A Brief Pause for Mammals

I'm stepping away from posting about birds for a moment so I can present to you, The Fox Squirrel.

I hadn't seen one of these guys for a while until one showed up today at work. Fox squirrels are much more solitary than their gray squirrel cousins. There can be 16 gray squirrels under the feeders at once but only one fox squirrel ever shows up. Given their size, they are bigger than gray squirrels, you would think they are bruisers but they are pretty shy and retreat from conflict.

They are called fox squirrels because their fur has a rusty red wash to it similar to a fox. You can really see it on the face of this one but it is most noticeable on their belly. It isn't at all white like a gray squirrel's would be.

~Kirk

First 20 Birds of 2008

January 1st would have been a sad day if I hadn't seen any birds. Luckily, I was not disappointed. Even though I was home bound I was able to add two birds to my new 2008 bird list. They weren't the most interesting or rare birds but I'm pretty limited when it comes to my still somewhat sad back yard. I took a look at the feeders on and off all morning and there weren't any birds. I looked in the afternoon and there were a bunch of house sparrows doing their best to deplete the feeders. There was also an adorable cottontail sitting under the feeders picking up whatever they dropped. I wish I had gotten my camera as it was a cool sight. That would have been my only bird sighting for the day but I looked up and happened to see an American crow flying overhead. So, that's two birds in the first day of 2008 and I know Thursday will net me a handful more on the drive to work and at the feeders.

January 3rd, I saw no new species on the way to work but I did manage to spot a hairy woodpecker, white breasted nuthatch, downy woodpecker, black capped chickadee, and a brown creeper a the feeders. The brown creeper was a nice surprise, I usually see one but not so easily. He wasn't using the feeders he was just hanging out near them. The photo on the left is the hairy woodpecker. I love how you can see he is just barely holding onto the side of the tree.


Downy woodpeckers look very similar to hairy woodpeckers only they are smaller.









Speaking of nuthatches, I took these next two photos of white breasted nuthatches on the feeders out at work.















On this nuthatch photo where he is upside down you can actually see the bird band on his leg from our bird banding program.












I strolled past the feeders after filling my coffee mug and spotted a Red bellied woodpecker in a tree and a red breasted nuthatch on the suet feeder.

The red breasted nuthatch was banded too. Okay so he's on the peanut feeder here. I took the photo another day. It is a little odd that he's hanging out at the feeders. We caught him in a mist net up in the prairie where there are some pine trees. He was released near the building and instead of going straight back to the prairie he discovered the bird feeders and we see him daily now.






A few hours later I peeked out at the feeders on my way downstairs and the goldfinches had arrived. Here's a fun picture I took with a goldfinch on the right and a black capped chickadee on the left. Later in the day I spotted a pileated woodpecker in the woods as well as twice at the feeders.

Sunday January 6th I taught snowshoeing at lake elmo park reserve. On my way to work to pick up the snowshoes I saw 5 red tailed hawks, and rock pigeons. Heading to the park I spotted a huge flock of turkeys in the corn fields along Norell Ave. Sorry, no camera. There were more than 30 of them. After snowshoeing I saw a pheasant just outside the park boundaries. I thought I caught glimpses of a blue jay and a starling as well but a good ID will have to wait.

Monday, January 7th I was thinking I was going to go the whole day with no new birds. I had an outreach event so I figured I would see something while driving. Nope. On the way home in the last rays of light I came upon Keller lake and wondered if the Bald Eagles would be checking out their nest tree on such a warm day in the winter. Sure enough, as I drove past I could make out the silhouette of an eagle perched high up in the nest tree.

Friday, January 11th on my way to another outreach program for work I spotted a bird on the phone line along Norell Ave and the turn to 61. It was watching over an evergreen plantation. I didn't expect it to be much but as I caught a glimpse passing by I saw a grey bird with black wings. It could only be one bird this time of year, the Northern Shrike. Very cool, I wish I had binoculars with me though I was on a tight schedule to get to my program so I probably could not have stopped anyhow. It was not there on the way back. As I left work for the day I spied a flock of birds on the shoulder of Manning Avenue. I had my suspicions and as I passed I saw they were indeed European starlings. That brought me up to 18 species in 11 days.

