Andros Island, The Bahamas

I don't even know where to begin with this one. I feel as if I've been here forever even though its only been 9 days. Overall, the experience is nothing of what I expected(including the 45 degree temps at night!!) and the abundant liquor and absence of beer flowing on the islands. It's been a wild ride since the moment we landed.
We started the trip in Nassau on New Providence Island, kind of the most crazy place I've ever been. This is the most populated island in the Bahamas, and everyone is trying to pull a fast one on you. Even the traffic is ridiculous-horrible roads with no working stoplights where you average faster walking but everyone still drives. The dichotomy of tourist/local has never been clearer to me than in this place. All the tourists post up in these fancy hotels while all the islanders inhabit shanty towns. Two bridges connect New Providence with Paradise Island, the big resort island which Atlantis is on. In the morning a traffic jam heads to paradise and in the evening the same happens the way back. It seems if you live on this island you just can't escape working in the tourism business.

My time in Nassau I spent on a nice little boat, the Deja Vu which we sailed 35 miles to Andros. Andros faces similar problems to new providence but is filled with people who are genuine and hilarious. Bahamians are down, always relaxed. Its really a different pace of life.
We spend most of our time here out seeing the sights like the magnificent blue holes(huge cave networks that permeate the salt/freshwater layer) and snorkeling. We even play soccer with the local high school kids who continually show me up. I feel like I've been here forever.

The Wilds

Our last Ornitholgy trip was to the Wilds Nature Preserve. Check out the website for more info, I'm still not sure what they do!

http://www.thewilds.org/

The general idea is a conservation "zoo" built on old reclaimed strip mine land, very cool idea. You can go on an Ohio "safari" and see endangered animals from all over the world. I don't know how I feel about that part, I'm not really a zoo person. Anyways, the park covers over 3,000 acres of prairie habitat which is great to watch raptors and large birds. I saw all sorts of strange mammals, some zebra, giraffe, and from a mile away what appeared to be some man-bear-pig. It was sad to see all the autumn olive all over the hillsides, a nasty invasive, but the still the same because birds seem to like it. 

Northern Shrike

Northern Harrier

The first thing we saw were horned larks and eastern bluebirds. We saw some american goldfinch and two northern harriers which I speculate were a mating pair flying over a small pond. Some killdeer were down on the shore and 11 mallard ducks floating around in the water until we scared them off. The highlight of my trip was seeing a northern shrike, which impales its prey on sticks to mark its territorial boundaries! We also saw some american black ducks, many a canada goose, and a savanna sparrow up by the lookout.

American kestrel

We later saw a bunch of Buteo species, which are some of my favorites. Red tailed hawk were soaring around looking for prey. We also saw an american kestrel, a beautiful bird and a first for me. The wilds has a lot of small lakes and ponds and we saw all kinds of waterfowl, including some bufflehead, lesser scaup, dunlin, spotted sandpiper, and gadwell. It was also very cool to see a yellow bellied sapsucker on the side of an old barn.

I can definitely say that I will miss being around so many knowledgeable people, Dr. Miles and Susan have taught me a lot about birds! It was great to be around so many passionate people. I feel like I might just be fledged from the nest and now I can make it in the world of birding.

Bird Banding at Buzzard's Roost

On October 3oth, our class went to do some bird banding and owl watching at Buzzard's Roost, a park is Ross County in Ohio near Chillicothe. We met up with Kelly Williams-Sieg, a friend of mine as well as a P.h.d. student at the university. When we got there, the nets were already set up and ready for action.

Sharpy courtesy of Kortney

Kyle and I went on a short hike into the woods, following some red-bellied woodpeckers and getting some great views. We heard some commotion back by the nets and went to check it out. We found a few birds in the nets, learned how to properly take them out and measure them for a few different characteristics. We caught two tufted titmouse, an american goldfinch, a sharp-shinned hawk(so cool!), a hermit thrush, and a northern cardinal. Kelly showed us the correct way to band the birds and measure the weight, wingspan, fat, and age(if possible). Each bird gets an ID# so if recaptured we can see what has changed.

Tit in the net

Cardinal being measured

 So after some successful banding activities we rolled the nets back down and turned on the breeding call for the northen saw-whet owl, which we hoped to see. These owls migrate from Canada as far south as Georgia in the wintertime. After four tries of forty-five minute interval cabin chills and still no owls, we decided to make tracks. It was a beautiful evening, and I lay in a tree for a half hour getting reacquainted with the stellar bodies. I intend to go back real soon a catch myself a saw-whet. Ironically, we saw a Barred Owl on the drive home!

