A sad loss :(

Do you remember last week when I posted about meeting Stumpy and Crossbill, the endangered Mississippi sandhill cranes?  Well, today we learned that Stumpy (whose name was actually Peg) had died.  When there are only 112 of a species left on this earth, the loss of one of them is very sad indeed.  Peg was the ten year old female crane that had been born without any toes (foot) on her right leg.  These cranes often live to twenty years of age, and though she never found a mate, Peg was often found associating with a mated pair.

 

A local land owner, that actually named her Peg, has been watching over her for ten years.  She regularly frequented his cow pasture to feed.  He noted that her calls sounded different than normal the last week or so, and was concerned when he hadn’t seen her for a couple of days.  So, he got worried and decided to walk his pasture looking for her.  He found her body, and notified the refuge.  Her body has been sent away to determine the cause of death.  The landowner thinks she may have been poisoned, and feels he knows who did it.  I hope he is wrong.  It was a challenging life for Peg, and I don’t want to believe that someone did this on purpose.  I applaud the landowner for taking such an interest in helping to preserve this endangered species.  That’s where it is important, you know, at the grass roots level!

A short distance from the RV pads is a building known as the bunkhouse.  This is where volunteers can do their laundry, and the interns are housed.  The bunkhouse is only a year old, and is really a nice facility.  If we were to ever have a potluck, this is where it would happen, I’m thinking.

When the bunkhouse was built it included some landscaping in front.  As you can see, no one has taken care of this landscaping.  Since no staff here has figured out exactly what it is I’m supposed to do while I’m here, I volunteered to clean this area up.  I suggested cleaning the area out and replacing the messy plantings with gravel.  In my experience on various refuges, most interns are college students that have had their mother’s clean up after them, and really don’t give a crap about maintaining their living quarters, let alone the outside landscaping.  Hence my suggestion about the gravel.  Turns out the refuge manager agrees with me.  So, I finally have something to do until they get the protocol written for the bird surveys I’ll be doing.  I don’t mind working with a shovel and rake as long as it’s outside!  Sure beats sitting inside at a desk. 

Emma and I also patrolled the Dees nature trail again today, and found an abundance of Easter bluebirds singing away and working on establishing breeding territories.  They really weren’t interested in posing for me, however.

The early morning air was filled with birdsong today.  New birds seem to be arriving daily.  I’m also in charge of keeping the refuge bird feeders filled, and it was obvious to me this morning that some other critter has found them during the night.  They were all empty and knocked asunder this morning.  I’m guessing a marauding raccoon is the culprit, so I only partially filled them back up.

 

Thanks for stopping by…. talk to you later,  Judy