The first week of observations went well. For the first week I was on the PM shift at The Dalles Dam. This meant that I was working from 12:30 PM to 8 PM. Our schedules rotate weekly between the dams and between AM and PM shifts.
The first couple days were slow, but the gulls showed up on the third day. I downloaded a whole bunch of podcasts, so I've been spending my days listening to NPR and BBC programs and watching the gulls forage. It's not so bad. Well, not usually. Friday was cold and rainy. Nothing terribly pleasant about sitting out in the cold rain all day.
The picture below is taken from the top of the dam looking down into an area that used to be a public park. It is now closed to the public. Security tightened up quite a bit after 9/11 apparently. Now only employees and the occasional tour group are allowed on the project. The park is overgrown and now serves primarily as a nesting site for geese and quails.
On my first day of observations something completely unheard of happened. The picture below shows it. That is the spillway.
And if you zoom in reeeally close, you can see a black bear stuck right at the top of a 60 foot drop off. I'm not really sure how it got there. I don't think anyone saw it until it was already stuck.
Unfortunately, they killed the bear. The rationale is that they can't really get a boat that close to the spillway. And I am not sure how well they could tranquilize it, because it might just fall into the water if they did. So, they shot it. Apparently black bears are overpopulated in the area, so they weren't too worried about it. Still seems like a shame, though.
The last photo was taken this morning (4/18). It is the moon setting behind Mt. Hood. I'm on the AM shift for the next couple weeks, so I have to beat the sun to work in the morning.
I'm really sad about the bear. A black bear wondered up to the ocean front two weeks ago and was in a tree in Shadowlawn. It was a three day ordeal, but the trapped the bear safely and took it to the Dismal Swamp. At least that's what they told us. Remember, there's no bad weather, just bad clothing. Do you have the right clothing for a whole day in the cold rain?
ReplyDeleteI know---I sound like a mom!
Love you,
Mom
I'm pretty well set clothing-wise. I have my Columbia raingear, and they also gave us a set of super heavy PVC raingear. The biggest problem that day was that I had forgotten my waterproof gloves, so my hands were freezing.
ReplyDeleteI like that last photo of the moon over Mt. Hood. Pretty gorgeous.
ReplyDelete