Northern Saw-Whet Owls

Acorns!!

So directly unrelated to and indirectly related to birds is this next post, I decided to post this because
1.)I think the topic is pretty rad
2.)It will tell you how to make acorn bread!
3.)I wrote it!

Quercus: A Civilized Tree

The Oak is one of the most common trees in the forests of Southeast Ohio. Twelve species of oak naturally occur locally in our forests. The forests we live in and around are actually defined by the name oak: the oak-hickory climax forest. The oak tree has always played an important role in human societies, providing excellent quality wood for shelter and structural building as well as a major food source for ancient peoples. Its value is somewhat underestimated by modern society. The oak has built bridges, corked wine bottles, erected walls, even let us eat those amazing truffles which have symbiotically grown with the oak. It has connected continents with ships unprecedented in their fortitude. It has won wars and been the very symbol of a forest for many people. The oak even helped Americans’ win the war of 1812 with the British in naval battles that took place right here in Ohio by building an impenetrable fleet of oaken warships. The characteristic most commonly attributed to the oak is strength or fortitude. Indeed, it is one of the oldest and largest species in our forest, but holds no titles in either category. It is seen on street corners and parks as well as in our forests. What has made the oak, or Quercus, (as the latin family name is called and will be called henceforth in this paper) such a symbolic as well as useful tree is its ability to adapt to situations. In no way is Quercus, with its many species, a niche specialist; it is one of the most flexible families of trees and thus able to colonize landscapes and habitats from Bangor, Maine to Mexico City. According to Kevin Nixon, a paleobotanist at Cornell University, this is the greatest testament to the Oak which led to its widespread dominance in North America.

Quercus is such a widespread genera, with over 600 species worldwide, that I cannot discuss the many aspects of the oaks. First, we will explore the common categorization of the oak into two different groups: the red oaks and the white oaks. These two groups can be easily distinguished by the bristles on the leaf margins. The red oaks have these bristles, or points, and the white oaks do not. Another major differentiation between these two groups is that red oak acorns take two years to mature where the white oak group flowers and fruits every year. Red oak acorns generally germinate in the autumn and are larger than white oak acorns, which germinate in the spring. This is also interesting, presenting different niches between genera to avoid competition. The acorns also vary in the amount of tannins they contain.

This difference in oaks may not seem to mean much, but produce resounding effects. Oak trees all produce a nut, known as the acorn. Acorns are a valuable food source for wildlife. Deer, birds, squirrels, mice, bear, and other animals consume acorns. Some animals stash acorns in caches when times get tough and food sources become scarce. Oaks and other trees display a strange behavior called “masting”. A “mast” year is when a tree produces an abnormally large crop, or amount of acorns, flooding the ground with its fruit. Other years, oaks will produce barely any acorns. This is in part a result of environmental cues and genetics. These seed eaters essentially are the “predators” of the oak trees. The masting of oak trees has far-reaching effects. Normal years of fruit production act as a method of predator population control. Smaller yields of acorns and limited food results in a lower population of predators such as White-tailed Deer and Field Mice. However, in masting years the amount of food available increases exponentially for these species and they are able to reproduce and flourish. The population levels of these species are dependent on the oak. 

Of course the goal of the oak trees is not to feed a host of animals. The goal is to reproduce. This means of population control allows the oak to inundate the habitat with seeds every few years and produce more seed than can be eaten. This relationship between seedeaters and oak is symbiotic as well. Squirrels consume acorns but also facilitate in seed dispersal by losing track of the caches where they store acorns in the ground. Masting year effects eventually even reach humans, even if we would like to believe we are “above” nature. Mice and deer are known carriers of Lyme disease. An increased number of deer and mice results in an increase in tick populations, which results in an increase of Lyme disease in human populations. Even more interestingly, different species of oak follow different masting patterns. That is, red and white oak usually mast on different years. Amazingly, oaks follow an extremely predictable cycle of masting and non-masting over time. Oaks also display synchronous masting, which means that members of the same species will mast at the same time across a large geographic range. This creates an extremely complex system especially in ecosystems with multiple species of oak.

