I was amazingly able to fit about 12 feet of the foam tube insulation along much of the lines and slid aluminum and foam insulating tape around or on top of most of the rest. By the time it got dark, I still had two sections of about three feet each to go. Fortunately, it wasn't supposed to freeze on Sunday night. This was again very tiring under the van.
We are still trying to set up a complete normal schedule of 24 hours a week. This week we got a bit closer day-wise, but no hour-wise. We plan to work two days in the quail facility, and a day and a half for Ann, the primary refuge biologist. We'd like to work Sunday (half-day) and Monday-Wednesday, so that we have some non-weekend days off.
Other volunteers do the daily care at the flight pens, which involves making sure the waterers are working and the feeders are filled. It isn't as detailed as in the breeding facility, but there are eight pens in use. They also make sure the area around the pens is cleared and the vegetation and shelters in the pens is good shape. We did this on a regular basis on our last winter here, but it probably won't be one of our regular activities this time.
We were there to count quail. It was actually more than that. We had to catch all of the quail in each of four pens and individually inventory them by checking their bands and condition. We did this by setting up a walk-in trap along one edge of the pen (the trap was sort of like a lobster trap, they could walk in but not easily walk out). We then had to herd the birds to on edge of the pen and into the trap.
Fortunately, they will walk away from us rather than fly and once they reach the edge of the pen they follow the edge down to the trap and, with some initial hesitation, walk into the trap. That's the theory anyway. Reality is not so easy. If you get too close to the birds when they are grouped up, they will flush and fly off to the other end of the pen. We don't want them to flush as there is the possibility tha one might hit a post or the cage hard enough to injure itself.
In the three pens that Ellen and I helped out in, it took a couple of sweeps to get most of the birds, but the last few birds would take longer than all the rest to locate and move along. The last pen we did was very much overgrown with drying summer vegetation and the birds seemed especially crafty. We took more time in that pen than the others combined. It was a long day.
By the time we got back to Speedy, it was only about a half-hour to sunset and I still had that last section of insulation to do. With the application of a lot of insulation tape, I managed to finish before dark and plugged everything in. Both the heat tape ands the heated hose seemed to do there job overnight as it went down below freezing and everything worked in the morning. The next test will be to see if it all stays attached when we go into Tucson on the next shopping run.
Tuesday and Wednesday we were back at the quail facility. This will be our normal schedule. We tried to leave the Outpost very early each morning, before 6:30am, to avoid driving directly into the rising sun. About half of the 40 minute drive is directly east and it was a bit brutal last week. We seem to have traded that for a different type of brutality, getting up before 5am, but the drive was a bit easier.
Each morning we do the general care, as I described in the last journal entry, and usually finish up by noon. After a quick lunch, we were back to work helping Paula catch up with cleaning up after the breeding season. During breeding, many additional pens and brooder cages are squeezed into the buildings, then moved out in the fall to give the resident adults and this years flock more room. Paula and Hannah had already done the the moving out, but many of brooder parts still needed cleaning.
Basically there were about 50 brooder floor grates stacked up outside that needed scrubbing and power washing. As this is what the chicks walk on when in the brooder cages, you can imagine what falls on them, quail poop.
We hauled out the power washer and a big plastic kiddy pool. The pool is used to soak the grates and scrub them. They are then power washed to rinse them and get any leftover bits off. Actually, we power washed them before soaking to remove the big chunks. It took us until about 4:30 to get through about 2/3 of the grates. More tomorrow.
We returned to the quail facility on Wednesday by ourselves. Paula, and all of the other staff, had the day off due to the official day of mourning for President Bush. Only essential work, such as quail care, was to be done. We had already agreed to to the care by ourselves last week as Paula has some use-it-or-lose-it leave days to take before the end of the year. This was to be one of them. We've done the general care on our own before, so it wasn't a big deal.
Since we were already there and the power washer and pool were already outside, we went beyond the essential work and finished up cleaning the grates and a bunch of stainless steel trays that are also part of the brooders. We were finished with all of this by lunch time. After a quick lunch it was part to the Outpost.
As we were leaving, a Border Patrol horse van was also leaving the stables next door to the quail facility. The refuge has a stable area, which is being used by the Border Patrol. They use horses to patrol the very rough country in the mountains that border the refuge. We followed the truck and trailer out and they turned down the better dirt road that led to the locked gate. We followed. Sure enough, they had a key to the gate chain lock. They let us pass them and we had a much easier start to our ride back to the main refuge.
It wasn't quite time to stop and relax when we got back. Laundry called. The two washing machines and dryers in the community trailer must be the hardest working in existence. With nine volunteers and three staff members living on the Outpost, someone is always doing laundry...and we are extra hard on the system. We have to wear fresh clothes to the quail facility each day we are there. The birds in the first building are the new birds from this year and they cannot be exposed to bird dander from either the flight pens or the birds in the second building due to a virus outbreak a couple of years ago. If fact, once we finish the care in the first building, we can't even go back into it after being in building 2.
