Goodbye!

No more trapping or field sign transects... no more beaver watching or coastal walks (and no more ticks hopefully!) Here's a picture of the whole team at the Seaside National Park. We had a great discussion about environmental and conservation issues in the morning and then went for a long walk at the park. We saw 3 porcupines and some seals at the park which was a nice way to end the day.

Half the team has already left on their flights and the rest of us are waiting around in the airport. Everyone comes from different places. We have one woman from England, and the rest are from the US from different cities: Seattle, San Francisco, Arizona, Wisconsin, New York and Boston. It's been fun spending two weeks with such a great group of diverse women. We've had a lot of laughs and almost no fighting believe it or not. I will miss the team and being outside everyday but I am looking forward to getting home to my own bed.

I hope you enjoyed reading my blog and that you learned something. Thanks for reading! :)

Caught on camera!

Last week we set up camera traps in the forest. Camera traps are a great way to 'catch' animals which are elusive and especially ones that are nocturnal. We looked at the pictures from our traps today and we caught some great shots! We caught a Snowshoe Hare, a Raccoon, a Fox and a Porcupine! Here is one of the pictures of the Raccoon. He looks so cute with his little eye patch. We actually saw a baby raccoon run across the road last night. You can see lots of wildlife from the roads.. today we saw more deer and many people have seen Bald Eagles but I always miss them. I have never seen a wild Bald Eagle so I really wanted to see one but it's okay because we've seen so many interesting animals on this trip.

I've had a really great time learning about Nova Scotia and learning some new research skills. (Here's a picture of me in the field which my mom asked for!) It's been great getting away from it all and thinking about the big picture. Sometimes it's good to step out of your normal life and go somewhere different. Every time I travel I learn something more about the world and about myself.

Happy Earth Day!

I hope everyone is having a wonderful day celebrating the Earth! We did slightly unusual things for Earth Day today but considering we've been helping the earth for two weeks I think it's okay. We actually cut down some trees today... I know it's kind of the opposite thing to do. But we were doing it to restore grassland habitat at Cook's Lake. There are quite a lot of species here that thrive in the grassland and don't do so well in the trees so the scientists want to pull out the shrubs and trees in the grassland.

We also learned Wilderness Survival Skills today. Chris, one of the scientists has trained with the British Army on how to survive if you are ever caught out in the wild! We learned what to look for that could be useful to build a fire, collect water, or eat. I think the most useful thing I learned was that you can strip birch tree bark and make a cup out of it to collect water. We also learned how to start a fire and set an animal trap! Watch this video to see the wild animal we caught! :)

Last night we saw lots of wild animals. We went to a local lake and sat on the banks outside a beaver lodge. The first thing we saw were muskrats which are similar to beavers but smaller and instead of a flat tail it's long and skinny. Then as it was starting to get dark we saw the beavers come out! There were three.. the male and female and their offspring (probably born last year as it wasn't too small). They swam back and forth looking for wood. One piece of wood was quite close to us and we could here him knawing on it! Then he'd break a piece off and swim back to his lodge with it. Most beavers around here do not build dams because the lakes are deep enough for them. Beavers only build dams when they need to create a deeper habitat for themselves over winter when the water freezes on top of the pond or lake. The young beaver also patrolled back and forth looking at us. When a beaver notices a predator he slaps his tail on the water to warn other beavers that he has seen a predator. The slap also notifies the predator that he has been spotted. They were a lot of fun to watch. This picture is one I took through my binoculars. I think it's pretty good. If you want to see really great photos click on the teacher blog page and click on Sue's blog. She is an amateur photographer and takes amazing photos.

Coming to you Live from the Field!

Well it finally works!!! Hooray!! I am connected to the internet via a satellite receiver that is connecting to a satellite way up in the atmosphere. It's called BGAN (Broadband Global Area Network). I borrowed another person's computer and it worked the first time. There's obviously something wrong with my computer or the Ethernet port that connects the terminal to the laptop. It's actually really cool to be able to connect to the Internet sitting in the middle of the field where there is no electricity around for miles! I just skyped with my colleague back in the office and after a little bit of finagling we we able to video chat to each other! It was pretty cool.

