rowdius's Journal

Another early morning doing whistle counts, and another dry ranch.

Dry. Dry. Dry.

It seems the upper reaches of the Colorado river watershed is soon to be a sandshed.

I've also started cataloging what I see at this particular ranch. It makes for a lot of mundane observations, but it'll be interesting to look back at it.

Two events:

When I first join iNaturalist six or seven years ago I did not have a smart phone. I was armed with my handheld GPS, my dslr, and a clunky tablet. It was laborious to manually upload and geotag each observation, and I just stopped doing it. I saw the potential, and enjoyed sharing the things I saw, but I simply didn't have the time to add them.

During my first wildlife technician job after deciding to go back to school to finish my biology degree, my boss said this to me, " Rowdy, are you sure you really want to jump from being a technician to a biologist? You're a naturalist. As a biologist you may no longer want to spend your free time doing what you do all week."

He wasn't right, but at the same time, he wasn't completely wrong. I've spent the last few years working with a single wildlife species, and while I've not gotten tired of wandering the prairie looking at other things, I've not had the time to really dive into the little things I enjoy. There's always something.

I've enjoyed coming back to iNaturalist as a way to force myself to knock the dust off all my plant keys and field guides.

I know my last post cheerily exclaimed how much I love iNaturalist now I have a smart phone, but...

It seems my phone often doesn't acquire accurate fixes. Normally this is not a problem, but one of my personal projects involves mapping harvester ant colonies, and I'd like to be a bit more precise that "in the neighborhood somewhere."

I'll probably have to just use my handheld gps for that and work from a csv.

Either way, this is still great fun.

I spent an hour or so wandering around a wild corner of a park document species before the city turns it into a disc golf course. We'll see how many are still there after that happens.

Dunbar lake. From Hell's gate southeast.

I really just wanted to get out for a little while. It was warm (4 PM, 95 degrees), so not a lot to see, but still manged to bum around for 45 mins or so.

Decide to do a little road cruise while the morning was still cool.
Distance: 180 Km
Start/End time: 0615-10:20
Start/End temp (F) 72/82
Pressure (in)29.82 rising.

10 tarantula
1 long-nose snake (DOR)
1 Kansas glossy snake
2 bullsnakes
1 coyote
1 bobcat (no photo)
1 jackrabbit

It was a nice little drive. I was surprised that I did not see any horned lizards, some of that country has be quite dependable for them.

It was also greener than the last time I went through there.

I had set out before dawn to Dunbar lake to get some photos of some pocket gophers for a project, but instead, found a plains black-headed snake. I didn't get my gopher photos, but it was worth it.

Temp at time of capture: ~ 78 F
Pressure: ~29.79 Rising.
It hasn't rained in at least a week.
1.78 miles

Found laying uncovered on a trail.

Quick trip to Spur for work.

The landscape looks a lot better out there. They've had enough rain for green up and growth. That is not to say they're not still be behind, but better looking than two months ago.

Only the one turtle though

I've been test driving new lens ahead of a personal project. I have this Tamron 150-600 for the week. I'm not really crazy about the weight or the bokeh, but it seems like a decent lens so far. I've only used it on a monopod so far, but hope to do some tripod work with it tomorrow.