The oak has imbued its fruit with some defense to predation. The curiously named “acorn” comes from an old English word “æcern” meaning “fruit, berry”. Acorns contain varying amounts of tannins, a chemical that is astringent and acts as a bittering agent that encourages animals not to eat the fruit. Tannins produce a very adverse effect on the absorption of nutrition. Traditionally, tannins have been used to tan leather. In essence, tannins block the villi of the small intestines from absorbing other chemicals such as sugars and carbohydrates. So a diet high in tannins will make nutrient uptake more difficult. Some animals have digestive means to cope with this dilemma; most animals simply eat more acorns to make up for lost nutrition.

Some species depend solely on the oak for survival. One such of these is the Acorn Woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus). These birds drill thousands of holes into a “granary” tree, marking their territory. This allows the birds to survive over the winter on bountiful years of acorn production. On masting years, it has been observed that acorn woodpeckers breed in the fall instead of the spring. In poor years of acorn harvesting, these woodpeckers will sometimes abandon their territory altogether and make moves for better territory. When more than two species of oak are present in a woodpecker territory, the birds have been shown to do much better. Squirrels are another species that have formed an interesting relationship with the oak, living in oak trees, consuming oak fruit as well as other nuts, and acting as a seed disperser. Squirrels usually have up to a dozen “caches” where they store nuts over winter and although it has been shown they have a knack for memorizing locations, they usually forget or never get to at least one of their caches.

The amount of time the acorn spends on the oak tree directly affects the amount of tannins it contains. Red oaks contain more tannins than white oaks because tannins have longer to accumulate. Red oak acorns are also typically larger and contain more nutrition, however are considered less important for wildlife than the white oak group. Some white oak acorns can be eaten straight out of the shell as they contain little tannin. Just because red oaks contain more tannin does not necessarily mean that the acorns have a negligent effect on wildlife, both oaks are needed to provide a food source due to the alternate nature of masting years. Some species examples in our area that fall under the “white oak” category are the White Oak(Quercus alba), Chinquapin Oak(Quercus muhlenbergii), and Burr Oak(Quercus macrocarpa). Of the “red oaks” which seem to be more abundant are the Red Oak (Quercus  rubra), Black Oak(Quercus velutina), and Scarlet Oak(Quercus coccinea).

Developmentally, an acorn forms from wind pollination between oaks. Oaks sometime hybridize with one another. The branch tips can contain both sexes of flowers, but does not self-fertilize due to timing differences in phenology cycles. The ovary becomes the actual acorn with the petals and sepals becoming the acorn caps. It is unknown how far oak pollen can travel. One of the ways oak acorns are distributed is simply by gravity; that is from falling off a tree and rolling down a hill. Other means of acorn transportation include movement by squirrels and other rodents, woodpeckers and other birds, and humans. Many species of oak have shifted outside their natural ranges due to human landscaping; oak is one of the more popular street and park trees. The Burr Oak is a great example of this, traditionally a northern species. Only two exist in Athens, both planted here for their appealing qualities.

This autumn season was a mast year of unprecedented status. It seems like all the species of oak simultaneously fruited heavily. This is not only very exciting news for squirrel and wildlife but also for humans. Until recently, (the past 150 years) humans depended on acorns as a food source. Many native peoples used acorns as flour or as a coffee substitute. Information gathered from Native American Ethnobotany has shown that over 30 North American tribes used acorns as a food source among many other uses medicinally. Oak was used as a headache suppressor, an intestinal regulator, for cigarette papers, to stimulate birth, eyewash, as an astringent, for dysentery, and as dye. It is good to keep in mind that every plant has some kind of use, but one can easily see what a useful genera Quercus was to native peoples. Even today people still use acorns as a food source, I had heard about it, and decided to give it a try of my own.

A nutritional analysis of acorns shows that acorns might be considered a “super food” by some. Acorns are calorically rich, high in fat and protein, and contain folate, niacin, pantothenic acid, B-vitamins, calcium, iron, magnesium, phosphorus, potassium, zinc, copper, and are especially rich in manganese. All of these are vital and necessary components to a healthy diet, and I was not surprised to learn that acorns contain absolutely no sodium or cholesterol. The only real problem with the acorns is this tannin problem, and unfortunately humans do not have the gastrointestinal tract to handle the astringent effects.

So again, I went to native people for an answer. I had hung out with some of the Shawnee Remnant Band in Bellefontaine west of Columbus. They mentioned acorns as a food source so I began doing some of my own research. I found that traditionally there are many ways to prepare acorns; the one being the easiest was to let the acorns sit in a “rock trap” in a swiftly flowing stream. The constant movement of water leached the tannins out and left the nut perfectly edible. After this the acorns could be de-shelled (either after leaching or prior to) and left to dry and later ground into flour or cooked into soup or stews. The shelf life of the flour was in years, not months. This was a way to feed people with no staple crops, as many of the natives did not have any staples besides amaranth and wild rice to sustain them through the winter months.

