Team RUBL with a juvenile female Rusty after our last, "fun" catching day at Ferry Rd.
There is no doubt that this has been the most challenging job, physically and psychologically, that I have ever performed. As I write this, we are beginning to see the end of back-to-back 13+ hour days. At our Ferry Road site, the Rusties are migrating. We count fewer birds in the evening at the night roost, and the two birds we put transmitters on most recently (Harrison Ford and Igor) have quite literally flown the coop. We still however, have Christie. She celebrated the seventh week of her transmitter over the weekend (remember, we were told that these transmitters would last 3-4 weeks). There are some signs that her batteries are beginning to run down, but we still have had her each day for day points and each evening at the night roost, so our telemetry duties continue.
Our primary responsibility for the remaining two weeks of the season is to collect habitat data. Today we will learn how to sample vegetation at our other (to date unsuccessful) catching site, Palasini. We also have two dozen sites to visit to collect twigs and leaves for tree identification in preferred habitat of the Rusties caught over the past few years. Thus far, the best part of chasing trees is that they don’t get up with the birds, so now neither do we have to! : )
Yesterday evening, after our final(?) full day of telemetry with Christie, Team RUBL headed out to visit the families of Ferry Road who have supported us in our efforts. We stopped by Barbara and John’s first to bring them cookies and a card showing the team and one of the Rusties we had caught in the area. Barbara and John were touched by our gesture- Barbara’s comment was, “All we did was invite you to dinner!” (referring to the Wildlife Banquet). In response, we shared the sentiment that without John’s help, Anne and I would likely still be trying to figure out how to get the F150 out of the ditch. (Yep, that was me, one of our first full days of telemetry two months ago . . .) We tried to express that this couple meant much more to us: they had given us permission to track birds on their land, tolerated us driving up and down the road in front of their house in all weather and at all times of day, reminded us that the fences were electric when we went to recover Frodo’s transmitter from the night roost field. And yet they were still grateful for our generosity.
We continued our rounds by driving up to the catching site, to the home of Jane and Ruben. Megan and I met this couple when catching at Ferry Road was still just an idea, and were charged with receiving permission from the appropriate homeowner to put up nets in the area where we had observed the Rusties consistently feeding. That initial encounter in December went surprisingly well, considering we had (accidentally!) woken the couple up to ask for permission. Jane’s first comment to us last night was, “Well, why haven’t you come over for coffee sooner? We were looking at you out on the bayou a couple weeks ago when it was so cold thinking, ‘Those girls have got to be dedicated to be following those birds in this weather!’” Ruben expressed that he regretted that his health issues prevented him from “bothering” us more, but he had heard his nephew, Tim, was taking care of that. We gave our cookies and cards, and listened to stories of how Ruben had to stop entering the Wildlife Banquet cooking contest because his consistent winning was discouraging the competition. Last year he received a “Master Chef” plaque instead. Also, for those of you who are more adventuresome eaters, muskrat is good fried, and bobcat works well in a tomato-onion gravy. Jane shared stories of their current dog and dogs of years past, and we learned that in Mississippi there are only two types of dogs: “indoor” dogs and “yard” dogs.
Our last stop was Roger’s. Roger introduced himself early on in the season as the go-to guy for all of our seed and grain needs (he has some fabulous John Deere green and yellow business cards). He and Tim often would stop by our trucks as we were doing telemetry in the area, and chat with us about our work or where our birds were. Roger was also the emcee for the door prize giveaway at the Wildlife Banquet, and thus responsible for our acquiring of camouflage and Mississippi Ag hats. We met Roger’s mother (who loves to fish) and chatted about how he and his wife grew up just around the corner from where Anne is living in Leland. Suzie showed us where Roger likes to shoot his bow in the house- turkey season is fast approaching!- and we heard more stories of Delta life. However, Anne noted after our visit that this stop on our journey failed. It was not because Roger was not home, or allergic to one of our kinds of cookies. It was, simply put, that we walked away with more gifts and good wishes, when our intent was to bring those as a sign of gratitude for all of the things Roger had already done for us. The kindness and generosity of these Mississippians is overwhelming in every sense of the word, and we can only hope to show a little bit of our appreciation for what they have done for us in the past few months.
Tonight we will try to visit Tim and his family. Tim is one of those nice, friendly guys who would go out of his way to come say ‘hi’ to us and would always have something interesting in his truck to show us. A conversation with Tim might open with him saying, “Hey, have you ever seen a baby feral pig? Look- this one is real little, it still has it’s umbilical cord attached!” Tim and his son have all sorts of animals, from peacocks to pigs, and recently, squirrels. It certainly broke up the long days of telemetry whenever he would stop by!
Tim also is the owner of Brodie, a very sweet but dumb and occasionally annoying black lab. (Barbara told us one of her Brodie stories: he put his paws in the window of her car, then jumped on the hood, then jumped on the roof of the car and just sat there until she got out and chased him off- him leaving big dents as he hopped down.)
I’m not sure what awaits us at Tim’s tonight, but if last night was any indication, I am sure we will have a wonderful time.
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