Jr. Ranger Field Notes

Friday, July 4, 2014

Francis - The First Day on the Job.

So my first day at Junior Rangers was okay. I had a good time, except for the part where I got putty in my hair. I learned about the gall on the poison ivy. A gall is an outgrowth on an organism. I forgot what species that gall was on the fox grape, but it was very interesting. It especially gave me a craving for jelly beans. 


Francis

Fiddling Around the Marsh - by Henry F.

Fiddler crabs scuttle up and down the beach

ducking into their homes, just out of reach

these tiny creatures run into their homes

As my friends and I walk, while on the roam

as fast as these fiddler crabs go

how many get hurt, you wouldn't even know.

luckily their numbers keep them alive

otherwise their population would dive.

out in the marsh flags go down.

each cluster is like its own town

these flags will help out Dr. Oktay

unless Lenny just wanted us away

Emily by ED

Today at the Field Station we met Emily; she is the mosquito lady of Nantucket. She is sitting at her desk in the lab using tweezers to sort through different kinds of bugs, pulling out only the mosquitos. Emily wanted us to help her sort out the bugs from the mosquitos. There are beetles, moths, flies, some bees and wasps, and of course there are lots of mosquitos. To catch the mosquitos she uses a dry ice trap. Dry ice lets out CO2 and to find humans the mosquitos use CO2 also. The traps were set in different habitats of the island because there are many different types of mosquitos; some areas are the marsh, grasslands, forests, and ponds. Emily's trap works well and caught many mosquitos. She was catching all the mosquitos to see if any of them carried any diseases that were harmful to humans like West Nile Virus. If any of them carried the disease Emily would alert the public of Nantucket about the disease carrying mosquitos and the kind of habitat they like to live in. I enjoyed meeting Emily today because she is so friendly and she is helping protect the public of Nantucket one mosquito at a time.

Training Day by Orion D.

Training Day

July 2, 2014

Today I trained a new junior ranger named Clyde. The first thing we did was go on a little walk. On our way I told him some stories like when we caught a little snake and the year when we made deer fly traps. I also told him the name of plants. Then we went off the road and onto the path. The first thing I did was showed him the little stream that went to the pond. I showed him the geocache, which was a plastic rock with a bottom on it. Inside there is a field station necklace, a pencil, and a little pad where you can write your name when you find it. As we kept walking I showed him a place every junior ranger should hang out in once in a while. To get there you have to go down a deer path and then you find yourself in a little deer home which is like a canopy of branches with a huge rock in there. The rock is perfect to sit and read or hang out and talk.

Then we went out and went to the field of sumac. I showed him the Osprey nest. We kept walking to the sandplain grassland. I told him about how it is an endangered habitat and how there is only a couple miles of it left and Nantucket has a lot of it. Then we went back to the garage and saw that Lenny had a group that we would lead. Lenny told us to help him with the nets and asked me to show Clyde how to shave grass. When we got to the marsh we got the D nets and went right in and I showed him how to shave the grass. This means collecting the shrimp off the grass.

After that we crossed over to the little island. We saw a moon jelly and picked it up. We checked it out and put it back in the water. Then we went back into the marsh and sat in the marsh talking.

After the walk we had lunch and talked about what happened during the day. Clyde had to share the stories I told and I was asked about the questions Clyde had. The other junior rangers had to share what they didn’t know or had forgotten and remembered that day.

Then we got to take a dip in the ocean and when we returned our parents were there to pick us up.

Cat - Bird

Meow

The simple meaning of ‘meow’ is easy

All you do is listen to a cat

For 12 months straight

And then you’ll now what ‘meow’ means

I know

My cat meows

And loud.

So it took less time

I wish I could explain

But there are no words for ‘meow’

Just ask my cat

She’ll say “meow.”

Bird

Bird on a pine

Looking fine

Now it’s gone.

It’s back again,

The bird on the pine

Looking so fine

And then it flies

Once again,

The bird on the pine

Looking oh so fine

And then it stays,

Mouth full of worms

She feeds to her little ones.

Flano's First Day - by Henry F.