With the modern conveniences of technology, modern Do-It-Yourselfers can process acorns from the comfort of their own homes. It makes sense to use acorns of the white oak group considering they have much less tannin and are easier to process. I chose the Chinquapin oak after trying a taste test and realizing it was sweet enough to eat straight out of the shell. I later found that this was one of the favorite acorns of some of the Great Plains Indians of Missouri and Arkansas. The Chinquapin oak only grows in alkaline soils, so it is more or less an anomaly around Southeast Ohio where most of the soil is slightly to seriously acidic. I found all the acorns I needed with four friends at Fox Lake in a matter of hours and filled an entire paper grocery bag, being careful to leave some of this forest favorite for the wildlife. It is important to get ripe acorns, dark in color with no weevil bores in them. With people to help shell the nuts, the effort was easy. A simple tap of the hammer will do the job of cracking the shell which will easily peel exposing a yellow nut that I think gives the Chinquapin its other name of Yellow oak.

After this you have the choice of simmering the tannins out of the shelled nuts or soaking the acorns in water to remove tannin. I chose the latter, which is also a longer process. Once the water turns clear after soaking or boiling, the tannins are no longer present and the acorns are ready to be ground into flour or eaten in whatever form you desire in a tasty, nutty snack. I find the flavor to be similar to corn bread when baked into bread, both sweet and delicious. I think my class enjoyed it by the lack of bread I left the room with.

The last thing I would like to cover in this paper is the effects of parasites and fungi that affect the Quercus genera. I was amazed at the amount of acorn weevil larvae in the acorns I gathered. At least one out of five acorns contained one of these little parasites. Rates of predation as high as ninety percent have been recorded in some species of oak, especially in non-masting years. Two types of acorn weevils parasitize oak trees: short-snouted acorn weevils and long-snouted weevils. Both of these genera feed on the acorn flesh and lay their eggs inside the shell. The long-snouted weevil drill holes through the shell to deposit their eggs. The short-snouted weevil deposits eggs through cracks in shells, affecting only already damaged acorns. The larvae grow inside the acorn until large enough to eat their own way out, burrowing into the ground for at least a year to repeat the cycle.

Acorn moths are another parasite of old acorns. The female lays her eggs inside old acorns, the eggs hatch and produce acorn moth caterpillars which eat the remaining meat of the acorns, grow and metamorphose by cocoon into the acorn moth. The filbert worm is another parasite that attacks acorns when they are young and still attached to the tree. Acorn Gall Wasps are a parasite that lay eggs in the female flower of all species of oak. The gall wasp is one of the oldest parasitizer of oak. The oak builds around the eggs as a defensive measure in essence protecting the wasp eggs until they are ready to hatch. The particular species of oak I worked with, Quercus muhlenbergii has a particular relationship with the Grey Hairstreak, a butterfly that feeds on the nectar of the flowers. The oak will host the larvae, although it is unclear if they feed on the fruit or the leaves. Once the shell of the nut is breached, the nut is easily infiltrated by a number of fungi and other diseases. A few diseases like drippy nut that afflicts the California Live Oak can affect acorns once predated upon.

Such a versatile and successful family such as the Oaks deserve our respect and our protection. I know my family is nowhere near as functional. The story of the Oak is another beautiful example of things working out. It really seems like everyone is a winner: the birds, the mammals, the parasites, the humans, and most importantly the trees. I hope that this paper will inspire people all over the Northern Hemisphere of our planet to find an oak, give it a big hug, and maybe even try an acorn. This familiar tree is here to stay awhile, one of the foundations of our ecological community.

The Lowcountry, SC Day 2

Semipalmated Sandpiper

So another day of fantastic birding was ahead of us. I was itching to strip down and jump into the ocean, had been since we got to the coast. We still had not even seen the ocean! Today we were heading to Huntington Beach State Park, somewhere between Charleston and Myrtle Beach. I was so excited to see some really famous bird habitat and the shorebirds I never see considering my landlocked Appalachian home. We arrived early, the weather was beautiful, and the sunshine and salty breeze welcomed us and the new day.

