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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
Saturday, we headed to Crossroads to install a couple of replacement air conditioners (one would not cool) and mow the lawn.
No comments:
Post a Comment