Wicked Busy
It's been a busy couple of weeks! I've also been procrastinating on updating the ol' ElJay too so I'm just going to do it bullet post style and maybe we can get through it together.
A couple weekends ago dad and Xeela discovered a bunch of office equipment dumped off a rarely traveled side road. I returned with him to the site to discover that a) it was all in better shape than he expected and b) there was a LOT of it. We ended up salvaging two out of four bulletin boards, a handful of large Rolodexes, two staplers, a couple pencil holders, approximately a bajillion binders of different sizes (okay, more like 12, and there were a few more that we didn't take because of broken flaps and so forth), maybe ten or so stand up paper/folder holder/dividers several of which were metal, too many in/out boxes, and some small stand alone shelving units. There were a couple tinted privacy screens that people hang over their monitors that were missing their fasteners so we left those and three boxes of PitneyBowes postage tape which I did take to see if they could use them at the Fish and Game office.
About a week later dad returned to the site. There was more dumped but almost everything had been trashed now. The privacy screens, which tend to run rather pricey, were both smashed in. We did find some evidence regarding where all this stuff had come from and dad reported it but I don't know if anything came from it. ...maybe we should drop Squid a tip.
Not only could they use the postage tape back at the office, but apparently we had just run out and Maura was having trouble reordering from PitneyBowes! Timing FTW!
I spent several busy days coordinating with people, planning train routes, getting everything ready, and finally finishing some art all on top of the usual work/commute/chores/stuff. Totally worth it, though, because the result was EPIC.
Last Tuesday, the 24th, dsch arrived and the very next day the two of us went up to Walnut Creek to pick up arrin from her aunt's while xilin and poth went down to King City to pick up AmyDragon. We all met up in San Francisco.
We watched Wicked at the Orpheum.
It was AWESOME.
On Thursday I traveled south with dsch and arrin to Riverside by way of Parkfield, the Carrizo Plain, and a few scenic county roads. We dropped by the Neenach Volcanics again where arrin took a rock sample for me to reunite with the Pinnacles. (It's sitting here on my desk, waiting for the next time we take a hike.) The remainder of the week involved short roadtrips in the desert and mountains, fault poking, legendary food, and the first CrossedPaths meetup EVER between myself, chrispy_ness, and arrin where I presented prints of Triple Trouble to each.
dsch has a much more in-depth write up of the whole experience from his drive up on Tuesday to me narrowly catching my train on Sunday over here.
The train ride back was rather nice even if it did get off to a bit of a frantic start with getting my tickets printed, finding the right platform, boarding and stowing my luggage pretty much all at once. The train took me to Santa Barbara where I then transferred to a large Amtrak bus. Unfortunately the first seat I chose on the rather full bus happened to have a back that wouldn't lock in any position so I got a little stiff trying to sit up and not whap the person riding behind me with my seat back. Fortunately almost everyone got off at CalPoly and I was able to switch to a seat that would actually support me. I almost finished John McPhees's "The Control of Nature" during the ride and I didn't have to drive. Since the train ticket cost about as much as a full tank of gas (which driving the same distance would have required) I think I came out ahead by taking the train rather than driving. Now if only Amtrak would schedule better routes I might be more inclined to ride the train/bus more often.
Backing up a little, the weekend before the whole Wicked+RoadTrip was a mammal trapping weekend. As is becoming usual now, it rained. We don't plan it this way on purpose. Fortunately it didn't rain so much as to get into the traps and the mice were all pretty dry. We caught 24 of the 25 we need, not sure yet if we have to go back and set traps for ONE mouse.
There was a plant at this site that has very suddenly gone from bare sticks to foliage and bright yellow flowers and it's ALL OVER. This made me concerned that it might be an invasive. I don't think I've ever been so happy to be wrong. It's Ribes quercetorum, a gooseberry of many names (oak/foothill/rock/yellow).
The weekend before that was bird netting. We caught a scrub jay (along with four other birds). It was not happy about this turn of events, especially since it was the only jay out of the dozens and dozens flying about and scolding us from the tops of willows to get caught.
Birds first!
Golden-crowned sparrow with a very nice yellow stripe.
Scrub jay!
I love those blue feathers.
Yellow-rumped warbler head.
Apparently this is an important photo to take in order to distinguish between Audubon's and Myrtle's races of yellow-rumped warblers. We didn't know this at the time.
Tadaa!
Now for some mice.
We started working outside with the gate of the truck as our table. It was overcast and chilly, especially since both Clayton and I have old boots that soaked through immediately, but it seemed like the sun would warm things up soon enough. We caught a couple of these guys, the California/parasitic mouse. They're generally rather mellow and docile and not particularly bitey at all.
Our only harvest mouse of the day. These guys are tiny and adorable but bitey!
Here's a dry manny for reference...
...because the next P. maniculatus we processed made a break for it and jumped into the grass. We are getting better at recapturing escapees though and after herding it back and forth under the truck it finally got within arms reach and I trapped it. And that is why on a rainy day when the traps stayed dry THIS particular mouse is wet.