Great Egret in flight

White Ibis

The first thing we did was walk down the causeway over the tidal marshes, which happened to be a great idea. I saw more birds than I ever have in my life. It really was life changing to see so much life and struggle in one place. The tide was going out, leaving mud flats and small pools teeming with life with hungry birds reaping the feast of the ocean. The first species we saw was a group of Semipalmated Sandpipers, cute little guys flicking around a mudflat eating insects and crustaceans. The Osprey were flying overhead, using their acute vision to look for fish. As we walked down the causeway, we noticed most of the birds were congregated around a small pool where streams ran into. I went to check it out. Great Blue Heron, Great Egret, Snowy Egret, and Tricolored Herons were all easily catching fish, who had nowhere to go but into their mouths. It was awesome to watch them trace the fish through the water. I walked down a little and saw two White Ibis, beautiful white birds with long curved red bills also fishing. It was a party indeed.

Tricolored Heron

Nelson's Sharp Tailed Spa

Other cool things were going on all around us. Barn Swallows were swooping inches above the water catching insects. A Nelson's Sharptail Sparrow, was curiously getting closer and closer to us, looking for friends. A group of at least 70 Wood Storks, an endangered species were congregated in the reeds of the freshwater marsh. In front of them I could see Alligators surfacing and eyeing up the competition. All the while, a Boat Tailed Grackle sat on a post and heckled us for attention.

Wood Stork

The Wood Storks made a move. All of the sudden they flew over the road and into one of the larger trees. A few brave souls flew in to the relatively peaceful pool and started voraciosly fishing, combing their bills back and forth through the water. They are much bigger than the other wading birds and really shove their weight around. Before I knew it, there were more birds than birdwatchers and how it was intense. With 35 birds in a little pond, it's go big or go home. I was amazed at how the storks would "duel" one another for the spot to fish and clack their huge beaks together. They didn't quit until all the fish were gone. I kind of lost interest after awhile of watching and spotted a Northern Harrier, a beautiful big hawk. We also saw some more Double Crested Commorant before leaving.

Northern Harrier

We walked down another causeway out into the salt flats looking for Rails. We had just seen a King Rail cross the road as we walked to the boardwalk. I had just made a new friend, an old guy who loved birds. He was a "lister", meaning he just wanted to see as many species as possible. He had seen over 500 of the 800 North American birds. I think Miles didn't like him very much, but he gave me some recorded bird songs which was cool. One of them is the Virginia Rail, I'll share it with you.http://www.naturesongs.com/varail4.wav. Weird, huh? All around us we could hear the rails, but in the tall grass they were impossible to see. We saw another Bald Eagle(that makes three) and an American Coot at a distance. We also saw some Wilson's Plover in the mudflats.

my class!

It was time for lunch. I could feel the ocean getting closer, itching with anticipation, I climbed above the gift shop and got a view from the deck. My initials are there to prove it. All of us were ready for the beach, it was a beautiful day. The Ohioans were ready to swim, cold water or not. Before we could swim, we had to take the Okinawa death march down the beach, which wasn't bad at all, I got to walk in the water the entire time. We saw a little lone Sanderling dodging waves. Some Sea Ducks were out on the water. Osprey dove into the water with varying degrees of success, sometimes coming up with a fish. Eight Brown Pelicans in formation dive-bombed a school of fish surfaced by a pride of Dolphins. Sometimes being a fish must be rough when you're caught between a Dolphin and a Pelican. The Osprey caught on to the fun too. We rounded the cape and saw some American Golden Plover and Black Bellied Plover. In between the bay and the peach was a tidal inlet with grasses and all sorts of aquatic life. We saw more Nelson's Sparrow, some Seaside Sparrow, and some Saltmarsh Sharp Sparrow. It was amazing watching them perch on a single blade of grass.

Black Skimmer

We walked towards the shorebird breeding grounds and came across a large colony of all kinds of shorebirds. Susan cried for joy when she saw the Black Skimmers. These are really awesome birds, skimming the water surface with one half of their bill in the water and one out.Check out the video on my blog. Other birds in the colony were Royal Terns, Caspian Terns, American Oyster Catchers, and Sandwich Terns.

We finally got to swim!! All our hard work birdwatching paid off; and that concludes my scientific observations of my trip to South Carolina excluding the nighttime dramas and police interactions, the weird nature of biologists and our unique sense of humor, and the good people I met in the swamps of Honey Hill Campground. I still feel as if part of myself was left in that swamp wonderland.

