All good things must come to an end

For those of you who have been paying attention to the upload dates of the last few blogs, you will notice that they have been published today (August 22nd). That is because the last few weeks of the internship were craaaaaaaazy busy and although I had things I knew I wanted to blog about, there simply wasn't time. So now that the internship is over and I am back at home, I'm trying to cover the last few weeks of my time at Great Swamp. 

It is honestly difficult to put into words just how incredible this summer was for me. After years of wanting to work with bats, I finally was given the exact opportunity for which I had been hoping. Not only did I get to work with bats, I got experience doing a wide variety of bat-related field work. Spent plenty of nights mist-netting, getting to see, all told, 5 different species of bats (Big Brown bats [most common], Red bats [next most commonly captured species], Northern long-eared bats [third most frequent], Little Brown bats [4th most frequent], and one Indiana). Got plenty of experience removing bats from the nets and handling them while getting necessary data. The other night work of the season consisted of doing roost emergence counts and the active acoustic monitoring. The most exciting roost emergence counts happened at the barn (one of the largest maternal roosts that we found all summer) and a few of the houses. One of the neat things about doing emergence counts at the barn was that sometimes you could hear the bats chattering, in addition to getting to see them fly out in droves. Getting to do acoustic work was one of the things for which I was most excited. It was just incredibly fascinating getting to hear the calls that bats make, and of course, I just love being outside at night, getting to see bats fly around and hearing all of the unique nighttime wildlife noises. The day work of the summer included telemetry, which is always good for a laugh, and setting out/taking down the passive acoustic detectors (described in previous entry).

In addition to getting to do all of this fabulous work with bats, I was also able to get experience assisting with geese banding, wood duck banding, and tracking wood turtles with the turtle interns (so much easier [typically] than tracking bats). I had been hoping to get experience analyzing the acoustic data but due to the hecticness of the summer, it was never a possibility. That was about the only thing I did not get to do this summer, so all things considered I feel incredibly lucky. 

The next few months Jenny will spend analyzing the data and documenting the results, comparing our data this year to the data collected in previous years (particularly in the years prior to WNS). However, just from preliminarily observing the data, it certainly appears that, as would be predicted, WNS has certainly taken its toll on the bats that typically spend their summers at Great Swamp. Whereas in the years prior to the occurrence of WNS Little browns were the most frequently captured bats on the refuge, this year we only caught 3 all summer. :( Similarly, Indiana bats were captured quite frequently prior to white nose but now, we only caught 1. On the flip-side, big browns were captured in much higher numbers this summer than in previous summers. This could be because they have not been affected by WNS as much as those other species, and so they seem to be moving in to areas that used to be occupied by Little Browns and Indianas. This same data was reflected in the preliminary observation of the acoustic data gathered over this summer. Most of the calls recorded seem to be from big browns, rather than the Myotis species. It will be interesting to see what conclusions are reached after all the data has been fully analyzed. Overall, certainly a very interesting summer with a lot of useful data collected.

Not only was I doing work that I loved, I was blessed enough to be doing it with a group of really great people. We all got along well, both on the job and off, and that is about all you can ask for. We worked well together, but also had a blast while working. Shout outs must go to Jenny, Abby, Sarah and Miles for being just about the greatest field crew anyone could hope for. See below for a nice photo shoot we did on one of our last days. I will certainly miss these folks. Thanks for all the great memories guys; it was a fantastic summer. :)

serious

Silly. B-A-T-S, BATS! :)

 

Hacking through the swamp

Throughout the season, setting up the passive acoustic detectors proved to be the most physically challenging field work. Mostly because the general areas were chosen randomly by some GIS person. Another lesson to add to the lessons learned? Randomized selection leads to some awful places. So many of the areas were nearly impossible to reach, requiring hacking your way through thick swamp vegetation, including many tall thorny plants. Sure, it may have only been a half mile walk, but having to walk that half mile carrying the detector and rebar and pvc pipe and ladder and sledge through that awful vegetation, made things.... interesting. While it often resulted in being covered in scratches and bug bites, sweating, and often drenched (on numerous occasions we got caught in a downpour while setting up or taking down the equipment), it still produced some of the funnest days. I know, I know.... it sounds crazy. But it is the truth. Signs that I am indeed doing what I love... that I still love it, even under less than ideal conditions. :) 

