A Moment of EnLitenment » tracking http://www.enliteart.com/blog A Young Biologist’s Thoughts on Biology, Photography and Research Mon, 24 Oct 2011 14:12:21 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 Treehouse http://www.enliteart.com/blog/2009/06/05/treehouse/ http://www.enliteart.com/blog/2009/06/05/treehouse/#comments Fri, 05 Jun 2009 17:05:51 +0000 Andrew http://www.enliteart.com/blog/?p=456 When many people see a tree like this on their property the first thought is “well, it’s dead now -probably ought to cut it down…”

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Trees like this may not be the most beautiful but if you really take a good look they may be the most interesting.  Study after study confirms that having a good supply of dead snags is essential for many wildlife species.   Because many forests today lack an adequate number, many wildlife managers are now looking for ways to actually create them.

The tree above is part of my study on Indiana bats.  We found it by locating a bat carrying a tiny radio telemetery transmitter that was roosting in the tree.  It may not look that special but I spent the evening last night sitting at its base…  At least 82 bats call it home -and did I mention that they are federally endangered.  You may want to think about that before pulling out that chainsaw and ridding your property of every dead snag.

]]> http://www.enliteart.com/blog/2009/06/05/treehouse/feed/ 0 Hunter vs. Snow http://www.enliteart.com/blog/2009/01/19/hunter-vs-snow/ http://www.enliteart.com/blog/2009/01/19/hunter-vs-snow/#comments Mon, 19 Jan 2009 23:45:32 +0000 Andrew http://www.enliteart.com/blog/?p=369 Lately I’ve been poking around in the woods with my camera as usual… but I’m not looking for pretty pictures.  Graduate courses in wildlife identification are no joke. As part of my class this quarter I have to document the presence of a certain number of species of mammals and birds.  It sounds simple enough… until you have all the easy ones and subtract from the number required. Thankfully, the snow has come.

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I’m still not sure about this one.  But the one below everyone should know.

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Only one problem -I still don’t have enough.

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