So far, we've spent the week in the field—actually in a mudflat. We've been back out at the refuge's Whitmire Unit searching for saltcedar. It is another invasive plant that has been found in the marsh along Foster Lake that the refuge is trying to eliminate before it spreads to far. It is also know as tamarisk and is a major invasive plant in much of the country, especially the southwest. It crowds out the native vegetation, particularly along stream beds.
There are several stands of saltcedar on a large marsh and mudflat near the entrance to Whitmire and Ellen and I were there to help eliminate them—by pulling out the saplings. It was the first time we have been sent out on our own, It was a bit mucky in parts of the marsh and boots were necessary. We spend the morning pulling several hundred saplings out of the flat. The roots are longer than the saplings. We were surrounded by shorebirds while we did this. They were either much tamer or just much more interested in the food the flats had to offer than we've seen before. We would often get within five feet of groups of little Least Sandpipers before they would skitter away or fly off. When we approached the shoreline, the flocks of Laughing Gulls and Black Skimmers wouldn't even move until we within about 20 feet.
In addition to pulling saplings, we found several sites with larger bushes that hadn't been seen before. They were in flower which seemed a bit of a concern...something to do later.
Later came today. We went back out to Whitmire with Sarah, the intern, to remove the flowering branches from the larger saltcedar bushes. We had originally proposed to Diana, that we could lop the plants right down to the bases. She said that it was already planned for later that year to have a crew go out to cut them down and they would then use herbicide on the stumps, which had to be applied right after cutting them down. We then offered to just go out and cut off the flowering stems so they wouldn't go to seed before the cutting crew came in the summer.
So, we came back to cut off the flowers. We hadn't been doing it long when Sarah suggested that we could lop off the smaller trunks and apply herbicide ourselves, as Diana had a permit and we could work under that permit. We agreed to go back and propose that. After we surveyed the rest of the marsh edges for more plants and pulled more saplings from the flats, we headed back to the office.
The title of this post mentions a snake—here's the story. On our way out to the Whitmire Unit, we were traveling down the road at about 70 mph (well within the speed limit here). I thought I saw a bit of plastic bag caught on the hood...then it popped up. It was a snake coming out of the grill. It was waving around in the 70 mph wind stream and having a hard time of it. Having a snake on the hood freaked out Ellen and Sarah just a bit. I slowed down and it disappeared. We pulled over in a turnout and I popped the hood.
Looking at it while it was being buffeted, it didn't seem to be a pit viper, so it seemed worth finding. I opened the hood and a three foot snake slithered off into an inaccessible pocket of the right wheel well. Not much I could do. This did not please the ladies, but with some assurance that it couldn't get from the wheel well to the inside of the truck, we continued on to Whitmire. It was never seen again. Maybe it left when we stopped at the refuge, maybe it fell out, maybe it's still there.
After we got back we talked about Sarah's suggestion with Diana. Unfortunately, her permit for this year hasn't been renewed yet and it wasn't clear what type of herbicide was allowed on the marsh, so we will be back to cut flowers again tomorrow.
The big activity here is the oil spill. Today, many of the staff, including Diana, were assigned to go out to Matagorda Island for the next seven days to monitor the activities of the clean-up crews. Things will be somewhat quiet here for the next week, with a minimum of staff.
Our neighbors, Kent and Lynn, left this morning. They are on their way to Alaska for the summer. After work, we moved into the site they had. It is much larger than our old site and surrounded by trees. We are down to seven volunteers in four sites, so there is lots of space now.
Finally, the alligator. While we were moving, we were talking with one of the other volunteers. Evidently yesterday evening, one of our alligators from the wetland across the road decided to visit and was noticed lying in the driveway of one of the resident staff, not more than fifty yards from the volunteer sites.
We had some birding acquaintances, Alan and Ruth, stop by yesterday evening for dinner. Last winter, we met them at the Everglades and again at Myakka River State Park. Alan is the one who got Ellen and Sally interested in eBird.
They were on their way up the coast heading slowly home to Massachusetts and were at Goose Island over the weekend. We enticed them to stop at Aransas. They spent the day here and we met after work. We walked over to the Rail Trail for a little late afternoon birding (very unsuccessfully, it was quieter there than ever, not even a Yellow-rumped Warbler or a Blackbird). On our way back to our site we walked right past the aforementioned driveway and didn't even think to look. The alligator may have been watching us.
Tomorrow, more saltcedar.
No comments:
Post a Comment