Finishing Up at Arapho

The time has flown by with only a couple of weeks left to work. We plan to leave for Missouri right after Labor Day. In Missouri we are scheduled to attend the week-long 2012 ESCAPEE Escapade in Sedalia and do some sight seeing around Kansas City and Branson. This will be our first Escapade and look forward to seeing what that is all about.

This summer has been very enjoyable and interesting. Our prior year of experience here was helpful, since the refuge had a large turnover in staff during the winter months. We were able to use our new ATV training for various projects such as fencing, veg sampling, water flume signage and boundary sign maintenance. We also have been using our skills with the Trimble GPS using ArcPad for mapping an invasive species, yellow toadflax, and plotting points for signs and gates on refuge property in Colorado and Wyoming. One day we even mapped White Tail Prairie Dog colonies using the Trimble on ATVs.

Ongoing biweekly duties include, filling the brochure racks and downloading the data from the four vehicle counters around the refuge, monitoring lake levels by taking piezometer readings, counting cows to insure ranchers are not overgrazing leased areas and maintaining a half mile nature walk by mowing and cleaning information signs.

Return to Arapaho NWR

We arrived back at Arapaho NWR on May 31 after a 3 day drive from Texas. This year we are joined by our good friends and fellow volunteers, Wally and Carolyn. We have volunteered with them before and look forward to working with them here.

We returned, as did the Tree Swallows from Mexico. We enjoy watching them raise their family.

We noticed the mountains have very little snow this year, compared to last. As a result the rivers are very low with many of the irrigation ditches dry as a bone. This part of Colorado appears to be in a drought now.
One of the first jobs was working at Mortenson Lake NWR counting Wyoming Toads, an almost extinct species. We didn't find any toads, but we did find this interesting nest containing Red-winged Blackbird eggs, along with two brown headed cowbird eggs.


After we got settled, we spent a day driving Cameron Pass to Poudre Canyon (Hwy. 14) all the way to Fort Collins and back.




We had our first moose spotting of the year.




In Fort Collins we had a nice lunch at Austin's American Grill in the historic downtown district. After lunch we took a tour of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.

We enjoyed the special selection of beers in the Hospitality Room. We tried three beers each plus a 4oz. taste of the new Wild Blueberry Beer. This is considered more of a dessert drink. Kurt loves blueberries, Virginia, not so much. We tried Leffe, Landshark, BL Platinum and of course, Budweiser. As a side note the tour guide mentioned that the state of Texas consumes more Budweiser than any other state. Soooo after consuming a quart of beer each we were all set for the long twisty turny ride back home!!

WORKING AT ARAPAHO

Our work truck, a 2011 Ford F250 4 X 4
Once a week we take the truck out and get it REALLY muddy doing water flow readings (CFS) at the many flumes located within the Refuge irrigation network.



North Park Phacelia is an endangered plant found only in Jackson County, Colorado. It is found in less than 10 locations with two sites having significant numbers, both found within the Refuge.
Our project was to conduct the annual plant survey. To accomplish this we located 100 preset monuments using a Garmin GPS unit along with a metal detector. Once the monument is located we lay out a PVC grid. We then count the phacelia as well as all other plants within the grid.



We spent a morning last week helping the biologist capture and band song birds. Several kinds of birds were captured in large suspended nets. To the left is a Yellow Warbler.







The birds are measured, weighed, sexed, banded and released.






To the left is the biologist holding a Warbling Vireo


Just outside our kitchen window is one of many Refuge Tree Swallow houses. We have enjoyed watching the birds raise their babies and now the family enjoys sitting on our hanging flower basket.

MIGRATING NORTH

We arrived at Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge on May 10 after stops in Austin and Dallas. We were assigned a 1986 Army Truck (M1008) acquired from Fort Sill.
Our job here at the Refuge involves using a hand-held Trimble running ArcPad to collect GPS features along the boundaries. After a day of field work, we have learned how to upload the data to the server and reconcile it using ArcMap and ArcCatalog. We also correlate the pictures we take with the appropriate GPS features. It has been very interesting defining our project maps, downloading to the handheld GPS unit, gathering new data points and photos, and then uploading back to the desktop server to see the revised aerial maps in the GIS database.

Traveling North from Santa Ana beginning April 28, we seem to be experiencing Springtime over and over. This is our first visit to the Wichita Mountains in the Spring. The Mountains are adorned in green and covered with wildflowers. We have seen many of the animals tending to their newborns.
We will work here through the month of June at which time we plan to migrate further north into Colorado.


We have seen several copperhead snakes besides this one. They are quite common here on the Refuge, along with several types of poisonous rattlers.