We cannot wear clothes which we've worn at the flight pens or in building 2 without washing them. This means at least three pairs of jeans and volunteer shirts are used each week by each of us, which also means that we (mostly Ellen) end up doing laundry at least twice a week...dirty clothes storage in Speedy is limited.
The other thing happening on Wednesday was the bi-weekly volunteer potluck at the community trailer, which also doubles as a volunteer staff meeting with Josh. So Ellen was preparing a farro salad as well. The evening potluck was interesting and we got a chance to chat with the other volunteers more than we have in passing during the week, since we are all off doing different things. This is intended to be a bi-weekly event and since it is right here in the Outpost, it is hard to miss.
Thursday was our half day this week. We spent the morning doing data entry for Ann. She has a number of end-of-the-year reports to do and had the data from the quail inventories and quail mortality reporting which needed to be converted from paper into spreadsheets which would be included in the reports. We were able to bring in our own computers and prepare the data, then pass it on via thumb drives. We don't have clearance to use Fish and Wildlife systems directly as they can only be accessed using a physical card key plugged into the system keyboard.
We finished up by lunch time.
Friday, finally a day off...with pouring rain. It began totally overcast and began to sprinkle a bit as we started off to Tucson for our weekly shopping. It was still just spitting by the time we made our first stop at Whole Foods, but was raining steadily when we left the store. It only got heavier as we made our way to Trader Joe's and finally Fry's. The water was streaming through Fry's parking lot in a mini-flash flood, but had let up by the time we left the store around 1pm.
It had stopped by the time we got to St. Mary's Mexican Food for lunch. This week it was tacos with rice and beans. The lines were as long as ever, but the food was worth it. It is rated over 4 stars on all of the rating sites, Google, Tripadvisor, Yelp, Facebook, Zomato, etc.
While I was in line the woman in front of me was placing her Christmas order for 30 dozen mini-chimis (a miniature chimichanga). She said they were the best anywhere and they get them for all occasions. You can only order them by the dozen...maybe next time.
In addition to our taco plate, we ordered a dozen medium tortillas to go. St. Mary's is known for its tortillas, supposedly the best in Tucson...and Tucson supposedly has the best flour tortillas in the west. They are thin, pliable and very tasty. They sell them in small, medium and large and the medium tortillas turned out to be about 12" in diameter. I can't imagine the size of the large ones. We'll get small next time...there will be a next time, although we have a list of about a half-dozen other local Mexican restaurants to try.
As we left St. Mary's to get on the highway, we noticed that the Santa Cruz River, which runs next to the Interstate ramp, and has always been dry when we've seen it before, was now a raging stream. Although the rain had stopped, we wondered about all the washes that cross Route 286, the road that runs out to the refuge. It has many signs that warn of flash flooding on the road.
By the time we headed down 286, all of the washes had drained of water, but almost all of those north of the refuge had wide bands mud and silt crossing the road. They were rough and slippery. Speedy had to slow quite a bit to avoid being shaken badly. Interestingly, the washes in the section of the road that passes through the refuge were all dry and clean. I wonder if the improved grasslands of the refuge are able to better absorb the water than the more heavily grazed land outside the refuge.
On Saturday, we had planned to spend the morning birding and Ellen wanted to get some practice with her new camera, but it dawned with pea soup fog. No birding and photographing this morning. Instead, we decided to do our next week's half-day today instead of tomorrow. We were doing more data entry. The Arizona Dept. of Game and Fish require the refuge to generate a report of all handling of wild animals. In the case of the refuge, it is mostly moving of quail from place to place and removal of deceased birds, but it also includes any other animal that is handled, such as the removal of snakes that get into the outdoor pens.
We had a year's worth of hand-written daily flight pen reports, which mostly recorded daily feeding and cleaning activity, to read through and extract any entries describing handling of birds or other animals. This took us most of the morning, but we got it done.
The afternoon was more fun. The day had cleared and it was sunny and warm. We did an informal four mile birding and photo walk around the local headquarters area which lasted until almost sundown. Not a lot of species, but we did see Red-tailed Hawks, American Kestrels and a Northern Harrier for the raptors, Saye's and Black Phoebes, Coots and a Green-winged Teal at Triangle Pond and innumerable unidentified sparrows, although we were close enough to identify a few White-crowned and Savannah Sparrows.
We had chicken quesadillas for dinner using those fine tortillas from St. Mary's Mexican Food. They were good...shredded chicken, cheddar cheese and jalopenos crisped up on the griddle plate with an avocado, tomato and shallot salsa.
Tomorrow, an off-day and a bit more birding in the morning.
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