Reptiles

Along with the warm weather reptiles start to move out and about. There are a few different types of reptiles that are found around upstate New York. The most common being the Garter Snake this is an abundant species up here and is the most likely reptile you will see. There are a few different types of milk snakes that live up here as well but are far harder to find. Then there is a Grass Snake which is an emerald green color and are even rarer but they are quite extraordinary. With the warm weather I have come across quite a few different Garter snakes some in the fields, most in the woods and a few in our garden. Although it is hard to believe there are a few different lizards that live around here as well. I have never seen them before but there around. The Fence lizard is found around here but is pretty rare.  

Garter Snake in a garden. These snakes are quite common and are found all over from woods, fields to bodies of water.

work

For the past two weeks I have been taking the data and putting it into excel. This has been a long process and is not very interesting. There are some cool things though that I have been able to do with this, you can show graphs of peeks of bird migration and when things show up, flowering dates and other things. I also have been going on a few walks and bike rides taking pictures and recording data. It has been hard as rain usually sets back the number of animals I can see. But it also has allowed me to enter a whole lot of data into excel. I have now been working on my narrative for the final project along with the research commentary which has been a good reminder of why I chose to do this project. It also has helped me get motivated to start working on the presentation. The presentation is on June 6th which is only 2 weeks away. This is hard to believe as time has flown by these past few months. I am prepared though which is good and already have the basics of the power point presentation setup.

Update

My project is going very well, I have been entering a lot of data into excel. An example of the data I enter is when a bird shows up and how many I see on a walk. For example Tree swallows showed up for the first time on my land on April 12th and I saw 2 of them. So for the day I would write out the species I saw and then the number that I saw. 

If I can I also try and get a picture of the species of animal or plant that I see. This can be hard for birds and animals as it could just fly over and then be out of sight so that is a little tricky but here are a few pictures that I have taken of the annual migration through our area. 

This is a picture of an Oven bird, they are a type of thrush. These birds migrate from central and south america and breed around here, there song sounds like they are repeatedly saying teacher teacher teacher.

This is a picture of a Yellow-rumped Warbler, this species breeds in our woods and winters in central  america and the southern U.S. They are easily identifiable from the yellow patches that are seen on it's side.

This beautiful bird is also a migrant and is called a Rose Breasted Grossbeak, these birds also breed around here and fly down to south america during the winter. They are quite common around feeders. 

This is a picture of  a Barn swallow also a migrant from South america these birds inhabit open fields and get their name from nesting in barns or along houses.

The Barn swallow above uses this nest which is right in the center of our main entrance  to our house. This nest is quite old over 20 years and is still used as you can see they do not use white mud (we painted that part) but continue to fix up the old nest. 

Mammals of the area

There are quite a few mammals found around this area most we hardly ever see as they are very cryptic but there are a few that are quite common. American Red squirrels, Eastern Grey Squirrels, Easter Chipmonks and White Tailed deer are common. They can easily be found through out the city and suburbs of this area. Then there are the common but cryptic mammals these include the American opossum, North American Raccoon, Brown Rats, and House mice. It is stated that in any major city you are always within a 4 foot radius of a Brown Rat. This is remarkable and it is mainly do to how well the can adapt and reproduce they are a true K strategist species. Another family of mammals that falls into the cryptic category is the Mustelid family, this includes skunks,   weasels, fishers and wolverines. These are very hard animals to see and usually the best way to know that these mammals are around are by their tracks.
One type of Mustelid that lives around this area is called an Ermine these small creatures are superb hunters and have caused quite a few problems where they are not native. They eat anything they can grab hold of, birds, other mammals from rabbits to mice, incests and reptiles. In the summer they have a brown coat but in winter they have a pure white coat with a black tip on their tales. These coats were very sought after during the fur trade in the 1800s and dramatically reduced the population during this time. However now ermines are making a comeback and are quite common just very very hard to see.

