Work here at the HJ Andrews has slowed quite a bit in the past few weeks, and we have a late winter to thank. This past winter has until recently been exceptionally mild, with only light snowfall from time to time, which has allowed us to gather data all winter like any other season, with almost no obstacles. Our fortunes saw a drastic change in the last week of February when a severe cold spell hit, with nightly snowfall leaving us buried. It took almost a week for even the main roads to become easily drive-able, and even now all the dirt roads are too covered to use. We’ve had to change our technique a bit to meet this new challenge.
Luckily for us there are a pair of snowmobiles here at the Andrews that we have been using to get out into the woods to find our skunks. Unluckily
for us, we’ve had virtually no success. Not only have the snowmobiles proven to be a difficulty themselves, as we’ve had some complications always getting them back in one piece, but even on good days we’ve not picked up any signals from our collared skunks, save one instance. My personal theory is that the skunks have hunkered down to wait it out and hope some of this snow melts quickly, and we can’t pick them up because they’re too far buried in their rest sites under the snow. Whatever the reason, we haven’t heard any signals in two weeks, so we can only guess just where our skunks have gone, and what it is they are doing.
“So, what have you been doing in the
meantime?” you might ask. Thankfully we are never without work to be done. We’ve been using the past few weeks to catch up on our data entry and cataloging trail-cam pictures. I’ve gotten mighty good at finding mice in black-and-white photos, if I dare say so. There are so many photos to check that I could easily spend the rest of the season focusing solely on the camera work.
The old saying regarding March is “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” which means weather may be rough in the beginning of the month but that only gives way to a gentle spring by the end. If things continue the way they have been, this will be completely true. As I write this I’m sitting outside on our patio wearing no more layers than a T-shirt. Every day in the past week has brought us warmer temperatures, with a perfect mix of sunny and rainy days, that should aid in the quick melting of much of this snow. Most of the ground at headquarters is visible once again, and lower elevations are now almost entirely rid of winter’s remains. That said, any road which was never plowed is still under a decent amount of snow and it could be a while before we regain car access. And if luck exists then mine is usually bad, so it is just as likely that by this time next week we’ll be buried under a new snowfall. Only time (and meteorology) will tell.
Look, the Robin says spring is coming!
