Sunday we did a bit of early morning armchair birding at Angie and Chad's before the rain started.
After making a Wally World run, we made it back to camp, turned on the heaters, and were nice and toasty watching the rain fall.
I opened the blind Monday morning to bright sunshine. What a difference a day makes.
Lauren had the coffee made and the camper warmed up by the time I got up. A doe was grazing outside the window as we sipped on our coffee.
We lounged around a bit then got out a little before 10 am for a walk. The dragonflies, birds, bees, and butterflies were enjoying the sunshine as much as we were.
We saw our first Trumpeter Swan squabble as we were walking along the lake. A single swan was floating in the water when a couple of swans came skidding in, flapping their wings in the water, and chased the lonesome swan out of there.
We journeyed on our way until we found the boardwalk under water. We could either walk through the water and get our feet wet, take off our shoes and get our feet wet, or turn around and have dry feet. We decided on dry feet.
A couple hours and 3 1/2 miles later we made it back to camp. We put the bird feeders out and watched a Ruby-throated Hummingbird sipping within a couple of hours.
We sat behind the camper for a block from the wind, on this cloudy, 67 degree weather. We grilled onion brats then went in for the night. After we went in, we had flooding rain and hail. It has rained 3 of the 6 days we have been here. Hopefully, this weather pattern will change.
Tuesday morning, I was lounging in bed while Lauren was making the coffee. All of the sudden, Lauren was hollering for me to hurry and get up. Out the window was a big ole' bear eating the birdfeed. Let's just say, it was a beary good morning!!
Before waking me, Lauren watched the bear tear down the suet feeder and carry it into the woods. A few minutes later, it returned to eat the bird seed.
It walked around, scratched its butt, and got a drink of water from the water puddle on site #1 then came back to check out our grill.
We had already tried hollering at it and banging pots, but it ignored us. When it went to check out the grill, Lauren opened the door and hollered and it hauled butt. Whew!!
We have the bear checked off of our list of critters we want to see. Needless to say, the feeders and the grill have been put up. And, I just might have my bear spray handy, just saying.
As we were heading into work, we had a group of Cedar Waxwing hanging around camp.
Wednesday morning around 3:30 am we were awakened by a strange noise. My first thoughts were that the bear was back. Lauren went outside with a flashlight, and the noise stopped. When we were loading up the truck to go to work, there was brake fluid on the concrete. A dang Porcupine chewed the brake line on the truck. Dang critter!
While I was helping Angie at HQ, I got to see my first male Karner Blue Butterfly. Such a pretty, delicate butterfly.
We spent most of the day helping Max doing bathymetry. Something that is well above our heads. Lauren and I pulled this yellow boat back and forth across different waterways for 18 minutes. We had quite the challenge, (or rather Lauren), of getting through the high water and vegetation to one of the areas. This data will be used to help prevent the loss of wetlands at Necedah NWR. Pretty cool stuff.
We got lucky today and saw a wolf run across the road. Although, we weren't lucky enough to get a picture.
We spent Thursday helping Max gather water data at several more sites. Riding on and off refuge has given us a great opportunity to learn our way around and see a lot of cool plants and critters.
We saw two wolves today, but there was no chance of getting a picture as they ran across the road.
We were pleasantly surprised when Max spotted an American Bittern on the way back through the refuge. It looked like a stump posed in the tall grass.
We got back and relaxed while doing a little bit of armchair birding at camp.
Friday was another water data collection day. Only this time, hip waders were needed. We looked like we should have been in one of the Ocean Spray commercials. Luckily, these heavy booted things were only needed for one area. I thought we were going to have to throw Lauren a rope to get him back up the bank, but he managed to claw his way out.
Lauren finally took time to replace the chewed up brake line on the truck. Something that we realized we should have done sooner since all the brake fluid had leaked out of the lines. After he couldn't get the line bled by pulling with a syringe, I got in the truck. I would hold the brake, "to the floor", then "release". After talking to a local repair shop, we went for a ride to try to force the air out of the ABS module. After several attempts of gunning the truck then slamming on the brakes, we still have spongy brakes. Dang it!
We heard a couple of Whippoorwills calling in the wee hours Saturday morning that sounded like they were on the camper pad. Then all of a sudden. we heard a thump and only heard one. We got up Saturday morning and found one of them dead from colliding with the camper. Poor thing.
It was a rainy kind of day with only a few afternoon pictures of birds.
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