Finally the main carnivores around this area are mammals. If we lived around here 200 years ago we would have many more different large mammals, at one point Mountain Lions, Black Bears, Lynx, and Grey Wolves would have lived here. But during the early 1900s there was a mass extermination of these large mammals as they would kill livestock and sometimes people. This led to the extermination of Mountain Lions, Wolves and Black bears from this area. This caused a few problems that are still linger today. One of the reasons why white tail deer now are such a problem is that Wolves where one of the primary predators of deer, and with them gone the deer population has been able to explode with no natural predators able to kill them. Coyotes can take out young but are not able to take on full grown adults like Grey Wolves can. Coyotes though are now also exploding in population for the same reason as deer, since Grey Wolves and Coyotes used to compete for territory many Wolves would end up killing the Coyotes in order to have a larger area for themselves. On the land I live on there is a pack of coyotes that comes through and are especially active and loud at night. Here is a video of a coyote pack howling.

Breeding plumages

Through out the year birds change their plumage from their mating plumage to their regular plumage which is usually a duller version that allows for better camouflage with their landscape. The breeding plumages of birds vary immesnly and usually are incredibly exuberant and flashy. Females don't usually have any breeding plumages and are dull compared to the males, the reason for this is because since they are on a nest they have to blend in much more than that of a male so if they were brightly colored they would have a disadvantage of having to stay in one spot for such a long time.

Male wood duck

As you can see this plumage is a lot more flashy than that of the female, this as explained above is because the female has to sit on a nest during incubation.  

Female Wood Duck

Female Wood Duck, as you can see is not very flashy and can blend in pretty well in the landscape.

Male Tree Swallow

The Male tree Swallow has a much bluer back than that of the female it is also glossy. Unlike the wood duck above the male Tree Swallow will keep this plumage throughout the year while the male Wood Duck will Molt.

Female Tree Swallow

The female here is brownish and darker and less glossy than that of the male this is for the same reason as the female wood duck and it is an evolutionary advantage to be a duller color. 

It's getting green

After a very long winter and a pretty cold spring, plants are blooming trees are budding and it is getting green once again. Through out the woods Leeks, also known as Ramps, are everywhere. These are edible plants which are like a wild onion and are delicious. They can be eaten raw or most people use them in soups and stews for their nice flavor. These are one of the first plants that grow in the spring and are able to withstand multiple frosts.

Wild leeks you eat the roots.

Along with leeks Red maples are beginning to bud giving the hills a reddish tone another early sign of spring which is very welcoming. There are many trees that are now beginning to bud giving the hills a green tint. The deciduous forests of North America where once a non stop forest from the middle of Maine to the edges of Ohio south to Georgia. It is one of Americas largest biomes and includes much diversity in plant life to animal life. Every year the trees in this region loose their leaves in the fall for preparation for winter as if they kept their leaves it would be a waste of energy, and they would die do to the freezing and expansion of their cells. In the spring the regrow their leaves and the cycle continues.

This is a picture of a budding Red Maple sapling

Summer Homes

Winter is harsh in upstate New York as most of you know, cold temperature, lots and lots of snow, and it's long.  Starting in the middle of march migratory birds start arriving back to their summer breeding grounds, some go as for north as the upper reaches of the tundra and some stay here. The reason why birds come back up instead of staying in their winter homes is that there is plenty of food in the north with many bug hatches providing a plethora of food and there are not as many predators as there would be if they stayed in the southern parts.

Tree Swallow (Tachycienta bicolor)

One example of a migratory bird is the Tree Swallow which spends it's winters in central and south america and then migrates back to its wintering homes as far north as the upper stretches of Canada. The Tree Swallow is a fairly common small bird which lives in open fields where it eats bugs. They are one of the more common birds that people have in bird houses if next to a field. They feed on flying insects which causes them to live next to open areas where these incests are abundant. 

Good time to be an Amphibian

As all of you know it has literally rained everyday for the past two weeks. All of this rain has saturated the ground with water so in many cases there is standing water through fields yards and wooded areas where once was dry. This can be obnoxious and annoying to us but for amphibians it is perfect. If you live in the country you certainly can tell this from the incredibly loud choir heard every evening of wood frogs, peepers and many others. This is also their time to mate and travel from wooded areas to ponds streams and lakes to reproduce. 

