This week at my internship was mostly concerned with getting everything ready. I had to fill out paper work, meet with the volunteer coordinator, and get a drug test. The drug test was required because I am working with the county. I'm very excited to start my survey and wildlife work.
I have added an additional day to my internship so now I go on tuesdays, wednesdays, and thursdays. We started some field work this week and i was able to learn the basics of vegitation surveying and actually do some on my own, although this required me to push through super thick palmettos! I've learned so much already about Florida's ecosystems and who they are managed
At my internship I sat in on a meeting with the environmental specialists. All three of them. It was very interesting to listen to the discussion and the terms they used and to hear how much they care about and love their jobs. I also get to go on a environmental "secret mission"! Just kidding! There is a man who is blocking one of the roads to an environmental park and approaching people and telling them to leave, so i get to go out there and see if he tells me to leave!
On Thursday i got to go do surveying at Tippecanoe all by myself! I was to survey three points on three different plots that are being prepared to have prescribed burns done. It took me a long time and i didn't get to one of the burn units but practice makes perfect! I also got stuck in some unbelievably thick palmetto and scrub oak! It was so cool though i felt like a professional.
On Tuesday i just spent time in the office in Charlotte Harbor because, unfortunately, that is part of the job. Although on Wednesday i was out doing vegetation surveys at Oyster Creek in Lemon Bay, behind the high school, and i noticed some smoke. I knew it wasn't a prescribed burn because if it was the park would have been closed. So as i got closer i realized that a tree was on fire and it was spreading really quickly!! I tried to call my sponsor because he is the land manager but he didn't answer and neither did any one else so i called 911. Long story short i got a hold of my sponsor and it was taken care of but it was soooo cool!
On Friday, Phil and I went to Charlotte Flatwoods to do red cockaded woodpecker surveys. Basically we walked around a rather large section of trees searching for signs of the woodpeckers. The RCW's as their called are endangered and tricky to find because they live in live pines rather than dead like most woodpeckers. On key is to look for "bands" of sap around the trees where the birds have pecked holes to release sap so that predators can not get to their burrows. They also like older pines and pines with the red hart fungi because the would is softer. Although it can still take them 3 years to make their hole. It was cool but tough to discern between hole and knots.
this is my journal #4!!!! Phil got a call about a Panther siting at Oyster Creek. We went to see if we could find any tracks or anything bu it had rained so all we found was scat :O and some torn up brush. Then we went down the trail and looked at my wildfire! It only burned not even an acre but it was still awesome! We found the tree that had been struck by lightning and started the whole thing.
March 1st-5th, I was only able to go to my internship one day this week because i had choral districts on Thursday and America Sings on Friday. On Wednesday though we took a look at some of the other properties and just made sure that there was no damage to the parks. It called an inspection of some sort i don't remember the name but i get to start doing them on my own soon!.
At my internship we are doing gopher tortise survey's at an environmental park called Amber Jack in Englewood. Their getting ready to do timber thining so we have to do a bunch of veg surveys and everything. So i got to do alot of the surveying on my own and i almost got malaria! I seriously got eaten alive! It's fun!
So what i've been up to really has been vegitation surveys and research. I think i've seen my sponsor once since Spring Break because i've been doing everything on my own which is pretty cool. I had to research a couple different sparrows the grasshoper sparrow and the Bachmans sparrow. I had to learn their calls and songs too. For the vegitation surveys all of the environmental parks are divided into managment units (MU) usually there are about 12 in a park depending on the size of the park. Depending on what they're planning to do, whether burning, timber thining or just gathering data, depends on where i do my surveys. Phil will tell me which ones need to be done and i go do them. Really i just walk down the trails around the specific MU's and look for evenly distributed areas. When one looks good i go off the trail a few yards into the brush and i get my numbers. I have to find the basal area which requires the use of a cool prism. I also have to estimate the percent canopy cover, subcanopy, shrub, palmetto, herbacious , and bare ground. I also estimate the number of species within each category. I do 50 feet plots and species within 30 feet. So when i started it took me forever but now i'm quite the proficent. I can even get estimates from the trail if the palmetto are to thick. Most of my time is spent trying to navigate the trails and figure out where the heck i am. This is because when CEES is burning they need "saftey" lines so they use the roller chopper and the mower and the tractor to create them, this often leads to new trails that are not on the map and result in my getting lost :) Also because i am galivanting around in the brush i am a tick magnet! it's gross! Phil said that in all the years that he has been working in Florida he has never had one on him and i have been doing this for only a few months and i find them on my cloths all almost every time i get done surveying. I invested in some spray. Oh! and we've been doing gopher tortise surveys. I did this with Jason and he said i was a pro. Apparently there is a difference between armadillo and tortise burrows and i was good at telling the difference. The burrow also tells you if the tortise is living in it activly and also the size of the tortise. We also got to use the nifty camera to scope the burrows for anything exciting inside. We didn't find anything :( but it was still fun! I also had to wash Phil's county truck haha he had to return it to the the guy he borrowed it from for a trip. I ended up washing it because he was slammed putting data and paper work together because the Sierra Club put in a public records request. Basically they wanted ALL of the information from the last 2 years from all of the environmental parks that the timber planning is planned for! INSANE! After i washed the truck i had to help and it was legally nuts. There is a guy who is a turtle biologist who is all up in arms because of the timber thinning. He thinks he knows how to manage florida ecosystems, which he doesn't, and because he's a retired professor all of Lemon Bay believes that he's right. But he isn't because everyone knows that if there are to many trees in an ecosystem they can't grow because they are restricted in space and they do not let the sun through to the ground. Any ways people are crazy.
