"I Saw the Number 5 in Scat" CAMN Class on Mammals

I saw the Figure 5 in Gold, Charles Demuth is a reference to a classic American artwork, but this is the 5th class and we did in fact create scat and I was elected to be the artist in my group...which will be my answer the next time someone asks me if I'm still making art. This past week we had another class out at Hornsby Bend...even more poop talk there, but we had a chance to visit about the value of the poop making exercise and for those of us who got messy...we remembered the shape and size and found it applicable.

Rodents, I passed on handling the rats but was drawn to the bats! I'd never been close to one and they do look a bit like flying rats but with a more interesting face.

What's missing? The Mexican Free tail...the one I really wanted to investigate! We learned about the 33 bat species in Texas and how they break down into 4 major groups: New World Leaf-nosed Bats, pollen and nectar collectors including the Vampire Bat, Vesper or Evening Bats, the furry Tree Bats who are mostly solitary and the bonnet eared Free-tailed Bats, of which we have here under the Congress St. Bridge...btw, those are mostly females as that's a nursery.

Dr. Pamela Owen, Evolutionary Biologist with a "major carnivore bias." Dr. Owen's enthusiasm caught on immediately, and the props made the day come alive, even before we visited the animal rehab at the Austin Science and Nature Center.

Shrews, moles, gophers and badgers have orange front teeth making them easy to identify in the wild. The front teeth don't have enamel and continue to grow throughout the lifespan.

Unmistakable shape of the Armadillo skull.

The Nine-banded Armadillo is moving north into the U.S. via waterways but won't get too far without some serious evolving. Their keratinous plated armor isn't solid like the turtle and they can't thermoregulate. The other cool thing about them is that they always have identical quadruplets, which makes them an easy target for scientific investigation and their fossil record goes back to the Ice Age!

The night before, Kris set up a square meter of find sand, flour or bentonite to check for animal prints. In the center she poured out some rancid sardine oil to attract critters. After we had a bit of time to try and figure out what had visited the area, Dr. Owens demonstrated how to prepare a track for making a mold. She simply cut a two inch strip of cardboard from an office folder bent around into a circle and held it with a paperclip. Then she mixed plaster of Paris with water to a cake batter consistency and poured it into the track print after spraying it with cooking oil.

Can you guess who visited this Scent Station?

Kris Thorne is one of our class coordinators, and Scat Expert. She investigated the area and came up with a few additional samples of visitors from the night before, vegetarians who weren't interested in the sardine oil but who left behind some seedy byproduct!

Old scat samples

I was on team 3, and here's our scat made from chocolate cookie dough and various seeds and candies to represent the diet of our critter...tada...it's skunk-scat!

We then had a contest to see who knows their scat.

The big pond outside at the Nature Center.

More big pond...it was buzzing with life!

I do believe we're all gathered around the Coati (commonly called the hog-nosed coon, Brazilian aardvark or snookum-bear) are endangered in Texas and will most likely disappear with the introduction of "the fence."

Sweet scavenger coyote.

This is the fattest Bob Cat I've ever seen. All the animals are rescued and injured. They won't be able to be released into the wild so they've made them as comfortable as possible. I wasn't able to capture them all, and there are quite a few wild and rare species worth seeing.

The Austin Nature and Science Center(ANSC) is best described as a "living museum" with an educational agenda. They are located at 301 Nature Center Drive, which is behind Zilker Botanical Gardens, parking beneath the Mopac Bridge. They offer all kinds of camps for kids and programs for adults and are always looking for volunteers! Contact the manager (seen here) at (512)327.8181 if you'd like to get involved and be sure to check their website for upcoming events!

CAMN Bus Trip

This is the fourth entry about the wonderful Capital Area Master Naturalist program that I am working my way through with a class of about 35 other nature enthusiasts. Last Saturday we spent the day with Geologist, humorist and teacher extraordinaire (if I could bottle this guy's enthusiasm I'd become an addict quick) Carter Keairns PHd. The day began at UT, we all parked and piled onto a lovely luxury bus for a trip around our fair city. I thought I was being plagued by allergies at the onset, but quickly realized that sickness was setting in. My memory of the day is slightly fuzzy...there was so much information to take in and a slow rising fever made it seem like a dream. So, thank goodness I had my camera as this will be more of a photo essay than story.

Look familiar? This is the view looking down while hiking up Mt. Bonnell
When I first moved to Austin, I would take every visitor here, and my energetic kiddo's if I needed to run them up and down the mountain to slow the sheer giddiness of little girls.

I hadn't been in about 7 years and was a little in shock by the development and radical wealth. It's amazing that another world lies just east of I35.