Wood frogs,Rana sylvatica,  a semi common frog found through out the united states is one of these in the choir. These frogs have some truly fascinating adaptations allowing them to survive over the winter months close to the surface in leaf litter or peat moss. They can tolerate the freezing of their blood and other tissues which is truly amazing as in order to do this you have be able to when you freeze not have your cells burst. They do this by producing large quantities of urea in there tissues and then turn the glycologen in their livers to glucose, these two adaptations allow for limited ice growth through these areas. The rest of a wood frogs body can freeze up to 65% of the water content in a wood frog can turn to ice. There is also sexual dimorphism in wood frogs as shown below the female is about 1.5 times larger than the male and is also a different color. This is common in animals and is found commonly in all the different animal kingdoms especially in insects.   

  

Spotted salamanders

During the first warm wet days of spring amphibians called spotted salamanders begin to mate. Spotted salamanders are very cool amphibians as they are quite large unlike some of the other salamanders that you commonly see these range between 4-9 inches. There a purplish color with bright yellow spots on there back hence the name. These salamanders have another very unique adaptation they have developed a symbiotic relationship with algae actually living inside the embryos of the eggs. This is a recent discovery and this makes the spotted salamander the only known vertebrate to have an endosymbiont (a co-evolution with algae where the algae makes food for the animal).
Spotted salamanders are found through out the Northern and Midwestern states reaching up into Canada. They usually live in burrows and under logs and foliage so it is quite hard to spot them while walking around. But they are quite abundant.

Spotted salamander - Ambystoma maculatum

A picture of the Salamander in the pond with a newt in the background.

Journal list

7 things I did for my project last week.
1) Staked out my transect with plots
2) Walked my transect with a G.P.S. and recorded the elevation of the stops.
3) recorded data from my walks on to Excel
4) Practied identifcation of different tree species along with amphiban species.
5) Took pictures of different trees and idenfied them on my comptuer
6) started to practice different identifiying different bird calls.
7) Thoguht about ways to start identifying plants at different trasect stops.

reflection of the week

This week went by very fast, I have worked a lot on my project. I have been doing many walks and recording the data and after doing these walks along my transect I found it very hard to follow on and now have decided to take Stakes and hammer them into the ground to keep my barrings straight. I will also use these stakes as survey points. I am about to go and setup the stakes but first I have to drill holes in them in order to put string through them. After I am done with this it will help me a whole lot to say on the path. 

I also this week saw an American Kestrel on my land I haven't seen one of these for a long time and I thought it was pretty cool. These birds are declining in this region do to the farming fields going back to woods. This is where they hunt so it was neat to see one of these birds on my land. A Kestrel is a type of falcon and is quite small they eat mice voles and other small creatures. I have a picture of it below. 

American Kestrel

Hardwood tree identification

I went on another walk today and decided to take pictures of a few different hardwoods that are found on my land. These trees are what most of the woods were made up of a couple hundred years ago. Hardwoods are all deciduous which means they loose there leaves in the winter unlike evergreens and most pines. Hardwoods range from Maples to Cherries to Williows. I have some pictures of a few Hard woods below and how to identify them.

This is a picture of a Black Cherry trees bark. This is  a very easy way to tell it is a black cherry as the bark is very dark and is chipping like flakes. These trees are very expensive hardwoods for two reasons one they have a unique wood color and 2 they usually don't grow straight for very long so it is hard to make lumber out of them. 

This is a picture of a Red Maple, The bark is smoother than that of an ash and makes as the tree gets older plates form on the bark. 

This a picture of a type of hawthorn most likely a Pear Hawthorn, but Hawthorns are very complicated to distinguish between others and a lot are varieties of the pear hawthorn I will just call this a Pear Hawthorn. Hawthorns are easily identifiable as they have HUGE thorns and are very sharp. 

A neat feature of the hawthorn is it's thorn. The northern Shrike is a predatory bird similar size to a jay and since they do not have a very strong ripping power with there beaks they sometimes use Hawthorns in order to skewer their prey and then tear it apart using the thorns as leverage.  