Lets see... Tuesday= more surveys and more getting lost Wednesday= met with phil he signed my time sheets. Turns out the reason i got lost was cuz the map i was using was wrong. Figures.
Thursday= fun times with Jason, including: chasing frogs, chating with cowboys, getting car sick, scaring Jason to death, and making a species list. :)
well lets see I spent tuesday with Jason again because phil was out of town. We went to shell creek to continue our species list, we didn't really do to much...
Thursday Phil and I did gopher tortoise surveys at Oyster Creek. It was actually amazing! We just wandered looking for burrows and marking them ( that was my job) and putting them in the GPS. On our way out we say a baby gopher tortoise and she was SOOOOO cute! i got pictures! it was super cool. Then on Friday i met Phil at the library and we did an "exit interview". Overall great internship!
This week at my internship was mostly concerned with getting everything ready. I had to fill out paper work, meet with the volunteer coordinator, and get a drug test. The drug test was required because I am working with the county. I'm very excited to start my survey and wildlife work.
ReplyDeleteI have added an additional day to my internship so now I go on tuesdays, wednesdays, and thursdays. We started some field work this week and i was able to learn the basics of vegitation surveying and actually do some on my own, although this required me to push through super thick palmettos! I've learned so much already about Florida's ecosystems and who they are managed
ReplyDeleteAt my internship I sat in on a meeting with the environmental specialists. All three of them. It was very interesting to listen to the discussion and the terms they used and to hear how much they care about and love their jobs. I also get to go on a environmental "secret mission"! Just kidding! There is a man who is blocking one of the roads to an environmental park and approaching people and telling them to leave, so i get to go out there and see if he tells me to leave!
ReplyDeleteOn Thursday i got to go do surveying at Tippecanoe all by myself! I was to survey three points on three different plots that are being prepared to have prescribed burns done. It took me a long time and i didn't get to one of the burn units but practice makes perfect! I also got stuck in some unbelievably thick palmetto and scrub oak! It was so cool though i felt like a professional.
ReplyDeleteOn Tuesday i just spent time in the office in Charlotte Harbor because, unfortunately, that is part of the job. Although on Wednesday i was out doing vegetation surveys at Oyster Creek in Lemon Bay, behind the high school, and i noticed some smoke. I knew it wasn't a prescribed burn because if it was the park would have been closed. So as i got closer i realized that a tree was on fire and it was spreading really quickly!! I tried to call my sponsor because he is the land manager but he didn't answer and neither did any one else so i called 911. Long story short i got a hold of my sponsor and it was taken care of but it was soooo cool!
ReplyDeleteOn Friday, Phil and I went to Charlotte Flatwoods to do red cockaded woodpecker surveys. Basically we walked around a rather large section of trees searching for signs of the woodpeckers. The RCW's as their called are endangered and tricky to find because they live in live pines rather than dead like most woodpeckers. On key is to look for "bands" of sap around the trees where the birds have pecked holes to release sap so that predators can not get to their burrows. They also like older pines and pines with the red hart fungi because the would is softer. Although it can still take them 3 years to make their hole. It was cool but tough to discern between hole and knots.
ReplyDeleteSo let me get this straight; you get to leave school early everyday, just to go run around in the woods and do cool stuff?!
ReplyDeleteThat's awesome!
Have you built any secret forts lately?
this is my journal #4!!!! Phil got a call about a Panther siting at Oyster Creek. We went to see if we could find any tracks or anything bu it had rained so all we found was scat :O and some torn up brush. Then we went down the trail and looked at my wildfire! It only burned not even an acre but it was still awesome! We found the tree that had been struck by lightning and started the whole thing.