I better be off to work now. The rest of my team is busy restoring the grassland habitat which means pulling out shrubs and saplings that shouldn't be there. It's a beautiful sunny day and a great day to be outside! :)

Bugs

My mom has been a great commenter on my blog so I'm going to answer her question about bugs. It hasn't been too buggy yet actually. It's still too cold for most of the annoying insects like mosquitoes and black flies. In a month or two they will come out in full force so much so that we would need to be wearing nets around our heads! So we are very lucky to be on an earlier team! Today it was slightly warmer and I swear more bugs started to come out. There were some little gnats and some bubble bees. We also saw some pretty caterpillars. However the bugs we've seen the most are the arachnids...

Arachnids are the eight legged creatures such as spiders and ticks. They are not insects (these have 6 legs). I've seen all kinds of spiders, some of which have pretty patterns on them. When we were on the shore the first day we saw a lot of black spiders which scurried under the rocks. Similarly today we saw lots of little black spiders which scurried under the grasslands... I'm not sure I've ever seen so many spiders... but at least none of them were on us.

However what were on us today (and many other days) were ticks! These are wood ticks which don't carry Lyme disease and are actually quite easy to see. I've gotten used to having ticks as I've had many on me before so I don't really freak out when I find one. I've also been the designated 'get this thing off me' person. I've pulled off many ticks from my teammates including one that was latched onto some one's scalp today. That was a little gross and I definitely don't like when they've latched on. We do tick checks throughout the day and a very thorough one at night. Most of the ticks we've found have been just crawling around on our pant legs. We've all learned to tuck our socks into our pants or wear long johns to help protect ourselves. Bug spray doesn't really help with ticks so we don't really bother. In total we've probably averaged about 8 ticks each!

I got a lot of ticks today when I was kneeling in the grassland testing the satellite equipment yet again. I tried for over an hour to connect the laptop to the terminal and only connected once. I had a strong signal but for some reason it would not 'register with the network.' I must have tried re-starting it 10 times and most of the time I couldn't even get the computer to recognize that the terminal was there! It was very frustrating. I'm not sure this satellite technology is the way to go forward with our Live from the Field program. It's just too much hassle and not practical. Maybe the equipment has a 'bug'. I will try one more time tomorrow... wish me luck!

Weevlis Wobble but they don't fall down

We went to a new research site today called Cook's Lake. It's privately owned by one of the scientist's parents and has a long history of being managed by people. It has a mixture of habitat including grassland, forest, brush, wetlands and a lake! We set up traps in both the grassland and the brush in hopes of catching some larger shrew (in the grassland) and jumping mice in the brush! We'll check them twice tomorrow to see what we've got!

One interesting thing we learned about today is why trees sometimes have multiple trunks. This happens when something causes part of the stem (when it's young) to die or break off. This could be any disturbance such as a lightning strike, an animal grazing the tip or a weevil. A weevil is a type of beetle that likes to lay it's eggs in one particular kind of tree. They lay the eggs inside the tree and when the young hatch they eat their way out. You can see a weeviled tree here:

Weeviled trees are not usually good for lumber because there is no clear straight piece of wood. Thus weeviled trees don't fall down due to the logger's saw. Studies have started to show that shaded pine trees don't get weeviled but ones in sunny areas do. So foresters again should not clear-cut their forests leaving exposed trees but be selective in their logging, leaving trees to shade others.

Land of the Spirits

Kejimkujik National Park means Land of the Spirits in Mi'kmaw (the language of the Native Americans in Nova Scotia). The Park is home to the largest tract of old growth Hemlock forest left in Nova Scotia. Although a lot of Nova Scotia is forested, many of it is relatively young forest that has regrown after the Colonists cut it down 150-200 years ago. The secondary forest has a lot of tall trees but also a lot of understory and brush.

The Old Growth forest has very large old trees (300-500 years old) and not a lot of understory. It has a lot of moss to help keep the ground moist. Old Growth forest typically has very specialized species living in it and not as much biodiversity as secondary forest. When we walked through the Old Growth Hemlock forest today we often walked on raised wooden platforms because the roots of these trees are very fragile.

Fallen logs which then get covered in moss are called nurse logs because they support new life. Many fungi and other trees grow out of them as they are an important source of nutrients. Many forest managers take the nurse logs out because they are in the way to take other trees out. But actually they are really important for the health of the forest.

Kejimkujik is home to many endangered animals including an endangered turtle! The Blandings turtle population is estimated at only 300 adults. Habitat loss and fragmentation as well as road mortality contribute to their decline. They even have signs posted along the roads so people look out for them on the roads! Unfortunately we didn't see one but we did see an Osprey and some deer today!