Also on my walk I decided to lay Stakes out for my Transect line as this will allow me to follow the path much more clearly than how I am currently able to. I am thinking of putting around 20-25 stakes on the transect and i'm not sure if I will tie a string around them or not. I am thinking of having the stakes represent spots where I put a meter square down and record the flora that I find there. This would make it very easy to keep a record on where I am plotting surveys. 

Pine trees spruces and tamarack identification

So today on my walk I was looking closely at pine trees and identifying them. Pines are usually an in between species during succession. Succession is a process from when a field goes back into being a forest, this is occurring quite substantially in New York as most of the family farms are out of business and those fields are going back to the way they were 200 years ago. Pine trees are first growth trees that come after bushes during the succession stages and this process is going on along the top of my hill. The most common pine here is a White pine and they are all over my land. Some other common types of Pines found around here are Red pine, Blue Spruce, Red Spruce, Eastern Hemlock. I took some pictures of a few different pines and spruces and I will show you how to identify them. 

This is a picture of a white pine, these trees can grow in a bunch of different ways in fields they are usually like this and a lot rounder then when they are found in the woods. This is because they have more space to grow and take advantage of it, they have evolved self pruning like many other pine trees, this is where if they do grow in the woods they lower branches die as they are pointless and would just waste energy, that is what make pines good for dry wood if you need a fire.

One way to identify the White pine and make sure it is not a red pine is that a White pine has a bundle of 5 needles as shown above. A red pine has a bundle of usually 3 but sometimes 2.  

This is a picture of a red pine they are more uncommon that of white pines but are still found through out central New York. The red pine is not as tall as the White pine but can get to 154 feet. The white pine used to be one of the tallest trees in the east measuring at 220 feet for average size but now there are hardly any that size as they were all cut down in order to have farms. 

This is a picture of the bark of a red pine. As you can see its is a brownish red color and is flaky this is an easy way to identify this tree.  

Happiness class entry

1) when do you feel most happy?
The times that I feel most happy is after completing a difficult physical or mental challenge.

2)React to the article
This article has some very interesting points on how to achieve happiness, most of which I agree with. When the author was talking about how if you start setting out goal for success you will most likely set the goals to high and not be able to complete them. This will cause the person the opposite of happiness as they feel that they have failed on a level, a point I can follow. I also agree with the chart that he made, where on one side is boredom and the other is stress, anxiety and that you have to have the right balance between being challenging yet still achievable.

3) Where are you on the flow chart?
I feel that right now on the flow chart I am between A3 and A4 so a little bit overwhelmed but not super overwhelmed. There is a lot of memorizing that I have been working on recently so I am feeling a bit stressed.

4) How has the changed throughout your project?
In the beginning it was very stressful trying to figure out where to setup the transect line have the excel sheets in order and now practicing identifying the flora and fauna is quite difficult. But once I am done with these aspects of the project I feel that I will have the perfect balance between challenge and boredom so making it to A 4 on the chart (the middle).

5) How can you achieve flow?
I can achieve flow by setting small achievable goals and by working on my project daily.

New camera trap spot, went on a walk.

With the sun shining and being nice for a while I went on a walk. I would call it a practice survey walk as I did keep records of a few things but after a while I decided that I was not in the mood for taking a whole lot of notes on the things I saw and just enjoy being outside. This weekend was long, on Friday my dad got a viral infection in his ear and it caused, and is causing him to be unbalanced and feel very nauseous. He had to go to the hospital earlier that day so that had put a damper on the day. Then later that night at about 10:30 my friends car broke down way out in the country. We ended up calling AAA and getting the car towed and I ended up back at my house at around 2:00. So not a great weekend and I was just enjoying being outside, so not a whole lot of data collected although I did take note of the bird species. I also setup my camera trap near a spot where there have been a lot of tracks near my pond. I've seen fox tracks and a few rabbit tracks near by so hopefully they will set it off. I will now leave you with a picture of a Fox Sparrow a spring and autumn migrant that summers up in the northern parts of Canada and summers in the southern part of the U.S. 