I had to put this shot in, just one of Carters expressions that I managed to catch more than any other look! He was so livid and engaging...people were joining our group because he demanded attention...not intentionally of course.

I can't tell you how many different maps of Texas we saw...from every age as far back as the story goes and has been interpreted by geologists. This was the beginning of what made this day seem unreal...Austin the former location of 11-12 ancient volcanoes...I had no idea!

There wasn't a moment of silence, the lecture continued from site to site...

Over Penny Backer Bridge looking south.

We didn't get out of the bus, but pulled up right next to this geological map of the ages...HWY360 cut through a hill...the yellow strip at the bottom, being the oldest layer is the Glen Rose Formation, going up from there is the Bull Creek Member, the Bee Cave Member, Cedar Park Member and on top the Edwards Formation...all representing time passing as the shallow ocean rose and fell.

We had a pit stop at Barton Springs and out came the maps to explain the magic of the Edwards Aquifer...we will be spending more time here on a future visit.

This map was amazing as it showed images from space through the times (computer generated of course) and Carter had outlined Texas in red to help clarify when and how the landmass looked when we (Texas) were underwater. The description made me think that I'd moved here a few million years too late...mmm a shallow clear warm ocean.

Next stop was Travis High School...what? I had no idea that Travis H.S. was on the edge of a preserve. How many times had I driven this road and missed this sign?

The gate was locked. That didn't phase our leader, who strolled up the road, found an exposed area and began the lesson in the street. What looks like dirt behind Carter here is actually chalk with a little settlement on top, so shallow that the kids had carved their names exposing the white lettering. Also embedded were tons, and I mean tons of fossils.

Chalk wall with fossils.

Part of the path looking toward St. Ed's in the distance.

Apparently the Admin. building at St. Ed's sits atop an ancient volcano...snicker, snicker...mumble mumble...hot air-heheheheh.

We finally hit the teachable moment that clearly explained it all...exposed layers of weathered limestone, indicating time when the clear shallow ocean was home to healthy algae, which remain as the calcium carbonate white layers, spaced between some 5 or 6 clear red volcanic layers! It's all coming alive now!

Just down this slope we looked back to see clearly what the cartoon picture explained.

You have to look carefully, but the red volcanic layer lies about an inch above the boulder at the bottom of the picture...

The next stop was in the middle of an empty field...what's going on here?

Meet Jon Brandt, soil expert with USDA-NRCWS Texas Soil Survey explaining...what is soil? The product of old rocks...naturally...but why such an ugly field? Well, this field is an example of vertisol...the most amazing breathable soil that is rich and self mulching, as it has the ability to expand and shrink slowly turning itself over...a builders nightmare, a gardeners dream. There are 12 types of soil in the world, vertisol comprises only 13 million acres...6 million in Texas...beautiful living soil!

Here's a plug of what this soil looks like deep down, chunky black gumbo...this time of year, just before our lovely rain earlier this week...the cracks in the soil were nearly an inch wide...but the bluebonnets were profuse in spite of the drought...you gotta love 'em!

One square meter of soil is the required amount for a thorough sampling. We were looking at a description of what we were standing on. Five factors explain soil, they are:

1. what is there? Parent material

2. living organisims, plants, animals, insects and microbes

3. climate/weather

4. landscape relief, topography

5. time.

Here we split into two groups for our exercise, which I had seen done several times now over the past few years of garden classes...where you take a handful of soil, add a squirt of water and work it into a ball, then you pinch a ribbon between your fingers, seeing how long it can get before it splits off and breaks... it's a pretty accurate account of the soil make-up...

sandy, loam, clay or silt.

Dove scat...why are they all together...probably nesting.

Deer scat, old and new...everywhere! The next class is on scat! Yea!

This is the last image I shot...the most obvious remains of the largest volcano...Pilots Knob. We didn't even get off the bus...this was as close as we could get because it's now privately owned. Apparently, this 79 million year old bump in the ground, give or take a million years on either side...is solid black basalt...just like the ocean floor.

The story of Austin beneith us is amazing. As I'm driving around town I'm drawn to the simple rise and fall of the landscape, and feel blessed to have a yard full of rich black gumbo...a pain in the butt sometimes, but what a marvelous story to tell!

I have to give a shout out to Carter and suggest that anyone living in the San Antonio area check out his class at UTSA, I'm sure it's hard as hell but man, you will learn! He's a master teacher...and not because of his education necessarily...he's that captivating. Way to go CAMN curriculum planners...we gotta keep him, and Jon both!

Happy Gardening!