Sunday the 12th was a great day for birds in that I added a great and unexpected one to my list. While leading a hike I gathered all the kids around to look at some tracks in the snow and a little girl asked, "What's that white thing up in the tree?" It was a barred owl. How very cool. That same day I took the photos in this post at lunch. I was hoping to see the owl again but it was gone by the time lunch came and I could get a camera. I may try getting photos of some of the other birds I spot this year. It will make these long posts more fun to read. I know some of these aren't great photos but that really isn't the point. By the way, you can click on any photo to make it bigger.

Sunday the 13th I stopped at a pond near southdale mall that never freezes over. I saw tons of mallards but nothing else. I thought there was a chance of something else, maybe geese but no luck. Anyhow, the mallards count as species number 20. Not too bad. 20 species in 13 days.

1. House sparrow
2. American crow
3. Hairy woodpecker
4. White breasted nuthatch
5. Downy woodpecker
6. Black capped chickadee
7. Brown creeper
8. Red bellied woodpecker
9. Red breasted nuthatch
10. American goldfinch
11. Pileated Woodpecker
12. Red-tailed hawk
13. Rock pigeon
14. Wild turkey
15. Pheasant
16. Bald eagle
17. Northern Shrike
18. European Starling
19. Barred Owl
20. Mallard duck

Guesses for next 6 species: Canada Goose, Blue Jay, Northern Cardinal, American Robin, Junco, Mourning dove.

Chloroform for Kids

I've embarked on a new writing project. I'm don't want to give away too much yet but I think it is a real marketable idea that I'm going to try to get published as a book. The book in part features some chemistry experiments and so I've been going through old chemistry books looking for good experiments no one does anymore. There are often good reasons they aren't done anymore. Check out this gem from a 1960s era book for kids.

"Sniff carefully" indeed. Chloroform is now considered to be a carcinogen and OSHA considers it "immediately dangerous to health and life." It can apparently cause fatal cardiac arrhythmia. Still, I'm not sure how much this would make and I'm not sure this experiment would produce enough to be of any danger. It would be interesting to know if it actually makes a dangerous amount.

Please don't use this information to trap-door-spider "chloroform sandwich" any of your friends.

~Kirk

Master bird list 2007

Well, here they are. All the species of birds I identified in 2007 in the order I saw them. This was my best year ever for birds. Of course, this was only the second year I've done this so it wasn't too hard to beat my old record. I ended up with 136 species. That's not too bad for not really trying all that hard. I know I could have stretched that to around 145 if I had put more effort into it. Oh well.

I did add 46 birds to my life list. Some of them I had seen before just not since I started the list. 2008 doesn't promise to be easy for birding. I will be shocked if I make it to 136. A number of these species were from Arizona and I will not be heading out there this year. I also now have a baby at home so he will be taking up a lot of my spare time. As I write this I'm keeping my eye out for birds at my house. Being January 1 I'm back at a count of ZERO.