The snow is melting

The blanket of snow is finally retreating fast, look at the picture below and then look at the picture in the last post of my hill. This melt occurred in about 9 hours today, and it is looking perfect for the American Woodcock. This also means that I will be able to start my transect walks. I am glad winter is almost over and hopefully we will not get another 2 foot snow storm, but it is only march and I've seen snow here in may so we have a few more months. 

I gave some more thought today about my project on my bike ride and what this will entail is also taking pictures of the species I see. I know this won't be possible for everything but at least for the trees and stationary animals I will be able to take pictures of them. After this I will upload them to a different section of my blog and write details about how to identify these creatures, if I know some of their habits and when/ where I saw them. This will allow for people to see some of the stuff that I am doing and hopefully will entice them to read more about what I am doing.   

Waiting for the snow to melt

I have everything ready to start my transect walks, I have the transect all setup, I have the excel sheets all made, I know the basics of what I will be recording and now the last thing I need is the snow to melt. Right now my field is almost completely melted, or there are a lot more open spots. This is very cool for two reasons, one it means I will be able to start my walks, and two there is a very cool species of bird called a Wood Cock which is sort of like a Snipe as it has a long bill and looks a lot like a shore bird, but these birds have a very unique mating ritual. There ritual involves the male bird to make a few high pitch nasally eeezp, then the male flies up in the air about 200 feet and comes spiraling down making a very neat whizzing sound. So i'm excited for when these return, this is my first real sign that spring is just right around the corner. Anyways back to the snow melt, the only problem now is that even though the snow has melted on my hill this is only a section of my transect, the rest of it is in my woods. Since there is a lot more shade in the woods the snow has not melted a whole lot, I will take a picture of it soon. In some spots there is still about two feet of snow which makes walking really obnoxious and difficult. This won't last to much longer so all in all i'm anticipating going on my first entire transect walk in a week or two.

Picture of my hill on a march morning, it is melting.

Bike ride and thoughts

So when I got home today, I went on my first bike ride of the year. I checked all my gear, helmet, Under-Armour shirt, some shorts (hardest thing to find), and my camel back. Then I got my zune and made a playlist for the ride. So I started out on my path which is shown below.

On the ride I began to think of things that I want to accomplish with my project, many of which came from looking over the land and trying to identify the species of plants and trees as I whizzed by. So there was one goal that I thought about, fast identification of at least the major flora groups of the area. This will be done by many walks and having a field guide with me for these walks as I know I will need these references. Also on these walks I am anticipating a lot of quick glimpses of different species so I will have to hone down fast identifications of species instead of having an extended period of time to identify the animal. 

Later on in the bike ride I thought about why I had chose to do this project here are a few of the reasons. One is I am fascinated, and I have always been fascinated with natural history through out the world. I have spent many hours reading and watching different documentaries and books on this subject. I also love being outside, this is another thing I have had a very strong interest in since I was a little kid. So this project incorporates two of my favorite things together. That is one major reason why I chose to undertake this project. Another reason why I want to do the survey on my land is that I know the bird species very well around here but that is about it. I know the basics of most of the Mammals, Reptiles, and trees, a few bushes and flowers and almost nothing about the insect populations of central New York, so I would love to be able to walk through my woods and be able to identify most of the flora and fauna that I see. These were a few thoughts of mine on the first bike ride of the year, it was a very enjoyable way to finish the day.  

Bike loop of Caroline distance 10.3 miles, It took me about an hour to complete.

  

Excel spread sheets

I have finished making Excel spread sheets of the different, mammals, trees, amphibians, reptiles, and birds for my transect walks. The next step will begin to start walking my transect every 2 days. The snow has finally melted and it makes walking a whole lot easier, I am very excited about this as I will finally be able to start on the real hands on work for my project. 

The picture above is from today, march 13th, and you can see patches of soggy wet land on the hill. While the picture below was from March 7th and was right after a large snow storm. A lot of snow has melted these past few days which is good as it will allow my walks to be a whole lot easier. 

