Geocaching: Modern Day Treasure Hunting

We all have our hobbies… birding, butterflying, etc… keeping lists of what we see and when.  What about treasure hunting?  Now, I’m not talking about pirates (Arrr!) and a leather-bound wooden chest full of gold and silver waiting a few feet under the crystal blue water and white sand beaches of some forgotten tropical isle.  I’m also not talking about walking slowly along the beach with a metal detector and huge headphones being “that guy”.  (But really you can find a lot of cool stuff that way!)  I’m talking about geocaching. 

What’s Geocaching?

Geocaching is about as modern as modern day treasure hunting can get… without all the expensive equipment.  Wikipedia defines geocaching as:

“an outdoor recreational activity, in which the participants use a Global Positioning System (GPS) receiver or mobile device and other navigational techniques to hide and seek containers, called "geocaches" or "caches", anywhere in the world.”

Basically, you can use the GPS in a cell phone to find the locations of waterproof containers (think Tupperware or ammo cases).  The containers have logbooks, stamps or little prizes (nothing too expensive) and the whole idea is to log your discovery, take or trade a little prize and move on to the next site.  There are websites where you can also log your discovery online and keep track of your count… hmm… this might sound familiar to birding or listing!  So it’s not that weird, right?

Websites like Geocaching.com organize entries, provide maps, and give hints to cache locations.  Hints are given in code so there’s one more element that makes geocaching more like treasure hunting.   A common code is the folding the alphabet so A = N and N = A and so forth:

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H |  I |  J  | K | L | M |

N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z |

Cache Containers

Containers get pretty clever!  They’re not just Tupperware.  They can come in all different sizes from small (aka nano), medium, or large.  A typical medium container is an ammo box.  Others are designed to look like everyday objects or things you would expect to find in nature.  These are called “devious caches” and include magnetic bolts that can be stuck to the backs of metal signs or park benches, or fake rocks and logs.  Still other cache containers are actually large enough to stand in!

Two examples of "devious" caches.  Images taken from shop.geocaching.org

Caches Can Be Educational!

It’s not just containers with logbooks or prizes… geocaching can be all about the location.  Some caches, like a "virtual cache", are really a point of interest.  For example, a certain statue of someone famous in Texas history located near the gift shop at Washington-On-The-Brazos is a virtual cache.  (I can’t give out too much information in case anyone wants to search for this cache)!

If the location is of geological interest it’s called an EarthCache.  For these types of caches there isn’t a prize to collect or trade but maybe a question to answer.  By posting the correct answer or uploading a picture you can get credit for visiting that site.  For example, a famous geyser in Yellowstone National Park is an EarthCache!

Umm... the REALLY famous geyser at Yellowstone National Park!

Geocaching is a great outdoor activity that uses maps and technology to find a location.  Once there, you need to be able to solve a clue or hint to find the actual cache.  It’s a great way to introduce kids to map reading and the basics of GPS or at least understand directional clues (coordinates, latitude and longitude, etc…).  And if the caches are virtual or EarthCaches, there’s a lesson built in to the trip!

A Geocache Near You!

Geocaches are located all over College Station, Texas, the US and the World!  There's even one at McMurdo Station in Antarctica!

Geocache locations close to home!

I went to seek out a local cache and was not disappointed.  I found a typical cache from a location that shall remain nameless.  

A typical local geocache.

Goodies from the cache.  I traded the astronaut for the coin.

It was a lot of fun and a great way to spend time outside.  I found this quote from a comments section on link to a geocache on the A&M campus:

“I use multi-billion dollar satellites to find Tupperware in the woods. What’s your hobby?”

Interested in finding out more information about geocaching?  Check out the websites listed below!

J    UNCCL UHAGVAT!

References:

Wikipedia link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geocaching

General geocaching information: Geocaching.com (www.geocaching.com)

North American Butterfly Association: Butterfly Count starting Lick Creek Park!

Last Saturday a group of Rio Brazos Auduboners and TMNers participated in the North American Butterfly Association’s (NABA) Butterfly Count at Lick Creek Park.  Why were we out there?  From NABA’s website:

“Three of the main goals of NABA’s Butterfly Count Program are to (1) gather data that will monitor butterfly populations, (2) give butterfliers a chance to socialize and have fun, and (3) raise public awareness by hosting events that will increase general interest in butterflies.”

The nice thing about watching butterflies is that they get up late… so we began the count at 9:00am!  We started off by walking down Iron Bridge Trail and the group quickly spread out.  Now, the other nice thing about going on a butterfly count is that it’s a great chance to learn butterflies.  I was one of the people in the group that doesn’t really know a lot… the big ones are easy but the medium-sized orange and black ones all look the same to me.  But this weekend, I learned how to tell two of the little orange and black guys apart!

Compare a Silvery Checkerspot with a Pearl Crescent.  A Silvery Checkerspot will be a little larger and have more oranges and browns on the wings.  A Pearl Crescent is going to be a little bit smaller and mostly orange and black when the wings are open.  When the wings are closed, you can kind of see the same thing.  Thanks Bruce for all the pointers!

A Silvery Checkerspot (left) and a Pearl Crescent (right) with wings open.  Note the Checkerspot has more browns and is lighter orange than the Pearl Crescent.

A Silvery Checkerspot (left) and a Peral Crescent (right) with wings closed.  Note the lighter wings on the Checkerspot.

