Finally, some fieldwork!

So, after nearly three weeks of waiting, I finally caught a break. Late last week someone tracked down hard copies of the two training sessions I needed to get off the ground, including defensive driving. Which meant I was finally able to get out into the field. And as I understand it, I'll be out doing fieldwork every day now until the internship ends. Dwayne has a long list of things for me to do, most of which is either bird- or vegetation-related. Not the ideal study subjects, but it's fieldwork and I'm getting paid for it, so I'm not going to complain. Perhaps I can convince Dwayne to start focusing on some mammals. Old logging accounts from the 50's and 60's suggest that there may be flying squirrels in this area!

On the list to occupy my time for the next four months? Surveys for Northern Goshawk, monitoring known raptor nests, inventories of vegetation in both Black Hills National Forest and Thunder Basin National Grassland, and tracking Greater Sage-Grouse. Like I said, I'm going to have to work up an argument for some sort of mammal survey.

This weekend my mom and stepdad came up to visit. Question: What is the best part about northeastern Wyoming? Answer: South Dakota. We packed a lot into two days. Saturday we left Newcastle and saw Mount Rushmore (not all it's cracked up to be), drove to Wall (home of the famous Wall Drug- definitely worth a visit if you're ever in the area), through Badlands National Park, back to Rapid City, then through Custer State Park before returning back to Newcastle. I'll have to post some pictures of the Badlands in the next few days. It's a desolate area, but absolutely gorgeous. Sunday we drove to Spearfish where the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service runs a fish hatchery. It may not sound like much, but I had a lot of fun! I have to admit that I was probably more tired at the end of the weekend than I was before it started, but I was really glad to have someone up here to spend time with.

Then on Monday I started my marathon summer of time in the field. Dwayne's wife had their fourth child on Monday afternoon, so Dwayne is officially on leave and unavailable to answer questions. Monday morning I took the government-owned Durango, a stack of maps, a compass, and a surprisingly complex GPS unit and drove into the Black Hills to start goshawk surveys. I'll admit that I didn't have a great time on Monday. I'm completely unfamiliar with the field office, had no idea where I was going, and was a little unsure about data collection. Additionally, it's been nearly a year since I've done intense fieldwork, and I'm definitely not in proper physical shape. I usually have an excellent sense of direction and an even stronger visual memory, but Monday I kept getting turned around, and was sure I was going to go down a bad road and end up backing into a tree or getting stuck somewhere.... not a great move to make on my first time out on my own in a federal vehicle.

Luckily no such thing happened, and I've since been getting faster and feeling better. It won't be long now before I have a well-developed farmer's tan, raccoon face (from my sunglasses), a lot more freckles, and the ability to hike up and down hills for 10 or 12 miles a day without having to stop every ten minutes to catch my breath.

I think I made decent progress with the goshawk surveys over the last three days. Although I've yet to find any goshawk, I've covered 30 of the 100 survey locations Dwayne has laid out. I need a change of pace, though. On the agenda for tomorrow? Tracking sage-grouse!