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How to do a journal entry

Today in class, we talked about the previous projects we had read. Then talked about the positive and negative things about the project, most of the conversation revolved around journal entries. For every wise project you are required to have a journal, or blog, as a way to keep you on focus and relay your thoughts. Well this is the goal of the journal and after reading and hearing about other journals I realized a few things to keep in mind.
1) Try and show enthusiasm in journals as it allows them to be entertaining.
2) State your ideas clearly, this is very important as it can be hard to decipher someone else's thoughts.
3)  Have entries regularly, the journals that we saw in a few were very sporadic and would sometime skip a couple of weeks.
4) Have pictures or momentous in the journal.
These are a few things that I found important and I should keep in mind when I write entries.
For the first one, I feel that if i incorporate all the hardships that I go through it should keep most journals pretty interesting.
The second one is something that I hopefully will be able to keep in mind further down the line.
The third one is important, if you skip weeks you leave a lot out and will make the reader confused about what you are doing espeicaly when you begin talking about activities that you did in the past, but did not have a journal entry on them.
For the fourth one it just is another way to keep the reader of the entries in on your project, so for every entry now i'll post a picture or two.

For the picture of above this is one section of my transect which runs through a dense beech undergrowth and what I believe to be a few beech and ash trees. I did not look closely yet. 

This is taken at the same spot as the one above just zoomed in a bit more, there was some ice rain the day before and it left this cool shot. 

Excel spread sheets

I am currently working on making excel sheets for the different, bird, tree, bush and grass, mammal, and insect species that I see along my transect walks. This is taking quite a while, but I feel that it will be worth doing this instead of just jotting down the species on the walk for a few different reasons. One being that there are different sections on my transect, 15 different spots, and I will be recording data at each one of these, for everything I think except bird species.  I might have a running total for the bird species through the entire walk but specify if I saw it at which section. Another reason for making excel sheets is it will be a whole lot easier entering data on my computer, I can easily just type in the data to excel instead of doing something else. So, I have been working on these sheets for a while now and have the Mammals done and now I am working on the trees.

Cannon camera

On Saturday of last week, the 26th of February, I obtained a very nice Cannon Power shot camera. This was for my project and personal use later on, but I will be uploading pictures of my land to this blog when I go on my transect walks. But here are a few pictures that I have already taken.

Sample photo from Camera trap

So, as you can see it is very hard to distinct some animals out as they move. This one I am pretty sure is some type of mustelid (the weasel family), as you can see it's movement is sort of a slinky, trot thing. This is a common trait throughout the mustelid family so this picture could be a weasle, fisher, or something that I have no clue. So I have finally figured out the way to setup the camera in order to not take pictures of slight movements of twigs and branches. This means I can leave the trap out for many days instead of checking it daily. 

March 1st, Barn song / in class entry

Today, we have been asked to read another wise project from years past. This will allow us to see how the project is completed, what we can improve on which the previous person lacked, we can see what they did well and recreate it. Since we are looking at these other kids journals, end of the year assignments, and other different work assignments that we will have to be doing which will be an enormous benefit for our projects.
While in the library today we watched a previous wise student's project, which incorporated two different projects together. Scott who directed the documentary followed another student, Austin who was making a barn. It was very interesting to watch this as I could relate to some of the stuff that Austin has done. I cut all of my own fire wood, and a few years back my dad brother and I made a cabin in the middle of our woods which incorporated some of the things that Austin had to do. So that was very interesting to be able to watch and relate to. This also accurately shows how long, and difficult the projects will end up from some things that we have to do will take a much longer time than what we would expect. I'm sure we have already found this out. For example the camera trap which I had to setup took a good 6 hours for something I thought that would take about 30 minutes.
Overall though this has motivated me even more as we have seen the out come of a great project, which has inspired me to work hard and hopefully have one that fulfills my expectations and goals like the project we just watched. 

