Big Bend Followup...

Ok, I know that I just posted a blog last night, but wanted to post a little follow up since I just checked the pictures that were captured on my trail cameras.  Don't get too excited - I didn't get anything except a couple pictures of me working up a mouse and a picture of a jack rabbit... BUT I had to save a couple of the pictures just so you could see what I meant about it being HOT down there!  The school truck I use for my field work has a feature where you can see what the outside temperature is supposed to be, and I usually rely on using that in the mornings since I record the temperatures during my bird surveys.  This past weekend the truck kept saying it was usually between 97 and 103... which obviously is hot.  And I trusted that reading even though to me it felt like it was a lot hotter than that - especially judging by how much I was sweating.  I mean obviously you're going to sweat when it's 97 degrees but I've worked it weather that hot before and I just felt like I was SO much hotter than I usually am in high 90 degree weather.  Anyway, I'm making this longer than I meant to and I doubt you all want to hear about me sweating... sorry!  My trail cameras also read the temperature.  Now I know that they are sitting out in direct sunlight so may be over estimating the temperature, but once I saw what the cameras were recording as the temperatures I started to understand why I was feeling so much hotter than what the truck was telling me.  I'll let you look at the pictures below to see for yourselves :)

Okay, first just a couple candids of me and the jack rabbit...

I didn't realize at first that I had sat down right in front of the camera that automatically started taking photos of me.  But here I am shaking a mouse out of the trap and into the bag.

Here is the jack rabbit.  Those ears are so huge!

Ok, and here are the ones that show how hot it was!

Here is the first photo I have showing the extreme temperatures of my study area!  This was the first study site at 118 degrees!  Now you may be looking at the time and thinking that I'd have no reason to be out there at that time since I run my traps in the morning.  But in order to avoid excessive heat exposure to animals who may get caught, I close my traps after checking them in the morning.  So that means I have to go out and open them again in the afternoons, which I usually do between 3 and 5... right around when these photos were taken.

Here is my second study site that is at a lower elevation at 120 degrees!

This is the same camera that took the picture directly above this, but the difference is this picture was taken that fateful morning that I described in the previous post when I was rushing to save (unsuccessfully) the mice in the traps.  No wonder they were dying! It was 107 degrees already!!  Poor things :( It makes me feel so bad!

Anyway, this post was basically for me to feel sorry for myself a little bit and and maybe justify my complaining during these past couple of weekends to those that had to listen :)  I have been keeping an eye on what the weather is supposed to be for the Davis Mountains Preserve where I will be this weekend and it looks like it will be in the lower to mid 80s!  YAY!  It will be like springtime!  As I mentioned in the other post there are also trees there that will shade me and the traps I set! Whoohoo!  It will be such a nice change from the sweltering heat of the desert in Big Bend...

Okay, thanks for letting me point all that out to you :)  I was the one who decided to work down here, so now I guess I have to deal with it!

Thanks for reading :)

Laura