Arapaho Duties

We have been asked, "What do y'all do at Arapaho?"  Here goes!!!


This refuge makes sure all paperwork is up to date.  We needed to take defensive driving again.  It's been five years since we had taken it, so it needed updating.  Gotter Done!!!


Our first assignment here was doing a Colonial Bird Nesting Survey.  I had no idea what I was to do since the biologist wasn't here to train me.  Charles handed me some papers to read!!!  I take my jobs very seriously and was really stressed out over this...but I did my best.  We found 15 Eared Grebe nests and 8 Black-crowned Night-heron nests.

Here are the grebe nests, some of them.


Then we saw this little red headed baby swimming around.  What in the world.  Have you ever seen a baby coot?  We had not.

There will be a follow up on the nesting birds in a few weeks.  We have also seen baby avocets...sooo cute.


We have been busy taking refuge vehicles to Laramie for repairs.

This one needed charging.

I'm ready...let' go.


We have made 5 trips with 2 of them being on the same day...140 miles round trip.  Just last week, we drove to Denver to the regional office to have our radios reprogrammed.  My, is that a really big place.  We seem to be the ones to make road trips which suits us just fine.


One day we worked on updating the MSDS data (material safety 
data sheets).  We checked all supplies in various places, and removed a lot of old paint which we took to the recycling place west of Steamboat.  While there we did some shopping at Ace Hardware for the refuge purchasing over $600.00 worth of tools, etc.  Every truck has its own tool box.  We will be working on
MSDS for some time.  Sound like fun?

Another work day was spent with the satellite refuge manager driving over to Hutton Lake in Wyoming.  It is 1928 acres.  There are 5 lakes within the property.  While there, we cleaned out the building and removed a pile of rubbish that we took to the recycling  and dump.

The bottom truck was left in Laramie to repair dents.  After lunch, we boogied on over to the university where we got to see the Wyoming toad tadpoles being parceled out.

They were then transported over to Mortenson Lake, another refuge property.  

They were released into these mesh cages, fed spinach, and allowed to grow into the toads.

Here's what it looks like...an endangered species.


I am starting to have trouble again.  Come back for the rest of the story.


Until next time...