The Early Morning Job

It is still very dark when I throw my covers off and slip into my field pants, already alert and ready to start my day at 4:40am. I flip the electric kettle on, that loud obnoxious electric “CH-CH-ch-ch-chrrrrr” that always starts out my day, and choose this mornings’ tea flavor: Lemon Zinger, yum. Surprisingly, I have survived the first week of Point Counts with just herbal tea in the mornings, no caffeine (the one day I did make caffeinated tea, I drove away with my travel mug on top of the Jeep. Oops). I stand in the kitchen, humming a song that is already stuck in my head while I decide what to eat for breakfast. PB&J? That’s boring. Oatmeal? No time to scrub the pot. Leftover enchiladas? That’s quick, and delicious. Enchiladas it is. I devour my cold meal, burn my tongue on my still-too-hot tea, grab my daypack and binoculars, and I’m out the door. I hop into PRBO’s field vehicle, a cherry red Jeep Cherokee that is older than me, turn my iPod up loud on a pair of wallet-sized RadioShack portable speakers because the Jeep’s tape deck won’t turn on, and start the day singing at the top of my lungs, driving down Highway 395—alert and elated. The pre-dawn light in the eastern sky over Mono Lake never fails to blow me away; colors that no camera can capture, whose descriptions only come to me in the form of emotions, not words that I can say out loud. My heart is singing as loud as my voice is. I can’t believe how fortunate I am to live in a place like this.

5:05 AM

Mono Lake pre-dawn. Colors close to reality, but nowhere near as visceral.

I am working as a Field Biologist for PRBO Conservation Science this summer, as I have for the past two summers here in the Eastern Sierra. Our projects change from year to year depending on funding, so this season I am doing Point Counts for the Sierra Nevada Management Indicator Species (MIS) Project, which monitors the presence of thirteen indicator species within the National Forests of the Sierra Nevada in collaboration with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). Indicator species (selected species that demonstrate sensitivity to ecosystem changes and disturbance) are often used to make management decisions within the National Forest to help maintain or create critical habitat for the selected species while also allowing the Forest Service to harvest timber and extract other resources from the forest. My surveys are specifically to detect the presence of the five species of birds being used as MIS in the USFS-selected habitats (chaparral, coniferous forest in an intermediate stage of succession, snags in unlogged forest, and riparian). Point Count surveys are a way to estimate population density, biodiversity, and monitor population trends over time, among other things. Often the survey is a series of designated points (in this case GPS coordinates) spaced evenly along a transect line through the desired study habitat. The points for this MIS project are in two clusters of 5 points each, with a point at each of the cardinal directions and one in the center. Each point is 354 meters from the other points with the exception of the central point, which is 250 meters from the other points. 

Point Counting in the Pines and Firs at Deadman Creek.

Yesterday, my Points were at Deadman Creek, a few miles north of Mammoth Lakes. The habitat is dominated by Jeffrey Pines and Fir trees (either Red or White, not quite sure which) and smells like Christmas. I arrived a few minutes early but I still had a quick 90 meter jaunt to my first point, so I strapped on my range finder and GPS, slung my clipboard and binoculars around my neck, and headed south through the trees, dodging gangly bare aspen arms and downed Jeffrey branch trip-wires. I start the first point of every day fifteen minutes after sunrise; yesterday it rose at 5:41, my count-down timer started at 5:56 exactly. Each count lasts for five minutes. As the seconds go by I must identify not only who is singing, calling, or moving, but also where they are singing, calling, or moving—I record a distance (in meters) for each individual detection. I find Point Counts to be meditative, a way to focus all of my energy on now. I forget that anything else exists and I only hear the Juncos singing and the Cassin’s Finches calling and the distant Woodpecker drumming. Five minutes of refreshing concentration, of cerebral muscle memory that declares “Western Tanager, Pygmy Nuthatch, Williamson’s Sapsucker, Mountain Chickadee, Yellow-rumped Warbler” as the reverberations of song bounce into my ears; five minutes of now. My watch beeps to signify the end of the count and the spell is broken. Meditation over. It’s time for a nice walk to the next point. I repeat this process five times per transect, ten times total in a day. At the center point of each transect, I also conduct a call-playback survey to detect the presence of the indicator species that may not have been detected in a passive point count (in conifer forests, we call for Hairy Woodpecker, Mountain Quail, and Black-backed Woodpecker). We use game callers (like people use for hunting) with the calls of each MIS programmed in. If the species is present, it will respond to the call or fly in to investigate. So far I have had a few Hairy Woodpeckers bomb in squeaking, but today I got quite a fright when a Mountain Quail responded to my call from 20 meters away. Their call is a loud and jarring high-pitched “WOK”. He then came fluttering out from behind a tree clucking and strutting and making a scene. I laughed out loud. What a funny bird. 

Slightly blurry MIS photo, Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus).