Animals on the Refuge

Though you might not realize it from reading my blog, there are in fact other animals at Carolina Sandhills in addition to red-cockaded woodpeckers. Here are a few pictures of some of them and fellow intern Whitney's arms. There may be a full-body shot in there somewhere too.




We found a turtle! This is a male yellow-bellied slider. Male because it's flat on the bottom (in fancy terms his plastron is slightly concave). The theory is that this helps the males to climb on top of the females when they breed.

I like the shadow of Whitney's hands and the turtle on the ground. 

We found a small tiny lizard that tried to climb Whitney's pant leg during one of our vegetation surveys.  Our best guess is eastern fence lizard. Whatever it is, it's cute.

Whitney found a land snail and brought it in the kitchen! She was outside the bunkhouse one evening making a phone call, and found this dude on the stoop. Actually, this snail might be a dudette, or both (many snails are hermaphrodites) so let's just stick with "dude."

One afternoon as we were driving back to the office, we saw a dark shape lumbering down Wildlife Drive. We first thought it might be a raccoon, but as we got closer we realized it was a beaver. We stopped the truck a respectable distance away, got out, and took some pictures. Instead of staying away from us, the beaver strolled right up, crossed the road in front of the tuck, and trundled along just a few feet away from where Whitney was crouched taking pictures. It then crossed back over the road and headed into the pond.

Close encounters of the beaver kind. 

The Beaver Song, which I learned from Chris at Aullwood Audubon Center and Farm. There are also hand motions, which I'd be more than happy to show you sometime. I only remember the chorus, which is a call and response.

Long tail (Long tail)
Big buck teeth (Big buck teeth)
Swimmin in the water (Swimmin in the water)
Chewing on trees (Chewing on trees)
Building up a dam (Building up a dam)
You know who I am (You know who I am)
I'm a Beaver, I'm a Beaver, I'm a Beaver! (I'm a Beaver. I'm a Beaver. I'm a Beaver!)

Swimming away, looking for trees to gnaw on. 

Beavers can weigh up to 60lbs, and can be 23 to 39 inches long, excluding the tail, which adds an additional 8 to 12 inches. Not something you typically expect to see trucking down a paved road in the middle of the afternoon, especially as beavers are usually nocturnal.

And these pictures don't have Whitney in them (and therefore are not nearly as interesting) but I did find this really neat insect while I was cleaning my peeper-- the telescoping camera we use to look in woodpecker cavities. Not sure what it is, but it's cool!

The Last RCW Banding

Friday was the last RCW banding of the 2012 season. It's been a busy few months, and while it is nice to not be as busy (especially in this heat!) I am sad that there are no more trees to climb and ugly baby woodpeckers to play with. My time here at Carolina Sandhills is almost up, and it's been fantastic. I am exceptionally glad I took this internship and was able to spend 12 weeks here working with RCW's. Birds are always fun, and climbing trees is awesome, but I think the best part of this internship has been all the people I've been privileged to work with. While I'm not always excited about getting up early or having to tromp through the chigger/horse fly/ poison oak infested forest to look for cavity trees, every day is still fun because of the people here. I'm not sure where the future will take me after I leave this place, but I'll never forget the experiences and people. Especially Brady Vaassen, fellow intern and one of my housemates, who is sitting here on the couch next to me asking when I'll write a blog post about him and trying to get me to move so he can have the entire couch. Just because you're 6ft 5in and a bit doesn't mean you always get to hog the couch.  

Pictures were taken by the fabulous Whitney Wallet, intern extraordinaire and friend of the first class.

20ft up a longleaf pine at a RCW cavity. And yes, I do have a turkey feather stuck in my hair. 

Trying to get the nestling out of the cavity with my noose. 

Nestling secured in the bag slung around my back, and heading down to the ground to get it banded.

Getting ready to band (or standing around looking important).  That's Evan Brashier on the right (not an intern, he actually gets paid), he banded the chick since I got to climb up and noose it. 

Chick in hand, I make my stand, ready to band, best in the land.

The passing of the RCW chick. 

Evan banding the chick. It was about 9 or10 days old. 

Climbing back up to put the newly-banded nestling back home. 

I don't normally get this excited about putting nestlings back, but there were some interesting comments coming from the peanut gallery on the ground (aka Whitney and Evan). 