ReplyDeleteNope no forts recently but I am planning construction if you want to paint it camouflage for me!
ReplyDeleteMarch 1st-5th, I was only able to go to my internship one day this week because i had choral districts on Thursday and America Sings on Friday. On Wednesday though we took a look at some of the other properties and just made sure that there was no damage to the parks. It called an inspection of some sort i don't remember the name but i get to start doing them on my own soon!.
ReplyDeleteI don't know Paige...
ReplyDeleteWhat's in this for me?
I mean, will I get to hang out in your fort?
Or will you be enforcing the whole, "No Boys Allowed" thing?
Oh Cody! Of course you can hang out in my fort! We can have a PARTY!!!
ReplyDeleteAt my internship we are doing gopher tortise survey's at an environmental park called Amber Jack in Englewood. Their getting ready to do timber thining so we have to do a bunch of veg surveys and everything. So i got to do alot of the surveying on my own and i almost got malaria! I seriously got eaten alive! It's fun!
ReplyDeleteSo what i've been up to really has been vegitation surveys and research. I think i've seen my sponsor once since Spring Break because i've been doing everything on my own which is pretty cool. I had to research a couple different sparrows the grasshoper sparrow and the Bachmans sparrow. I had to learn their calls and songs too. For the vegitation surveys all of the environmental parks are divided into managment units (MU) usually there are about 12 in a park depending on the size of the park. Depending on what they're planning to do, whether burning, timber thining or just gathering data, depends on where i do my surveys. Phil will tell me which ones need to be done and i go do them. Really i just walk down the trails around the specific MU's and look for evenly distributed areas. When one looks good i go off the trail a few yards into the brush and i get my numbers. I have to find the basal area which requires the use of a cool prism. I also have to estimate the percent canopy cover, subcanopy, shrub, palmetto, herbacious , and bare ground. I also estimate the number of species within each category. I do 50 feet plots and species within 30 feet. So when i started it took me forever but now i'm quite the proficent. I can even get estimates from the trail if the palmetto are to thick. Most of my time is spent trying to navigate the trails and figure out where the heck i am. This is because when CEES is burning they need "saftey" lines so they use the roller chopper and the mower and the tractor to create them, this often leads to new trails that are not on the map and result in my getting lost :) Also because i am galivanting around in the brush i am a tick magnet! it's gross! Phil said that in all the years that he has been working in Florida he has never had one on him and i have been doing this for only a few months and i find them on my cloths all almost every time i get done surveying. I invested in some spray. Oh! and we've been doing gopher tortise surveys. I did this with Jason and he said i was a pro. Apparently there is a difference between armadillo and tortise burrows and i was good at telling the difference. The burrow also tells you if the tortise is living in it activly and also the size of the tortise. We also got to use the nifty camera to scope the burrows for anything exciting inside. We didn't find anything :( but it was still fun! I also had to wash Phil's county truck haha he had to return it to the the guy he borrowed it from for a trip. I ended up washing it because he was slammed putting data and paper work together because the Sierra Club put in a public records request. Basically they wanted ALL of the information from the last 2 years from all of the environmental parks that the timber planning is planned for! INSANE! After i washed the truck i had to help and it was legally nuts. There is a guy who is a turtle biologist who is all up in arms because of the timber thinning. He thinks he knows how to manage florida ecosystems, which he doesn't, and because he's a retired professor all of Lemon Bay believes that he's right. But he isn't because everyone knows that if there are to many trees in an ecosystem they can't grow because they are restricted in space and they do not let the sun through to the ground. Any ways people are crazy.
ReplyDeleteSounds good Paige.
ReplyDeleteWe will party, out in your secret fort, with all of the various woodland creatures of the night until the sun rises.
Lets see... Tuesday= more surveys and more getting lost Wednesday= met with phil he signed my time sheets. Turns out the reason i got lost was cuz the map i was using was wrong. Figures.
ReplyDeleteThursday= fun times with Jason, including: chasing frogs, chating with cowboys, getting car sick, scaring Jason to death, and making a species list. :)
ReplyDeletewell lets see I spent tuesday with Jason again because phil was out of town. We went to shell creek to continue our species list, we didn't really do to much...
ReplyDeleteThursday Phil and I did gopher tortoise surveys at Oyster Creek. It was actually amazing! We just wandered looking for burrows and marking them ( that was my job) and putting them in the GPS. On our way out we say a baby gopher tortoise and she was SOOOOO cute! i got pictures! it was super cool. Then on Friday i met Phil at the library and we did an "exit interview". Overall great internship!
ReplyDelete