Second Half of Summer Recap

So my summer field season working on amphibians is over.  I had a bunch of pictures to go through, so here are few of the good ones!

First of all, did I mention I seriously kick butt at Wheres Waldo?  I found a Sonoran Desert toad, one of the species of amphibians I was looking for! BOOM! Not only did I find one, I found six! BOOM! No leopard frogs this summer, but finding what you're looking for sure lifts your spirits. 

Not only did I find a target species, but Sonoran Desert toads were a new species for me to see.  I was pretty excited.  The story went something like this, walked up to the sight and noticed this large rock was hopping...  Ya, they are that big. I wish there was some scale with these pictures, think small melon :)

 This actually is the species of toad that spawned the toad licking rumors.  Actually, this toad itself is a controlled substance!  You can be arrested for narcotics if you have them in your possession!  I didn't lick, and don't plan to.  The toxin in there skin and concentrated in those big warts is powerful stuff, enough to knock me over for sure.  Just handling them the little bit that I did works up their glands and they get super slick and slimy.  Definitely made sure to wash my hands when I was done.  Plus do you really want to lick this.......

One of the other biologist was working with Sherman traps (rectangular boxes for rodents; they crawl in, trip the trigger and the box closes around them), and a Sonoran Desert toad somehow managed to squeeze into one and was trapped.  She picked it up first noticing that it was unusually heavy, but the light bulb clicked when a slimy ooze poured out of the corner of the trap. :)

Really happy I at least found one of the animals I was looking for, writing zeros got old after a while.  What was really funny about it all, is after searching far and wide for these guys in some nice desert habitat, I found them in this....

Yup, that would be a bathtub with a drippy sprinkler in it.... I can just see it now as I write my report with conservation recommendations "species requires porcelain and leaky sprinkler heads"

Saw a lot of other cool things as well in the second half of the summer.  Not far from where we found the toads, I was wandering around in some thick Salt Cedar corridors, cursing the tree and its fuzz for going up my nose. Then out of no where I found this guy

 California King snake

I have seen this same species many places else where, but that sub-species was speckled, not banded... I think I like the bands, really pretty and stands out against the rocks and brown of the rest of the habitat.

We've been getting a lot of rain in Flagstaff for the last couple of months.  The monsoons don't mess around up here.  I love it. It makes everything look, feel and smell like an Irish Spring commercial.  Surprisingly I found this little New Mexico Spadefoot hopping around outside my house.  I had only ever seen these guys at much lower elevation in the desert!  I guess he can hike up a mountain too.  He is a really young one, this years eggs.



I made a trip out to Tuscon area for a meeting late in the summer.  There was a large group of us and a bunch of co-workers, so lots of good banter. Ya know the kind, "what you only found 6 toads???"  "Ya, that's six more then you would find!"  We took a field trip out to Sabino Canyon, really just a few minutes outside of the city.  The main objective of the trip was obvious, and guess who found it?!?! I told you I was good at Wheres Waldo.

Gila Monster!  He's like a big lizard tank.

Found some other really cool reptiles down there too.  Check out the colors on this earless lizard.  I chased him around for 45 minutes or so trying to get him to pose. 

We also found some desert tortoises.  This was the second time I had found tortoises this summer.  The first time was randomly in the middle of the road, in the middle of the night, with absolutely nothing else around him.  This was also the same night I was stranded :)  Alternators sure do like to crap out on you in the most inconvenient times don't they?  Like when you are 30 miles from anything, without cell phone reception.  At least it was night so I didn't have the sun blazing down on me as I hike the five or so miles out to get cell service.  It was fine, I had my water, I had my bag of potato chips what else do I need?  It was just me and the tortoise.

Long summer, with long hot days. But all in all not bad. Flag is already cooling off, well into the 40's at night. Hmm, so this must be what Fall feels like. I'm not sure Texas has ever had a Fall.

Bat Trapping

Went out last night to do some bat trapping just north of Flagstaff.  We are looking at the species and population characteristics in different forest composition types (ie burned, thinned etc).  Just a few pics of some of the lil guys we caught. I've missed working with these guys.
<colored bands are used to mark individuals>

Measuring ears...

Smile :)

Hope to post some things from my second half of summer soon!

Middle Fork of the Salmon (Frank Church III)

Some quick parting shots from the crags. (Thanks Henson)

After hiking out of the crags we drove around to the campsite on Marsh Creek right on the edge of the River of No Return Wilderness.  Salmon were supposedly seen running up the river and up the creek.  We fished the creek a little the evening we arrived, but didn't see much and didn't catch anything really over 6 inches. 