My first day as a Junior Ranger was quite fun, I got to spend the day with two new Junior Rangers Beck and Nick. Both boys were very funny and a pleasure to be around and will be for the rest of Summer. The first thing we did was play the Hunger games. The Hunger games at the field station is not what you would think it is. Instead of fighting to the death (even though sometimes that can happen) we go out and Lenny tells us names of plants and animals that we have to write down, then whoever has the most at the end gets an italian ice.. Most of the plants I know from last year but it is a good way to learn the many that I have forgotten, it is also a good way for the two new Junior Rangers to learn new plants. It was amazing to see all the plants and realize how many names I had forgotten and how many different plants I knew last year. After going around writing down many plants and animals we went into the lab and grabbed a bucket. With the bucket in hand we went down to the marsh and checked a trap, inside their were green crabs and an eel. We immediately went up to the lab with the eel to estimate the circumference and measured how long it was. To measure the eel we put it in a long tube so that it would be easier to measure. Then got the yardstick and measured the eel to be 18 1/2 inches. Then we measured the width of the tube which was 3 inches. Then we multiplied 3 times Pi which is 3.14, which gave us the circumference of the tube 9.42 inches. We then estimated that the eel was 1/5 the size of the tube, so we divided 9.42 by 5 to give us 1.884 the estimated circumference of the eel. After measuring the eel, Nick was dying to hold it. So Lenny let him hold it, and immediately afterward he dropped it back into the bucket because it was so slimy. Afterwards we brought the eel back to the marsh where we let him go free. We next went to the garage to see if anyone was gonna come on the walk. At 10:15 we decided no one was gonna come on the walk, so we went into the pond to get more traps. We took the canoe and kayak out. Me and Beck got the canoe out while Nick got the kayak. The canoe only had one good paddle so Beck and I agreed that he would paddle out to the birdhouse and then I would grab the trap (mostly because I can’t paddle for my life in a canoe). So once I got the trap we paddled back. Beck was getting tired so I made him take the trap and I paddled back (this was a horrible idea). Half the time when I was making us go in circles and then the other half of the time I was making us eat the bushes and trees on the bank of the pond. When we got close to the opening where we should have pulled the canoe up onto land, Lenny yelled at me to get out and pull the canoe the rest of the way. This is because it would it would have taken forever with me paddling. So I took off my shoes and then jumped off. SPLASH!! Went the canoe with the trap and Beck . Then Lenny and Nick started laughing at us and we had to drag the water filled canoe the rest of the way.

After drying off we went up to the lab to help Emily out with mosquitoes. Emily puts out traps to attract the mosquitoes. The traps use light to attract mosquitos but they also attract many other nocturnal insects like moths beetles and any other nocturnal insect attracted to light. Because of all of these other insects that get trapped inside with the mosquitos we were given the job of taking out anything that wasn't mosquitoes. Mosquitos have specific characteristics such as their long nose called a proboscis and their wings. We looked at a few cool mosquitos underneath the microscope. It was amazing to look at the wings and how beautiful their body was. Emily gave us a lesson on how mosquitoes can be different and showed us a bunch of different species of mosquitoes. And being me I had to eat one of the bugs, so I ate a beetle. It tasted weird and it was crunchy, oddly enough it tasted like a wild blueberry. YUM!!!

After finishing separating the mosquitoes we went down to the marsh and then hopped into kayaks to bring the trap out into deeper marsh. I decided to take the single kayak since I didn’t want to be going in circles the whole day. So Nick and Beck went into the double kayak and had the trap between the two of them. When I put my kayak in I was dumb and pushed it in, then the current took it and brought it away from me. Luckily there was grasslands and the kayak didn't float away from me. Then I did something even more stupid and jumped right into the marsh and didn't look before I did. Turns out their was silt stuff that made me sink knee deep into it so I could not walk and get the kayak. So Nick and Beck had to go get it with their kayak and I had a spa treatment for a few minutes. But dang when I got out of the silt it smelt so bad it smelt worse that 2 week spoiled milk, and trust me I know what it smells like I also know what it tastes like but thats another story. But then we got to kayak through the marsh looking for a good place to put the trap. Once we found a good place to put the trap we headed back to Lenny and then had lunch. After lunch we went for a little swim, even though I was the only one swimming and boy was it cold. Then we went back to the garage and we ALL had italian ice cause Lenny is a softy. He didnt even check to see how many things we had got written down from The Hunger games. All in all my first day as a Junior Ranger was quite fun and I hope to have lots more fun in the upcoming Summer.