Photos 4

August 18, 2006 10:29 a.m.

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Condensed photo diary of one nest's chicks. These nestlings are day 4 and just starting to open their eyes.

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Day 5 and proud of it! (We weigh them individually in that cheese tub.) Each nest usually has a runt that hatches 24 hours after the others do. The Day-4 chick is on the bottom left, looking much weenier than its siblings.

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By Day 6 they regard us with a surly look. After Day 7 we have to be careful when handling them because they might force-fledge prematurely. Two chicks early in the season left the nest on Day 7 or 8, and we have it on tape. I have to admit that, despite the loss of data, it was hilarious to watch them scramble out while their bewildered mother looked on.

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At the end of the season, we GPSed the location of every nest. There's Katie determining the coordinates of one of the many nests she found.

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Some of the trails we search are lush and ideal nesting habitat. All that soft moss and heterogeneous vegetation...mmm...

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...And some are kinda dead. Which was useful, because we could walk right past the barren parts without searching. The huge downed trees lying across the paths made them into interesting obstacle courses.

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Whenever we found nests under a blanket of bunchberries (now with their toxic-looking fruits), we had to be careful not to completely trample the sparrows' cover.

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Blackman Stream ran through one of the study sites, and its shore was a great place to have lunch. We sat on a mossy rock that turned out to be the home of a masked shrew that kept running back in whenever it poked its nose out and saw us still there. Finally it made a wild dash out of a hole and safely got away.

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Old man's beard, a lichen that grows in healthy ecosystems.

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Unidentified caterpillar. Some sort of hornworm?

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When the cat's away...

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...the mice come out to play. Doing a little jig with our loyal nest-searching sticks while GPSing (and while Brent was in Georgia).

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Jan is heartbroken to leave the forest and Maine.

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We mended mistnets in the backyard of the apartment. (I totally look like I'm pretending to weave thread through invisible holes. You can see where the pole is tied to the fence.) At first it was boring as heck, but the neighbors made everything so much better...although they probably keep their kids away from us.

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Jax (short for Jackass) is beautiful and likes to cuddle. We played with him whenever we went over to Brent's house to do laundry.

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Public service announcement from the citizens of Old Town.

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We are amused.

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We drove past the bridge over the Penobscot almost every day. It was also within walking distance of our apartment, and the three of us would occasionally take walks into town when we finished work early. Sunsets over the river never failed to be glorious, and I think this photo makes me miss Maine the most.

I went jogging this morning and heard a Carolina wren. It took me a few seconds before I could place it. I'll pretend that doesn't bother me at all.

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