2007 Master List

1 Crow
2 Rock Pigeon
3 White Breasted Nuthatch
4 Black Capped Chickadee
5 American Goldfinch
6 Red-bellied Woodpecker
7 Downy Woodpecker
8 Hairy Woodpecker
9 Pileated Woodpecker
10 House Sparrow
11 Blue Jay
12 Northern Cardinal
13 Pheasant
14 Junco
15 Canada goose
16 Turkey
17 Brown Creeper
18 Red-tailed hawk
19 Mourning Dove
20 American Robin
21 European Starling
22 Mallard Duck
23 Tree Sparrow
24 Horned Lark
25 House Finch
26 Red-winged Blackbird
27 Rough-legged Hawk
28 Purple Finch
29 Eastern Phoebe
30 Ring-necked Duck
31 American Coot
32 Gadwall
33 Fox Sparrow
34 Sharp-shinned Hawk
35 Song sparrow
36 Hooded Merganser
37 Turkey Vulture
38 Great Blue Heron
39 Great-tailed Grackle
40 Green Heron
41 Yellow-Rumped Warbler (Audubon's)
42 Black Chinned Hummingbird
43 Gambel's Quail.
44 Gila Woodpecker
45 Pied Billed Grebe
46 Cooper's Hawk
47 Inca Dove
48 Broad-Billed Hummingbird
49 Anna's Hummingbird
50 Costa's Hummingbird
51 Black Phoebe
52 Vermilion Flycatcher
53 Bell's Vireo
54 Verdin
55 Hermit Thrush
56 Phainopela
57 Yellow Warbler
58 Spotted Towhee
59 Abert's Towhee
60 Black-Throated Sparrow
61 White Crowned Sparrow
62 Lesser Goldfinch
63 Killdeer
64 Golden Eagle
65 Common raven
66 Curve-billed Thrasher
67 Mandarin Duck
68 Wood Duck
69 Cedar Waxwing
70 Brown Crested Flycatcher
71 Northern Pintail
72 Violet-Green Swallow
73 Cinnamon Teal
74 American Wigeon
75 Northern Rough-Winged Swallow
76 Rock Wren
77 Peregrine Falcon
78 American Kestrel
79 Sandhill Crane
80 Great Egret
81 Bufflehead
82 Winter Wren
83 Yellow Bellied Sapsucker
84 Redhead Duck
85 Lesser Scaup
86 Osprey
87 Harrier
88 Trumpeter Swan
89 Tree Swallow
90 Eastern Meadowlark
91 White Throated Sparrow
92 Chipping Sparrow
93 Common Grackle
94 Yellow Rumped Warbler (Myrtle)
95 Brown Headed Cowbird
96 American Woodcock
97 Chimney Swift
98 Barn Swallow
99 Eastern Kingbird
100 Scarlet Tanager
101 Ruby-throated hummingbird
102 Swainson's Thrush
103 Rose-breasted Grosbeak
104 Gray Catbird
105 Baltimore Oriole
106 Common nighthawk
107 Eastern Wood Pewee
108 Indigo Bunting
109 Common Yellowthroat
110 Great Crested Flycatcher
111 Warbling vireo
112 American redstart
113 Bobolink
114 Yellow-throated vireo
115 Common loon
116 Blue-grey gnatcatcher
117 Clay-colored sparrow
118 Blue-winged warbler
119 Golden-winged warbler
120 House Wren
121 White Pelican
122 Western Meadowlark
123 Lark Bunting
124 Lazuli Bunting
125 Red Breasted Nuthatch
126 Swainson's Hawk
127 Barred Owl
128 Tennessee Warbler
129 Tufted Titmouse
130 Ring-billed gull
131 Ovenbird
132 Broad-winged hawk
133 Blue headed vireo
134 Swamp Sparrow
135 Redhead
136 Ruby Crowned Kinglet
AND, one I saw but forgot to record for some reason . . .
137 Red-shouldered Hawk

There is a Legend

Click to Play

I put together this short film to test out my new camera and video editing software. I hope to post more videos in the future.

~Kirk

Guns for Christ

Gentle readers,

For those amongst you who celebrate the christian holiday this season with the exchange of material possessions let me humbly suggest . . . weapons for the whole family. Nothing says, "Christ was born today and died for your sins by being nailed though the wrist and hung until he suffocated under his own weight" like the cool cold feeling of gunmetal! Why even mom can appreciate the good wholesome fun of weapons. Nothing makes her feel safer than knowing there are more guns in her home. Dad keeps one over the fireplace and two in the bedroom, might as well make sure the kids have them too.


