Here are some pics from the trapping session before this one. We never got our trap dividers (the order was lost) so we constructed THE PLUNGER instead. You can't really tell (it's upside down in the cage) but it's beautifully decorated.
Saturday, July 10, 2010
SRS Early July Update
Hello all! We just got back from our trapping session down south and we have some things to report. First, our third array is done!!! FINALLY!!! We had a great 7 man crew to help finish it up on one of the hottest days we've had down there. The third site, Long Tin, is very different from our other two sites and has been thinned out by the forest service within the past year, I'm guessing. I'm not sure which was worse, the sun or the fields of poison ivy we were in... I think Krissy and Russ would say the poison ivy :( We are very happy to have it completed! One of our payoffs was catching a ground skink with a tick on it's arm!! That is our second ground skink with a tick out of the dozens we have caught without ticks and it was predicted ticks wouldn't be on those little guys. Very cool!
Also, we caught our second mouse (a recap) with a tick between it's toes. I know that sounds pretty unbelievable but we have only caught one other mouse with a tick. Normally, we only get 3-6 different mice a trapping session. This time we had 3 recaps that were caught every night and that was it. It was a very poor trapping session with mammals. No mediums, no rats, just 2 shrews and three mice. We are consistently getting shrews with ticks between their toes and on their hind feet.
Here are some pics from the trapping session before this one. We never got our trap dividers (the order was lost) so we constructed THE PLUNGER instead. You can't really tell (it's upside down in the cage) but it's beautifully decorated.
Here are some pics from the trapping session before this one. We never got our trap dividers (the order was lost) so we constructed THE PLUNGER instead. You can't really tell (it's upside down in the cage) but it's beautifully decorated.
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Congrats, Kaety and the team, for getting up the last site! Very cool about the groundskink and its tick as well as finding ticks on one of the few mice you did capture! That's a high parasitism rate! ;) And, while you're having low trapping success (assuming all traps were available), your high recapture success suggsests that you're getting most of the trappable population.....odd that it seems....but perhaps it's not odd....we'll see!!! Hope you keep catching the shrews!
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