Butterfly survey

I spent today helping the U.S. Forest Service survey sections of National Forest for the threatened Pawnee Montane Skipper. This skipper is a very small (1 cm wings) butterfly found only in the South Platte River drainage area in the mountains of Colorado. It is considered a threatened species and much of its habitat was burned in the Hayman fire of 2002. Our zoo has selected several conservation projects to devote time and money to this year, and one of those is butterfly conservation for native Colorado butterflies. Helping with this survey is a way for us to do some hands-on field work. I rode up to the site with another keeper early this morning and we met the Forest Service employees and the researcher doing the study at a park near Trumbull, CO.
After an orientation to go over what exactly we'd be looking for and recording and safety, we divided into 3 teams and headed off to our transects. Each team had 5 transects to survey. Each transect was 400m long and 10m wide. We walked each transect and counted skippers (both the Pawnee and the more common Comma), blooming Liatris stems (a favorite flower of the skipper) and in the case of our team, we also counted dead trees. Every 50m we stopped to record the number of flower stems and dead trees in the last 50m and to note the presence of blue gramma grass, which is the grass the skippers lay their eggs in.
Gayfeather (Liatris punctata)
We also noted the presence of other species of butterflies, mainly to show that the conditions were good for butterflies to be flying. Temperature, wind and cloud cover were also recorded periodically. The hiking was a bit tougher than what I usually do, since we had to follow straight lines up and down ridges.
This photo is looking back down one of the transects - not many ridges showing in this one, but they were there!
As we headed to our last transect, we got a radio call from one of the other teams that their car was stuck. In case you were wondering, Honda Fits probably are not good off-road vehicles. We hiked back to the park to head over in one of the Forest Service trucks to help. He had tried to turn around and got the front end high-centered on some soft sand. The front end was being lifted up enough that the front wheels had no traction whatsoever. They had been digging with sticks, but we had shovels. It still took quite a bit of digging before we could push them out.


We went back and surveyed our last transect before heading into town for some ice cream. I have a day of professional leave next week to go back up for another day of surveying. Next week's surveys are on more rugged terrain in the burn area. Hopefully, next week I'll see some Pawnee skippers.

Fountain Creek

With weather forecasts still somewhat unsettled, Sherrie and I decided to stay close to town for our caching/hiking today. We did a couple of caches along the Fountain Creek Regional trail and did 5+ miles. Bugs were plentiful and I got decent shots of several species. I think I submitted more than 10 pictures to bugguide.com today. This adorable whitetail fawn was about 20 yards away from us, across a drainage ditch. It kept bolting off in a little circle and then would come back and look at us, almost daring us into a game of chase. Very cute!

These juvenile barn swallows were peering down at us from their nest inside one of the observation shelters.

Here are a couple of bug pictures:
First of all is an ambush bug. Ambush bugs wait motionless on a flower for another insect to come along. Then they pounce on them, often catching and eating species much larger than themselves.
This is a milkweed beetle. It was on a ... yeah, you guessed it, a milkweed plant.

Family and Fundraising

I took a couple of days off this past week to spend time with my cousin, Karen, and her family, who were in Colorado on vacation. They got into town Wednesday night and spent part of a cloudy, dreary day on the Pikes Peak Cog Railway while I was working Thursday. They came over to my house Thursday evening for spaghetti.

On Friday, we went to the zoo. It was cloudy and drizzly all morning, but the clouds lifted enough in the early afternoon, that we took a ride on the new Mountaineer sky ride before leaving the zoo. Next we went to Seven Falls where we climbed the 240 stairs to the top of the falls.

We did a little hiking at the top of the falls before heading back down the stairs. Then we took the elevator inside the mountain up to an observation area where we could see the falls in their entirety.

After Seven Falls, we stopped by church to look around and then headed to Solo's restaurant for supper, where we opted for in plane seating. I tried to include an active link to Solo's website here, but can't get it to work. Cut-and-paste http://coloradoeats.com/solos/ to see it. After dinner we headed to a Sky Sox baseball game. We had a few sprinkles, but overall it was a nice, cool night for a ball game.

Saturday morning started out nice and clear, so it was decided to drive up Pikes Peak to see it without the clouds that marred the view on Thursday. By the time we got to the bottom of the toll road, clouds were starting to build, so the folks at the gate recommended we drive straight to the top and make any stops on the way down. The views on the way up were great. There were clouds at the top that blocked any views toward the east, but there were still great views to be had toward the west.

We had some heavy rain on the way down, so our timing was good, but we didn't make any stops on the way down. Unfortunately, we didn't see the herd of bighorn sheep on the way down that we passed on the way up. Next we headed to Garden of the Gods. It was pouring down rain when we got there, but we planned to eat lunch first anyway. We found a dry table under the covered patio at the Trading Post cafe. By the time we finished eating, the rain had stopped and we had sun shining. We drove to the main parking lot and hiked around the central garden and up one side trail. The dark skies made for some dramatic photos.


After Garden of the Gods, we stopped by the Olympic Training Center. We missed the last tour, but enjoyed the interactive exhibit, the gift shop full of Beijing merchandise and walking around the grounds. They have an Olympic flame that they lit at the same time as the one in Beijing and will remain burning during the Games.

We came back to my house, where Karen made sloppy joes for supper. They had to leave early the next morning, so we said good-bye Saturday night.

Sunday evening, our chapter of the American Association of ZooKeepers (AAZK) held our annual Art on the Hoof fundraiser. I'm co-chair for this event, which always brings plenty of stress. I was worried about ticket sales, but some last minute sales made the event a success. We raised over $5500, and I didn't have to bring home much unclaimed art.

The continuing story of the caching injury...

A little update on my finger (and a chance to see how many people I can gross out):
My finger injured last Monday (see last post) was really sore and swollen by Tuesday. Tuesday night, I used a red-hot paperclip to try and burn holes through the nail to relieve the pressure. I was really sure I got all the way through, but I was unable to get anything out. Wednesday morning, I went to my doctor hoping they could help and concerned about the fact that the purple color had spread to the skin around the nail. I was only able to see a PA and she said they didn't have the tool needed to cut through the nail. She gave me a referral to an orthopedic hand surgeon who should be able to help me. I tried all afternoon to get an appointment with them, but the referral hadn't gone through. Here's a couple pics of my finger on Wednesday. You can see how swollen it was.


I tried the orthopedic office again Thursday morning. This time they had the referral, but it was going to be three weeks before the doctor had an appointment. By this point, I was about ready to go to an urgent care center and fork over the $75 copay to get relief. I showed my injury to our EMT at work. His advise was to get the smallest drill bit I could find (1/16" or smaller) and use my fingers to turn it and drill through the nail He thought that if I did get through with the hot paperclip, it may have cauterized the hole. Unfortunately, he could not legally drill the hole for me. So over my lunch hour, I went to Home Depot and bought a 1/16" bit. When I got back to work, I tried using it. It took a little time, but it did drill through. I had to apply a little pressure after the hole was drilled, but I got lots of blood out and my finger quickly felt better. Now I just have to keep a band-aid on it and wait for the nail to fall off.
Fun times! Are you really grossed out yet? Are you even still reading? :)