The little town on Bethlehem may ring out with the roar of Qassam rockets and the screams of mother's who's children have been killed in the name of religion but your kids will scream with delight as they shoot red white and blue pepsi cans off the white picket fence in the back yard. When they tire of that they can use the new "away in a manger" shooting gallery to test their dead-eye holiday skills. 200 points for knocking the prince of peace right out of the cradle.

If BB guns aren't enough for your little redneck why not consider a .22 like this 5 year old is shooting? Real guns are even more fun and appropriate.

God bless America with a chicken in every pot and a gun in every kids hands.

space station animation

Showing my dorkyness here. This is an animation of the international space station being put together. I think it is pretty impressive. It keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger . . . when do they add the space hotel module?

Space tourism is becoming real very quickly and all those tourists are eventually going to want someplace to go. It costs so much to get into space (current tickets are about $300,000) and shelling out that kind of money people are going to want to stay up there for a while. Thar's money to be made in a space hotel I tells ya!

~Kirk

Giant Cow Fever

These photos are about a month late in getting posted but they are from a trip I took with my co-workers Paul, Bekah and Julia. We went to Steven's Point Wisconsin for a conference and on the way back we had to stop at this enormous roadside cow, Chatty Belle. How could we not? She certainly isn't as large as Salem Sue that Bekah and I saw on the way to our dinosaur dig last summer but they do claim she is the worlds largest talking cow. We paid our 25 cents but she refused to speak so I'm still skeptical. Odds are she was made by F.A.S.T sign (that's Fiberglass Animals, Shapes & Trademarks Corp) in Sparta Wisconsin.


Not only did she not speak she could not quench our thirst for milk.

~Kirk

Hadrosaur Mummy

This story is finally breaking in the mainstream press. I had the opportunity to visit the site this dinosaur was excavated from when I went on the dino dig this past summer with Marmarth Research Foundation. I'm looking forward to seeing the National Geographic program this week.

This one fossil has the potential to change a lot of what we think we know about dinosaurs.

I guess my toy Hypacrosaurus (a Hadrosaurid dinosaur) pictured above is fairly accurate with those stripes. Of course who knows what color they were. I personally think the teal spots are a bit much.

~Kirk

Camden is born!

My son Camden was born on 11/11/07. Read all about it at Adventures in DNA Mixing.

~Kirk

Republican National Convention Logo

I've been meaning to post this up. Chelsey forwarded this to my attention. This is the logo for the Republican National Convention here in Minnesota. Is it just me or does it look like the elephant is having relations with 2008? At the very least it looks like the republicans are looking forward to crushing 2008 with their out of control elephant just like they have screwed with our civil liberties and crushed our dignity and reputation in the world. I think the logo is perfect except that it lacks a slogan such as "The search for WMD's will continue!" or "Iran 08!"

~Kirk

Freezer of Excellence

I put my frozen lunch into the freezer at work this morning and I just had to take this photo. This is a shining example of how the kitchen freezer at work should always look. Minimum three gallons of Ice Cream and 20 lbs of shade grown fair trade coffee (700 cups worth). The giant puffball mushroom in the orange bag is optional. We're going to freeze dry it for a fungus class next September. The only thing I would improve is that 2 gallons of the ice cream are sub-par-ice-crystals-on-the-top-bucket-style-abominations whereas they should be quality pints like those in the front row.

Fixing annoying "delete to go back" in Firefox

One of the most popular posts here on my blog was where I explained how to get click -hold contextual menus back in Firefox 2.0 Why on earth they thought Mac users would enjoy having to hold the control key whenever they want to see a contextual menu is beyond me.

I love firefox but another hugely annoying feature is that hitting the delete key jumps you backwards though the browser history. Who thought that was a good idea? If you think your cursor is in a text field and it isn't then you're in for a nasty surprise when you hit the delete key to edit your text and you navigate away from your current page. What kind of power user is in such a hurry they can't take the two seconds to hit the back button? Who needs to rapidly speed backwards though their history like that. Even if such users do exist, why the delete key? (that's the Backspace key for you PC users)

There are lots of instructions online about how to disable this feature using the config menu. It is easy and anyone can do it if you can follow directions.

