On April 16, we had our orientation at the PCCI. Overall, there are 18 students who received grants for research or art. We will all be living in the same house, so things will be packed. It was a very nice day at the institute and I met a lot of people. There will be a few researchers studying Eastern Massasauga Rattlesnakes, so I hope I will be able to tag along with them sometime in the summer. After orientation, Michael Hindy, Dr. Keys, and I did our first vegetation measurement at the PCCI grasslands. Using a Robel Pole, we measured the vertical density of the vegetation.
Since then we have been gathering our equipment for the summer. I now have the GPS, rangefinder, keys, point count forms, compass, and other gear items to get started. Today we had planned to take more measurements of the vegetation at the Gerald R. Ford airport and a field in Hastings, but final permissions have not yet been given. Unfortunately, it sets us back a whole week.
Because of today's lack of field work, I decided to go to the Luton Park prairie to see what was there. Luton Park is one of the possible locations to add to our research. It was a productive trip. 5 of our 10 target species were present. I saw Vesper Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Eastern Meadowlark, and Field Sparrows.
Our research will officially begin on May 12. It has been taking its time in coming, but school is almost done... there is still hope.
In our Botany Science book today we're learning about nature journaling. I had CJ look through this blog to show him an example of a nature journal. He is very impressed!
ReplyDeleteThat is cool. I wish I kept this blog up to date, but I'm not much of a writer. For CJ I'd make sure he records weather, date, time, location, species list, and have him sketch the plants. I've never kept a field journal, but I wish I did from the beginning.
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