Cool butterflies that were seen include those in the picture below.  Note!  I did not take these (or any) pictures… I stole them from Rick!

Common Buckeye!

Gray Hairstreak!

Great Purple Hairstreak!

Pipevine Swallowtail!

It’s also not just about butterflies.  When they’re few and far between we all start looking at other things.  It’s nice when you get a few people together who know a lot about a lot of stuff and they’re more than happy to share their knowledge!  Crossing the bridge over Lick Creek on Deer Run Trail, Dwight pointed out the potholes in the streambed from where male sunfish have hollowed out the area and are guarding their own nest site.  That’s not something I would have noticed on my own or if I did, I wouldn’t have known what was going on.  Thanks for pointing the fish out, Dwight!  

Fish potholes in Lick Creek.  You can see five potholes in the upper right corner of the photo in the red circle.

Other notable finds were a singing Summer Tanager and several Red-eyed Vireos along Deer Run Trail and a Six-lined Racerunner along Iron Bridge Trail. 

Six-lined Racerunner along Iron Bridge Trail.

And how can I forget dragonflies!! 

Common Whitetail!

Halloween Pennant!

Female Roseate Skimmer!

After Lick Creek Park, the group broke up into smaller parties to continue the counts in backyards and other parks.

All in all it was a great day to be outside, learning butterflies and seeing what was out and about in the park.  Thanks to everyone who came out!  And thanks, Rick... for letting me steal your wonderful pictures!

Resources:

Books / Publications:

Kaufman Field Guide to Butterflies of North America

Butterflies of Central Texas  The link takes you to Amazon but you can find this locally at state parks, Martha’s Bloomers, and even HEB.

Texas Parks and Wildlife Publication:

Introduction to Butterfly Watching

Website:

North American Butterfly Association

Animal Tracks: Past and Present

One of the great things about all the recent rains is the muddy areas along the edges of streams.  I know, I know… it’s not really that great if you’re walking through it but what if something else was walking around?  Muddy stream banks are great recorders of critter activity.   Rick and I recently went down to the Navasota River along Sulphur Springs Road to look for birds.  Well, Rick was looking for birds.  I get easily distracted when I look down.  We found several well-preserved tracks along the muddy river bank.  Some tracks are obvious, like dog or raccoon tracks.  From these tracks we know someone was walking their dog earlier in the day.  And sometime before that a raccoon left his little human hand-like prints while bringing his meal down to the water to be washed. 

                                                   

Dog tracks (upper left) and raccoon tracks (lower left) along the muddy banks of the Navasota River.

Great Blue Heron tracks are also pretty cool to find.  That’s my foot for scale in the picture below.  We all know they’re big birds but knowing they’re almost eye-to-eye with me is a little disconcerting!  These tracks are easy to ID because there’s nothing else that big around here regularly that could make them.

    

Great Blue Heron track (with my foot for scale!) along the Navasota River.

 

Other tracks are  a little harder to figure out.  See the picture below.  Are these beetle tracks?  Worm traces?  Obviously they were small critters that don’t mind crawling on ripples in the mud near a river.   

                     

Insect tracks and ripples in the mud along the Navasota River.

And don't forget plants!  While plants don’t actually walk they can leave traces in sediment.  This grass from Lick Creek Park left circular traces in the sand when the wind blew.  This is one case where the critter that made the trace is actually in the picture!

                               

Grass blown by wind leaving circular traces in the sand along Post Oak Trail at Lick Creek Park.

Modern tracks are easy to deal with.  For the most part, we know what made them and we can see the environmental conditions those tracks were made under.  So what about ancient traces?  Rick and I went to Leander, TX, to see some dinosaur tracks along the South Fork San Gabriel River.  Ancient tracks are a bit harder to figure out sometime.  Ok, not dinosaur tracks!  Those are obvious!  The tracks below are about 100 million years old and made by a dinosaur called an Acrocanthosaurus.

 

Dinosaur tracks along the South Fork San Gabriel River, Leander, Texas.

So what can these tracks tell us?  Well, just how modern tracks are created, the dinosaur had to be walking in soft sediment.  Also, in order to be preserved, the tracks had to be covered rapidly.  Ever seen footprints at the beach?  Usually they’re gone by the next day because the tide comes in and washes them away.  The rocks the dinosaur tracks are preserved in is a fine-grained limestone.   I also found mudcracks and an oyster fossil nearby so the area around Leander, Texas, 100 million years ago was a muddy environment with shallow water that periodically dried up.

 

Mudcracks, ancient (left photo) and modern (right photo) along the South Fork San Gabriel River, Leander, Texas.

Unfortunately, you won’t find dinosaur tracks in Brazos County… our rocks are too young!  What tracks can you find around here?  Check out the websites below for with common tracks from Texas Parks and Wildlife.

From modern tracks to ancient tracks, there is a lot we can understand by taking a look down once in a while.  Sorry Rick and all those birds in the trees!

References:

This article describes the dinosaur tracks in Leander, Texas.

http://impactnews.com/austin-metro/leander-cedar-park/the-earliest-signs-of-life-in-leander/

More on the Glen Rose Formation:

https://www.lib.utexas.edu/geo/ggtc/ch2.html#gr

Animal Tracks PDFs from Texas Parks and Wildlife:

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_bk_k0700_0517.pdf

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/publications/pwdpubs/media/pwd_lf_k0700_0001.pdf