Crane Ranch - 6-11-23 - 6-17-23

Sunday we started the week with a fun day.  We went on a crane road survey.  During our survey, we confirmed Super Mom and twins at Rock Hill were doing well.  As soon as mom saw us, she hid then the twins followed suit.  

We found Dougie's mate alone in Bright's Pasture. A good indicator that their 2nd nest is still active.

We saw a crane sitting on the Linda Lee Pond nest and an unbanded nearby.

We finally saw Super Dad and his colt in the power line across from Sunplex.

We heard the Riley Road pair showed up with a couple of chicks, off we go to see if we could get a visual.

We did a orchid road survey in the South Gautier Unit, did not find any Calopogon multiflorus, but we did see a couple of cranes.

We did an impromptu smoke patrol this afternoon.  Sami had concerns that the smoke was staying too low for their prescribed burn in the North Gautier Unit.  All was well with the smoke.  "Super Volunteers" are at it again!

Sunday Pics:

Monday, we got up early in the hopes of beating the heat.  We were out pushing Ole' Billy Goat at 8 am and still sweating our butts off.  What the heck?, it's not officially summer yet.

We watered the native plant garden and did some other piddling around the visitor center.  We borrowed the Edmond Fitzgerald, (fire's truck), and loaded the Kubota getting ready for trail work day at Escatawpa tomorrow.  

This afternoon we were pleased to find the Passion Flower plant blooming at our campsite.  A first iNaturalist species for the refuge.

Monday Pics:

Tuesday we broke in the new Kubota helping Tom and Bill place rocks on the Escatawapa Trail.  We had quite the assembly going.  We would pull up, Bill would load the rocks in the Kubota, we would bring them to the trail and dump them.  We did this for about 3 hours and got about a 3rd of the rocks moved to the trail.  The new Kubota was nice with it's a/c blowing, keeping the heat out and the bugs away from us.  Tom on the other hand, was not as fortunate.  He was fighting bugs and the heat as he was dumping rocks.

We got back and cleaned up the Kubota.  It has a few blemishes from the rock transfers, but that's what we got it for, a work horse.

Tuesday Pics:

Wednesday we attended our first staff meeting at the refuge.  We and the others got plenty of compliments.  We must be doing something right.

During the meeting, Melissa was honored then we had a farewell lunch at the bunkhouse.  She will be missed.

After lunch, we headed to Island View.  We were greatly surprised to get the sweet suite that Anita got last week.  We had a fabulous time sitting at the pool, gambling a little bit, and looking out of our glass windows.  We would spend time in the bedroom looking out the window, then move to the living area.  Life is good! 

Wednesday Pics: 

Thursday we stayed as long as we could in our sweet suite, then headed back to the Crane Ranch.  We did a little bit of piddling around the visitor center, got our walk in along Crane Lane and the Dees Trail, then relaxed at Camp Crane.

Stubby relaxed at Camp Crane with us, eating a few ants.  It is great having an ant eater at Camp Crane.

Thursday Pics:

Friday we had the Mississippi Museum of Science campers come by for a visit at the refuge.  We had planned for Lauren to take them on a refuge tour and me to do a plant safari.  The crane tour was cancelled due to the rain, but we were fortunate enough to have 8 cranes visit this morning.  Although, they walked into the savanna and were a long way off when the campers arrived.  We were able to get about a 30 minute trail walk in between the rain showers. 

 

After work, we did our usual, relaxed at Camp Crane.

Friday Pics:

Saturday, we headed to Crossroads to install a couple of replacement air conditioners (one would not cool) and mow the lawn.

Crane Ranch - 6-4-23 - 6-10-23

Sunday, we lounged around and drank coffee with Anita and still made it back from the casino a little after 9 am.  We took a walk along the Dees Trail and Crane Lane.  The bugs and the blooms are beginning to come back after the prescribed burn along the trail.

We got back and stayed inside with the a/c running.  It is very unusual for us to stay inside the camper for most of the day.  Dang hot weather!

Sunday Pics:

Monday Lauren got in his walk while I lazed around.  

We got our chick fix in when we saw the Rock Hill mom and her colts doing well.

While looking for Super Dad and his colt, we saw the Linda Lee nest was still active and saw 3 unbanded cranes on Ritcher Road, but no visual on Super Dad.

Mean Momma's nest in Firetower pond is no longer active.  We did see a lone crane across the pond, but were not able to ID it.

We updated the plant markers on Dees Trail, then relaxed at Camp Crane with the squirrels and birds.

Monday Pics:

Tuesday we took pictures of the prescribed burn at the HQ savanna.  It sure was a smokey day.

Mississippi Kites took advantage of the burn, grabbing their grub that was flying up from the fire.

Tuesday Pics:

Wednesday, we helped the Interns check 3 nests.  The first nest was the Linda Lee nest.  When we started to the nest, the crane snuck off.   We were thrilled to find 2 eggs on the nest.

We went to Woodlake for our second nest check.  Chewie snuck off of her nest as well.  Again we found 2 eggs on the nest.

We thought Mean Momma's nest was no longer active and were expecting to find the nest predated in Fire Tower Pond.  We were pleasantly surprised to see a crane flush near the nest, then see Mean Momma and her chick walking around.  We thought we might do a quick health check on the chick, but we thought wrong.  Mean momma lived up to her name and we did not touch her chick.

We helped the Interns start lowering the water in the DGF tanks then packed up and headed to Island View to spend some time with Anita, George, and Lisa.  We were happy to find out Anita had been upgraded to a double door suite.  We were ecstatic when we found out we had an adjoining suite to hers.  Needless to say, we had a large time, even though we didn't win any money.