1. Open a new Firefox tab (apple+T) so you can work in one window and read these direction in the original.
   
2. Type "about:config" into the address field of the new window. Hit return and the config page appears.
   
3. Enter "browser.b" into the "filter" field at the top.
   
4. Click-hold the "Browser.backspace_action" Value column, and choose Modify from the pop-up menu. Type 2 for the new value.
5. Click OK.

You're done! Annoying problem solved.

~kirk

135 Birds and Counting!

While on a visit to the St. Croix Watershed Research Station on Sunday, September 23rd I spied three broad winged hawks in the sky circling in a mini kettle. Someone suggested that with only 3 birds it should be called a pot or perhaps a cup instead of a kettle. har har har. Bird humor.

October 4th we had a naturalists' staff meeting at the nature center and while meeting in the lounge, Paul pointed out a blue headed vireo hopping up and down the bark of a large oak out the window. It must have been feasting on insects hiding in the bark. I had no idea they could hold onto the side of a tree like a nuthatch. Very cool to see.

The morning of October 18th I headed out to the George W. Mead Wildlife Area in Wisconsin as part of a conference we were attending. We expected lots of migrating waterfowl but were disappointed. We did find a pond with lots of American Coots (hundreds?) but the only other birds in the pond were five lesser scaups and a couple of pied billed grebes. We kept searching and found some red winged blackbirds, swamp sparrows, field sparrows and juncos. Just outside the wildlife area we stopped at a small pond and spotted a lonely redhead swimming. Hmm, if you don't know that a redhead is a kind of duck is sounds kind of bad that we watched a redhead swim in a pond though our binoculars! Just after we left the wildlife area I spotted a half dozen or so sandhill cranes in a farm field.

October 19th Paul and I woke up extra early to go on an early morning bird hike with other naturalists. I can't believe I got up that early to look at essentially the same birds I see at work everyday.

We left the conference October 20th and we spotted a ruby crowned kinglet though due to a momentary lapse of reason we could not figure out what kind of warbler it was. Duh, it wasn't a warbler. We kept on hearing kinglets so we should have put two and two together sooner than we did. I did spot a brown creeper as well which is always fun.

On the way home to Minnesota, co-worker Bekah spotted a white bird sitting up in a tree on the side of the road. I pulled over turned around ( something that NEVER happens unless I'm driving with other naturalists) and we were super excited to see that the bird was a Krider's Red-tailed hawk. It looks like an albino but it has the red tail. I'd never seen one so that was very cool. It is still a red-tailed hawk so I'm not counting it on my list.

131 Broad-winged hawk
132 Blue headed vireo
133 Swamp Sparrow
134 Redhead
135 Ruby Crowned Kinglet

Cool Dog Window

I think our dog Odin would love one of these. This is a great idea I stumbled upon out there on ye old internete. Now, how to make one? Or, just buy one from pet peek.

~Kirk

Cephelopod Fossil

I joked a few posts ago about bringing home a 10 foot long cephelopod fossil. Well, that has yet to happen. I did find a cephalopod fossil though. About a month ago I took some Girl Scouts to Lilydale Regional Park in St. Paul to look for Ordovician aged fossils. We found the usual suspects in the usual spots and after the group left I ate a quick lunch and headed back into the park to scope out some other sites. I've never had time to fully explore the site so I was looking forward to seeing if there were some other spots I could take groups. I also did a little more exploring in the stream bed and that's where I found this gem.










The kicker is that this is from a much much larger animal and the rest of it was nowhere to be found. It is either still in a hillside or more likely, broken into dozens of pieces and every piece has been found by a different person. Oh well, such is fossil hunting at this site. It is about as picked over as they come. It is still a really cool piece and I'm excited to have it in my collection.

~Kirk

Teach both sides!

