The first day May 17

Today was my first day in the field, which I was pretty nervous about but once we got going that all disappeared and all that was left was excitement. I always knew that whatever I spent my life doing would not be spent sitting behind a desk everyday; I have a lot of energy and hate sitting for long periods of time. So when it hit me that my office is the woods I was really excited. First we got me my temporary badge to get onto the field site, because this is a DOE nuclear facility. Then we went to this place called Long Tin. It’s as it sounds, a bunch of long tin sheets scattered on the ground in the woods. These are often referred to as cover boards and when they are out for a while the bugs show up first, followed by lizards, mice and snakes. To check the boards you simply lift the board up and if you see a lizard you slap your hand down on the body (Do Not grab the tail… It will fall off). We caught a lot of broad-head skinks (Plestiodon laticeps), Southeastern 5-lined skink (Plestiodon inexpectatus) and 5-lined skinks (Plestiodon fasciatus). I can tell I have to learn a lot of new scientific names. As juveniles these three species look exactly the same they have a black head, a bright blue tail and 5 bright yellow lines that are the full length of their body. The only way to tell them apart is to first look at the width of the scales under the tail, if they are the same width then it is the southeastern 5-line, if the scales are larger then you have to look at the labial scales. These are the scales that line the upper lip of the mouth and are between the sub-occular scale (which is right under the eye) and the tip of the mouth. If there are 5 scales it is a broad-head, but if there are 4 then it is a 5-line. But you have to count the scales on both side of the mouth because some lizards will have 4 on one side and 5 on the other. If this happens then you must look at the post labial scales behind the eye. If its enlarged its broad-head, if not it’s a 5-line.
After Long Tin we went to Dry Bay (the only array that is finished enough to start trapping so far) and opened all the traps. I learned how to set up a Sherman trap, which is meant to catch mice and other small mammals. Then we opened the pit fall traps, which are associated with drift fences that are set up like an X. The pit falls are 5-gallon buckets dug into the ground and the fences are 4 pieces of tin partially dug into to the ground to form the X. At the end of each piece is another bucket in the ground. This works because a lizard (sometimes mice or shrews) will walk into the tin and will follow the tin until it falls into a bucket. Once all the traps were opened we ran errands and worked on getting our second site approved.