Tues, Feb. 14 V-Day

Partly cloudy and warmer. 22F at 7am. Blowing snow last night.

I was in town this morning, so I went to check to see if there were any ravens behind Bubbas, and there were about 40. I got one band read. Orange U. The bird was caught in Spring Gulch a week ago. None of the other birds were banded that I could see.

Jill and I went to run an experiment in Spring Gulch were we had the big capture last week. We were going to move the cows again and see if the birds had any chance of coming back in to feed so we could get another big capture tomorrow. When we got there, the cattle were already sectioned off because the ranchers had come through, so we just waited to see if the birds would feed without the cows present, and they did after about 1/2 hour. Looks good for an attempt.

On the way back into Kelly, I checked on the Park bait. There were a few birds feeding, so maybe we'll try a capture later in the day.

I checked on the NER bait. The blowing snow had covered our tracks, so that may help us. There was only one raven sitting on a nearby fence.

At 2:30 I checked the park bait again. 4 birds feeding. I came back to get the stuff and Drew to help. I dropped him off at the end of the cord so he could fire the net and I went back to watch. When I turned around and got the scope focused on the bait, I saw 8 birds on the bait. I thought great, and told Drew to fire when the birds were in place. Unfortunately, the net was bogged down with snow and didn't fire right and we missed all the birds. Maybe another day...