adjusted the traps in the tanks. Lowering the water levels and the temperatures in the 90s should speed up the metamorphosing process.
We found a cool Live Oak Metria Moth at Camp Crane today. He camouflaged well with the oak tree we put him on after removing him from our chair.
We took a late afternoon ride to get pictures of Snowy Orchids at the North Gautier Unit. As a bonus, we saw 17 Mississippi Sandhill Cranes. We were surprised to see this many cranes in about 30 minutes.
Wednesday was another report for frog duty at 8 in the morning. We helped Angie and Erin remove 6 DGFs and processed the 43 DGF frogs that have been collected over the last few days. We found a cool Carolina Praying Mantis on top of one of the nets on the frog tanks.
The afternoon, we pulled a few weeds from the garden, walked the trail, found a few new plants to mark, and purchased a battery for the VS SUV.
We ignored Ferny Kat when she tried to get us up around 5:30 Thursday morning. We had no frog duty until the afternoon, which allowed us to ease into the day. We took a stroll on the Dees Trail and placed a few more plant identification markers.
We took a ride to the South Gautier Unit and checked out the pretty flowers, critters, and a few birds. We only saw one Ms. Sandhill Crane.
We helped Erin remove 4 DGFs from the tanks. Lauren and I released 47 DGFs at sunset. We got there way too early and had to wait an hour for sunset. We took a walk on the road past the frog pond killing time and killing bugs. The mosquitos, gnats, deer flies, and horse flies were abundant.
After we released the frogs, we had a nice walk back, enjoying the pretty colors of the sunset and watching a couple of Nighthawks flying above our heads feasting on all the bugs. We have walked 6.5 miles today, I bet we sleep good tonight.
Friday was a lazy kind of day. We took a leisurely ride through the North Gautier Unit. The critters sightings were a little scarce for a while, especially the Sandhill Crane sightings.
It looks like we have 3 different Great Blue Heron nests at Valentine Pond. While we were looking to see if we could find any babies, we witnessed the changing of the guard. An adult gracefully flew in, and relieved the mate of nest duties. Nature is so cool!
Just as we wondering where Banana and Coconut were, we found them at the Browns Trail Crop Unit. They were hanging with 3 of last years captive release. We stopped and watched them for about 45 minutes. The three 2020 cohorts were watching Banana and Coconut as they walked right by us going to the feeder. They just couldn't hang with these 2018 hatchlings.
We sat around this afternoon under the awning while the rain peppered on and off. We had a really happy Ferny Kat playing in the rain dripping from the awning.
Ferny was a little bit obnoxious this morning when she went nose to nose with Lauren as he tried to sleep, then meowed at the top of her lungs. Lauren ignored her, so she went on, allowing us both to ease into the day.
Tropical Storm Claudette pretty much went right over Crossroads. We had a lot of rain here on the eastern side of the storm, but all in all, not a big deal.
The Dees Trail overlook at one point was underwater. By the time we got out and about, the water had subsided.
We managed to walk the Dees Trail and Crane Lane without any rain. By the time we got back to camp, we had a few light showers.
We took a ride to Pascagoula. We found a Snowy Egret, aka Golden Slippers, fishing in the rain water near the road, flew into a tree when we stopped to take a picture.
We were in awe finding a few Magnificent Frigatebirds, aka Storm Birds, flying above Point Park.
We found a couple more Magnificent Frigatebirds flying at Lake Mars Pier.
We haven't seen any Ms. Sandhill Cranes at Sunplex Industrial Park for a long time, Today was the day, we saw 4 of them grazing in the grass.
We watched the Red-bellied Woodpeckers feeding their young at Camp Crane this afternoon.
We actually thought about going to Crossroads this weekend, because of the stormy forecast, We are so glad we didn't. Today was a much better weather day than what was predicted.
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