This past month has been an absolute blast! There has been so much going on.
Kids Camp:
Conservation Kids Camp has been a blast. It has definitely kept me busy during the weeks the district held it. This year's theme was birds. My group's mascot was the Great Blue Heron. Some fun facts
about the Great Blue Heron is that on the front of it there are special feathers that do not ever stop growing. They often fray these feathers and use them to apply/make themselves waterproof. They eat
anything that can fit in their mouth to fish, amphibians, reptiles, and small mammals. In total they weigh only about 4-5 pounds despite their large size. This is due to their bones being hollow. They also roost very high up in the tree tops (up to 100ft) in the air. Recently
when Susan and myself were exploring the creek we went all the way to the end of our property and discovered a Great Blue Heron rookery. Normally Great Blue Herons are solitary especially when hunting but
when it is time to build a nest they nest together.
There were a huge variety of birds that we saw and heard during camp. We set up several bird feeders. Some of the highlight birds that I saw were the Red Bellied Woodpecker, Ruby Throated Hummingbird, and
Goldfinch.
Independent Project:
There was so much I got done for my independent project. One of the major obstacles was understanding where (geologically) the layers on the property belonged. I am deeply grateful for Dr. Hunda who is the curator for the invertebrate paleontology at the Cincinnati Museum Center. She told me (after sending many photos) that my suspicions of the Fairview and Kope formations are present on our property. She also narrowed down what grouping the Kope/specific rocks on the Earl and Hazel Jones Center for Conservation.
Something pretty awesome that I learned about was what BioHerms are.
They are a concentration of Bryozoans or another creature that
dominates and takes over in a specific spot. Their fossils dominate
the area and since these layers take thousands to millions of years to
form it's pretty incredible that they dominate for so long in a
specific spot. Even though we don't have any on the property I did
find one nearby.
Finally I measured the entirety of the siltstone/kope formation that is present on the property. I included areas of groundwater coming over the rock, notable fossiles, and old and new landslides. I will also be measuring the height of the more notable limestone layers on our property. What I find amazing is that in the Kope/Siltstone each
layer of limestone (where most of the fossils are found) are formed by massive storms mixing up all the silt and creatures living on it.
Hydromod/Macro/Electrofishing:
This month in doing several hydromods helped Thomas Moore by taking several macro invertebrate surveys. I held a hellgrammite for the first time and it was interesting to watch it move around. It was a good growing experience. I am still working on my courage to grab a crawdad. For electrofishing we went to Gunpowder where we had a
backpack that put an electrical charge into the water. This would stun the fish and it is a great tool to find out what kinds of fish are in the creek. Besides some catfish we got a lot of sunfish, stonerollers, some shad, spotted bass, and more. After we snorkeled around the property and found a dead but intact Fat Mucket Mussel (both shells
together). I gotta bring it home and now I'm going to clean up its shell.