Backyard

Black Skimmers - 003

The Lowcountry, South Carolina

A few weeks ago, I took a class trip to South Carolina. It stays in my mind fresh, as if I just returned yesterday. The one thing that has faded with time is the tenacity of the mosquitoes in the swamps and the pints of blood lost which I have since regenerated. I remember being apprehensive before we left, staying up all night organizing my camp gear and making enough hummus to feed an army of biologists. We packed in the vans before dawn and set out on what was to become quite the adventurous weekend.

I remember little from the drive down, blinking my eyes into Virginia, then again and I was in Charleston South Carolina! It felt like going back in time, autumn to summer in 600 miles. We arrived in Francis Marion National Forest at dusk, set up camp, ate a delicious meal of burritos in a cup, and vegetated by the campfire after a little night exploring looking for the elusive Eastern Screech Owl and a Barred Owl.

A side note of interest: You can camp in any National Forest for free, for as long as 3 weeks or until the rangers find you.

The next morning I learned a lesson; no one will wake you up in the field! I got a late start, stumbling out of my tent I had time to douse my head under the pump as a substitute for breakfast. Geared up, we walked around the Honey Hill campground as the sun peeked over the longleaf pine. Hairy woodpecker and downy woodpecker fluttered in the forest canopy of pine and live oak. I heard American Blue Jays in the distance and spotted a Northern Mockingbird warming in the top of a live oak. After around forty minutes, Miles pointed to the vans, and we hopped in to our next destination.

We had a mission: find the elusive Red Cockaded Woodpecker, an endangered colonial bird living in the longleaf pine forests of the American Southeast. We turned down forest rd. 211 and drove for awhile, looking for the double white lines that the Forest Service uses to mark the characteristic nests of the Red Cockaded Woodpecker. These birds will spend a few years drilling into a particular longleaf pine(they are very particular) until the hollow cavity is large enough for a nest. The family will live in this tree for the duration of their lives', producing a few nestlings each year. I have never seen Miles so excited as the moment he spotted a family of 5 red cockaded flitting through the canopy. It was beautiful to see a successful colony. We also saw two northern flicker overhead, some Golden crowned kinglets, Pine Warblers, and some Carolina Chickadee.

We went to refuel, and at the quaint little gas station and general store a Northern Mockingbird had quite the song repertoire. I caught at least five different songs. We also watched ten Turkey Vulture sunning themselves in the trees.

 Our next destination was the swamp, a lovely mosquito infested haven called the South Tibwin Wetlands Complex. This was the perfect place to bird watch having both freshwater and saltwater marshes. We saw 14 species in all, many of them birds I had never seen before. As we walked in, a juvenile Bald Eagle soared over the marsh. Some yellow throated warbler were in the phragmites grass. We continued down the path to an observation shack, which became quite crowded with the entire class inside. I sneaked out and walked down the strip into the marsh, getting great looks at three Great Egrets fishing in the shallow water. An Anhinga flew overhead and on the far side of the lake two Great Blue Herons perched in a tree warily watching us. There was so much bird action going on it was overwhelming!

Juvenile Bald Eagle

 Three Pied Billed Grebes,(which look like ducks to me) kept diving underwater. I spotted two Belted Kingfisher perched on a snag. In the skies above, we saw another Bald Eagle, Wood Storks, Turkey Vulture, Double Crested Commorants, and Brown Pelicans. Did I mention a Bobcat was patrolling the far shore? I even found a print to reassure myself! I decided a jog was necessary to keep in front of the mosquito flock and almost ran over another Great Blue Heron on the trail. I'm still not sure who was more surprised.

Canis rufus

Our next stop was the Sewee Nature Center. We missed Smoky the bear by a week. I was very sad about that. The nature center was still very cool; they had an old hot tub with an alligator and some other reptiles. We met a man who loves wolves and he showed us the extremely endangered Red Wolf, the nature center has four. We got to watch them awhile. We were just in time for wolf dinner, consisting of horse meat in a tube. I felt sad watching the wolves, so wild and caged up for an exhibit. There are only 150 Red wolves around today, all of them in breeding facilities. Their range used to extend all across Eastern North America, until white people perceived them as a threat to capitalism and the American way of life. They are slightly smaller and more shy than their cousin, the Grey Wolf.

To finish this wonderful day, we grouped up and went out to do point counts. This is where you sit in a circle and record any birds you see in a certain location over a certain time. This is the approach used by most scientists to conduct bird diversity surveys. Unfortunately, due to the time of day all we saw were two Turkey Vultures overhead. We went back to the nature center and right before our group photo, another Bald Eagle flew overhead. What an All-American day.