Thursday we waited until check out time to vacate our suites then headed to Pearlington to spend another night hanging out with George and Lisa.  It was another great day!

Wed/Thur Pics:

Friday we had a good time drinking coffee and eating breakfast with George and Lisa before heading back to the ranch.  There is nothing like a breakfast when you are camping.  We got packed up for Sand Jam tomorrow and did a few other chores then relaxed at camp.

Theresa, Lauren, and I manned a booth at the Sand Jam on Saturday.  It was a nice day, with a sea breeze, sitting under the shade trees.   It started out slow, but by the end of the 4 hours, we had 324 people stop by.  We thoroughly enjoyed the outing.

Saturday Pics:

Crane Ranch 5-28-23 - 6-3-23

After a few days in Crossroads, we got back to Camp Crane Sunday afternoon.  We checked the DGF tanks and only got 1 frog.  

We took a walk along the Dees Trail and found a Narrowleaf Whitetop Aster blooming in the recently burned savanna.

Sunday Pics:

We spent Monday morning doing what we love, riding around in the refuge.  We checked the Firetower nests.  Mean Momma's nest was still active, the unbanded pair is not.  Hopefully, they have hatched.

We saw over 25 Cranes while we were out and about.  Most of them were not staying around for a photo.  

We thoroughly enjoyed the bursting colors of the savanna, along with a few critters.

We found the Rock Hill family doing well.  The chicks are growing like a weed.

Super Dad and his Colt are doing well too.  Grow babies Grow!!

We checked the DGF tanks captured 4 frogs then relaxed at Camp Crane.

Monday Pics:

After a couple of trips and a lot of time and muscle, we got the Fontainebleau Trail parking lot signage updated.  While we were there, we did some lopping to clear out trees that were encroaching on the parking area.

During our 2nd trip to Fontainebleau, we checked on Dougie and found his mate alone foraging in Bright's Pasture.  It looks like they have renested!

While looking for Super Dad and his colt, we found a Yellow-crowned Night Heron along the ditch at C Bird Road.  

We took the Browns Trail short cut back and placed a couple of boundary signs on the entrance at Allen Road.  We just happened to see a few critters and a few pretty savannas on our way back to Gautier Vancleave Road.

Tuesday Pics:

Wednesday, we spent most of the day cutting grass and weed eating.  After we got finished mowing, we took a ride to the boat shop to get quotes for the refuge.  While we were out, we looked for Super Dad and colt, which we did not find today.

We, or rather, Eagle Eye, found a new nest in the Linda Lee Pond.  We figured they may have a nest considering we have been seeing an Unbanded Crane at Sunplex.

It has been a sad day at the Crane Ranch.  Crane #331,  female of the Aunt Alice trio, was found predated by the Interns this morning.  Crane #1409, the Rock Hill Dad, was hit and killed by a car on Gautier/Vancleave Road.  There have been 5 cranes to die this month.

When we arrived to help the Interns pick up the deceased crane, one of the chicks was resting on the ground across the fence. The landowner was standing between the chick and it's Dad to make sure it didn't get in the road.  Shortly after, Mom came back for it and away they went.  

Wednesday Pics:

Thursday we attended the zoom meeting for the Regional Director Awards.  It was nice to have the DGF teams acknowledged.  Go Angie Go!!

We attempted to get the counter data from the trail counters and vehicle counter.  Every last one of them malfunctioned.  We fixed one of them, the others, we will work on another day.  Crazy that they all had a hiccup in the same month.

We checked on Super Dad.  We visualized him way off in the tall grass at the power line, but never got a confirm spotting of his colt.  Fingers crossed that the grass was too high to see him.

When we traveled through the short cut on Browns Trail, we got to see 2 of our favorite cranes, Banana and Coconut.  They were with an unbanded crane walking through a gorgeous bog.

We also saw Super Mom, aka Rock Hill Widow, with her 2 chicks.  Somehow she managed to get them safely back across Gautier Vancleave Road.  Fingers crossed, they won't be crossing that busy road anymore. 

Thursday Pics:

Friday, we went with Jake to check on a couple of crane nests in the South Gautier Unit.  The first nest that we searched for was Perseus #2011, and her mate Twiglet #1115.  We knew the general area the nest was in from the g.p.s. data.  After a bit of searching, we flushed the crane that was on the nest and found that it had 2 eggs.  We floated the eggs and collected nest data.  This is the first crane nest that I have ever found. 

The 2nd nest was Clarabelle #1315, and FT17.  We were hoping to find that it had hatched but it still had 2 eggs on the nest.  Fingers crossed that they are still viable.  Again, we floated the eggs and did nest data collection.

After rehydrating, we went to the Martin's Pasture and found that the MacFarlane's Pitcher Plants are still there.  

We attempted to get a visual on Super Dad and Colt.  We did not see either of them.

We stopped by the Linda Lee nest and confirmed that it was still active. 

We were planning on going to Fontainebleau Trail to work on the counter, when Jake requested our help of catching an injured crane.  We went to the location and found Surge #2109, and his unbanded mate in one of the residents front yard.  This resident had notified Scott of the injured crane and had it in his fenced in back yard.  When Jake got there, we used the net and was able to capture him.  We had a zoom meeting with Scott and Richard, from Audubon Species Survival Center.  After determining the wing was broken, Jake took the crane to New Orleans for further evaluation.  The Crane Ranch is not having a good year.

We checked the DGF tanks and got zero frogs, then relaxed at Camp Crane.  We got in7 hours on our day off.

Friday Pics:

Saturday, RR19, was euthanized.  Very sad to loose our 6th crane of 2023.  We had a bookstore meeting with Lloyd, then met Anita at Island View.  We had another large time of fun, food, and drinks.  We even got a little bit of dancing in!!