That's right, a bioblitz - a 24-hour rush to find and record as many species as possible in a given area, for any number of reasons though conservation is typically the central theme. I was lucky enough to have been asked to be an expert group leader for the Wetlands Initiative's first ever bioblitz at the Dixon Waterfowl Refuge in Hennepin, IL, a few hours southwest of Chicago. Alongside Tom Anton and Tristan Schramer, I'd lead citizen scientists and fellow herpetology fanatics on a search for reptiles and amphibians on the 3,000-acre preserve. I was excited to take part, and the event ended up being one of the more memorable field-herping outings I've ever had.
In addition to the herp group, there were leaders and groups for all kinds of living things - birds, plants, mammals, fish, insects, and even an aquatic insect expert. We all met at the home base, an area next to the main gravel lot where tents and tables were set up for participants. Following an introduction and overview from senior restoration ecologist Dr. Gary Sullivan, we were off to find animals. At scheduled times, we were joined by others who came to help find herps, and at other times it was just three three of us. Within minutes, our little 2.5 gallon tank was home to a plains leopard frog, a Blanchard's cricket frog, and a hatchling painted turtle.
The Wetlands Initiative's staff aided us in setting up capturing implements beforehand - about 6-8 turtle traps in the main lake, and two drift fences on a West-facing sandy slope. Tom had also laid out cover boards and set minnow traps on the far end of the preserve beforehand on his own. We were to check all the traps with volunteer participants so that we could explain the traps and how they work. When we weren't leading the groups, we were searching on our own. There was a lot of habitat to work - open water, marsh, sand savanna and prairie, woodland, as well as abandoned and trashed lots, barns, corn cribs, and roads.
Day one was exhilarating. We began at noon, and during the day we bounced around all over in search of herps, but particularly for herps that hadn't been documented at the site previously. We found some cool species typical of the surrounding habitat - six-lined racerunners, American toads, and a young Northern water snake. An exciting find was a young Eastern milk snake, which turned out to be a site record (interestingly, we would end up finding three total).
Other interesting things were found while searching, including this monarch catterpillar.
The coolest find of the bioblitz, aside from maybe the county record we'd find the following day, was this massive bullsnake. While walking through a wet marshy area alongside the main lake, we passed a big dead tree that was mostly covered in tall wet grasses and sedges. Tom and Tristan walked ahead, but as I passed the tree, I happened to notice a serpentine movement and the telltale pattern of Pituophis on the log, moving under the dead and peeling bark. I quickly grabbed the body and shouted, "Holy crap, it's...huge!" Tristan and Tom came back and helped me pry the snake from under the bark and in moments I had six feet of writhing, hissing bullsnake in my grasp! It was amazing, and pretty unexpected since this isn't typical bullsnake habitat. We surmised it had entered this wet area because it was ready to shed and needed the extra moisture. We collected it to bring back to base for photos and a show and tell session later.
Photo by Tristan Schramer
One of the three milk snakes we found. This was the smallest.
Later in the day, Tom wanted to check cover boards. We were caddied around by seasonal employees of the Wetlands Initiative in these off-road utility vehicles.
Over 100 Eastern garter snakes were found under the cover boards in two days.
Here, Tom checks a minnow trap. We collected a lot of crayfish and various tadpoles in these.
Toward the latter part of the day, it became very overcast. Eventually the rain came and went sporadically. It sent most everybody packing, but it didn't stop us. In fact, late at night, when everyone else had headed to the bunkhouse for the night, Tom, Tristan, and I thought it'd be a great idea to do some rainy road cruising.
We grabbed our flashlights and hopped into Tom's small SUV. We began cruising a remote, wooded stretch of road as the rain started picking up. All three of us had our eyes peeled on the road ahead of us, hoping to spot frogs. We indeed found frogs - thousands of them. But in spite of the great numbers, each time something out of the ordinary "popped" on the road, Tom would slow down and say, "What is that?" On command, Tristan and I would hop out of a still slowly-moving vehicle to inspect the target.
"Big squashed toad!"
"American?"
"Yeah, another American."
Back in the car, maybe 100 feet ahead, another one. "What IS that?"
And back on the road we were. "Grey treefrog!"
"Put it in the bag, put it in the bag!"
Tristan bagged the treefrog. On the road again for another 10-15 seconds, until another frog, or toad, or branch appeared. About an hour in, though, the rain really picked up. It began storming violently with thunder and lightening. It got so bad that we began questioning our sanity. Ahead, we could see flashing lights and some emergency vehicles. When we approached, we noticed that the road ahead from blocked because the rain had actually washed the road away. Yikes. So we had to make a u-turn and head back.
On the way back, the rain let up a bit, and instead of constantly getting in and out of the car for frogs, Tristan and I simply walked in front of the car and let the headlights guide us. This allowed us to see many of the smaller frogs we were unable to identify while we were in the car, mostly young green frogs. However, even this activity had to come to a halt when a police car pulled up and told us it was too dangerous to be walking around in the middle of the night on a dark wooded road in the rain. That's crazy talk!
Eventually, we made it back to the bunkhouse, where most were sleeping, but a few were up, chatting over drinks. Tom stayed downstairs to catch up with some colleagues, and Tristan and I called dibs on the bunk bed (I got top) and prepared for bed.