The plan was to break camp in the morning, bust it the 5 miles down Marsh Creek to the middle fork, fish the middle fork until late afternoon, then fast pack out before dark.  A full day for sure.

The trail down the creek was nice.  For the most part we stayed right on the water giving it a fairly gentle grade the entire way. A nice change of pace from the crags. Pushing hard, we made it to the middle fork in around an hour and a half (light packs are a blessing!).  More trees and understory at this lower elevation.  It looked like a good spot to spot some large mammals, but only saw a single mule deer.

Saw only one salmon and he wasn't particularly interested in anything.  Totally focused on getting upstream.  However, the trout fishing was outstanding.  It seemed every hole held fish.

I hooked into a couple of heavy 14+ fish in some holes as well, this is when I regretted not having a net.  Trying to land a large fish, with light line, while standing on a rock with little bank, in heavy current, is difficult.  I would work them in, get a hand on them and they would make another run every time.  Both fish broke me off right next to the bank as I tried to land them.  This was quickly followed with lots of swearing and rock throwing... followed by bargaining with the fish and assuring them I would release them quickly, depression as I had to tie on a new fly, then finally acceptance.  After all there was plenty of biting fish. 

Even generally bottom feeding whitefish were hitting dry flies off the surface! They had super tiny mouths, but would hit the large flies.  Fun to catch.



The fishing was spectacular and we eventually did have to pack up and head back.  Great day of fishing and a great trip too.

Frank Church II

The fishing at Heart Lake was decent but not fantastic.  The lakes seemed to be a little fished out.  It was the first really good place to camp on the trail and fish so the pressure here must have been higher then else where.  What fish we did catch here were solid though.  Just had to work a little harder for it

We spent the day fishing Heart and the smaller lake adjacent to it.  We decided tomorrow we would day hike north and check out Bird Bill Lake and a couple of lakes nearby it.  Bird Bill was rumored to have golden trout.

The trail around to Bird Bill traversed around a large peak then switchbacked down it.  In places we had to negotiate the snow pack still across the trail, and erosion leaving the trail nothing more then a sandy foot path traversing a steep slope.

Bird Bill kept with the theme... stunning

It was in the 70's, but we were fishing in the snow in places.  Needless to say I had no complaints.  No Golden Trout out of Bird Bill, but lots of good Cut Throats.



We worked our way to the other lakes that we separated from Bird Bill by small streams and marshes.  The fishing at these other lakes was almost silly.  The fish weren't huge there, but almost every decent cast resulted in a rise at least.  The small streams and marshes had a surprise for me too. Amphibians at 9,000 feet! 



Columbia spotted frog

 Western Toad

We fished the rest of the day in this area before hiking back to camp.  We made the decision to hike out tomorrow and head for Marsh Creek on the other end of the wilderness. 

River of No Return!

Its a lucky thing I did return from the Frank Church River of No Return Wilderness Area, because it was spectacular. 

We arrived in Boise and still not totally sure on exactly what our plan of action was we drove towards the Big Horn Crags section of the Frank Church.  The wilderness area by definition is accessed by trail only so it was a long drive around to the northern section to the crags trail head.  The views were nice though, passing by the Sawtooth Range

After a decent drive on twisty mountain roads we turned off the pavement and headed up.

(nice mail box right?)

After another hour and a half or so of dirt road we finally made it to the trailhead.  But we now actually had to make a decision.  We had essentially one goal, catch fish.  We knew the area would be gorgeous so the goal was simply catch trout.  It was already very late in the afternoon so we decided to hike in about 4 miles to a spring, where we would camp for the night.  The trail in was gorgeous and moderately strenuous.  It was just never flat! That combined with 9,000ft elevation can make things interesting at times. 



We decided the next morning to head for Heart Lake.  It was about another 3.5 miles in but Heart Lake was more or less centrally located so we could day hike to other lakes and fish.  Again the trail was gorgeous.  There was one lengthy climb we had negotiate.  I felt pretty fortunate since the difference in elevation from flag was only around 2,000 feet on average. 

The view at the top was pretty nice.

As we started our descent down the other side we got our first views of Heart Lake.

The trail going in from here wasn't too bad and we made good time.  It also always helps being able to see your destination!  And it didn't dissapoint.  I have found a new happy place...