Camera trap

This camera trap is proving quite useful in some aspects and quite obnoxious in others. The trap is taking pictures of everything, which is good except that it has been taking pictures of the very slight movements of branches, leaves, snowflakes, and sometimes nothing. I have fiddled around with different settings and I think tonight I hopefully got it right. When ever I get a good picture of something I will post it on my blog. The next step is getting a good DSLR camera which I will be taking on my transect walks and then be posing the images on this blog as well.

The trap

Ok so yesterday, Saturday the 12th, I got the camera trap I talked about earlier. I was not home so I did not start working with it until today. I opened this huge box, to find the camera trap about 8 inches long along with its case, the box was a 3 feet cube. Anyways I had to get a few batteries for to work, 8 double A's, and apparently this will hold the charge for about half a year. I programed the trap to the settings I wanted which was surprisingly really simple but that is the last of the simple things for the rest of the day.

After that I then started on mounting the trap, this was a pain in the ass. My first round with the little bugger began with a chord thing they sent along with the camera trap. It came with these clips, the fork looking one and the receing, the simple back pack clips that allow you to tighten and loosen grip of the rope. Well they did not sent these attached to the chord so you had to do it yourself, this sounds very easy but it took about 20 minutes for me to put on the two clip things the right way just to realize that I put one on backwards. Some cursing took place when I realized this. Time for a break, had some coffee and lunch and relaxed for a bit.

About an hour later round 2, this time putting on the clip was a whole lot easier so that was nice, but then I tried to attach it to a pole. The pole was about 2 inches thick and the diameter of the ropes tension was about 3 inches. This means that I could get the camera trap around the pole and have it stick for 10 seconds then it would fall, just enough time for me to think that I had got it tight enough for it to stay. After abut 30 minutes of me fiddling with the thing I was back into a terrible mood and left it again.

Round 3, this round I got rid of the whole clip idea thing as it was just pissing me off. So now time for real innovation and abstract ideas that where bound to fail. My First and only idea that I actually tried to do, take a skewer for a shish-kabob insert it through these holes on each end then cut the skewer and fold it into a ring on each side which would allow me to hang the trap. How it actually went down, I found the skewer put it through and then cut it, all simple, then it came time to bend the thing into a ring, this was a bit more difficult but was done. Now it came time for the hanging, of course it had to fail here after spending 20 minutes getting it all setup, so I find some rope and I hung it up. What happened was since the traps case is about 5 pounds it would constantly spin since the skewer was smaller in diameter than the hole. End of round three, this was really pissing me off, I had no idea it would be this difficult to just mantle the trap.

Round 4 I finally gave up with rope and was ready to screw this thing on and be done with it. First problem finding an old 2 by 4, I knew we had some, I just did not know where so I looked around for a bit and could not find any then I asked my dad if he knew were any where he did. This might sound like a good thing but the problem was they were up at my cabin that we built about half a mile in my woods. So I got all my stuff on walked up to the cabin and got the 2 by 4. Second dilemma with the screwing, finding a screw that would fit the hole. This was incredibly aggravating I went through many different boxes and jars full of screws to find one that would fit on this hole. I finally got one and knowing my luck stripped it. Back to finding a screw. I finally got one and got it screwed on. Thank god. Now it was time for setting up the trap in order for it to be at an angle, this is what it said to do in the manual. Back to the first rope I was talking about with the clips. So I redo the clips and get it all setup finally things are going my way. The trap is stable, not moving and perfect it is now 5 I started working on this at about 11:30. I then walk to my stream get the trap all setup make sure it takes some pictures. I then added some bait and it looks pretty good as of the time I left. So now I am leaving it out over night and hopefully something interesting will trip the trap and make it worth all this effort of setting it up.

Goals

So I had my wise mentor meeting yesterday and during this meeting we discussed my transect, which is the one posted earlier, and the camera trap which I will be receiving sometime soon and goals. So here is one of my goals for this project, I want to be able to walk through my woods and be able to identify everything I see from Trees to Arthropods to all of the animal tracks. I will go about completing this goal many different ways, one of which is conducting the survey (pretty obvious) but the others will be spending a lot of time going through different identification books for the trees and plants and then, for identifying the arthropods and maybe some plants,  dichotomous keys for the various unknowns that I know I will find.

