The Toxic Avenger

I haven't been really sick since November 2006. That all came to an end this week. Sunday I had a sore throat. I didn't think much of it because it could have been anything. Then it got worse on Monday and by Tuesday my sinuses were evacuating. I made an appointment with the doc and sadly cancelled my field work for the week. I was out sick Wednesday, half a day Thursday, and now all day Friday. I now have a delightful cough and sound like Kathleen Turner. My half a day at work yesterday was spend decontaminating my desk, catching up on emails, voicemails, and mail. I did notice a couple other people coughing in the office and heard a lot of "You are sick too!" or "You sound horrible!" By 3 pm, I wasn't sure why I was even in the office since I was feeling so poorly. So by 4 pm I was on my way home to get my prescriptions. It's 11:30 and I've been up for an hour and I'm ready for a nap. But yet I'm planning on spending part of Sunday looking for turtles. I must be delirious!

Meet Billy

Turtle season is in full swing. Unfortunately the weather hasn't been too cooperative this past week. A lot of dreary cold drizzly type days. That was the case until Sunday afternoon. Once I woke up and speedily rushed through a couple errands and household chores, I zoomed up to rare turtle country. Of course I totally forgot my real camera, but remembered everything else. Stop one was unfruitful but I had called one of my bosses earlier in the day to find out if the weather was good. She said that if I found a turtle, she'd come by and take some pics. Stop two was a site I had never been too. It was big and dense. See the dead cattails in the background. But then plain as day was a rare turtle sitting on the ground. I still get in full panic OMG mode when I see this rare type of turtle. It's like the world turns the black and I just focus on grabbing it. He saw me but made no attempt to run or hide. By the time my boss arrived, Billy as I named him, was ready to flail about after hiding in his shell for a good 20 minutes. I name my rare turtle finds because trying to remember them by their markings is tough for me. So I have the names to help trigger the memory.

Big thanks to Lioux for fixing my top photo. I had autocorrected the pic and then immediately saved it. The pic had turned a purple tone that I couldn't undo with my low budget technology.
Then since I was muddy and up there, I made on last stop. No rare turtles were found, but I found some unhatched old eggs. Sad.

I encountered a dead snapping turtle. Sad again. But on the same plant that I had found old turtle eggs, I spotted this little one. It was a hatching snapping turtle. So cute and so small. Life continues.

I just can't win

I was back at the big lake and beavers galore site. It's my third visit and each visit comes with its own mishaps and setbacks. I'm usually remember everything and I'm the person most likely to carry everything that one could possibly need in a day. I'm beginning to think this site has a curse of mishaps.

Day 1 - I grab the wrong pile of maps and data sheets. So all the maps and datasheets I need are sitting at the office. Thankfully, I have an aerial photograph of the site. Of course, the aerial photograph doesn't have the original wetland delineation and it means I'll have to rewalk that portion of the site to take the datasheets later. I initially forget my camera at the car and have to go back for it.

Day 2 - The first day I drove from the office to the site. So taking a different route straight from home, I miss the exit because its number was wrong on the web directions. I take an alternate exit and wrongly believe that it is quicker to fumble my way through the scenic back way rather than turn around and go back to the correct exit. I end up driving in a big circle and run down a squirrel. I'm 15 minutes late meeting my co-worker and surveyor.

Day 3 - Even though I leave 10 minutes early, somehow I'm still 5 minutes late to the site. I try to call my coworker to see where he is, but it goes straight to voice mail. He calls back and we eventually meet up. He is stuck in bad traffic and comes late. We flag a small wetland and then decide to walk the big mountain. I discard my light rain coat since it was warm. We make it up the big mountain and it starts to pour. Neither of us has any rain gear or water resistent gear. It then starts to hail. The rain doesn't stop and we get to the car 30 minutes later. I call the office and find out this rain just formed right over my site. We are drenched and decide to head back to the office. I have a change of heart about 5 minutes down the road. I frantically call my co-worker but he repeatedly doesn't pick up. I get gas and some lunch and head back to the site. I call him again and he's back at the office. I convince him to come back and things are going well. Weather is great and I'm starting to dry up. Then he drops my camera in the water. Thankfully it's my work camera but its game over for it. It's the swamp in the top pic that killed the camera.

Here's a cool shed made of logs and morter.

Here's the last photo before the camera mishap.
Here's what the pictures look like after the drink of water. Nevermind the camera won't zoom. Looks like I'll be rewalking a part of the site for the third time.

