Hard, hard telemetry

We caught a small-footed bat. This is an endangered, or at least threatened species. This means we have to do five nights (ten hours each) of readings every five minutes. This is hard to begin with. Next throw in dead spots with the valleys and ridges, gear malfunctions, and coyote stalkings. Last night was the second night. It rained all night and down-poured for at least half. I was so wet. Jake's cross-bow receiver got too wet to work for the rest of the night.

He ended up taking mine and the Commander came up to take my spot. He has his receiver attached to his vehicle and can't go down the road that has a gate. I volunteered to walk down again with Jake because it was raining and crappy and there were many coyotes seen there the night before. As soon as we walked the 1/2 mile over terrible terrain the sky let loose. We hunkered down and eventually just came back. The bat wasn't moving. We ended up leaving at 4:20 and Commander just stayed to keep an eye on it.

We drove an hour to Chris' and slept until two. I am currently doing laundry worried that my clothes won't be anywhere near dry before we have to leave again :(

We have two more nights of this and one of those we have to actually hike in and find the cliff it's on and count when they emerge if we can.

They say this is the worst part of the job. I am not the happiest camper.