But then I had this crazy idea. Outside the bunk house were a few outbuildings including an old barn. I thought that we might be able to find rat snakes inside. Would he buy the idea? I guess he did, because within a few minutes we were back out in the middle of the night looking for more reptiles like crazy people.
Inside the old abandoned barn, it smelled of mildew and old wood. We were immediately greeted by barn swallows that were spooked by our presence. Shortly after we noticed the swallows, we noticed all the bats.
This barn was full of flying creatures, but as we shined our flashlights into the rafters and beams of the decrepit old structure, we were soon left with the feeling that this barn probably hasn't seen a snake in a long time. So with the expectation that we weren't going to up our species count, we began exploring the barn and lamented its condition and its disused and abandoned items. I saw a rickety ancient wooden ladder that led to the equally sketchy loft and decided to ascend, but I told Tristan to stand there and hold the ladder (as if that was going to help if I fell through a dry-rotted rung twenty feet up). After slowly making my way up to the loft and shining my flashlight around (and finding only a lot of bird and bat crap), I hear Tristan express a most horrified moan down below. I looked down over the edge of the loft and asked what the matter was, and he replied, "You've got to see this."
Intrigued, I said a little prayer and then made my way down the ladder from Hell. As I stepped off the last rung, I turned my flashlight into the direction Tristan was looking and saw this:
Yes, it was the mummified head of a buck, sitting at the bottom of a kind of former enclosure of some sort. It's not like a deer head is the worst thing in the world, it's just that, well, it's probably the last thing you'd expect to find in such a place, and it was more than a little disturbing considering the circumstances. On that note, it began raining AGAIN, and just as hard as it had been earlier when we were on the road. We were trapped in the barn, about 100 yards from the bunkhouse. We waited a bit, but when the rain wouldn't let up, we decided that we'd just run and get wet. So we did the 100-yard dash with lightening striking all around and wind nearby blowing me over (we would find out the following morning that a tornado touched down the next county over that evening and caused a lot of damage). It was time for BED.
The next morning, we woke up early (but not as early as the bird people) and began processing some of the DOR specimens we found the night before. Here, Tom applies a tag to a plains leopard frog that was found dead and prepares it for fluid preservation.
We took a short break from our search to assist the fish people. They had been out all morning and had collected an impressive array of large fish, including a huge Northern pike and a very cool bowfin.
It was time for our next activity - drift fences and cover boards. We had a larger group the second day, particularly for the drift fences. We had been hoping to find a hognose snake in a trap but instead found three racerunners and two Western chorus frogs. Still, the participants were excited about the finds and asked a lot of questions about survey protocol and habitat in general.
This is the inside of one of the two long-abandoned corn cribs on the side of the road we explored to no avail. This one was covered in poison ivy. The vines were so thick and woody that the had to have been growing there for many years.
To top off the event, Tom decided to take a ride to a far end of the preserve near the cover boards and drive alongside the edge of the Illinois River, which by this time was well above its normal level. To do this, we had to drive on an extremely narrow and muddy levee that separated the preserve from the big river. The goal was to spot turtles, preferably one of several that would not have just been site records, but county records. Two other participants decided to follow us in their truck. As we made our way along the levee, we noticed that it gradually became muckier and muckier. In the side-view mirror, I can see that the participants in the truck behind us were having an especially difficult time getting through. We turned left where the levee bent and kept going, hoping the levee's condition would improve or that it would open up into an actual road and not just a slop strip. I soon realized that the truck behind us was no longer behind us, and I couldn't see where they were. Our spirits dampened when we realized this levee was getting us nowhere, and that turning around would be a predicament. However, just as we were questioning this adventure altogether, Tristan shouted, "Softshell!" (photo by Tristan Schramer)
It was an Eastern spiny softshell turtle, a county record. It was photographed before it slipped into the murky shallows of the flooded floodplain. There were jovial high-fives all around. But it wasn't long before our focus was redirected back to how we were going to get out of this muddy mess. Up ahead a but, we found a slightly wider section of levee, and decided that this was where we would attempt a turn around. Tristan and I got out of the car and helped guide Tom as he pulled a 67-point turn without ending up on either side of the steep levee (and in a real mess). Finally, we were pointing in the direction in which we came, and were on our way off this levee...
This was as close as Tom got to the stuck truck - that's his car in the background.
Once a truck came with a chain, Tom felt comfortable bringing the truck up some. But then things went from bad to worse. The truck brought in to pull the Dodge had trouble dragging the Dodge, and the driver said the only thing he could do was get the tractor. We figured, as help drove off, that the tractor might arrive in 30 or 45 minutes. So, we just hung out, paced a little, made small talk, photographed a few dragonflies and praying mantids, ate a few mulberries, and hoped it wouldn't rain again. An hour passed, then two hours. I became a little impatient, since I had planned on being home at a certain time to prepare for a flight I had the following morning. Thoughts of us marooned on this levee for days played in my head. Silly, I know, but the minutes seemed like hours as the heat was rising. My car was a few miles away. Should I just leave on foot to my car? Part of me thought it was the best idea, another part of me saw the scattered dark clouds and worried about rain. Decision, decisions.
Eventually, the tractor did make it and saved the day. Everyone got out unscathed. So, even though there was a rather soggy ending, the bioblitz was a huge success overall. Each group recorded some interesting results, and a few new records were found. If and when there's another bioblitz here, you know I'll be first in line to participate.
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