This is being written as we head to the east coast. Lise’s driving, I’m not texting and driving.
It’s been a slow week for birding. Between heat and being busy we just couldn’t seem to get out there. Last night we took the kayaks out to try for a least bittern at Park Lake. Struck out. High heat, high winds, and low water kept us from getting to where we really needed to be.
Molly and I got out for some field work but it wasn’t birding. We went down to Ives Road Fen to help with massasauga rattlesnake surveys. Basically you line up and slowly walk through the area, hoping to spook out a snake. A good part of the area is tall rushes, sedges and grasses. Like waist high tall. Makes it tough to see anything. If you are lucky you disturb them enough that they curl up and start rattling. If they just take off through the high grass you have to be really quick with the snake tongs before they find a crawfish hole or disappear into the thatch layer.
Ives Road fen. Major neat place if you are into natural communities.
Molly the snake hunter.
Once you catch a snake you then process it. Processing a snake entails taking some measurements, then inserting a bar code tag up in them. Best not mentioned where the tag is placed. The bar code tag is used for mark recapture studies. All you need to do is scan the snake with the reader to get details about the it. Finally a couple scales are branded. Kind of like snake cowboys. All we need is Frankie Laine singing, “Head em up, move em out, rawhide.”
We didn’t do too well, probably because of the heat. Tuesday our group caught one massasauga. Thursday it was over 90 degrees F. by 10:30 AM and we didn’t find any. Saw a few garter snakes and some dragonflies. Probably the neatest thing we found was a crawfish carrying eggs that were hatching. So we got to see little baby crawfish, right out of the egg. That was a new one for me and pretty cool.
Eggs and baby crayfish
Speaking of cool, we finished up with a trip to the Spotted Cow in Adrian. Over 50 flavors of soft serve ice cream and just about as many hand dipped flavors. Just in case the ice cream isn’t sufficient they also had deep fried brownies and deep fried cheesecake. My arteries harden just thinking about it. Adrian had another interesting establishment. A combination Laundromat, tanning salon, and Beaner’s Coffee. So you can sip a latte while nuking yourself to a fine glow and watching your jockeys go round and round. Beat’s Gilligan’s Island reruns I guess.
The Spotted Cow in Adrian. Just watch out for the deep fried cheesecake and brownies.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 