Sunday and Mondays were quiet days on the refuge for us. It was a nice weekend and we didn't do much but some local birding, going out to the Observation Tower, the Fishing Pier and, most often, the Heron Flats Trail. We didn't see many new birds, the memorable ones were Ruddy Ducks and an Orange-crowned Warbler. On Monday, I took a motorcycle ride over to Tivoli to check out the Cracker Barrel, a convenience store, not the well-known restaurant.
I was looking for lettuce, but the closest thing to a fresh vegetable was an onion. It was big convenience store, you could get many brands of beer, any kind of chips, snack cakes and candy, some staples, fried chicken and milk, eggs and white bread...no lettuce.
We were back to work on Tuesday, taking a trip out to the Whitmire unit, which is about an hour away. We were accompanying Sarah, the intern, to do a couple of things, trim phragmites and check the results of a prescribed burn from the previous week.
There is a shallow lake on one edge of this unit of the refuge. Like many ponds at home, it is surrounded by invasive phragmites. Diana keeps a view cut through the reeds to be able to monitor the water levels in the lake. The view was being filled in by new growth, so we waded into the muck with hedge shears to open it up. It was the first time I'd seen phragmites close up and it was stiff going. Fortunately, we were only widening the existing opening, not cutting a new one. The hedge shears were not optimal for the task, but probably as good as anything short of a powered brush cutter.
There is an off-road Polaris UTV kept out at Whitmire. We used it to go it in the field to check out the prescribed burn. This part of the refuge is a managed wetland separated into units with levees. At this time of the year it is pretty dried out and they were attempting to burn a unit with a lot of cattails. The cattails use a lot of water and aren't a prime food source for the migrating waterbirds, Water is expensive and often needs to be pumped onto the refuge for migration, so minimizing the cattails helps.
We took the UTV through burned area but it seemed like there was not much effect on the cattails. It has been pretty damp since we've been here and the fire crew has had difficulty finding good weather to burn. Summer is much better, when it is very dry and windy.
Today we were back on the main refuge being inspectors. The biology group has a side responsibility of inspecting all of the fire extinguishers and first aid kits on the refuge once a month. I think we only have to do it for a quarter, but we seem to be the first group to do it using a recent inspection protocol.
Last month, Sarah did the hard work of finding all of the fire extinguisher and first aid kit locations, so she was able to supply us with a complete list and a schematic map of all the buildings. We only did the area near the visitor center and maintenance buildings. We also had to do as many of the UTVs and heavy equipment vehicles as we could find. Needless to say, it took a complete day to inspect every extinguisher and find and replenish first aid kits. We did get to visit all of the buildings, which was eye-opening.
Tomorrow, we'll be going out with Matt, one of the Whooping Crane researchers, to give him a hand with his crane monitoring. That should be very interesting. We've been advised to wear clothes to get dirty and expect to need wading boots.
Here are some photos from Ellen.
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