Monday, April 23, 2012

Fort McCoy April 2012

We just returned from a successful trip to Ft. McCoy!


Finished the remaining tick gardens and did some dragging.  Dusty managed to drag 1 nymph (that was it though) and we captured several adults.  Also, we found these 2 guys (male & female pair?) under one of our coverboards.  No ticks on them though!

Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Bears, bears, bears ... at our North Carolina site

Composite of three images from one of our MNWR trailcams ...

And here's the cub's Momma, just before she trashed the trailcam!


Tick Gardens in RI






A few more Tick Garden photos....

The Rhode Island Site

We had great weather for this round of Tick Garden installations. One more site to go!!!!
Thanks to Howie, Eric, and friends for making this possible. Note: Rock wall in background of RI photos....its a New England thing :)



Thursday, April 5, 2012

Composite coon, and red wolf, at MNWR ...

Here's a 3-shot trailcam sequence, composited into a single image of a roaming racoon at our North Carolina site.
And here's a red wolf, complete with radiocollar:

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Cody's last day at TTRS

Today was Cody's last day at TTRS. He left for SRS this afternoon to take over for Kaety, who is going to finish up her masters this summer (yay!).

Cody, thanks in particular for:
- developing another way to capture skinks in addition to noosing them;
- holding down the fort after Gena left;
- for showing me the ropes and being patient with all my questions and criticisms;
- and for sharing yummy meals (including Appalachicola oysters) and interesting discussions.

Cody - have tons of fun in your new woods! We hope you learn lots about herps from all those knowledgeable people at SRS, bust out on the extra skinky projects, and please answer the phone/reply to my e-mails when I have questions about stuff back here at TTRS!!!

See photos below of Cody outside his shack and with Copernicus in their stuffed vehicle as they departed for SRS!



Monday, April 2, 2012

TTRS: what's happening?

Lots of activity at TTRS in the last few days....

Thursday, 3/29/12: Monitoring Gena's tick life cycle tubes: We found several I. scapularis larvae had hatched and were questing! This was only for the deer-fed moms; none of the rabbit-fed moms' progeny had hatched....we'll be looking out for those!
Friday, 3/30/12: After hearing that Gena had received a NSF graduate fellowship (yay!), another fortuitous event occurred: Cody dragged what looks to be an I. scapularis nymph!!! (You can compare with the larger males in the same tube.) This would be something like the #14 nymph collected after dragging ~45 km here since last April!


Sunday, 4/1/12: At our Hammock site, Cody dragged another nymph! But, this time of a different species....any guesses? Then back at the truck, a little green anole was catchin' some rays on our truck! Say hi to Cody! After dragging for ticks, we went lizardin' at NB66. Caught some broadheads with nymphs attached. Here's a photo (upon release) of the world from the view of a broadhead in the leaf litter.


Monday, 4/2/12: Cody and fellow herper, Tom Radzio, and I went lizardin' again, this time at Hammock. Cody and Tom: 5; Jean: 1! Tom studies gopher tortoise behavior at the Wade Tract! Cody found a larval tick on a broadhead as well as several ticks attached to 3 eastern fence lizards!!!