We had an unusual Sunday, a rainy one. We managed to get a Dees Trail walk in. It was a nice walk with a lot of new blooms which are attracting the pollinators. It will only get better as more plants bloom. As an added bonus, Lauren got a new species for the refuge on iNaturalist, Osmia chalybea.
We attempted to take another walk this afternoon, but another shower started. Oh well, every now and then it is good to just laze around and take it easy.
The temps on Monday were 20 degrees colder than the last few weeks. It was a good day to stay in and out of the wind. We opened the visitor center for the Master Gardeners for a couple of hours. Those hours were extended due to popular demand of the nice folks that happened by and found it open. We were happy to oblige.
We placed plant markers on the Dees Trail, helped Scott set up for the Crane Recovery meeting tomorrow, then stayed inside at Camp Crane out of the cool wind.
Tuesday we had a great day sitting in on the Crane Recovery Meeting. We had 9 people attending in-person and a bunch more that were remote. It is so cool to be included in this meeting with the Crane World. It was also awesome to see our names being projected as 'Super Volunteers'.
Scott, Jake, Theresa, Kelly, Andrew, and us had a nice relaxing lunch at Country Gentleman restaurant.
After the meeting, we showed Andrew around the refuge. He is the lead Crane expert at White Oaks and was our tour guide when we visited a couple of years ago. It was nice to repay the favor.
We checked out the HQ pen, the DGF tanks, the Fontainebleau Pen, and then took the short cut back through Browns Trail. We got back about 3 hours later.
We thought the Pale Pitcher plant blooms were pretty last week at the Fontainebleau Pen area, but they were amazingly pretty today.
We had a couple of cranes inside the Fontainebleau Pen when we walked out to the pen. They reluctantly flew away when we got close.
We saw a Bald Eagle and a Sandhill Crane on our way to Valentine Road.
We saw 3 Bald Eagles and about 18 more Sandhill Crane out in the savanna off of Valentine Road.
Andrew was in no hurry watching the cranes in their natural habitat, and neither were we. He definitely has a very rewarding job.
Wednesday we had a Crane Tour for 5 engaging people. It is always nice to spend time with people who love nature as much as we do.
The afternoon we went to Grand Bay with the Crane Recovery Team to check out the plans to restore habitat and release cranes there. The 5 year plan sounds promising.
Thursday we were sipping on our coffee when we got a message from Scott asking if we wanted to do a road survey. He and the Interns were in a blind watching the bownet when they heard unison calling. He asked us to go to the area and see if we could id the crane couple that were calling. Not only did we Id the mated pair, we saw them in action. Snipe, Crane 1908, and an unbanded Crane are a new couple. Hopefully, it won't be long and we will have some little Snipers on the ground. Some of the first pictures Lauren took with his new camera were Crane Porn!
We made an afternoon walk along the Dees Trail then sat around at Camp Crane practicing our picture taking. As we were taking pictures, a Brown Thrasher flew into a Cardinal that was perched on the feeder and pulled out his tail feathers. Who knew that Thrashers were this aggressive??
We checked on the Beasley Eagle nest Friday morning. Bad beak was standing tall and proud. His brother was hunkered down in the nest. We only saw his back.
On the way out, we looked for the 2 Crane nests that are in Firetower Pond. We couldn't see the nest, but did see Cranes in the area.
We managed to get the old directional signs down, gathered up supplies to put up the replacements, then the heavy rain started. Oh well, we can revisit this next week.
We spent the rest of this rainy afternoon, in the comforts of the camper.
I had a Happy Birthday Saturday. When we went into work this morning there were no cranes in sight. That changed shortly after I checked to see if there was corn in the feeder. It is amazing that they seem to show up shortly after we check the feeder. These cranes are something else.
We had a morning Crane Tour for 5 people. The tour folks asked me why I was doing a tour on my birthday, my response was I can't think of anything else I would rather do. We definitely enjoy spending time sharing our refuge with folks.
We had 12 Sandhill Cranes sightings during the tour. As an added bonus, we saw 50 or so Cedar Waxwings. This is one of our favorite birds. It was one of those unload the van so everyone can get a good look.
The twin Eagles were standing tall and proud in the nest while one of the parents was keeping a keen eye on them and us from a nearby tree.
We saw our first Swallow-tailed Kites of the year today. Actually there were 6 of them. Another exciting sighting.
We spent the afternoon working in the visitor center. Although, work is not quite the term to use when we are having this much fun.
After we closed, we went to Lucy's Retired Surfers Bar & Restaurant for an early dinner. The food and atmosphere was good. This was our first time here, but will not be our last.
I had a very enjoyable first day of my 62nd year!
