Goosey Goosey Gander

A few weeks ago I got to get out of the office and into the field for a day of goose banding. I know my last three entries, including this one, all talk about my time in the field. But let me assure you, dear blog reader, that these are the ONLY times I’ve spent in the field this summer! I just haven’t shared my hours of data entry, management, scanning, filing, archiving, etc. Don’t get me wrong, it’s interesting work, just perhaps not blog worthy!

Anyway, the end of June/beginning of July marks Goose banding season. That time of year, the Canada Geese are moulting most if not all of their feathers over a period of several weeks. This coincides with their goslings getting off the nest and they are big enough to paddle around. So the Geese are bound to the water they’re are when the moulting begins. This is typically not an issue for them for food and safety, and it occurs like clockwork. Biologists of course picked up on this, and decided this was a perfect time of year to round Geese up and put bands on their legs for future monitoring.

Chelsea at her post on the edge of the pond!

My friend and SUNY Cobleskill classmate Chelsea, and I met up with waterfowl biologists and other DEC staff at the Region 4 wildlife field office in Stamford, NY on a Monday morning. It was an overcast, foggy morning, but the Geese didn’t care, so neither did we!

We first caravaned to a summer camp property that had a large pond on it. They allowed us to come trap and band the Geese that day, which was nice since the property is not public access land. We had to move quickly so that the Geese couldn’t get away. Although they couldn’t fly, they could disappear into the woods IF they could get past us onto the shore. When we pulled up, they were just hanging out on the water. There were I think around 75 of them, and we qucikly all spread out and surrounded the pond. It wasn’t too large, maybe 6 acres, and we had quite the team assembled that morning. We all took our posts and some got into kayaks to do herding once it was time, and then a few more people moved quickly to set up the pen that we were going to attempt to herd them into.

It seemed like a long shot, but I had faith that the biologists knew what they were doing!

Chelsea and I were of no REAL help to the group, but we were given the task of herding Geese, and had our spots to stand in, and were told not to allow a single Goose past.

A view of the Geese across the pond with a DEC staff member trying to shoo them back into the middle of the pond.

 

Canada Geese

Unfortunately, I don’t have pictures of the next few moments. The kayakers moved in, slowly pushing the Geese in the direction we wanted. Like a well oiled machine, the Geese went RIGHT where they were supposed to, and there were DEC staff waiting to shut them in the holding pen.




DEC staff corraling Canada Geese ready for banding.

Next the biologists readied themselves to determine the sex of the Goose, to determine the age of the Goose, and then banded the Goose.



DEC Biologist Mike Clarke examines the vent of a Goose to determine the sex.



Here’s my friend Chelsea handing over a Goose to be inspected. The way she’d handling the Goose may LOOK uncomfortable, but really it was a safer way (for us and them) to handle them. Their large wings could easily get bent or damaged if they weren’t secured. This kept us from getting beaten around by their wings, and kept them from getting hurt.

Check out these honkers! The Goose in the center of the picture has an interesting white patch of feathers. That is a full grown Goose too. You can see the neck of the Goose just to the upper left- that’s a juvenile. But this one in the center is an adult, just with a funky hair-do!

It was quite a gregarious experience. Lots of noise, and lots of commotion! Unfortunately I did not get my photograph with a Goose. It all happened so fast, that I wasn’t able to pass off my camera. I did get the opportunity to sex/age/band a Goose though. And I got initiated into the club: I was bitten and pooped on. Another great day out in the field, which certainly makes up for all the days at my desk!


An ethical dilemma

Things you ARE allowed to do:

walk/cross country ski/snowshoe/walk the dog/fish from land/

take your college classes there to learn about wetland plants

(that's how I was introduced to this place!).

‘Tis the season to be out of my mind.
Holidays and finals.

So many things are going on, but I HAD to get out of the house yesterday morning to take the dog for a run, and to just not be inside. I live in Schoharie, well really “East Cobleskill”, and I’m just down the road from the town water resevoir which has some nice mown trails and is open to the public for various uses.

