So week 3 is over and I have to say it was the most exhausting week yet. Over the weekend we participated in a 5k, helped set up Taste of Tippecanoe (in the pouring rain), and then went to the Taste! It was a long day but super fun (and Emily and I got some super cute pictures together). And the work week was just as busy.

Mia, Brandon, and I (and Courtney was wonderful and came to help) worked our butts off to get all 25 camera traps out, 8 audio recorders, 15 pitfall traps, and 3 funnel traps. While we were putting those out I also had the high schoolers with me. They were very helpful but I felt kind of bad because it was a super hot/muggy day and we were just lugging around equipment and putting cameras on trees. They were chipper throughout the whole experience though and asked me a lot of questions about bats but mainly just my field in general. By Wednesday it felt like I had been hit by a freight train but the train had to keep chugging along! After we got all of the vertebrate and invertebrate equipment out it was time to start the habitat portion of the project (the part I am most focused on). We are doing vegetation surveys for all 25 of our plots and last week (thanks to the wonderful help of Taylor and Reece) we managed to bang out 16 of the 25. So it’s safe to say by Saturday I was pretty worn out and ready to just relax. On top of being exhausted I am one giant mosquito bite and poison ivy rash. Anti-itch cream has become my best friend.

This week we are going to finish the rest of our vegetation surveys and start analyzing out camera trap and audio recorder data. I have no doubts that we will be able to get all the vegetation surveys done and I cannot wait to see what we caught on the cameras! Analyzing camera trapping data has always been one of my favorite things to do because it’s like Christmas every time you pop in the SD card. You never know what you’ll find (i.e. deer, raccoons, ugly pictures of you setting up the camera, etc) but it’s always going to be interesting or give you a good laugh.

Up and down the hills

Uh oh we went the wrong way

Waders suck a lot