Winding Down at Santa Ana

Three mornings a week we rode the range in our trusty Government 4-wheel drive. Working for the Lower Rio Grande Valley NWR, we sometimes drove up to 200 miles in a day to maintain and post border signs, install gates and repair fences. The Refuge extends from Falcon Dam to the Gulf of Mexico, covering 275 miles along the Rio Grande River. To date there are 115 distinct parcels of land, covering 90,000 acres and still growing.

La Sal del Rey (the salt of the King) is named after its principal geological feature: a 530-acre salt lake. Salt has been mined at the lake since aboriginal people occupied the land. The salt trade represented one of the first commercial enterprises by the Spaniards in this part of what was once Mexico.




We were pleased to be part of a team of volunteers charged with the task of building a handicap accessible bird observation deck at La sal del Rey. The deck took about three weeks to complete with 6-8 volunteers working each day.
In late March the NBC Today Show visited Santa Ana NWR to do a segment about RVers who volunteer for the National Wildlife Refuge System.

South Texas Refuge Complex

After meandering our way from Oklahoma, we arrived in the "Valley" on December 2. Storing our rig, we spent the first two weeks of December time-sharing in Florida at Deerfield Beach and Sarasota. We moved into our winter home at Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge on December 22 and started our volunteer jobs just before we drove our little car back to Austin to spend Christmas with family. Then after taking a cruise the first part of January, we have now settled back into a routine.

Our current job is working for the Lower Rio Grande Valley National Wildlife Refuge as Refuge Operation Specialists. Our job is to help monitor over 100 remote refuge tracts for illegal poaching, ATV use, dumping of trash and other violations. We inspect boundaries, replacing signage, locks and gates and addressing repair needs to aid in the protection of important wildlife habitat. We plan to be here until the end of April.

Favorite Memories of the Wichitas

Life on the Refuge is like living in a wild animal park. Every time we ventured out to work or play we were surprised by something new to see.





We enjoyed passing Prairie Dog Town daily.








Trapping Raccoons was one of our "Sporting Events". After capturing 30 raccoons, 3 opossums and a hungry neighborhood dog, it seems we ran out of time before we ran out of critters.










The Longhorn Auction in September, is a major Refuge event. It is the first of two annual auctions. There is plenty of work involved and there are jobs for all staff and volunteers handling 193 animals and operating corral gates.

Kurt worked on restoration of this historic entrance arch. A new cattle guard was installed as well as drainage improvements. It was built in the 1930's by the CCC and used until the 80's when bypassed.











Once again volunteers helped the staff with the bison auction held in October. There were 168 animals sold.

One morning we spotted this elk less than 100 yards from our campsite. Over 1000 of these beasts are said to live on the Refuge. During their fall mating season the bull elks serenaded us with their odd bugling sounds.

If you would like more information on the Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge, click on our blog entry title above.

We're OK in Oklahoma

We arrived here in Wichita Mountains National Wildlife Refuge on August 2. This beautiful 60,000 acre refuge was opened in 1905 by the Department of the Interior and is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. It is located in the remote southwest corner of Oklahoma approximately 20 miles west of Lawton.

We have "no service" on our cell phone and have found no reliable TV stations using our roof antenna. We are happy to have a Wilson Cellular booster system in our fifth wheel and can usually get two bars of cell service for our outgoing phone calls. I think our associates here wish they had one of these contraptions, too. We have been told no one has ever been able to use a cell phone here at the Compound (what they call this little village where the rangers and volunteers live). We are breaking new ground. It sure beats sharing the available land based party line provided by the refuge. They do provide a good WIFI connection so we are using that for Internet and e-mail service as our VZ broadband (Air Card) will not function here.

We are both working three days a week. Presently, Virginia spends one day a week at the Refuge Headquarters digitizing images and old newspaper articles for the archives and two days a week helping at the visitor center. Kurt is assisting the maintenance staff with various projects including repair of livestock fencing. Kurt has also has been dabbling in Biology (Natural Resource Management) by trapping and relocating problematic raccoons in the volunteer RV Village.

Rush hour traffic here involves stopping for groups of bison or Texas longhorn meandering across the road or waiting while a prairie dog or coyote runs across. This 92 square mile free range refuge contains over 1,000 elk, 650 bison and 1,000 Texas longhorn. So no telling when you will see a critter.


Each September the refuge staff round-up and coral the longhorn herd and then count, sort and check all the animals. Surplus animals are then sold at auction here at the refuge. A similar round-up occurs each October for the Bison. We are encouraged to help with these events. This should prove to be pretty interesting.

Upon arrival we placed our bird feeders. We have been amazed at the steady stream and variety of birds that have come to visit. Besides the usual suspects (cardinals, titmouse, chickadees) we have enjoyed seeing summer tanangers, painted and indigo buntings, humming birds, red bellied woodpeckers and white breasted nuthatch. We have a daily visit from the three wild tom turkeys who clean up the spilled seed.