Camera #049 lives!

 

…heading for the bit of dry terra firma in the background

 

Carefully walking through the ice…

Camera #049 Lives!

The water level dropped enough on Wednesday so we picked our way through the ice to find my drowned camera. Turns out that while I didn’t have the sense of mind to keep the camera out of a flood plain, I did manage to place it on the sole rise that wasn’t inundated. Alas, no photos of swamp monsters or aqua bogfoot.

My Tropical Bones Doth Protest

It was 2° Fahrenheit on Friday morning, and my breath fog froze little droplets on my eyelids. On the upside, my dexterity with gloves is rapidly improving.

Week #2 started off really well until I lost a camera … drowned it, to be precise. Apparently, one of my sites is part of the flood plains for the Ohio River and managed by the Army Core of Engineers. Imagine my surprise when I showed up on Wednesday to find my site six feet under water. A hard lesson.

Apart from the stumble midweek, the rest of the work went well. Finding all 60 cameras again has been tricky – some sites are crystal clear in my mind, while others are fuzzy. The sites have started to blend in and there have been instances where I have zero memory of being there and couldn’t tell you if I set up the camera up a slope, on a hill, in a dip. Thank goodness for GPS (when it’s working!)

The first week of photos have been fruitful with shots of bobcats, coyotes, grey foxes, and even a red fox. Lots of opossum and raccoons, some skunks; deer and wild turkey are everywhere. Among the most memorable photos so far: a coyote peeing on our bait tree and a bow hunter scared out of his skin by the sudden flash from the camera.

Bedroom

 

An actual bed frame and box springs too…none too shabby

Kitchen

 

Large, plenty of storage and a leaky sink

Living Room

 

We inherited, i.e. it was free, a tiger-striped couch. The other half of this monster sectional is across the room.

Apartment in Harrisburg

 

Field Housing

“Home” for early 2009 is southern Illinois, on the doorstep of the Shawnee Hills. Living quarters are incredibly civilized – a 2-bedroom apartment with parking.

Fridays

 

Thursdays

 

Wednesdays

 

Tuesdays

 

Mondays

 

My Workplace

 

Hair Snare

 

Bobcats are highly visual predators and a flashing, twisting CD (hung with fishing line with a swivel) attracts their attention. Once they are close enough, hopefully they will catch a whiff of the beaver castor (mashed up beaver scent glands) that we smear on little pieces of carpet. Drawing them yet closer, the final “come hither” is catnip … like most cats, bobcats love the stuff and will rub their cheeks against the carpet, rigged with clipped roofing nails, that snag fur.

Bait Tree

 

Across from the camera, we bait a tree with sardines and a scent disk, an odorous tablet made from fatty acids that smells of decomp. If you’re lucky, a raccoon or an opossum cleans out your sardine can when you return one week later…otherwise, let’s just say I’m giving up sardines for a good long while.

Carolyn on Cameras

 

Remote cameras are set up along game trails, ridges, near watering holes, etc., looking for signs of animal activity and traffic. We are essentially trying to increase our chances of capturing images of animals that inhabit a specific forested area, particularly carnivores.

By the Numbers

4 sites a day
3 cameras per site

60 cameras per week
Ditto on the hair snares

2nd field season
4 sessions for the season (January/February/March/April)

Segar Plaque

 

Olive Oyl, Swee' Pea & Jeep

 

Wimpy

 

Bluto

 

Popeye Museum

 

Thimble Theatre Mural

 

Popeye

 

 

Chester, a river town next to the Mississippi River, just across the border from Missouri, had me humming: “I'm Popeye the sailor man, Popeye the sailor man, I'm strong to the finish 'cause I eats me spinach, I'm Popeye the sailor man!”

 

After working a site on Saturday morning, I stopped at my first covered bridge

The First Week

It’s been a helluva week. I am possibly the most accident-prone field technician in history. First, I slip on ice and land on my ass in an impressive fall (score: 8.7) in front of my boss and a cop car in the parking lot of the Life Science II building in Southern Illinois University. That was Tuesday.

Then, I rip my thumb open while attempting to nail a sardine can to a tree. Of course I pretended everything was okay. After all, all I had to do was take a nail and nail it through a sardine can to a tree. And I might have gotten away with my blunder unnoticed had the sardines been packed in tomato sauce, but they were packed in soybean oil instead. So, I drip, drip, drip blood all over the sardine can, hammer, nail, and pretty much most of my gear. That was also Tuesday.

On Thursday, I noticed my right toe was swollen. I iced it. Odd … don’t remember hurting it. It’s the top of my toe too, below my nail, so I would have had to drop something on my foot, and surely I would have remembered that. The next day, while nailing a sardine can to a tree (another day, another can, another tree), I drop my hammer to pick up wire and a wire cutter, except my right toe got in the way of my hammer and the ground. That was Friday (and apparently Wednesday too) and yes, my right toe is still swollen.

Remarkably, I still have the job, working with a great team of four (total). I am one half of the East crew, stationed out of Harrisburg. The other three, all of whom have homes in Carbondale take turns working the East and West crews, so every month, I get a new flat mate during the work week. This month, it’s Carolyn, a Masters student at SIU, who’s from Michigan and likes Celtic folk music.

What a week.

Southern Indiana

 

 

…the land flattens

 

Many miles and too many two-faced truck cabs later…

Kentucky

 

Not quite the welcome I imagined to the bluegrass state