We arrived early. The temperatures were not oppressive as the rain left a cooling air first thing. Andrew began the day at 6:30 by beginning clean up on the out of the way nets that could not be reached by the rangers. Those rangers did a fantastic job mowing the lanes throughout the property in the past couple of weeks, by the way.
Richard changed his mind and decided to help out with the minimal spruce-up. His native plantings are doing very well this year. The Yaupon Holly, particularly, is exploding in foliage and berries and should provide food and forage for years to come.
Kate showed up about the same time and helped weed out some of the vegetation. There is maybe a bit more Air Potato growth this year but there are signs of the beetles clearing some areas so we hope they catch up as the month wears on. Muscadine Grape is getting a tad pesky, again.
Susan and Phyllis hacked away in another section of the lanes like Net 14. Grasses are very healthy. Last year, Hurricane Irma flooded them before the Indigo Buntings could take advantage of the seeds. Perhaps we can be spared this year and be able to capture and band more buntings.
Christine made it down to Net 23 and reported it was flooded. It was not on Andrew's visit last week. This new breach in the river bank is much like the one farther down that made us abandon Net 21.
That past view matched this one and now the first breach is a full on flood leading toward the lake. Executive decision: Good-bye Net 23, welcome Net 24 which will be set back toward Net 18 next week. We never caught much in 23, anyway. Wind comes through the wrong way.
We have a trail cam that we check from time to time and after our meeting with the new rangers they revealed the fact that they also added a cam near ours. Not sure exactly what they are looking for as it is set fairly high on the tree. Perhaps to identify people that are wandering over without permission. Like the guy jogging down the trail past Andrew before he left for the morning...?
Back behind the banding table, several blossoms were spotted among the small oak seedlings. We are leaning toward Ipomoea pandurata (eep-oh-MEE-uh pand-yoor-RAY-tuh) while doing basic searches.
We took a longer break for Summer this year and are looking forward to a new Session. We are getting invitations for more demos at festivals in the future so who knows what we will discover in the next 10 months. Stay tuned!
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Next (planned) Banding Day: Sunday, August 5th.
All nets will be opened by 6:20 A.M.