Well the summer is winding down here for me. I am sad to say that I only have two weeks left of my summer internship, but that doesn't mean I am going to stop doing amazing things. I am also sad to say that this will be my second to last post for this summer intern blog. I might start up a new one later, but don't get your hopes up. Don't let that get you down though. It is not the end of the world. Just enjoy what I have for you know. And because I am a week behind on blogging, I am going to throw two weeks worth of stuff into one blog. I will just sum up what I have done throughout the week and not do the typical day by day break down for you. It shouldn't be too long for you, but just follow along and enjoy.
Day 1: Fun sutff
No I am kidding. I am not doing the break down. I already said that. Alright so lets get serious now. Lately the refuge has been getting down and dirty with this duck banding business. The biologists are going out every other day, baiting and trapping the ducks and banding them afterwards. I haven't made it out everytime, but I have gotten the opportunity to get out with them when I can and give them a hand. Last week, I only got out there once, but I ended up banding about 10 ducks myself. I was also the recorder part of the time learning the processes for all stuff. This week, unfortunately, I have not been out. If I get this blog posted today then this next statement will be accurate. I will get out tommorrow though to give those guys a hand. Also, some people have asked me questions about the duck banding on why, how, and what we do. I don't know if the questions were in that order or if it was even those exact questions, but I will give you a little break down of the duck banding from what I have learned here.
Duck banding is for research purposes. The banding tells us so much about birds, like how far a bird has traveled, where a bird has been, how long the bird has been around, and a lot more amazing things. When we get a bird into our traps the first thing we do is try to identify the species of duck. If you are not sure of the species, there are bird books that can help. Sometimes it gets a little tricky if you have little ducklings in there, but I won't get into that. Next we try to sex the bird; that is, determine if they are male or female. So we look over the bird, looking at every little detail. For example, the male wood duck has a white "saddle" in the cheek area, and a straight white wing bar on the tips of wings on the speculum (females are scalloped), just to name a few.
Next we age the bird. There are three different age groups that we go by which are: 1.) Local (bird was hatched this year at the place of banding - the refuge in this case), 2.) Hatchyear (Bird was hatched this year, possibly could have come from some other place)(hard to tell between local and hatchyear. It takes some time and knowledge of the ducks), and 3.) After hatch year (After the first year of growth and development). There are different characteristics for each, like notched tail feathers in the hatchyear birds and more distinct coloration in wings of the after hatch year birds. The aging and sexing is also done by cloacal (There pee and poop hole) exams. The females lack the penis while the males have one (Just like humans - well some of them). The hatchyear ducks have a bursa while the older ducks lack the bursa. Just to name a few again. Once all data is collected on the bird, specific sized bands are placed gently on the birds leg and given a number. All that information is recorded on paper and later inputed into the computer system. This, what I just gave you, is just a base of knowledge for this duck banding. There is so much more detail that could be added to each subject area, but we would be here for days and this blog would turn into a book. Also, the definitions to some of the terms can be found on google.
Alright, now away from the duck banding and onto something different. We have also been working hard at controlling this invasive species; frogbit. I know I have been talking about this alot and have done a lot with it. That just tells you how bad this stuff is. I went out pulling three times last week and this week, each time pulling over 534 pounds. One day we pulled 900 pounds, the next we pulled 1060 pounds, and this last day we pulled 535 pounds. I will be going out again on saturday to pull more. These two pictures are of me weighing the bags to get the final weight. An average, each bag weighed about 30 pounds and there were a good number of bags to weigh. This stuff is ever growing. If you are interested in coming out to help (we need all the help we can get), call the refuge. We go out every Wednesday and Saturday. It is a lot of fun out there too. Most of the time I am out of the canoe walking around in the marsh pulling this stuff. It cools me off when it gets too hot out there.
Next, for the visitor services part of the job, I help out with the youth summer program, gave some guided tours, and prepped for more of the canoeing around the refuge. The youth summer program was the beginning of this week. I was again in charge of the fisheries portion of the day where I taught some of kids about casting and fishing. For the casting, I gave the kids a challenge where they would have to cast a weight into a bucket I had set up. No one in the life time of this game (the game is called "cast a weight into that bucket over there") has ever gotten it into this bucket, until today. I was very impressed when I heard the sound of that weight going into the bucket. A little kid named...well lets just call him Jerry, cast his line out. The weight flew through the air and land inside that bucket making the typical "weight hitting a bucket" sound. He was very happy and I was very shocked. Good job Jerry and good times.
The fishing was pretty good too. We didn't catch as many fish as we have before, but we did catch a round goby (image to the left), which is an invasive fish species that shouldn't be in our waters. If you are not aware of that, you should find out a little about them. The guided tour was for a group of bicyclists riding around New York and were staying near the area for the day. They had nothing better to do so they came on over to the refuge and I got the privilage to show them around. Nothing too special though. It was great, and everyone loved the tour. And last I did some prep work for my canoeing program again. I am holding another event this saturday for those people that were not able to make it out to the sunday program last week. So needless to say, I had to canoe around to make sure everything is up to par. This should be another good time.
And last, I got the opportunity to work in the dry marsh with the big equipment. As some of you may know, the refuge is creating three new pools near the main pool area. You might have seen the work being done as you drive down I-90 as you pass the refuge. Well that is where I got to work. I was able to drive the JCB (which is a large dump truck) to unload the muck (picture to the left). That was my first time operating machinery like that, but it was easier operating this thing than it is operating my car. I am glad I got to put some time in at least working that dry marsh.
Well that pretty much sums up what I did these last two weeks. It has been an amazing two weeks as always. One thing I didn't mention was that I will be driving to the regional office in Massachusetts this Sunday and staying there for a couple of days. I will be meeting with members of the USFWS to network and find out about a future position with the service. That should be a fun time. Please stay tuned for my final blog posting which might be sometime next week. I hope you all enjoyed this posting. Talk to you soon. Here is my species list:
Pied-billed grepe, canada goose, American bald eagle, trumpeter swan, wood duck, mallard, greater yellow legs, double crested cormorant, great blue heron, green heron, great egret, bittern, ospey, redtailed hawk, american kestrel, antelope, killdeer, yellowlegs, sandpipers, gulls, pigeons and doves, black tern, caspian tern, kingfisher, northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, silver winged jetbird, hummingbird, indigo bunting, robin, rough wing swallow, barn swallow, gray catbird, common yellowthroat, blue jay, white breasted nuthatch, black capped chickadee, crow, coot, marsh wren, nashville warbler, cedar waxwing, muscrat, and much much more....
So to explain this picture, I just got back from canoeing about an hour ago and we met with a DEC guy on the loading dock. He just stocked 3000 tiger muskies into the Erie canal in Port Royal. Those things were just chillin around the dock like this. It was so cool getting to see these things up close. That is all.
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