After that the storm really picked up with wind that cut right through the thermal layers we were wearing, chill that made our hands stiff and slow (no good while manipulating small, fragile, bitey things), and rain that threatened the structural integrity of our record books. We packed up our equipment, put the lid on the bin of unprocessed mice, released the ones we had processed and drove to the main office/warehouse of the park that is our study site where the guy in charge graciously let us use part of the warehouse. Naturally once we set up indoors the sun came out.
Here's another manny. Take a quick second to compare her to the ones I posted above. Does she look different?
It's because she's pregnant.
(We handled her extra gently, including forgoing the ear-measurement because Clayton didn't want to scruff her.)
Different manny. I'm posting this one because I finally got a good non-blurry grooming picture.
Remember our old friend the California spiny pocket mouse?
Remember the last time I posted mice pictures and there was the picture showing the pockets on the pocket mouse? And how I wished to see one with stuffed pouches?
The wish came true!
These guys are crazy! They aren't pouches at all, they are POCKETS. Oh man, California spiny pocket mouse, you are SO COOL.
But as awesome as the spiny is, we had one catch that trumped all others.
That's right.
We caught...
...a kangaroo rat.
With no training on how to handle or identify a K-rat, Clayton took measurements as best he could, I took many pictures (particularly of the feet and tail) and read through the key trying to find out what species it was. We came up with Dipodomys venustus with Dipodomys heermanni as a close second.
And we were so close.
I emailed our CalPoly expert later that week (with a description, measurements, pictures and location only, not our guesses) and he confirmed that is was a D. heermanni, though if the habitat were different there was a change it could be D. venustus.
I thanked him for his help and mentioned that those were the ones we'd keyed it down to, though we weren't at all certain especially since it involved a lot of guess work.
His reply: "If you got that close to the id, then you are doing really well. They are not easy to key to species."
Woot! Mad dichotomous key skillz!
We watched Wicked at the Orpheum.
It was AWESOME.
dsch has a much more in-depth write up of the whole experience from his drive up on Tuesday to me narrowly catching my train on Sunday over here.
Birds first!
Golden-crowned sparrow with a very nice yellow stripe.
Scrub jay!
I love those blue feathers.
Yellow-rumped warbler head.
Apparently this is an important photo to take in order to distinguish between Audubon's and Myrtle's races of yellow-rumped warblers. We didn't know this at the time.
Tadaa!
Now for some mice.
We started working outside with the gate of the truck as our table. It was overcast and chilly, especially since both Clayton and I have old boots that soaked through immediately, but it seemed like the sun would warm things up soon enough. We caught a couple of these guys, the California/parasitic mouse. They're generally rather mellow and docile and not particularly bitey at all.
Our only harvest mouse of the day. These guys are tiny and adorable but bitey!
Here's a dry manny for reference...
...because the next P. maniculatus we processed made a break for it and jumped into the grass. We are getting better at recapturing escapees though and after herding it back and forth under the truck it finally got within arms reach and I trapped it. And that is why on a rainy day when the traps stayed dry THIS particular mouse is wet.
After that the storm really picked up with wind that cut right through the thermal layers we were wearing, chill that made our hands stiff and slow (no good while manipulating small, fragile, bitey things), and rain that threatened the structural integrity of our record books. We packed up our equipment, put the lid on the bin of unprocessed mice, released the ones we had processed and drove to the main office/warehouse of the park that is our study site where the guy in charge graciously let us use part of the warehouse. Naturally once we set up indoors the sun came out.
Here's another manny. Take a quick second to compare her to the ones I posted above. Does she look different?
It's because she's pregnant.
(We handled her extra gently, including forgoing the ear-measurement because Clayton didn't want to scruff her.)
Different manny. I'm posting this one because I finally got a good non-blurry grooming picture.
Remember our old friend the California spiny pocket mouse?
Remember the last time I posted mice pictures and there was the picture showing the pockets on the pocket mouse? And how I wished to see one with stuffed pouches?
The wish came true!
These guys are crazy! They aren't pouches at all, they are POCKETS. Oh man, California spiny pocket mouse, you are SO COOL.
But as awesome as the spiny is, we had one catch that trumped all others.
That's right.
We caught...
...a kangaroo rat.
With no training on how to handle or identify a K-rat, Clayton took measurements as best he could, I took many pictures (particularly of the feet and tail) and read through the key trying to find out what species it was. We came up with Dipodomys venustus with Dipodomys heermanni as a close second.
And we were so close.
I emailed our CalPoly expert later that week (with a description, measurements, pictures and location only, not our guesses) and he confirmed that is was a D. heermanni, though if the habitat were different there was a change it could be D. venustus.
I thanked him for his help and mentioned that those were the ones we'd keyed it down to, though we weren't at all certain especially since it involved a lot of guess work.
His reply: "If you got that close to the id, then you are doing really well. They are not easy to key to species."
Woot! Mad dichotomous key skillz!