We had been scheduled to do our hands-on UTV training this morning, but it was postponed. We are now scheduled to do it on Friday morning, one of our off days. But it wasn't much of a loss as we got another chance to go into the field with Matt to do crane feeding site measurements. We went quite far out onto the refuge. The first chosen site was not reachable. It has been raining a bit lately and they managed to get a UTV stuck earlier in the week. The first site was in an area where the ground was still too soft to traverse, so we went even further to a shoreline site.
When we arrived we managed to flush a pair of Whooping Cranes who were feeding a couple of hundred yards away. They took off over the water with a maximum of whooping. One curved left and the other went to the right, settling down on a point probably a half mile away. They kept up calling until the other crane noticed, wheeled around and glided over to the crane on the ground. It was quite a sight.
Meanwhile, I, clad in hip waders, was walking a measuring tape into the bay. Since the site was on the water's edge two of the directions for Matt's transects went into the water. I was the one to go in. It's pretty flat here, so even at about 15 meters out it was only up to my knees. I also held the pole from which Matt made his measurements while Ellen was the recorder (she has much better handwriting). This meant that I went back into the water, but only for a single point.
After that we went on to a more inland site. No one got wet. It went quickly. The other sites he had picked out were ones from the earlier day when they got bogged down and were deemed too wet. Just like the last time, we only did two sites and headed back to the office.
Some Photos
Ellen and I took the afternoon off to do some shopping. We had guests coming, Tom, Jean and Kathy, who are on their way to Big Bend and they would be arriving later in the day. It would probably be our only chance to shop this week. As we were doing training on Friday morning, it didn't matter that we quit early on Thursday. We also need to get ingredients for a large apple crisp. In addition to our guests, there was also going to be a volunteer potluck dinner on Friday night. Once again, Ellen picked dessert—apple crisp and ice cream.
When we returned from Rockport, T, J & K had arrived at Hopper's Landing, the laid-back fish camp and RV park just down the road. We stopped briefly as they were still setting up and invited them back to Speedy and then out to dinner in the metropolis of Tivoli (pop. 479), the nearest town with a restaurant, the previously described Canales Cafe. They came by, we showed them around the volunteer area, they met a few of our neighbors and off we went for a cheap Tex-Mex dinner. As it was only Thursday, it wasn't steak night.
A good time was had by all.
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