WEEK ONE- Ottowa Wildlife Park

Sorry for not posting earlier, I was having trouble signing in.

My first week of project was a really cool experience. On Monday Ian and I had an APES exam in the morning. when we were done with the exam and lunch we left for Oak Harbor. we go there around three PM. Rebecca who is in charge of us and is in charge o the visitors center at the ottowa wildlife refuge drove us around the area and showed us places to eat and where we could buy groceries. she then showed us the house where we would be staying and told us about the park. which is one of three sister wildlife refuges which cover an area of about 9000 acres. the first two weeks of may happen to be the biggest weeks in the year for the park because thousands of migrating birds stop in the area on their way up north. due to the large number of birders that come to see the birds, the park management needs to know how many visitors come. thus our job for the first two weeks of project is to count how many cars enter the park at specific times and how many visitors are in each car. this will hep the park calibrate their car counters that are present at the entrance to the park. we stayed in oak harbor on monday night and on tuesday we started work. we posted up in one of the five spots that were designated for us and counted for a few hours. we then had to go back home.

We returned to the park on thursday and spent the day counting the number of visitors entering the park. we collected a large amount of Data at different spots. at about two we went to a ceremony which kicked off "the biggest week in American birding" and had some really good cake. me and Ian then walked around the trails of the park and got to see some really cool wildlife in addition to having some close encounters with a family of geese and a snake which we thought was dead but in fact wasn't. we stayed the night on thursday which included some very good dinner by ian. and on friday we kicked the day off with a breakfast. while frying up some bacon we set off a smoke alarm and due to the fact that the facility which we were staying at is a government building the police came and had to file a report. we counted for about three hours before having to come home due to ian having a track meet.