Unsuccessful quest for Pale Male

Perhaps the most famous red-tailed hawk is Pale Male. I've watched specials about him but never had the chance to see him in real life. I knew that I'd kick myself if I never had the chance to see Pale Male before his time would be up. There was no set agenda for the day so I thought it was a perfect opportunity especially since I wanted to go to Central Park anyway. The weather was awesome and I was joined by Lioux on my lazy outing in NYC.
Here's a couple distant shots of Pale Male's nest. It's just under the roof above the center window. Nobody was home but I still peered into a avid fan's spotting scope. Clearly I'll need a longer time commitment to sit and wait for someone to make an appearance. I'll be back! I'm glad that there's the committed folks that keep up the watch. There's some real jerks out there. I hear through the grapevine that this year's clutch of eggs may again be unsuccessful. I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.
The cherry trees in full bloom action. I still can't get enough of that. It's amazing how well tulips do when they are not eaten by deer. They look so perfect that I wonder if it's fake.

Here's Han Christian Anderson's duck friend...he was far more interesting.

These couple of buildings symbolize to me authentic NYC buildings. I can just picture people hanging out on the fire escapes, yelling out the windows to people passing by. These buildings are just tall enough for the residents to observe and care what goes on in the streets below, which results in less local crime. Unfortunately, super tall skyscraper luxury condos are taking over the streets. It's a bit depressing to see this happening and I don't even live there. Someone living on the 20th floor in a luxury condo isn't going to care what's going on in the street below.

Xtreme!!!!

We have this site in New York that is so big and owned by such a large company that there are ATVs that we can use there. I am one of last of my group to be at this site. I suspect because people probably think that I'd drive the ATV too fast....well not yet. There aren't any helmets but we really should have some...especially for the boys! I've never been on one before and here's my very brief training sesh in the parking lot. There's no power steering and you control the gas using your thumb. Your thumb sure starts to hurt after awhile because you continuously have to press down. I only nearly ran off the trail once...but that was in the beginning. My coworker was less than impressed with my granny pace but I felt like I was riding a tractor on steroids...complete with uncontrolled anger and aggression. Any moment I could hit a bump and be launched off it. It was also difficult to adjust to not to panic at water hazards, large rocks, and really uneven terrain. It'll take awhile to get over driving at a tilted angle. But I survived and I'd like to think I was going at the perfect speed by the end....meanwhile my coworker was doing donuts at the all turns way ahead of me and even nearly rolled the ATV.

Beaver and donkette

I got to go back to the big site with the awesome lake and beavers. I'll need another day out there as well. Thankfully most of the work is done though. It still was a lot of walking and the day didn't start out great. First the directions told me to get off at an exit that didn't exist. So I took the next exit and thought I could fumble my way through the backroads to the site (which was the way we came the first day). The scenic tour as my father would call it. Problem was that the street names didn't match my road map. I ended up going around in a giant circle, ran over a squirrel (it was insane and ran between my front and back tires), and was like 15 minutes late to meeting a co-worker and the surveyor. But I eventually made it and the day began.

I found another beaver lodge (see above pic). This one appeared to be occupied because once I approached it there was a lot of activity in the water. Look at this cool beaver unintentional art. It's like a palm tree. I should cut it down and sell it.

What I was really excited about was seeing the baby donkey. I don't know who the daddy is because there were no adult dark colored donkeys. The donkeys, pony, and mini horses were all very polite. There was no biting or other bad behavior even when I was completely surrounded. I must have took like 10 pictures of the baby donkey. None really came out well since the bugs were causing it to itch and contort into uncute photos.

This little mini hourse is called the General. They say the General is semi retarded and should have never been able to walk. See his weird leg. But it looks like the General is living the high life and spends his time generally annoying his companions but sniffing their butts and stuff. He's also covered in grass.
The vanilla colored mini horse is the General's mom. She's pretty.
Nevermind all the above fun distractions, the wetlands on the site are nice....which is rare. I could waste days there just looking for turtles and other critters.

Duke Farms

Some more astute readers should be able to catch on that I've been to duke farms before for work. We did a lot of work there last year and I finally took their tours to learn more about the estate. I had some idea of what the tours would be like. We would be travelling via bus and I thought there would be stops and we'd get out for some photo ops. Well good news first. The early spring flowers and flowering trees were in full glory.

The bad news is that there were no bus stops to get out. We were allowed once to go to the open bus door to take a pic of this remote controlled waterfall. This below pic is through the glass at my seat.

This is the same view from the open bus door. Notice anything weird about the below pic? I ALWAYS see waterfalls that fall right into a lawn. So yes, it's a closer shot. But it's a horrible vantage. Plus only three people got up to take a pic.

We did take another tour which we were allowed to walk around a small portion of the estate and surrounding woods. Here's a burned down hay barn now used as a sculpture garden. I'm sure its amazing when the vines are blooming.

Duke seems to be at the forefront of green thought....at least for NJ standards. They are planning a whole bunch of renovations and upgrades to the property. The new revamped tour will have stops on the bus tour where you can get off and hang out. They have special meadow parking areas that look like hayfields but can hold cars without having the cars be stuck in the mud under normal circumstances. So I'm really looking forward to these new changes and the green building design.

There were a bunch of daffodil types that I had never seen. These had a peach colored interior.