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| A typical LCR trail through tamarisk |
It’s the first month of my spring bird surveying job with the Great Basin Bird Observatory. This first month is always slated for training and for scouting all 80 plots that are selected for surveys. Our job in scouting is to make sure that directions are written so the surveyor knows how to reach the plot, that the plot is safe and accessible, and that the surveyor can get within 50 meters of every point in the plot. Unless the plot is open, this means clearing, mapping and flagging (with biodegradable flagging) trails. After finishing our plots in the Havasu area, we were on our first scouting day in Yuma, at a place called Martinez Lake. I was on a team with two other crew members, Eric and Michael. We were assigned two plots to complete and, as I always was this trail clearing season, I was the navigator.
Our first plot ended up being incredibly easy. A road went right in to it and it consisted primarily of desert pavement. All we had to do was look around to conclude it was as open as it looked on the overview map. “Onward to hell” I joked as we forced ourselves to leave this pleasant area. It’s true that Yuma is the home of all the most challenging plots I have known throughout my previous three years of working with GBBO, and our second plot was not expected to be particularly easy, but I was mainly referring to the expected mosquitoes when I made the joke. I had no idea of the difficulties in my very near future.
We turned at the location suggested by Michael, who had had a plot in the same area the year before. While doing so, we ran into another of our teams, who had a plot near ours and were looking for a way in to it. “Your plot might be flooded,” they told us from the car window. We had already come to that same conclusion, as before us stretched marsh and little lakes and nothing that looked dry. The situation was not at all encouraging, but scout the plot we must. Michael remembered how to get across a narrow channel of running water and follow a path (once a bulldozed type of road) through arrowweed until we reached the end near the river. Our plot was still 100m or more from us. To get to it, we had to slither and push through a channel filled with arundo. It was like walking through a corn field, only more dense, and the water went mid-way up our shins.
In order to meet the 50 meter rule, we had to clear and flag 3 trails, 100m apart, for the surveyor. The first trail had to be about 150 m long, the second about 100 m, and the 3rd 50-75 m. I navigated us to the line of the first trail, the longest one. Dense tamarisk. I had helped clear trails through denser vegetation, yes, but I had never, ever, helped clear trails through water. This was going to be interesting.
The mosquitoes were bad, as expected, so I had my mosquito net over my head, multiple bandanas wrapped around my neck and face, and was wearing my jacket over my long sleeved top and my thickest pair of field jeans. I also wore a leather glove on my left hand for protection against mosquitoes and scratches. I kept my right hand gloveless so that I could easily use the GPS and write the trails on the overview map. Yes it was hot with all the layers, but it was better than getting bit, and I wasn’t expecting to get wet when I dressed that morning.
The trail started off pretty rough, requiring some climbing over tamarisk. Then it got worse. Not in the sense of the tamarisk getting denser. Nope. The water got deeper. The murky, red tamarisk water that was only shin deep grew to mid-hip deep, then waist deep. How happy I was to have taken anything and everything I didn’t need, including my camera and phone, out of my pack and left them in the jeep. My radio, which we used for communication between nearby teams because cell phones aren’t always reliable, we put in the top of Eric’s backpack. As it was, I spent the entire time worrying about the GPS and map, which I could not put away because the whole point of us being out there was to create trails and a map for the surveyor. It was my job to keep us on line and write down our position every so often. The map was on a clipboard attached to a string around my neck and the GPS attached to a string that was clipped to my waist. My years of field work have taught me that the field eats gear, so everything I survey with is attached somehow to my body. Nothing could drop and get lost for good in the murky depths, but things could still fall in the water and be destroyed.
Though I continued to snap little eye poker twigs, my job of helping with cleaning up the trails was sadly lacking compared to my normal standards. We like to make the trails as safe as possible. While the trails are still narrow little animal trails, we want them to be relatively free of anything that might easily poke, trip, or hit the surveyor in the head while he or she is focusing on birds. This plot seemed bent on mocking our standards. We couldn’t see what was at our feet, and couldn’t snap it or cut it with the ax. Indeed, use of the ax only resulted in a most unsatisfactory spraying of tam water and the trail clearer’s sincere hope that no parasites lurked in the water that was now in his eyes or mouth. Even if we moved a submerged trunk or branch, it might float back. The progress was almost excruciatingly slow, as every step required a very careful evaluation of all things below water before it was taken. We climbed up over one branch only to sink into a hole as we lowered ourselves back to the ground. Then there were areas of “peanut butter mud,” where the ground was sticky, slippery mud with no firm bottom.
We were wondering at what point we could call the trail too flooded to survey and whether or not the plot should be dropped, especially since the water might get higher during the season. We had spent several hours and only gone about 50-75 m when we reached an area of open water, like a small lake, that got even higher, and our line would go right through it. We were already in tricky survey conditions, but any deeper would be pretty ridiculous to try and survey through. It was all I could do to keep the GPS and map from the water as I climbed, stumbled and slipped over the hidden obstacle course, forget trying to look for and map birds. Surely this was reason to drop the plot?
We headed back all the way down our trail to the arundo channel, but none of us felt right about giving up without checking out the other lines. We couldn’t let a little water defeat us. If it was possible to conquer this plot, we would. So we went down to the farthest, and shortest, line, curious to know whether or not the water got deeper farther down. No, only about knee to hip deep. We waded carefully through the reddish water and managed to complete the trail. Feeling somewhat more accomplished, we headed back up to the middle line. While longer than the 75 m short trail we had just made and still as difficult to maneuver through as the other two lines, we managed to get that done as well. There only remained the longest trail to finish, and we were sure the others would wonder why we hadn’t completed it by simply going around the deeper water. We had to try. So we went back to where we had stopped and cut up. While still waist deep, we managed to avoid the worst and, as the overview map promised, the deep water continued to slant off our line and we were able to end near the point we wanted. Oh joyous time! We had finished!
It was after 4 pm when we got back to the campsite. Thoroughly drenched with water, I indulged in a two quarter shower at the Martinez Lake campground to try and feel clean again. Each quarter gives you several minutes of sometimes warm/hot water. Then the three of us and two other crew members went to the little restaurant down the road, because the food we had brought just wasn’t going to cut it. It had been a hard day for all. Despite the occasional trials that come with it, though, I still love my job. Not only do I get to face the hard times with some of the nicest people I’ve known, laughing and joking our troubles away, but I’ve accomplished far more than my younger self would have imagined I could. Every day brings a new challenge, whether clearing trails through unforeseen obstacles or deciphering the drama of the bird world. When I think back on this season, I will remember that flooded day with a smile.
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Jen Tobin
It was several days of highlights: getting attacked by protective Goshawk parents, getting attacked by protective Cooper’s Hawk parents, fledglings everywhere, mule deer creeping up to be startled at our presence, spectacular views, and cooking over campfires. One of my personal highlights was right there in camp: one aspen snag with four active cavities, supporting House Wren, Red-naped Sapsucker, and Northern Flicker nestlings, as well as Violet-green Swallows. The Violet-green Swallows appeared to be nest-building – Kaitlin watched one of them “manhandling” a feather into the nest cavity.
Rufous Hummingbird
Horned Lark (confirmed)
Hermit Thrush (confirmed)
Vesper Sparrow (confirmed)
