Collecting Data in Quill Canyon

Yesterday I went up to Quill Canyon again (just outside of Carson City) to help with another field trip. The Carson High School Honors Biology classes have been monitoring the site for the past four years and I think I've been a part of the project for that long too! They set up transects every 10 feet for 100 yards in designated areas and each year they photograph those transects and estimate the amount of coverage each plant or bare ground covers. They had to look up or guess at the types of plants (forbs, grasses, etc.) so they could watch change occur over time. The area was sprayed for invasive weeds and the students would plant native seeds in the fall.

The weather didn't look all that promising but it was mostly wind and a little rain.

Looking for signs of wildlife.

My portion involved walking the area looking for wildlife or signs of wildlife. Yesterday we saw a Prairie Falcon, Magpie, Scrub Jay, Mallard, Quail, Mule Deer, and Desert Cottontail. We also saw lots of deer and rabbit scat, tracks, an antler, a lizard, maybe leeches, and some insects.

Nevada Bugs and Butterflies, a non-profit group, was there too and they showed the students how they look for insects. They also identified what they found, including butterflies, leaf beetles, caterpillars, beetle nymphs, flies, and bees. I also asked them to talk about the pinecone galls that we were seeing on the willows.

Showing the students caterpillars and butterflies.

Today I'm going to an Education Working Group Meeting in the Carson River Coalition building. It's my day off but I wanted to go. I also could have gone to another field trip in Quill Canyon, since this is the last year it's happening, but I thought going to the meeting might be more beneficial since the agenda has a lot to cover!

And finally:

You might be a state park ranger if....

...you need to make a sign with sticky letters and can find all but one of what you need!

We're Getting Busy!

I haven't written for a long time, but we've started getting busy! We had our biggest equestrian event of the year at the end of March--the Nevada All State Trail Riders. It's an endurance ride where they start at the park and ride into the Virginia Range surrounding the park, then down to the north side of the park and back. Normally they would use our obstacle course, but it's under water right now! All but two obstacles, both bridges, are flooded!

Washoe Lake is full!

Our local PBS show, Wild Nevada came to the park for a day and filmed us! I've been watching re-runs on Channel 5 and it's been fun to watch my co-workers show off their parks. I watched Berlin-Ichthyosaur State Park, Spooner Backcountry, Lahontan, and other episodes I can't think of right now.  My supervisor, Jenny, did the section on boating (they brought me with them so I got to go out on Washoe Lake for the first time!) and I did a guided hike to the gazebo overlook on the Deadman's Creek Trail. After that, we met a local park user, Beth, for a segment about our equestrian area and trails. Chris, one of the hosts, loves horses and they had her put on a helmet and ride with Beth. It was really fun seeing all the behind the scenes work they do while filming. One of the cameramen was from Estonia and he was great to talk to. He kept having us re-do shots, mostly of us walking on the trail so they could get different angles of us walking over rocks and over bridges. They also wanted more shots of us entering and leaving the gazebo. Our episode won't film until sometime in October probably.

We had over 200 people at our Easter Egg Hunt, which is hosted by the South Valley Volunteer Fire Department. Their Facebook page said they colored and hid something like 3,000 hard-boiled eggs and we had over 200 cars in the park, maybe around 500 people. It got crazy in the fee booth, waving people through (the egg hunt was free), selling campsites, and selling permits with the line building up. We got through it and had a great day and nice weather for a change!

We've got a great crew this year and so far they seem to work really well together. We've got a guy who was the administrator of the Department of Ag's weed control program, a retired National Park Service interpreter, a UNR (University of Nevada Reno) engineering student, a man who is from Tahoe but has been working for Xanterra at Crater Lake for the last few years and wanted to get back to Nevada, and three returning seasonals, two of which are Park Aids II and will help us supervise the Park Aid I staff and assign projects and daily activities.