Day 5: Let It Rain!

We had our first taste of rainfall today, everyone brought out their waterproof clothing. It was considerably cooler today than it was yesterday, which was really refreshing. After breakfast we went to Cook's Lake; we did the usual thing, checked traps as soon as we got there since we don't want to leave the animals in the cages any longer than they need to be. After that we got to set up camera traps in four different groups; my group was Brittney, Kelsie, George and I. It was really fun! Christina told us how to set them up, where to put them and what to angle them to catch any animals in the infrared grid. We set our trap in the huge grassland that is uphill from our campsite. We found a really good trail made by a small animal and placed the camera on a nearby tree. Under the tree we found some sort of animal droppings that we showed to Christina. George has some really good pictures of us setting the trap that I will get at the end of the trip. We then figured since our trap was so close to the campsite that we would explore the top of the grassland. While we were walking we sang the Sound Of Music songs and leaped around. After we stopped to take a few pictures and George could not find his camera; the grass we were in was at least knee high so we set out on a scavenger hunt for his camera. I found it close to where our camera trap was and that made me, according to George, the best volunteer of all time. It was pretty fun getting away and being on our own. When everyone returned, we had lunch and then divided back into groups. My group got construction work on the new station. We had a good time trying to use hammers and saws. Then we checked our traps for a final time before heading back. All day was off and on rain, it was nice since it tended to shooo away the flies and bring the temperature down by shielding the sun. We had dinner, but Kathryn, Brittney and I got stuck on dish duty, and this time there were a lot of pans from the stew we had for dinner. We post-poned beaver watching till next week since it is so wet and soggy in places. Here are the few pictures I took today in the rain.

Brittney is turning our camera trap to the on position so it will start to capture moving animals that break the grid of the infrared.

Here is our view in the clearing, it was really nice with the fog rolling in around the tree tops.

We named this the Ultimate-Mega Christmas Tree.

Here is our current gazebo that shielded the rain today.

Here it the new one that is under construction at the moment.

Even in the rain we managed to have a good time, but I am off to bed now. Tomorrow we will disassemble our traps so that next week we can move them to a new location! And we will visit a Christmas tree farm and look at their porcupine problem.