First Day of Red Bison Work

Hello everyone,

This past Sunday I got to participate in pulling out woody plants from a prairie area somewhat near the university. It was a lot of fun and I got to learn quite a bit about the general ecology about prairies and their eventual migration to becoming forested areas. This is not something that can normally be seen, but it was obvious in the area that we were in because on one side you could see where the trees/shrubs were truly beginning to grow and usurp control from the prairie by creating shade. That is where the Red Bison comes in.

There were about a dozen of us and we took it to the trees/shrubs that were beginning to grow. The area we were working on actually belongs to the railroad company, but they have been good enough to let us use it and work on it to preserve what natural prairie we can. Armed with loppers and mild herbicides, we ventured out into the overgrown zone with determination to root out (no pun intended) as many woody plants as we could.

There were many, great and small, but we attacked them with gusto and managed to make quite the dent in the woody plant population. Now their bodies lay next to the railroad tracks as a sign that the Red Bisoneers were here and have done their work well. We fought hard to pry through the brambles and other thorny things to get to the offending trees and take them down.


These brambles were everywhere and no one was able to escape unscathed. I myself came out scratched all over and almost got a lovely, free ear piercing when I stood up after taking down a tree using a technique my old high school teacher taught me. Still left a decent hole and scratch, but not too bad overall. It will heal soon enough.

As a show of how entrenched some of these woody plants were, some had dead stumps where they had been taken down in the previous year or two, but grew new stumps up right around the dead one. Myself and two other Bisoneers spent a good 10 minutes fighting with a hawthorn tree that had gotten much too comfortable growing there. But despite its thorny defenses, we prevailed and took down the multiple stumps it had sent up and victoriously tossed them to the side where they belonged.

Besides the victory of taking down plant after plant, there were many other interesting things to be found. One girl found a praying mantis as she waded into the brambles and a small group found a large grasshopper (at least 4th instar, possibly adult) on one of the offending trees. I had the joy of finding many different insects and arachnids, including four juvenile yellow garden spiders (argiopes). I apologize to any Bisoneers that read this because I mislabeled this spider as a silver argiope on the trip.

Juvenile Yellow Argiope (Argiope aurantia)

Overall, a very fun trip and I am happy that I was able to bloody myself again doing something that enjoyable (and helpful!). Very much looking forward to doing it again, along with whatever plans the Red Bison club has!

Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to help. You never know what you'll see.

Bug

Musseling

Hello everyone,

I'm sorry it has been so long since I last posted. I've been busy with a summer class and then moving into along with beginning classes at the University of Illinois down in Urbana-Champaign. It's been pretty enjoyable so far, which is a good thing since this is where I'll be spending the next four years of my life, getting my Bachelor's and then Master's degree. Posts may be a little more sporadic since I will be making sure things are straight with my classes, but I will still do my best to post regularly and that may be a little bit easier since I have joined a couple clubs that will get me outside and doing things. And hopefully the occasional fun volunteering opportunity will crop up now and then and I will get to experience new things and learn so much more about this amazing world we live in.

This past Saturday, I got to take part in a state wide survey of the mussel populations of Illinois. This meant that I (along with 21 others), got to wade through Sangamon River, crouched down so the water is easily halfway up the chest, hands buried knuckle-deep in the sediment on the bottom, searching for the many species of mussels that inhabited the river. Now I know that might not sound like an ideal way to spend a Saturday, but let me assure you, it was well worth it. It was a great experience and I was very happy to have taken part in it.

Very wet and dirty work, but so much fun (photo by Steve Buck)

One of the first things I learned about musseling is there are quite a few more species than you would think there are. I thought there would be one, maybe two, different species that we would find and they would be just a drab coloration of the river bottom. But let me tell you, we found much more than that.

Quite a representation of the variation I think (photo by Steve Buck)

As a group, we ended up collecting 318 mussels from 14 different species. Overall, I thought that was a pretty good count, though our group leader said that the species number was a little low. I couldn't believe the differing sizes and colors of the mussels we pulled out.

The first area we searched involved a splitting of the group. Half of us went upriver and the other half went downriver. I had the joy of being with the upriver group because we definitely had some fun searching. We all were focused on the task at hand, but still had some fun conversation and were even joined by a surprising (though very friendly) guest.

Our new friend (photo by Steve Buck)

We never did figure out who's dog that was, but he a very friendly acquisition to the team. The only issue we really could find with him was fetching preferences were a little odd (he would chase after literally everything we threw to the side no matter what it was) and when he did go after something and grab it, he would pretty much drop it where he grabbed it. Nevertheless, we enjoyed having him around and got some chuckles later when we were sorting mussels and he flushed out a raccoon from a nearby pile of debris that had washed downriver.

Now some of you may be thinking "Boy, that seems like it would be pretty cold and dirty, disgusting work". Was the water cold? At times it was, depending on where you were in the river. The deeper water was certainly colder than the shallows, but the deeper water was where many mussels were, so it made getting water up to my shoulders while I was crouching down worth it. As for dirty...yeah. I may end up just throwing my socks away because even after washing a couple times, they are still a lovely shade of brown. There is still sand embedded in my shirt and shorts I was wearing that day and I will probably never completely get the sand out of my shoes. Sometimes the river bottom seemed a little gross because of the change in composition from sand or gravel to a clay-like sediment, but it really wasn't all that bad, so I say that it wasn't at all disgusting.

Besides the joys of wading for an hour and a half, I did pick up some other interesting ecological tidbits that broaden my view and get me to think a little bit more. But those are things I will share with you all another day.

The Musseling Group and our best specimens (photo by Steve Buck)

This was a grand experience and I hope to have the opportunity to take part in many more like it. I enjoyed musseling with this group and hope to do other random biology volunteer work with them again sometime.

Keep your eyes open for new things everyone. You never know what you may come across and what may surprise you with beauty or uniqueness.

Bug