Our First Day Mammal "Hunting"
BROAD'S COVE, NOVA SCOTIA (that's Atlantic Ocean in the back!)What We Did Today:
We took an invigorating walk today along Broad Cove-where we're staying, which is on the south eastern shore of Nova Scotia. (About 56 miles from Halifax - Did you figure that out from Sunday's Blog?)
It snowed and was sunny all day..... the weather changed every 10 - 15 minutes. I could hear the ocean waves crashing, watch huge, fluffy, snowflakes hit my face, and feel my face get intermittently sunburned all day long! It was an awesome 10 km walk along rocks and through the woods.
The main goal today was to focus on evidence of mammals in the area. Ideally we'd like to SEE one, but didn't happen today. Lots of observational evidence: scat (poop), chew marks, and claw marks. Here's some of the animal sign we saw:
Below is a link to watch us identifying some droppings. The man in the green hat is Principal Investigator (the lead scientist) Dr. Chris Newman and the tall lady taking a whiff of our findings is Principal Investigator (other lead scientist) Dr. Christina Buesching.
Enjoy!
Copy & paste the link below in an internet browser.
http://earthwatch.wikispaces.com/file/view/otter%20feces.mov
What We'll Do Tomorrow:
Make and deploy small mammal traps!!
We'll start checking them twice a day now!
So......
1. How many miles was our walk today?
2. What animals made the scat samples in the pictures?
Sunday's Picks:
1. We're Atlantic time zone here in Nova Scotia, which is 2 hours ahead of Minnesota. So.... 6pm here is only 4pm there.
2. 90 km? = 56 miles
3. Nova Scotia Dog? Think on that one for one more day... look it up! (Hint: it fetches)
posted by KVWH @ 5:09 PM
1 Comments:
We're all hoping that you're having a great time out there! We thought the Traps were interesting. Most of us where guessing "wolf" or "owl" for the first scat pick, we were all over the map for the skunk, but we did guess the third was made by a rabbit. We also have a few questions for you:
What does your camp look like?
What do you do in your spare time?
Have there been any signs of Moose, or other large mammals?
What is the weather like?
Will you be tranquilizing any animals?
Do you miss us?
You should get a photo of the whole group!
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