Consider this an addendum to my last post.

~Kirk

Where's the Beef?

With all the posts about dinosaurs lately I thought this would be timely.

I recently happened upon one of the major creationist websites and read some of their mind-boggling "science." Creationists rail against evolution and complain that the fossil record is incomplete. They claim there are no transitional forms. They don't claim the transitional forms were not fossilized mind you, they claim they did not exist. The reason they claim they did not exist is that they do not appear in the fossil record and if they had existed they would have appeared.

Real scientists point out that the fossil record is incomplete because the creation of fossils is a sporadic event occurring over a long time period that requires specific conditions. Even given that, there are very few paleontologists and a LOT of ground to cover. Only a tiny fraction of the dinosaurs that are fossilized have been dug up and identified.

Creationists ignore this fact and prefer to believe that the fossil record was created by the great flood. Only animals that existed at the time of the flood could have been killed and buried and fossilized. Since we don't find transitional forms, they didn't exist.

Ahem, herein lies the rub for creationists. There are two huge logical problems with their argument.

First off, if the flood was the singular event that formed fossils and the flood only lasted one year then DUH there aren't any transitional forms because evolution doesn't happen in one year. You can't simultaneously say all the fossils were formed in one year and then claim evolution is false because the "snapshot" of animal life the flood fossilized in one year doesn't' show transitional forms. You can either have fossils being formed over millions of years and then you get to complain about missing transitional forms or you get fossils formed in one year by the great flood but then you can't complain about missing transitional forms. You can't logically have it both ways.

Choose one.

Secondly, Noah took two of each animal onto the ark right? Let's look at a fairly common animal. Deer. If he took two deer onto the ark that leaves, oh, let's say a few billion deer that didn't make it onto the ship. They died in the flood. So did all of the bears, goats, horses, chickens, wolves, kangaroos, squirrels, moose, cows, pigs, etc. that were not the lucky two chosen. The idea creationists but forward is that there are no dinosaurs now because they died in the flood. That is why we find them fossilized.

Hold on here a second.

Dear creationists, if Noah only took two of each animal onto the ark then there were millions of individuals from each species that DID NOT make it onto the ark and would have died in the flood. There are lots of dinosaurs that creationists and young earth believers think died in the flood. Please show me a fossil of a deer, a bear, a goat, a horse, a chicken, a wolf, a kangaroo, a moose, a cow or a pig.

Better yet show me hundreds of millions of them because hundreds of millions would not have made it onto the ark and they would have died right alongside the dinosaurs. They don't show up in the fossil record and you claim that animals that don't show up in the fossil record don't exist. That's weird because I could swear I've seen cows, bears, goats, horses, etc. yet they aren't in the fossil record with the dinosaurs.

You can't have it both ways.

Come to think of it where are the fossils of the millions of people who died in the flood? Why don't we find axes and houses and ox-carts and humans and dogs and sandals and cooking utensils mixed in with dinosaur fossils?

Bah! It isn't worth wasting more time on it. We don't find these things because the world wasn't formed the way some guys with no scientific understanding sitting in a tent thousands of years ago dreamed it was created. If you are a creationist and you read this please explain why when a transitional form can't be found it means the scientists are wrong but it is all hunky dory when creationists can't find a single fossil cow, pig, etc. when there should be millions.

~Kirk

Saprophyte No More . . .

My knowledge is obsolete

The last week of summer camp I discovered some unusual plants in the forest with my campers. I immediately recognized them as saprophites.

Sapro: meaning obtaining nutrients from non-living matter and phyte: meaning plant.

Here's the problem. My knowledge is obsolete. I wanted to identify the exact species and apparently saprophyte is a term no longer used. It was explained to me years ago that a saprophyte is a plant that lacks chlorophyll and thus obtains nutrients from decomposing organic matter. The problem is that now scientists say no plant can do that. What is actually happening is that the plant is engaging in parasitic behavior. It parasitizes a fungi to steal nutrients and it is the fungi that are taking the nutrients from the decaying matter. You may think it is a technicality, the plant is stealing nutrients from fungi rather than taking them from decaying matter, however now scientists say the term saprophyte is technically incorrect and misleading.

