http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm Hanging In The Lab en-us Thu, 09 Sep 2010 09:52:41-0700 Sun, 30 Jul 2006 00:35:00-0700 BlogCFC http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss mariebmk@yahoo.com mariebmk@yahoo.com http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm/2006/7/30/Patience-will-never-drive-with-me-again IE: Patience, most likely you will not enjoy this story. So, I just got off from my last night of frog surveys. I heard bog frogs at 4 out of the 8 sites I visited, which is pretty good. I did a crazy amount of driving to get to these sites (I guess about 1 hour of driving to get to each site). The joy of late summer is that you are constantly driving or walking through spider webs. So far I know of two large spiders that live down here. One is the black and yellow garden spider (which we also had on the Cape- they're huge and have a scarey black skull looking pattern on their back). The second is the Golden Orb Weaver spider. And then, of course, there are tons of smaller guys. Anyway, as I drive I'm constantly hitting webs and it never occured to me to be concerned that a spider might actually crawl into the truck through one of the open windows. Of course is is exactly what happened tonight. I get back to the office (our trailer really)and open the back door to get my bag and cooler out and there is a Orb Weaver suspended from a web attached to MY SEAT. I have know idea how long that animal was back there, but I'm sure I reached over it several times to get at my water and food. I couldn't even deal with it tonight, so its going to be waiting for me when I come in tomorrow afternoon armed with a tupperware to shoo it out. Its gonna be awesome... that's my story scary Sun, 30 Jul 2006 00:35:00-0700 http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm/2006/7/30/Patience-will-never-drive-with-me-again http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm/2006/6/1/Animal-Encounters So, if you've been reading these posts I've probably established with you that I am a very paranoid person when I'm out on the base at night. Its just creepy knowing that everything out there can see you better than you can see them. Of course, my new maglite has alleviated some of my fears 'cause I can see much further, but its definitly not the equivalent of daylight. Tonight was a rather eventful evening. I got through about 4 sites pretty quickly and was kneeling on a bridge listening for bog frogs at a 5th when I heard the tell-tail rustling in the woods. Whatever was walking around out there was across the creek, but headed towards the bridge I was on. Now, I have found that rustling can be very decieving. The night before Tom and I heard something moving towards us in the woods and it turned out to be an insect crawling over dead leaves (a large insect ~4 inches, but still...). I swung my light over towards the noise, but couldn't see through the brush. Whatever it was was getting closer to the bridge. I stood up and in my best angry/firm voice yelled "ANIMAL!" ('cause I didn't know what it was). The rustling continued getting closer. The movement was all concentrated low to the ground so I was confident that it wasn't a bear. But, here I was shining a light on it and yelling at it ("I'M YELLING AT YOU. YOU ARE SUPPOSED TO RUN AWAY. WHAT ARE YOU?"), and it was still coming. My mind immediately jumped to a rabid raccoon. I mean what animal keeps coming towards something as large as me?! As soon as it emerged from the shadows my questions were answered: a long scaley snout attached to a humped armored back and a long dragging tail. ARMADILLO! Of course the thing was still coming at me. I must have looked ridiculous: standing in the middle of the road shining a maglite on a small animal and backing away and the thing came running at me. As I was scrambling backwards I kicked up some sand and the armadillo froze. It suddenly seemed to realize that there was something standing behind the light it was running towards and whirled around and ran back into the shrubs. I now realize why I have only ever seen dead armadillos and never any live ones: they are dumb as rocks! I also re-confirmed for myself that I am a coward. I was run away from my survey by an animal less than a foot tall! Here are two random facts I know about armadillos: 1. The females always have quadruplits 2. They are the only animal besides humans that carry leperasy. Of course, that wasn't the end of my evening. Two stops later I hopped out of the truck and started walking towards the site. I swung the beam of the maglite in an arc and saw two green eyes. I froze. The eyes were both oriented forward and fairly far off the ground. Now, deer have yellowish eye shine, so not a deer. The forward oriented eyes are generally a characteristic of a predator. Most likely this was a bear. Once again I try the talk to it firmly technique and once again it fails. The animal doesn't back away, but it does bob its head a bit. At that point, I've had enough. I went back into the truck and did the survey from there with the windows rolled down. The rest of the night was uneventful, but I was happy to be done! scary Thu, 01 Jun 2006 00:04:00-0700 http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm/2006/6/1/Animal-Encounters http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm/2006/4/3/uhhh BETH! What did you do to my nice boring white background! Pink rabbits?! You are evil! scary Mon, 03 Apr 2006 15:46:00-0700 http://www.oldgraycat.com/sarah/client/index.cfm/2006/4/3/uhhh