Good example of taking down passive acoustic sites? Our last day of work (August 10th). Three of us went to take down one of the most obnoxious sites (the one that was a 0.5mi hike through the woods and swamp). It was overcast, but we were hoping to get everything accomplished before the rain. Found it without difficulty, but it did start to rain so we were already fairly wet by the time we reached the site. Took it down no problem and then were heading back, trying not to have a misstep and end up knee deep in swamp water. Miles wanted pictures and so Abby walked ahead so that she could look back and get a picture of him walking through the swamp carrying the equipment. I was behind him. As she took the pic he miss-stepped and ended up at least knee deep in swamp water. And there I was, cracking up in the background. So supportive. :-P 

carrying equipment through the swamp, headed back to the car

We continued on our way, and momentarily, it began to really downpour. Somehow I was the one leading (even though I told them I never found my way out of this site successfully) and, of course, we got all turned around. In the pouring rain. Carrying all the equipment. We decide to turn back around and go to a point where we think we went wrong, and at that moment, mud falls off what I was carrying and lands on my shoulder and chest. Lovely. Abby proceeds to take mud and put it on her face, and then on each of our faces. Laughing, we manage to eventually find our way out of the woods, although we still end up on the road and so we have to walk a few 100meters to get to the vehicle. So there we are, walking down the side of the road, carrying all this odd looking equipment, drenched and muddy. We all were loving it. A car literally slowed to a crawl and we saw the passengers turning to gawk at us openly. So hilarious. All we wanted to do was have another person there to take a picture of us, carrying the equipment and walking across the strees, a la The Beatles - Abbey Road. You all know what I'm takin about. It would've been so awesome. Sadly no one was there to take said picture. But the memory of that afternoon will stay with me forever. :) 

Phantom Beeps

One of the side-effects of doing telemetry is that it doesn't take long before you start hearing what we refer to as 'phantom beeps'. When you are driving around for hours searching for a bat, listening to static from the receiver, as you can imagine, sometimes you start to hear what you think are beeps, when in actuality there is nothing. This has kinda been our lives for the past two weeks or so. We put a transmitter on a new big brown bat last Monday (the 16th) and then proceeded to never find her. Every day one of us would drive around, for hours at a time, searching for this bat and never hearing a signal. It got a bit frustrating after a while to be honest. Began thinking that we had lost our ability to do telemetry. And of course, kept hearing phantom beeps everywhere. Luckily, we had other work to do so that we could rotate who did telemetry, giving ourselves little breaks for listening to static to do things like acoustic surveys and mist netting. Then this week on Tuesday night (the 23rd) they put a transmitter on another big brown. Sarah spent ALL day yesterday tracking her, with no luck. Again, super super frustrating for her. I offered to do the telemetry today (along with Miles) so that she could have a break. And the weather was ominous so we weren't expecting much. Drove around for about an hour and then we turned down this one street to head to an area Sarah suggested we check, and suddenly.... A BEEP! AN ACTUAL BEEP! I turned to Miles and we were both like.. you did hear that right?! That was a beep wasn't it?! And we both heard it, and kept hearing it. Of course, pretty much at that instant it began to downpour. Because that is just how our luck is. 

Still, by sitting around in the car waiting for it to slow down and then jumping out and listening between downpours to get a direction, we ended up being able to figure out on which property we believed the bat to be. No one was home so we could not pin point the exact location, and the weather was still sucking so it would not have really mattered anyway. The main exciting thing was to have finally heard a signal and located a bat. 

From then on out telemetry was much kinda to us. We put transmitters on a few other big browns and were able to find them all with relative ease most days (although one did like to vanish every once and a while, and then turn up again back at the same apartment. Pretty sure she just liked messing with us). 

Overall it was a general relief to end the session with more telemetry success. Even if we never did find a roost tree again. All of the big browns roosted in various houses. Making for a nice creepy end to the internship! Most of our time was spent asking for owners' permission to walk on their land and to stare at their house to watch bats emerge. Sitting in some random person's yard for an hour at 8pm and just staring at the side of their house was certainly not creepy. At all. Right? 

(side note - post internship I was walking in my neighborhood at dusk and saw a bat flying around. Had the strongest urge to start creeping around my neighborhood to figure out where the bat was roosting so I could creepily watch said house. You'll be pleased to know I did not follow that urge. As badly as I may have wanted to)