A Blue Jay Tale

by Lauren Smith
pictures by Meghan Oberkircher


Once upon a time there was a baby blue jay who, when he was very small, decided he wanted to become an adventurer and explore the world. Unfortunately he decided this before he could fly (and before he really had any feathers) so he didn't get very far.


A hog-nosed bat named Batrick (Bat-Bat to his friends) flew by on his nightly foraging foray and, seeing the poor little blue jay shivering on the ground, decided to take it home to his bat cave.

The little jay, with little thought for his probably slightly worried parents, climbed on board Bat-Bat's back for the journey to Bat-Bat's bat cave.


Bat-Bat's mother was not exactly pleased about another mouth to feed but she let Bat-Bat, her only son, keep his new foundling. Bat-Bat didn't have too many friends, so his mom didn't have the heart to deny him this new companion.

The year went on and the little jay grew into a grown-up normal-sized jay. The jay, who they did name (but as bats only communicate with high-pitched squeaks, no one but Bat-Bat and his mom knew what the jay's name actually was) learned how to live like a bat. He roosted upside-down during the day with Bat-Bat and his mom, and ventured outside at night to eat copious amounts of insects.

One night, while chasing a succulently juicy moth, the jay became so single-minded he forgot to watch for predators. The jay, since he didn't know how to echolocate and didn't have the greatest night vision, was usually pretty bad at catching enough food to eat. This night he was particularly hungry, so his owl-dar was down.


Owls and blue jays tend not to get along, and this encounter did not end well for our blue jay friend.

Lucky for him, the next morning an attractive female blue jay named Mary Jayne flew by while taking her morning constitutional. Mary Jayne was an exceptionally observant jay and it only took her 20 minutes to notice our poor jay friend laying on the ground, gasping for air.


Mary Jayne decided that she needed to nurse the poor wounded jay back to health.

Mary Jayne had never nursed anyone back to health before so she wasn't really sure how it worked. She decided to take the wounded jay to an old red-cockaded woodpecker cavity in a longleaf pine tree so he could heal in privacy. Al of the sap adhering to his wounds helped them to heal quickly, though the jay pretended he was still weak so that Mary Jayne would continue to feed him mouth-to-mouth. 


Since they were on such intimate terms, they decided the jay needed a name. After much deliberation, they arrived at Elmer. Both agreed that Elmer was a fine, strong name for a blue jay. 

The newly christened Elmer Jay took Mary Jayne back to the bat cave to meet Bat-Bat and his mom. They, unlike Elmer's jay parents, were actually worried when he disappeared and had spent many nights searching for him. 


Bat-Bat and his mom were overjoyed that Elmer had returned and was all in one piece. They were so happy to see Elmer and Mary Jayne that they broke into a spontaneous dance, which most bats reserve only for truly special occasions. 

Naturally, Elmer and Mary Jayne hooked up, and after a year or so started having little baby jays of their own. They were very good parents, and never let any of their offspring get stolen away by bats. 


Bat-Bat also eventually found a female friend and they too procreated, producing a cute little son named Batrick Jr. 


The Bats and Jays remained close and their children frequently had sleepovers. Even tough the Jays decided to go diurnal, they did decide that roosting upside-down was a much preferable sleeping method. 


Both the Bats and the Jays went on to live long, fulfilling lives, full of joy and happiness. 

The End




For an article on upside-down roosting blue jays, see: 
http://pispbirdbanding.blogspot.com/2011/09/new-study-shows-blue-jays-roost-upside.html

Climbing Obed

"Yet what struck me all at once was how breath-taking and bizarre climbing was. You could never stay bored: the risk alone keeps your synapses jangling. It was not simply that most non-climbers would be freaked out of their minds to find themselves where I was standing on the edges of my big toes 150 feet off the ground. It was that there was something special about the sport, some intricacy of deed that takes hold of the spirit and asks it fundamental questions. All climbers are ambivalent about climbing; yet we all find it hard to quit, and it is impossible to forget the surpassing joy of our good days in the mountains." 

