Pictures From ND

Here are some random pictures..

This is a beaver that we saw while doing one of our surveys.  I snuck up on him while walking on the shore (he was probably 10 yards in front of me).  He smacked the water with his tail, as beavers often do, to try to scare me, which he did because I was looking down at the ground.  He then starting swimming in the water right in front of me for 15 minutes.

This was probably the biggest bird I have ever seen.  We think it is a juvenile bald eagle.  It was bigger than any bald eagle I have ever seen.  We also thought maybe it was a golden eagle.  I'm no bird expert...

This was a big storm I could see from the trailer.  Just thought the cloud was neat looking.

Some pictures of the trailer I live in when I am not in a hotel.  It is very messy because we have a lot of stuff/gear and as you can see, very little room :}

View from the kitchen to the bedroom.

Where I have been sleeping.

The bathroom where the toilet doesn't flush the shower has no curtain and no hot water works (anywhere in the trailer)...

The kitchen.

The trailer.

A pelican that was gliding down the river with us as we were canoeing.

These next two are some pictures of the obstructions we have been facing as we are canoeing down the rivers.  (for all of you who might be thinking "oh, he gets to CANOE for his work.  How fun and relaxing!!"  FALSE.  These have been some of the most tiring and exhausting days.  We spent 9 hours on the river yesterday.  We have to keep getting out to survey sites on the bank and the banks are pure mud so we are constantly slipping and falling and getting covered in mud...  You've heard of 'quick sand' well here it is 'quick mud')

Anyways, back to the pictures.  We are constantly coming across these fallen trees (mainly from the bank eroding away and them falling into the river) and then the trees are collecting flood debris as it flows down the river so it is no fun for a canoer.

As you can see from this picture we have had to cut our way through several times.  Other times we have had to stand on the big tree trunks and pull the canoe over.  Well, today we had a little adventure.  We were in the process of pulling the canoe over a big log and Jesse started to lose his balance so I tried to grab hold of him to keep him from going in but as I'm sure you can guess, that didn't quite work out as planning.  We both ended going into the river, however, in the process we did manage to finish pulling the canoe over the big log :}  But yes, we were completely soaked along with all of the gear.  My forms got soaked and the gps (which holds all of data points fell to the bottom of the river.  Luckily the river was only waist high so after about 15 minutes of feeling around with my feet I found it!!  I found this whole experience to be extremely funny because just last night I had a conversation with mom about not wearing a life jacket (its in the canoe just not on)  =]  I also am still very bitter because these low trees murdered my sunglasses.  I bought a nice new pair of field sunglasses before I came out because I knew I would be spending HOURS by or on the river and I wanted my eyes to be protected.  I had one goal when I came out here NOT TO LOSE MY SUNGLASSES.  Well these trouble trees ripped them off of my head yesterday as we were canoeing and they sunk to the bottom of the river.  Oh well.  Summer goal = failure.

This is a picture of some otter scat that I am looking for.  I get so excited when I find this in the field.  Its like christmas!!

This is a picture of one of my study sites.  See the bridge a couple power-lines ahead in the picture?  No?  Neither do I.  In the past week the flooding came and completely covered the bridge.  That is not suppose to be a lake.  The river was a hundred yards or so down the road.  This kind of put a damper in my research. I now have to find a new study site.  Hopefully it will all work out!