My dog, by the way, is a 10 week old golden retriever named “Addie” (Adirondack). She’s a ball of energy and needs to be run everyday to burn some energy! I also was looking for a way to introduce my girl to the blogging community, and this was the perfect entry.

I was walking Addie on leash for a bit, then let her off to work on doing some “recalls” (Addie, come! Good girl!). She’s pretty good at keeping next to me, leash or not. So we’re walking around the edge of one of the retention ponds, and there’s a stand of common reed (even though THAT’S the common name, more people know it by it’s genus: Phragmites [Frag-mite-ees]). This is a horribly invasively plant that takes over wetlands, and creates a monoculture of plant life very quickly. Not good because not very many, if any, animals feed on it or use it as primary cover. Nonetheless, it’s there.

Addie and the phrag.

Just at the end of the stand of phragmites, I found a puddle of feathers. Yup, that’s what it’s called when you find a large pile of feathers, a puddle. I thought that was kind of odd to find so MANY feathers in one spot. Many different types of waterfowl use these retention ponds as a stopover resting spot, and so there are many loose feathers here and there around the edges of the ponds. But this was a large handful in one spot. And while I stood there pondering how this came to be, Addie was in the phrag nosing about frantically. I looked in, while grabbing her by the tail so she didn’t scoot all the way in to where I couldn’t reach her, and so she didn’t fall into the water, and saw a Canada Goose nestled into the dense plants.

At first, I thought it was dead, because it didn’t move or make a sound as Addie was frantically trying to get to it. So, naturally I reached in and grabbed it, and pulled it out. I know, that sounds a little odd, but I’m into this kind of stuff! It didn’t LOOK gross, and there was no smell, and I wanted to look at it up close. And as I pulled it out, it began wheezing, and I noticed it was warm. It became obvious to me that this poor Goose was alive but not well, because a healthy wild animal should not let a human just pick it up without struggle.

I let Addie sniff it all over, but when it didn’t immediately engage her in a game of chase, she lost interest and wandered away to sample some leftover Goose poops. Whatever.

I looked the Goose over, looking for some kind of wound, and found, sadly, a small, perfectly round bullet hole right between the shoulder blades in it’s back. In the picture below, you can see the white ruffled feathers on it’s back- that’s where the hole is.

Addie being a good biologist and pulling the invasive plants out

I’m a bleeding heart, and I can’t stand to see suffering. I didn’t know what to do! I began calling past and present professors on their cell phones (Sorry again to bother you both on a Sunday morning!), and friends who I knew were hunters, especially waterfowl hunters. Everyone told me I had 1 of 3 choices: leave it, kill it myself, or try and get it to a wildlife rehabilitator. There was NO way I could put it out of it’s misery. And that’s where my ethical dilemma comes into play. I wanted so badly to put it out of it’s misery, because it was clearly suffering. Who knows how long it had been ‘existing’ like that. I was told, and I knew this myself, that IF I could get it to a rehabber, the animal would have no quality of life if it was saved. It would be caged and forced to be domestic.

So, I left it. I hoped that it would die sooner rather than later. And I took comfort in the fact that some hungry predator was going to have itself a nice fatty, protein-rich supper that night. I hope.
Please don’t give me flack about this…I couldn’t bear to finish it off (and detailed instructions were texted to me…). Selfish, I know.

What I’m confused about though, is that there is no hunting allowed on the resevoir. This is the town of Cobleskill’s drinking water source, so I’m sure the town doesn’t want lead birdshot landing in the ponds. Plus dead birds. This Goose could barely move. It was struggling to stand, and army crawl back into the weeds. So it couldn’t have flown from somewhere else and landed at the resevoir, in my opinion.

A flock of Canada Geese coming in for a landing.

Poor Goose.

Sleeting, and Snow Geese, and Sandhills...oh my!

