We got to plot yesterday at about 8400 feet elevation (Rustler's Point) – the trail and air were refreshing.
My team was Judy (Sassy) and Jared (J-man).
We found a Douglas fir for the center of our plot and placed four five meter ropes knotted at the end at the base of the tree. (This gave us a 10 meter diameter circle for a plot around the tree. We then extended them out perpendicular to each other and formed four quadrants. Everything in that circle was plot 506 and the GPS coordinates were written on the collection bags. We wanted ponderosa pine and lupine in our plot as well. All three of these species were whacked for caterpillars and each caterpillar along with leaves from the plant were placed in sample bags. After that we did a leaf count of each plant – the doug fir had 2.4 million and the smallest pond pine had 250 and the smallest lupine about 25. All in all a great morning and the views around the narrow gravel switch back road were exhilarating as was the mountain air earlier. And the strangest thing in trying to find the little caterpillars were how they imitated the pine and fir so much that at times it seemed the needs imitiated them – what a incredible interplay of flora and fauna which may dance with.
The afternoon was off and I got to walk to the store at Portal about 1.2 with Sawako and Jared and Nat and learned more about Japanese along the way and we helped a 91 year old man get out of his car.
And the evening was great as well . . .
1 comment:
Did yall fly those big kites? That seems pretty cool!!
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