The reason why I have set this for my goal is I have always been an outside guy my entire life, I spend a lot of my time in my woods in the summer either running, walking, or biking and whenever I stop for a break or a snack, I usually end up looking at some plant or insect for a while and I always think to myself on the way back, dang I wish I knew what that species was. So this is the perfect opportunity for me to figure out all of these species that I see. I also would like to take pictures of a lot of the different things I see so I will update this blog with a bunch of pictures of plants and animals with their names next to them which will make this project a lot more interesting, for both me and the people reading this blog.

Camera Trap

Today, the 2nd of February, I ordered a camera trap this one is called the 2010 Bushnell Trophy Cam, this thing is cool. It has a range of 50ish feet and will be able to take colored shots and VIDEOS. It has 32 LED lights which will allow it to take pictures at night. Once the trigger is crossed it takes a picture within .30 seconds and can record videos for up to 3 minuets before having to start another. I am very excited to get this piece of equipment as it will help immensely and will hopefully take really neat shots.

Found a Transect

I have decided on a section of my land that I think will be able to get a wide range of different environments through. It will start at the corner of my field and then head across up a hill to the middle of another field, from there it will go north west until I hit a stream, from there the transect will go north east until a dirt road intersects my land. 

The length of the transect is about 3/4's of a mile, or 1305 yards. A transect is a line that cuts through a plot of land it usually incorporates different parts of the area that you are trying to do a survey of, for example in mine I start in a field with no succession, then go farther up my land to a field with differing layers of succession, then to a stream, and then into second growth woods.  Along the transect I will be conducting micro surveys of a cubic meter most likely every 50 to 75 yards. In this cubic meter I will be recording all of the plant species that I find in the area, I also will be conducting small insect traps in either all or half of these spots where I record the plants.

Journal 2: The next 2 weeks

2/5/2010 Saturday: Begin the process of selecting a transect of my land, different sections.

2/6/2010 Sunday: Begin to collect the different materials that I will need in order to begin, things such as a digital camera different other cameras. Try and get camera traps.

2/7/2010 Monday: By now I should have at at least 3 ideas for a transect through my land trying to have a line that goes through the different sections of my land.

2/8/2010 Tuesday: I will try today to have all my identification books in order and to try and have the digital cameras ready to go.

2/9/2010 Wednesday: This is my mentor meeting day and I will propose my ideas for transects through Google earth and hopefully decide on one.

2/10/2010 Thursday: I will begin to plot the transect on a G.P.S. unit and then put this data on Google earth.

2/11/2010 Friday: Main thing today I will do is select how large each stop is on my transect.

2/12/2010 Saturday: Finish plotting the transect if I am not done.

2/13/2010 Sunday: Figure out how to setup a camera trap and find the best area for them.

2/14/2010 Monday: Start making an excel spread sheet for different basic plants of the area.

2/15/2010 Tuesday: Finish making the spread sheet for the plants, begin an excel sheet for birds.

2/16/2010 Wednesday: Wise mentor meeting, talk to Mr. Nelson about the different excel sheets, Finish the excel sheet for the birds begin one for mammals.

2/17/2010 Thursday: Finish the excel for Mammals, review all excel pages and make sure that they are detailed enough and have extra spaces for the species I forget.

2/18/2010 Friday: Get everything setup for the first time walking through the Transect.

2/19/2010 Saturday: Hopefully this will be my first walk through on the transect will collect data and modify things if I need to.

The first entry, Journal #1

My W.I.S.E. Project is a biological survey of select spots on my land. This will consist of me setting up camera traps which are a very neat tool. They are digital cameras which has a laser trigger so when an animal passes it, the camera will snap a picture of it. I will be collecting this data for a few different reasons, one I am very interested in natural history and I am planning on focusing either on Natural History or Environmental studies in college. Secondly I love the out doors and when I am outside I always want to correctly identify all the species of plants, animals and insects and this will be the perfect opportunity to do this.