Photo credit: The Wildlife Society

When I was at FLCC, I was very involved with their chapter of The Wildlife Society. I was elected to be the president in the fall of 2010, and then was lucky enough to keep that title through 'til I graduated in May 2012. My current college, SUNY Cobleskill, has a very active chapter. I think it's a bit easier for a 4-year school to keep members, there's less turnover and more momentum between school years. And because FLCC is still very near and dear to my heart, I had wanted to do a joint event between the chapters. FLCC and Cobleskill have a good articulation agreement, so many students transfer here from there, as I did, and I thought it would be cool to get the 2 groups to mingle!

Students here already had a field trip planned to Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge in Seneca Falls, NY for this past Saturday, 11/3. For FLCC, this is a quick 35/40 minute drive. For us, it was more like two and a half hours. BUT it's worth it. This past spring I planned this same trip for FLCC's chapter, and we had a great time. Check that out at: Wildlife Wednesday: April 18th, 2012.


Photo credit: Google Maps
A= FLCC, B= Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge, C= SUNY Cobleskill
 

Montezuma is located at a prime location for migrating waterfowl. As you can see at letter B, the Refuge is located between NY's Great Lake Ontario, and at the northern end of NY's largest Finger Lake, Cayuga. Montezuma is a complex of wetlands. There's a lot of emergement vegetation as well as open water for birds to rest at. In the spring and fall, it's an AWESOME place to bird at. Upstate NYers are lucky to have this great spot to visit.

I've been many, many times with my family, friends, classmates, and fellow club members, and I can add to my "bird list" everytime I visit. What made this visit unique is that not only are waterfowl migrating, but we just experienced Hurricane Sandy here in the northeastern United States. While Upstate New York really didn't suffer from Sandy, the birds may or may not have been blown about, and they're using this Refuge even more than normal.

The day we went was cold, rainy, snowy, windy...not ideal for us, but the birds didn't seem to care. My only complaint about the weather was that I couldn't keep my binocs and camera clear of water droplets. I did the best I could with pictures, but the lighting wasn't the best. There were some cool birds there this time. The following is what I could best capture!

Oh, and by the way: our day was led by John Van Niel, a past professor of mine, current prof at FLCC. He has volunteered for years at MNWR, and know his birds. I selfishly wanted him to lead so that I could visit with him and the other FLCC students, and I think Cobleskill students enjoyed him too. Thank you JVN! (John's the one who got me into blogging, please visit his blog: Backyard Beasts)

We caravan'ed around the Refuge. There is a several mile "wildlife drive" that you can take, and there are several spots to get out and observe (from the road). This was one of them!

Cobleskill TWS Treasurer Kristi is using one of Cobleskill's PREMIER spotting scopes: a 85mm Zeiss Diascopes, 20-75x. I've heard that apparently we have around $45K worth of this gear, which is pretty awesome!

Canada Geese

The next place we travelled to was the Tow Path Road. John said that this was open to the public, but I'd like to think it's a secret spot. Because we saw this:

Sandhill Cranes!

 

Kenai National Wildlife Refuge, Soldotna, AK
May 28, 2012

Sandhill Cranes are special to me, as I'm sure they are to many people. I first learned about these birds in the Conservation 100 class I took almost 3 years ago. John was the instructor of that class, and drilled Aldo Leopold's collection of essays, "A Sand County Almanac" into my brain. I'm a reader. I love it- BUT this was and is a hard read for me. I've since picked it up 4-5 times and tried to read it cover to cover, and I can't. So instead, every now and then I pick a story and read just that. Aldo purchased his "shack" in Wisconsin because he heard that Sandhill Cranes had been seen nearby. So he purchased this land with hopes of seeing them one day. This was back at the turn of the century, when populations of animals were low due to overhunting and slaughter. Aldo is the Father of Conservation, as he's known, and established the beginnings of managing wildlife in the United States. John also has a few great Crane stories himself, and told me before I went to Alaska this summer, to watch for them. He told me that even though I may have never heard them before, I'd know it when they were near.