They now refer to a plant such as this as a Myco-heterotroph. Great, the kids will really remember that. It isn't a saprophyte kids, it is a myco-heterotroph. I had a hard enough time teaching the word saprophyte to third graders. In reality, they will probably remember the name Ghost Plant, Corpse Plant or Indian Pipe better. I think that's what this is. I've seen it here before but this clump looks different. I think what you see in the photo is an already pollinated flower. The petals have fallen off and it is now standing up straight as opposed to nodding.

Either way, fairly elusive and very cool.

~Kirk

Dinosaur Dig (part 4)

Ah, Thursday and Friday. We're almost at the end of our journey. I'm not posting anything about Friday as it was just our drive home.

After our rain day Wednesday we were itching to get back out in the field on Thursday.

We had a fantastic day. I drank over four liters of water in the field and I was still thirsty. I can see how if you were to run out of water out there it could be bad very quickly. It wasn't even that hot. The week before we arrived they were having temperatures in the 100s.

The arrow on the left shows the view of our van from where we ate lunch Thursday. That white splotch is an 18 foot long 15 passenger van.

Here's the same photo uncropped for comparison. We hiked though this basin and stopped atop this butte for lunch. The spot we're sitting in is relatively flat as they removed a triceratops from this site a few years ago. There were some bone scraps left behind and little pieces of plaster from making a field jacket for the beast. Can you imagine carrying the dinosaur back to where the van is in this photo?

I sometimes read complaints that the fossil record in incomplete. This sometimes comes from those who oppose the theory of evolution. They argue that there has been plenty of time for scientists to find all the fossils they need and transitional forms have not been found.

Have these people ever gone on a dig? The dinosaurs are embedded in hard rock. First you have to find one, then you have to have the time and resources to spend a year or more getting it out of the ground. This often involves taking off layers of stone many feet thick, one exacto blade scrape at a time. Imagine scraping away a whole hillside of hard rock with a dull exacto blade in blazing heat and humidity. Once you finally uncover the dinosaur you have to make a plaster field jacket and then transport it back to a lab (which in some cases means building new roads just to reach the site) It doesn't end there, you have to spend possibly years cleaning and assembling it. Once you see the vastness on an area like this and then realize there are essentially two or three people with a shoestring budget trying to find the treasures that have been battered by erosion and covered over for 65 million years and you begin to see how it may take some time to fill in our gaps in understanding. This is still a very young science and there are many millions of critters still waiting to be dug up.

Thursday was all about microsites. That means we spent a good part of the day sitting on the ground moving painstakingly forward looking for teeth and small limb bones. At the third site of the day I found two dromeosaur teeth but stupidly didn't take a picture. This particular site was still of scientific interest so we couldn't keep anything. It was similar to the teeth pictured here.

In the photo to the left we're heading home for dinner on Thursday. You can click on it (or any photo on the blog) to view a bigger image. The barbed wire fence on the left hand side of the picture marks the border with Montana. I could have spent many more hours in the field I was having so much fun. I inhaled a huge dinner of nachos and encheladas after the hour and thirty minute van trip back to Marmarth. I was very excited to not have hot dish.

I had a great time on the trip and I can't wait to return. I'll have to though. With a baby due soon I won't be able to sneak away for a week to look for dinosaurs next summer. We need to line up some funding as well. In the mean time I'll have to content myself hunting down an relatively complete ordavercian period cephalopod along the banks of the Mississippi or perhaps a complete crinoid. That should keep me busy. Chelsey will be less than thrilled if I do manage to find and bring home a six foot long cephalopod fossil. "Where do you intend to keep that?!"

Well, that's all for now. I'm sure the trip will generate a few more posts.

~Kirk