Day 12--Wednesday October 10, 2007

The last day in the field turned out to be a wet and rainy day. This morning, we collected the traps and checked one last time for any "friends". Our team (me, Amy & Bob) had 5 closed doors, but 5 empty traps! After watching our fellow volunteers "scruff" their voles and bog lemmings, we went to collect all 100 traps and clean them, since we are the last team for the season. The next tasks were doing a botanical survey of the trees in specific areas and taking down the gazebo. One last "Survival Skills" session and our days at Cook's Lake were over........so sad!
Chris treated us to a geology seminar this evening and I certainly learned a lot about how this area of Nova Scotia was formed (and also about Chris' extensive knowledge of the topic!)

Day 13--Thursday October 11, 2007

This morning we used the data that we had collected while trapping in the forest to calculate how many animals SHOULD be in the area we've been working in......
Red-backed voles--20
Meadow voles--2
Bog Lemmings--10
It was once again surprising that we found NO mice in the area (the only mice that we've trapped this week were in our own yellow house!)



The Yellow House

Some information about the animal that we saw most often this week........red-backed voles are small rodents that have limited hearing and vision, and freeze when they see predators. For these reasons they often become prey for foxes, weasel, bobcat, coyote, owls, and raptors. How do they survive as a species? They rely on protection from the underground, and loose fitting skin that allows them to turn around when caught and bite their predators on the nose. The skin of their tail can break off if a predator grabs it and it will not grow back.