River site

To give background on river sites I have to say that they are the most challenging. You have to ford the river to set up, sting nets across, get bats out, and tear down. You are traversing algae-covered slippery, smooth rocks trying not to get gear wet.

Another thing to know is that every bat emerges in the evenings and then goes to get a drink. This is why we often net over puddles, ponds, creeks, and occasionally rivers. Hannah and I set up two high nets that were triple 18 meters. It took us a long time to get started because conditions were challenging to say the least. When we finally were making the final preparations to open the nets we were watching tens of bats flying around us. I opened my net and hers was most of the way open and bam! I had seven bats in the net, as I walk to the first one; eight, nine, ten, fifteen! I was overwhelmed with bats! I called Hannah over to help and our boss Chris even came down the hill to lend a hand and ID them all. At the end of the night we ended up sitting for only about fifteen minutes of the five hours and the grand total of bats was 66! Almost all of them were little browns. There was five or so reds, one big brown, two hoarys, and a handful of long ears. I have to say that my bat removal skills have been fine-tuned and now I am very confident, but that didn't last long. Confidence led to my carelessness when removing a big brown the next night and I put my finger in the wrong spot and got bitten. Oh well, no blood, just lesson learned.

We are here in Bellefonte, PA until next Tuesday, a week from today, and then half of the group will rejoin PATH and the other half will remain here with Chelsea.

back to work

With break over we all made our way back to WV. Parsons this time. We camped by a very pretty river. We are continuing the PATH project. All is going well. We are getting some bats. Yesterday myself, and five other techs moved to PA. Back to Bellefonte where this all began. We are staying at Chris' and commuting to our sites that are a continuation of the very first project that I did in Pine Creek area. We will be here for about a week, maybe more then back to PATH, although my end date of Aug. 5 is fast approaching.

Last night I worked with the Boss-man, Chris. We got 12 bats! That is one of my personal best nights. I was looking at the sky because there is a meteor shower that is occurring now. The peak is July 28th but I did see one very large meteor! It was a good night.

Break coming up

The fourth of July break is rapidly approaching. I have two more sites, then I am headed home! In the mean time I am still with the same team leader which is nice. It makes it easier to know one person's preferences and style and just stick with it for a while. Bat count has been low. One or two per night :( Oh well. Break is calling my name....

Bat catching

The bat catching has been slow but steady. This area just doesn't have a lot of bats. Two nights ago I caught six Long ears. Last night I had one Red and five Luna moths. Here are some pictures.

"Big" News

Due to the sensitive nature of the information and the possible ramifications for the PATH power line project I can't be specific. But I can say that while netting in WV a bat species was caught that was thought to be an endangered species (in VA). Upon further inspection we found that it was actually a closely related species that is not known to live this far to the north. The "bigger" discovery was that it was a lactating female, which means not only is it living here, it is also breeding. The following night we caught three more of this species. We are doing some telemetry on the first one to see where the maternal colony is roosting! This is "big" news for these cool looking bats. Chris wanted me to see it so I walked up a mountain with him while he went to ID it. I am happy he picked me.

In other news we are still in WV in the Charleston area. In a few days two groups will split off. Chris is sending me to the Monongahela National Forest to "round out my learning experience". I was told that this means he wants me to see a Cedalis (sp?) (Indiana bat). That is cool. I hope to see one. This project is also famous for lots and lots of bats! Up to 100 in one night!

White Nose Syndrome

Here is the long- expected message about white nose. White nose is a fungus that lives in caves. Scientists are unsure of the exact effects that the fungus has on the bats. I was told by my boss Chris that the fungus gets into the bats body and eats it from the inside out. This is what we are looking for evidence of on the wing membrane. It starts as little dots, and they look like small punctures. Punctures occur naturally so we look for the ones that are obviously fungus. In some pictures I have seen the wing only has half of the membrane left. In Chris' career he has noticed locations that used to have fifty bats a night now average one to five.

There are lots of precautions that we have to adhere to in order to avoid spreading the disease. We wear latex gloves when processing bats and don't let the bats touch our clothing. We bleach the nets and our boots between sites. Recently we have ordered painters suits to wear over our clothes. We toss them at the end of each site so we don't spread spores.

ATV madness!

What a long night! Last night our crew had atv sites. This is usually fine and a lot of fun! We strap on the nets and gear and ride to the location because it isn't accessible by car. We needed two atvs for the three locations we were running. Chris hauled one behind his van because he was the closest to our location. We also had one. After going down the wrong road into a cow pasture and then ending in someones yard (they had over 20 dogs) we had to find a way to back up the trailer and get out of there before anyone came out. It took a while because we had a goal to not turf the yard. As luck would have it, they must not have been home. When finally on the right road we followed Chris and went through SIX gates! We had to stop and unlock each one.

We finally reached the drop off spot and loaded up the atvs and headed out to the site... or so we thought. The only trail lead us in the wrong direction. We rode for an hour trying to find the right trail. Many times I had to get off to make a turn, stand on the side so it wouldn't tip, stop and fix the gear after it shifted, and avoid being wacked by branches. It is a good thing I'm not nervous going up and down 45 degree slopes on an overly packed atv with a driver that is stressed that we are late, therefore probably going a little too fast. We eventually come to a location on the gps where a trail should be. There is none. Maybe there was a trail there fourty years ago... the forest was a little less dense there so we tried it. I rode huddled behind Jason with my arms covering my head and face the entire way.

We reached site 17 finally! Do we have a corridor for the net to go in? Absolutely not. We broke branches, stomped little trees, and tied ropes to the bigger ones and pulled them back. Still we ended up raising the nets into branches. Chris said it would be best if we could walk to the next location (ours was conveniently placed at the end of the less dense strip). Aaron started out and was not making good progress because of the terrain. He ended up just coming back and helping us. One of the three sites was up. We opened the nets at 9:30pm (and hour late). After we were settled Jason and Aaron went scouting for the other sites for tonight. When they got back the five of us were all in the one site. We talked for a while but soon it was time to take the nets off. We all piled back on the atvs and went back to the truck. We met Chris and drove back out the six gates and the hour on the high way to get back to our hotel which at this point is after four. A good thing that came of the night was that Jason bought us all 99 cent vanilla cones from McDonalds! Tonight we leave early again for another set-up. Hopefully it will be smoother this time.