Montezuma National Wildlife Refuge
Seneca Falls, NY
November 3rd, 2012

My first night in AK, I was sitting on my porch (at 11:30 pm reading in the daylight) and heard this bizarre trumpeting. I ran down the steps out into the open of the parking lot and stood staring, open mouthed at a pair of Sandhills flying over.

 

It was magical.

 

So now, I associate that sound with Alaska. You know how sometimes a particular smell or sound can bring you back to an earlier time and place? That's what these Cranes on Saturday did for me. Brought me back to my cabin in the black spruce and poplar forest I lived in for 3 months.

Ok, anyway...



Snow Geese

Assorted ducks and swans and geese...not sure of species. This was REALLY far away...

AnotherSandhill Crane...and for more information on birding at MNWR, visit: Montezuma Birding.

 

It was a great time for all, and I hope we can do a joint event again in the future!

 

 

 

 

Week #12: The Final Pics

I should have posted this last week, but I am SO behind in my blogging. I am going crazy right now with wrapping up my time at this college, the semester, life in this town...and starting to think about moving to Alaska. In 20 days. 20 DAYS!

Last week on Monday, April 30th I wrapped up my data collecting for my independent study that's been running for the past 12 weeks at the Muller Field Station. To refresh, this study was funded by a National Science Foundation Grant, the Community College Undergraduate Research Initiative. I was able to purchase 5 Cuddeback camera traps, various scent lures, and other sundry supplies like batteries, gloves, and scent pads. I've been checking the cameras weekly on every Monday since February 6th, 2012. The following are the pictures collected between 4/23 and 4/30.

Camera A

Raccoon

Canada Goose

Camera B

NO pictures for Camera B because I forgot to turn it on after the last time I was there checking the cameras. And wait til later in the post, when I share something cool. Really kicking myself...

Camera C - please note that the time stamps are wrong on these pictures. I'm not sure what happened, but I realize they are incorrect!

White-tailed deer

Red fox

Red fox

Red fox...there must be a den nearby!

Coyote

A male WTD with nubs!

And that's all she wrote! Officially through with collecting data. DONE! It was a wild 12 weeks, so much fun checking the cameras every week waiting to see what I got. I'm honestly surprised that I didn't get: beaver, striped skunk, black bear, or more river otter, mink, and muskrat.

This morning I got a call from Nadia, the K12 Outreach Coordinator at the field station. I've left the cameras up for her to continue to use with school groups that come and visit. She calls me in a frenzy this morning to tell me that we finally got this:

BAM. 3 days after I was "done" collecting data! AND this was on Camera B, the one I neglected to set correctly for the final week! I'm kicking myself. I can't believe this darn bear waited perhaps all 12 weeks before showing his/her face. I have been seeing bear sign for WEEKS at the field station, within eyesight of one of my camera sets! So frustrating, but VERY cool that it finally happened!



Now it's data time. I've been looking over and over at the data I collected which I've stuck into a spreadsheet in Excel. I'm also writing my final paper and drawing conclusions and "stuff". It's tedious, frustrating, but I'm very excited to see the final results.

Wildlife Wednesday: April 18th, 2012

This past Wednesday, the 18th, our Wildlife Society Club rallied together for a field trip to our local National Wildlife Refuge: Montezuma. We were able to snag a college van, and headed out mid afternoon. It was a perfect day for birding, which was the theme for the day. MNWR is known for it's migratory birds that take a stop off the flyway during migration. Of course there are resident birds year round, but we're able to see many different water birds that we might not without the refuge.

So under sunny, mild skies our first stop, just outside of MNWR was at a Bald Eagle nest. This nest was naturally made by the birds on top of a utility structure right at the North end of Cayuga Lake at the outlet. As we pulled up, we were excited to see an adult Eagle up there. As we stood and watched we saw 2 brown fuzzy heads pop up, and then another adult off in the distance, perching in nearby trees.

