This fall the dramatic decline in the number of rodents caught on the Portal plots. By November, we dropped from 94 individuals in August to only 31. We remain busy keeping things running, however, especially since some very hungry rodents ate through 2 seed boxes in less than 2 months! Kate Thibault and Travis Perry, along with their field class from Furman University, joined me at the site in September and October to help with data collection. Michelle Lute, a grad student studying macaques at University of Notre Dame, joined me in November to learn something about small mammals and the desert.
The resident ramada packrat chewed our seed box in no time.
western box turtle
The field class found this box turtle crossing the road near the site in September.
The saga of the weather station continues as we attempted to fix it this fall. After replacing it with a spare on for a month, we were able to get the data, but are still working out the bugs post re-installment.
It rained a bit almost every trip down this fall. Here are some pictures of a strange misty rain in Cave Creek Canyon during trap setting in November.
Michelle gets to know a Dipodomys spectabilis.
The Portal Project 