I am about to move up into the mountains once and for all, leaving behind the suburbs of Medford forever. I am heading up the the 7 Mile cabin, not quite as rustic as the Cabin Cabin, with its showers and dial up internet, but less swanky than CPFS with its fast internet and lack of mosquitoes. I am looking quite forward to it both as a change of scenery/birds, and because the suburbs weren't quite what I expected when I signed up for a field job. However, and this is the very exciting point (from my point of view), is that in the process of going to some new field sites, we enter into Pronghorn antelope territory. Second fastest land animal in the world, with crazy antler/horny type things, and eyes of steel. So hopefully in the next 4 months of working these sites, I will get to see some (and if there are any pictures, I will post them on here). Speaking of photos, here are some nifty ones.
This is taken at ORCA, one of the best sites for views (as its on the top of a mountain) but one of the slowest for birds (we get about 5). One of the coolest things about ORCA though, is the fact that the banding station is located right underneath the widest tree in all of Oregon. Estimated to be 1000 years old.
Also at ORCA are the caves (ORCA = Oregon Caves), which we took a complimentary trip into thanks to Miguels connections with the National something or other. It was very intersting.
The caves went down a total of 200ish feet underground, it took us 90 minutes to make it all the way through, and there was even a wall where people from the 1800s wrote their names on the wall, only to be preserved forever by a clear calcium deposit. Oh, and also, this site is the most northern site of a recorded Jaguar, thats right, not only am I in cougar and bear country, I am in Jaguar country. However, the skeleton they found was 37000 years old, but still, impressive none the less.
And that is that, we are beginning to get juvenile birds in the nets, which ups our counts every day, but our crew is still getting very few birds. However, as I am transfering up into the mountains, the bird capture rate is much higher (50 or 60 birds some days) so it will be much more hectic and will truly test my bird banding mettle. And with that I bid you adeau, it may be a while before I update this again (when isn't it) but unless I make it down to CPFS for the days off with the rest of the crew, this will be it for pictures for the forseeable future.
Ayden
