Rainy and cold... I thought I was down south!

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Day 2 was quite as wonderful as day one! After a night of crazy rain and wind, the morning began (and continued) cloudy and cold. In the morning Ingrid and I went by ourselves back to the blind we had gone to yesterday, in order to see what birds were there and to write down what we saw. This time we took our gum boots, because of the rain. Good thing! The path, which had been quite muddy yesterday, was muddy and under a few inches of water. It’s actually kinda fun walking through stuff like that with the gum boots on so that was alright. 😊 Got to the blind and there were no cranes in the pen 😞 But then, five minutes later, 5 cranes came flying into view!! One landed in the pen while the others still circled around. The one that landed called a bit and then the others landed. It was really fun to watch. And we were able to correctly identify all of them. Go us! After about 25minutes headed back to the truck and back to the office.

Then went out with Lauren to see a bit more of the driving route through and around the refuge. There is a certain path that we will sometimes drive and stop in certain places to listen for cranes just to see if they are alive or “dead”. If they haven’t moved for hours, the “beep” (transmission) will double in speed, letting us know we should find that bird immediately and make sure it is ok. So we spent a few hours just going through a bit of the route with Lauren. Got to meet a few more landowners, who all seemed very nice, and we got to see a few cranes in various places. Also got to see where Scott (the head biologist) lives and learned that apparently his area was under 16ft of water after Katrina. 😞 Apparently he and his family were living in the trailer where I am now for quite a while. Craziness. And yet, there was an area even CLOSER to the ocean, where they are beginning new developments. People never learn. It is sad.

After all the driving, combined with the cold dreary weather, we were feeling quite tired. But I still feel like I have an okay grasp of the areas we drove today. But who knows how long I will retain them. At least Lauren doesn’t really expect us to remember. 😊

Got back around 11:45. Stopped by the trailer to put on thermals under my clothes (because yes, I was that cold) and grab lunch and then drove to the fire center (which is sad, since it is less than 1/2mile down the road, but we were just too cold). Every week on Tuesday everyone eats lunch together, which is pretty nice. Had a longer lunch, with everyone just talking and then at the end everyone saying what they have going on, keeping everyone in the loop of what is going on. They made Ingrid and I talk and we were like “uhhhh we’ve been learning the driving routes with Lauren! And we saw some cranes! Yay!” haha. Following lunch they showed us how to use a winch to pull a truck out if you get stuck. Seems not too challenging, but I don’t know. Ideally I would never get stuck but that seems idealistic. Luckily, all the fire people are super nice and said to feel free to call them, even without attempting to use the winch, especially the first time we get stuck. They said they are there to help. So that is nice, and comforting. 😊 I think mainly, they don’t want us messing up the trucks. Understandably so.

In the afternoon we did some more driving with Lauren and then learned a bit of how to triangulate the location of a crane. It was nice to see how it is supposed to be done, and see it done successfully. That is essentially what we were trying to do in Australia with the bats, but it didn’t really work too well since none of us had ever done it before and we didn’t have much time to learn. Hopefully this time I will get the hang of it! I think my experiences in Australia and Nevada with telemetry should help a lot. Can’t wait to try it out! I think tomorrow morning we get to give it a shot.

Got out around 3:45. Ingrid and I were feeling like curling up with something warm, so we baked brownies and watched Fern Gully. It was a really great afternoon.  Gotta love having dessert first!! Baked some sweet potatoes with cinnamon and raisons and cooked green beans and each made a salad for dinner. It was quite tasty! I especially enjoyed my salad - fresh red lettuce, carrots, green pepper, cucumber, tomatoes, sunflower seeds, and strawberries. Mmmmmm mmmm good. 😊

So that’s about it for day two! It is amazing how early I get tired already. It’s pretty easy for me to switch my schedule. Went from spending months staying up til 12 or 1am and getting up at 10am, to going to sleep around 10pm and getting up around 6am. 😊 Although at times, I feel about ready to sleep at about 8. Which is a bit too early. Haha. I think the weather is adding to the sleepiness. The rest of the week is supposed to be sunny and warmer, so hopefully that will help.

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