Sunday, we had a nice breakfast with Angie and Chad before heading back to camp. A stop or two later and we were back in mosquito country. Lauren braved the bugs and went for a walk.
There were lots of bees enjoying all the pretty blooms.
He saw a cool Grasshopper.
A Painted Turtle.
And a Garter Snake.
Monday we rode in the Kubota to the Boghaunter Trail. We saw lots of Tuberous Grass Pinks,
We found several Wooly Milkweed plants right dab n the middle of the trail. We placed flags around these imperiled plants to try and protect them.
A Badger has its home in a gorgeous flower garden.
We saw a pair of Towhees.
There were several Bobolinks.
Ole' Eagle Eye spotted an Eagle nest.
What an office view we had today!
Tuesday morning, we spent 4 hours logging Blanding's Turtle observations from years ago on a spread sheet. I took advantage of our two-hour lunch break to take a nap, while Lauren spent a little time nature chasing at camp.
The afternoon, we went with Angie to test out the Red-headed Woodpecker survey data collection. We walked around, holding an iPad, following the GPS transects. After getting to the end of the first transect, I gave up the iPad. Some of the walking was easy, but some of it was tough.
The Yellow Warblers were not happy when we were in the thick brush with them.
A Song Sparrow was true to its name, just a singing.
We saw a few Red-headed Woodpeckers. All in all, it was a good learning experience.
Wednesday was a federal holiday, which gave us the day off. The mosquitos are still on the rampage, so we opted to ride around on the dirt roads and take pictures.
We saw our first Porcupine in a tree.
Plenty of pretty blooms.
Several Turkeys.
We saw more Bucks today than we usually see.
A majestic Bald Eagle.
A Red-tailed Hawk with a Kestrel attacking it.
We made a trip to Tomah to buy more mosquito repellent and found another Eagle sitting on a stob in a lake.
We were at work at 6:30 am Thursday morning. When we went to the bio shed, we saw a Porcupine walking down the road. I jumped out and followed it, while Lauren went to get a net. It disappeared in the tall grass, which I later found out had a culvert. Chewy #3 outsmarted us.
We went to the 5/6 section and did a Red-headed Woodpecker survey. It was a misty start, with lots of mosquitoes. We thought with our bug jackets and repellant the mosquitos would not be that bad. We thought wrong.
We were constantly spraying Picaridin as we were doing the survey. It only worked for a few minutes. We were getting low of repellant and went back to the truck for Deet. Between the wind picking up and the Deet, it seemed to slow them down a little bit.
On a happy note, we had a beautiful office view for the day.
After we finished the survey, we went to pick up Porcupine traps. We have a total of 11 Porcupine traps out. Hopefully, we will catch some more of these destructive critters.
Friday morning, we did a Porcupine traps check. No Chewys.
On our way to town to buy more mosquito repellants, we watched a Red-winged Blackbird harassing a couple of Sandhill Cranes.
We did another dirt road tour this afternoon. A Cottontail was hanging out at the Boghaunter Trail gate.
Several Deer.
A Common Loon in his breeding plumage.
And several other cool things on our 3 hour tour.
Saturday, we did several Porcupine trap checks, No Chewys.
The rain started around 4 am and has been on and off all day. It was one of those... hang around camp and get the blog caught up kind of days.