Mom?

Club members checking out the nest, and some of the students to the right are watching the other adult soaring above us.

Kelly and Delicia using the scope John brought for us.

An Eaglet!

TWO Eaglets!

Photo credit: Joe Varga 

I recently bought a beautiful Nikon with a 36x zoom, but that camera did not take this picture. The club's VP, Joe, took this picture with his smart phone lined up to the scope we had set up. A little bit of ingenuity got the shot!

Photo credit: Adriel Douglass

And finally, both adults! The one in flight has a stick that he/she is bringing back to the nest to add to it. I'm sure with 2 rambunctious Eaglets up there, some of the structure of the nest is lost.

After a half hour or so at the viewing site, we had to get going. We headed back to MNWR and stopped at the Visitor's Center to look out over the first marsh flat.

Photo credit: Kevin Skrzynski

As we walked up to the observation deck, we noticed a little Tree Swallow on the railing. It didn't fly away for a few minutes, and allowed us to get some great pictures!

I love the markings on the face, I didn't realize that they had a 'mask' like the raccoon...it makes this little bird look so stern!

We then loaded back up into the van to do the several mile "wildlife drive" through the refuge. This refuge is known for migratory birds using the land as a "stop-over", and that's what we saw!

Photo credit: Adriel Douglass

 Green-winged Teal

Friend, classmates, and students! And our tour guide, John, is in there too somewhere :)

Canada Goose demonstrating a yoga pose?

Great Blue Heron

Trumpeter Swan and an American Coot

Coots! One of my favorites! I would love to handle one someday...

A male and female Mallard

Blue-winged Teals, male and female.

Caspian Terns

Pair of Mallards on a nest, which also happens to be on top of a muskrat lodge.

Yellowlegs

A brief stop at one of the pull-offs.

And some of us are very excited to be at the refuge!

In the background you might be able to pick out a tractor trailer. MNWR is cut right down the middle by Interstate 90. This has been pretty controversial, but human necessity out-won the wildlife and precious ecosystems that were there first.

A panorama from the top of an observation tower at Tschache Pool.

Miscellaneous ducks.

And that was our final stop at Montezuma for the day!

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After we regrouped back at the visitor's center, John invited us all to his house for dinner and a dusk walk. He lives nearby and owns 50 acres of old farm land that has been allowed to run wild. Because it is in the earlier stages of succession, it's brushy and shrubby, but still open more or less, and John mows trails through it. The point of this dusk walk was to look for the Woodcock, which is an awesome springtime bird to look for.

Unfortunately I didn't get any pictures of the Woodcock, but we did see and hear one. The sun was setting, and I didn't even both trying to play with settings on my camera. I didn't want to miss any of the action! The following picture though is one of John's that he got on his property a few years ago.

Photo credit: John Van Niel

How awesome is this? An adult and baby caught at just the right time of year! John wrote an entry about this last year, to check that out visit: Sky Dance: An April Tradition.

As the sun hit the horizon we headed out for our walk to be in place for when the birds came out to do their "dance"...

Two years ago when I started at Finger Lakes Community College, the first class I was in was "Introduction to Environmental Conservation" taught by John. In this course, John intruduced us to Aldo Leopold who writes about the Woodcock and its 'spring dance' in A Sand County Almanac. The read was a hard one, if anyone has read or tried to read Sand County before. I'm a 'reader', always in the middle of a book for leisure, but I struggled getting through that book. Over this past winter I picked it up again and read through it. It's still a tough book, but the content meant so much more to me now being 2 years deep into conservation-minded life. Visiting John's home, and finding the Woodcock performing this annual 'dance', just brought my time here full circle. It was such a fun day with friends, classmates, and a professor that goes out of his way to educate and connect with his students.

This was one of my last events involved with FLCC's Wildlife Society, but I'm glad to have been apart of it and to experience days and nights like this.