~David Roberts, from Moments of Doubt

This past weekend I met up with two friends, Lucas and Blake, and went climbing at a place called Obed Wild and Scenic River, which is in Tennessee. It is an amazing place, with lots of rocks, brilliant green plants and trees, and winding rivers and stream beds. There are lots of things to do there other than climbing, not that I partook. I hope I can go back sometime soon and spend more time in the area (and climb some more rocks!)

http://www.nps.gov/obed/index.htm

I hadn't climbed since just before Christmas, so my climbing muscles had gotten much wimpier than I liked (or pretended they were. In my head I can climb all day with arms of steel). Turns out that if you want to climb spending the winter in Florida is not the best place to be.  Go figure. So when I had the chance to go climbing in Tennessee, I jumped in the car and rode like the wind (if the wind goes a consistent 65 mph down the highway). I spent Saturday and Sunday at Obed, mostly just hanging out and watching Blake and Lucas, but I had a wonderful time. It was so nice to be around climbers again, people who use words like "crimpers," "slopers," "red-point," "pumped" in pretty much any conversation, and spend inordinate amounts of time discussing climbing shoes, ropes, and routes. I haven't been around serious climbers in a long time, so it was fun to be immersed in the climbing jargon again. I felt like I was in another universe, one that I'd been away from for too long. It was great. 

Blake and Lucas getting ready to climb. 

Lucas climbing. 

One of the areas where we climbed. All of these routes were too hard for me, so I just took pictures and belayed. 

Blake, almost at the end of the climbing route (the edge of the overhang).

The view from my tent. 

Neat old truck at the campsite. 

A cute dog from a nearby campsite that helped me pack up my tent  and then played fetch with me. Afterwards he decided we were inseparable and jumped right in the front seat of my car. He was ready to go back to South Carolina, though he maybe wouldn't have been so eager had he known about the 6 hour drive. 

I wish I could climb trees like this snake can, it would make climbing trees to band RCW chicks much easier!

Why hello up there Mr. Snake. 

I had a fantastic time climbing this past weekend, and hopefully it won't be another five months before I can climb again!

More RCW Banding

The red-cockaded woodpecker nesting season is dying down, and all the babies are starting to fly away. Here are some pictures, taken by myself, fellow intern Ashley and high school intern Katie, of the climbing/banding process.


Here I am starting to climb up the tree. I'll go up another rung to where I can reach the bracket (just above my head on the ladder, against the tree) and then I'll wrap a chain around the tree to secure the ladder. The ladders are in 10ft and 5ft segments, and have tongues on the ends to attach them together to whatever height we need. The highest I've ever had to climb was 30ft, or 3 10ft ladders.

At the cavity, getting ready to remove the chicks. The rubber tubing is my noose, which I stick in the cavity and use to grab the nestlings.

Hanging out 30ft above the ground. The view is generally pretty nice from up there.

Our banding kit. We put aluminum bands with unique numbers on each nestling, and also a unique combination of colored plastic bands. This is so we can later identify the birds without having to catch them again to read the tiny numbers on their legs. With binoculars or a spotting scope, you can sometimes (if the birds cooperate and permit you a good view of their legs) read the color combination.

This nestling has color bands yellow/white/yellow on its left leg, and an aluminum band/light green (which you can't really see in this picture) on its right.

Two RCW nestlings, about 9 or 10 days old. Their eyes have just opened, and their feathers are starting to poke out along their wings and tails. The one on the right was feisty, and liked showing off his legs.

This chick was old, probably 11 or 12 days old. We generally try to band them between 7 and 11 days old, because they don't have so many feathers for us to accidentally pull out. Also, it's generally easier to get them before their eyes are open, because they're not quite as aware of what's going on and can't see the noose and try to get out of the way.

Right leg: orange/light green/orange.
Left leg: aluminum/light green.

I like banding older chicks because their legs are bigger and it's easier to get all the bands on, but, being older, they've figured out how to use all their body parts and with more actively struggle. This guy here has mastered his feet, and would grab our fingers. The younger birds, especially before their eyes are open, can barely stay upright in your hand.

Since most of our birds have finished nesting (we have about 128 nests) we are now starting our early morning cluster checks. This means we station ourselves by trees we think may be active (which means the woodpeckers are using them) before sunrise and wait to see if any RCW's come out. We do this to see if the cluster has a potential breeding pair which just didn't nest. Typically the birds will come out and then chat a little with their mate, who roosts in a different cavity, before heading out to look for breakfast. The real fun part (other than getting up at 5 a.m. to be in the woods before sunrise) is then following them around for an hour or so, to see if they lead us to nestlings or a new nesting cavity. We have spotting scopes (telescopes on tripods) that we use to see the colored bands, and we carry those around with us as we traipse around after the birds. It's not too bad, if you don't mind waking up really early and then chasing after birds in the woods. Which I don't. Birds are one of the only things I'll wake up before sunrise for. The others are traveling and rock climbing. Sometimes.