Nature Southwest: National Conservation Training Center

Three weeks ago I had the opportunity to go to the National Conservation Training Center in Shepherdstown, West Virginia (60 miles from D.C.) for the US Fish & Wildlife Service's Friends Academy, which aims at increasing capacity and skill-sets to board members of Friends of the National Wildlife Refuge System across the country. The NCTC campus has top-notch facilities for a conference/workshop type event. I won't even attempt to touch on the many great lessons and strategies learned for increasing the visibility and productivity of National Wildlife Refuges and Friends groups that I was able to take back home to Las Vegas NWR and my home community. We stayed busy and productive from 8-6 every day, but I still found some time to get out and do some east-coast birding for a little over a week. I ended up birding this small corner of West Virginia and then headed down to the Outer Banks of North Carolina (eastern NC's barrier island), which will be touched on in a second posting.

My trip to the East coast for 8 days began with a night's stay at my favorite (errr free) lodging in Albuquerque, the Albuquerque Sunport Airport. I arrived in Albuqueruqe from Arizona, following my last day of work with the Forest Service around 2am, and with only 3 hours to go until the Security Checkpoints opened I decided to to just camp out in the waiting area. It's a relatively quiet place through the night, but the 'TSA Travel Advisory' announcements every 20 minutes tend to infiltrate your subconscious and sleep is marginally restful at best - but hey, it's free!

Best free bed in town

A 6:05 am flight out of Albuquerque in September guarantees great sunrise views over the Sandia mountains from a few thousand feet up.

Sunrise over the Sandias and Kirtland AFB.

I had a great unobstructed window seat for the short flight from ABQ to DFW, it was cool flying this route as I've driven it countless times, to see the various reservoirs, playas, rivers, and patches of prairie from up high was a treat. I even had a parting look at Hermits Peak and the Las Vegas NWR playas as we flew just south of my home refuge.

Looking north over the clouds of Eastern New Mexico

Almost every morning of the Academy, a stalwart birding group left the dorms a little before sunrise to bird the campus. Highlights included Eastern Phoebes, Green Herons, Indigo Buntings, and lots and lots of Northern Cardinals. Eastern Kingbirds were a personal highlight for me as I have little experience with these smaller version of my Western and Cassins' Kingbirds back home. Chipping Sparrows and Field Sparrows (including my first experience with Field Sparrow song, a great trilling tune) were abundant, I kept a n eye out for some other Spizella species but to no avail.

Eastern Phoebe

Chipping Sparrow

Indigo Bunting - a real beauty!

Indigo Bunting

A few lifers were to be had within the NCTC grounds, Baltimore Oriole, Alder Flycatcher were both new to me, and the call of a Red-Shouldered Hawk - while not a new bird, was a new vocalization, a hybrid hawk-gull type sound.
The old farm fields around the campus were full of hip high grass and abundant thistle. While I'm not familiar with the species that was present - and if it was native or not, the wildlife seemed to be enjoying them immensely. Large flocks of American Goldfinches - a winter bird for me back home but a common summer resident here in the Potomac River region.

American Goldfinch on thistle

In addition to the Goldfinches, some nice showy large butterflies were also taking in some late summer nectar - including my favorite Lepodoptera of my trip, this Zebra Swallowtail, a new butterfly for me!

Zebra Swallowtail, a beautiful, long and thin swallowtail with one of the longest tails I've ever seen. The cerulean blue color was drop-dead gorgeous.

Zebra Swallowtail

In addition to the Zebra Swallowtails, Eastern Tiger Swallowtails were also abundant, as were Black Swallowtails and Giant Swallowtails. These big showy butterflies were quite the site as they congregated at thistle patches.

Eastern Swallowtail

The NCTC campus apparently had put some effort into Monarch conservation through milkweed planting programs (Find out more here http://www.xerces.org/milkweed/ ) as the farm fields had abundant milkweed growth. The fruits of the labors had at least paid off at the local level as I found Monarchs daily during my stay at NCTC.

The ubiquitous Monarch. Stunning on every side of the country I happen to find one.

Mornings were cool but humid giving a wonderful feeling to the skin for this New Mexican. The weather was a nice misty balmy in the shade, and a warmth in the sun.

Sunset on the Potomac River

A few short walks down to the Potomac River yielded Canada Geese, Tree Swallows, Barred Owls, and Yellow-billed Cuckoos. The woodlands surrounding the NCTC campus are classic East Coast secondary growth forests dominated by Sycamores and Tuliptree. Paw-paw and a variety of other nameless East Coast trees grew thick on the clayey forest soils.

East Coast Forest

The Potomac River in it's sunset glory. The Potomac is a beautiful river with a lot of history, from Civil War battlefields to revolutionary-era farms. The river runs in a great gorge through this part of Maryland and West Virginia, I was surprised by how clear and shallow the water was. A stark difference to the muddy big rivers back in Texas and New Mexico.

Sunset on the Potomac

While I didn't spend much time out looking for Herps, I did come across two new species for me, a Northern Ring-necked Snake just outside of the cafeteria building, and a hopping Fowler's Toad near the river.

A probable Fowler's Toad near the Potomac River

A very very tiny Northern Ring-necked Snake found on the way to the Dining hall.

The campus had a nice trail system connecting buildings together, making for very pleasant 5-10 minute walks between buildings. At night, the trail nightlights were incredible insect attractors. I found this huge Neuroptera species towering over other night's more modestly sized insects.

A large Neuroptera (?) on a night walk back to the dorms.

The NCTC campus itself was beautiful, stylized like the farm houses of the region, but far from them in size and materials. This was the closest thing I've ever come to being at an Ivy league school.

The NCTC Bridge which puts one nearly 10m above the creek bottom's forest floor. A canopy bridge if you will.

One of the non-technical highlights of the week's schedule was a visit to the USFWS archives in a basement storage facility. Within this one cluttered room was a treasure trove of wildlife management and conservation memorabilia and antiques. From the first ever USFWS Refuge signpost (now posting the boundary of refuges across the county), radioactivity signs from some of our pacific island refuges, and the first ever Duck Stamp (Artwork by Dick Darling the first USFWS Director). In a padded box lay the the pistol, badge, and presidential papers (T. Roosevelt) of the first Refuge Manager, a fella out on Pelican Island in the Florida Keys.

Archive Specialist and Historian Mark Madison with the first ever USFWS boundary sign, back when the agency was Under the USDA as the Biological Survey.

U.S.B.S. I need say no more about the potential uses of the iron on politicians. These branding irons were used on trees as boundary markers. In the early days of the Refuge System, refuges were expanding so rapidly it was much easier and economical to just brand trees marking new boundaries.