Getting Familiar with Our New Surroundings

For the next three months this will be our "office".  It is the Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge Visitor Center.  The entrance is a pueblo-ish style and a bit plain-looking.  But the inside and the back, facing the marsh, is outstanding!  Pictures to come later.

We've had our training and got our work schedule.  We'll be on duty three days a week, 8 to 4.  Our first month our days are Thursday, Friday and Saturday.  We'll rotate in May and do Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.

Some of the local residents have come by to check us out. 

This Roadrunner was too busy hunting to be bothered with meeting the new volunteers.

A not so common Swainson's Hawk gave us the once-over.

There was also a volunteer event scheduled in our first few days.  The refuge is improving the habitat in the area for monarch butterflies by planting milkweed (essential to monarch reproduction).  The refuge had obtained 110 milkweed plants and lots of seeds, all to be planted by local volunteers.  To entice volunteers to come out, the refuge would serve grilled hot dogs after everything was planted.  I was asked to photograph the event and be the grill master.

The butterfly trail had recently gotten a pond upgrade, the milkweed is going to be a nice touch.

In addition to milkweed, cottonwood trees were planted alongside an alkaline spring feed creek.
The guy on the left is our supervisor, in the middle is fellow
resident volunteer and on the right is one of the refuge biologists.