Trip Report for 28 October 2006

Biology Project - Bat survey in Carroll Passage

Participants: Bill Gee

            Janet Wittereid

            Pete Wittereid

            Jeff Page

            Andy Isbell

Permit Number: 0610-3

Time in: 10:30am  Time out: 8:30pm

I drove down to the schoolhouse Friday morning.  It was raining the entire way.  The rain quit about 1:30.  I went up to the silo and remounted the rain gauge.  It is now on the side of the silo well above the ground where cows and critters with teeth cannot get to it.  When I got to the silo the funnel from the rain gauge was lying on the ground.  Most likely a curious cow nosed it off.  The result is that the rainfall data for the previous two weeks cannot be trusted.

Jeff Page arrived in the evening.  Saturday morning Andy and the Wittereids showed up.  We all went up the hill shortly after 9:00am.  We got dressed and geared up, and were in the cave about 10:30am.

The first thing we did was download data from the two in-cave data loggers.  I demonstrated how to do it while the others watched.  It takes only a few minutes to download data to the shuttle.

Last year on the October trip we planted 3 guano gauges.  The idea is to get some idea of how much bats are using the cave above each guano pile.  The guano gauges are made of 1/2 inch PVC pipe with a cap on the end and a 4 inch electrical box cover screwed on.  They are stuck in a guano pile about half-way from center to edge.  Last year we only got three guano gauges placed.  This year, I took along ten more.

We headed down Carroll Passage, through the Water Barrier and arrived at the first guano pile about 11:30am.  On the way Andy saw a few bats just past the Water Barrier and I saw a small salamander wiggle under a rock.  The guano gauge on guano pile 1 was about 30% covered in shiny gooey guano.  There was some mold or fungus on it.  A grotto salamander was on the guano pile. 

I got out my camera and took some pictures of the guano gauge for documentation purposes.  The others set guano gauges on guano piles 2 and 3.  These three piles are within about 100 feet of each other.

A section of the stream winds around guano pile 3.  Just downstream from the guano pile is where Andy Isbell found some planaria on the water surface several years ago.  We spent some time closely examining the stream in this area.  Three cave fish were seen within a 30 foot section of stream.  I used my waterproof camera to take some underwater pictures of one of the fish.  Andy found another planaria on the surface.  Two juvenile salamanders were seen in the stream.  A patch of fungus about 1 inch by 1 1/4 inch was on the surface of the water.

We continued on to the next set of guano piles.  The guano gauge from last year on pile 4 was completely dry.  We planted a new gauge on guano pile 5.  There were two dead bats near guano pile 5.  The carcasses were just hair and bones with no bugs on them.

The flagging tape on guano pile 6 was covered in guano.  We planted a new gauge on pile 6.  There was a ring of fungus all around the edge of the pile, perhaps 8 to 12 inches wide, but no fungus in the middle of the pile.  A lot of bug wings were seen on the surface of the guano pile.

From guano pile 6 to 12 is several hundred feet.  We saw 10 solitary bats.  Most were identified as pips.  Two small cave fish 1 inch or smaller were seen.

The gauge from last year at guano pile 12 was completely covered to a depth of about 1/2 inch.  After some discussion we decided to clear the guano from half of the gauge surface.  I took some pictures for documentation.  The new guano is a circle about 10 feet in diameter.  The flagging tape marking this pile was about half covered.

We planted a guano gauge on piles 11 and 14, and two on 15.  Guano pile 15 is rather large, perhaps 15 by 20 feet and has two nice cones in it.  Andy Isbell spotted something white on the pile which looked out of place.  When he collected it, he found it was a feather.  We do not know how a feather could have got this far back in the cave.  Guano pile 15 is over a mile from the natural entrance.  We saved the feather for later analysis.  After we got out of the cave I took a couple of pictures of the feather.

We paused for a break at the Lunch Room.  While there we ducked into the Turnpike about 150 feet to a pair of guano piles that are probably not much used.  We planted a new guano gauge on pile 24.  One salamander was seen.  We left the Lunch Room about 1:30pm heading for the Mountain Room.

Starting at the Paradise Passage we kept a count of bats.  All of the bats we saw were solitary.  There were no clusters.  One small dome had about 20 or so hanging in it, but they were not clustered next to each other.  In several places the stream bed is covered in guano.  The bottom is completely black, and it is not chert.

From Paradise Passage to the 4500 foot marker we counted 68 hanging and 2 flying bats.

From the 4500 foot marker to the 3500 foot marker we saw 45 bats, all hanging.

From the 3500 foot marker to the 3000 foot marker we saw 34 bats and one salamander.  The stream at the 3000 foot marker has a lot of black chert rock in it, and we saw a number of isopods on the rocks.  Some of them were 1/2 inch or a bit larger.

From the 3000 foot marker to the 2500 foot marker we saw 32 bats, all hanging.

From the 2500 foot marker to the 2000 foot marker we saw 35 bats hanging and 1 flying.  We set a new guano gauge at pile 16.

From the 2000 foot marker to the 1500 foot marker we saw 20 bats and 1 salamander.

From the 1500 foot marker to the 1000 foot marker we saw 15 bats and 1 salamander.  A section of the stream with black chert rocks had a lot of isopods in it.

From the 1000 foot marker to the Mountain Room we saw 70 bats.  This section had the closest to a cluster that we saw, about 20 bats in a space a couple of feet across.  They were not packed in next to each other.  We saw 3 salamanders.

We arrived at the Mountain Room about 4:15.  There are two big guano piles in the Mountain Room.  Next year we will take guano gauges for them.  We had a hot meal in the Mountain Room then left for the return trip about 5:30.

At the upstream entrance to the mountain room we saw a lot of small floating plants in the stream.  It looked to me like duckweed.  From a distance of 10 feet it can almost be mistaken for algae slime.  The rocks on the side of the stream were covered up to about 1 foot above the water level.  Our theory is the plants were washed in when the stream back flooded.  It must have been a recent event since most of the plants were still green.  I took several pictures for documentation.

Andy went to the far corner of the Mountain Room to an area that looks like a debris cone from a sinkhole.  He found two real clusters of bats back there.  They were chattering at him, so he did not get close enough to get any kind of count.  He reports they were very tightly packed in an area a bit less than two feet in diameter.  They were close enough together that he could not distinguish individual bats.

 We left the Mountain Room about 5:30 and arrived at the ladder about 8:00.  The group decided that the Turnpike was more crawling than they wanted, so we took Carroll Passage all the way back.  By 8:30 everyone was out and the cave locked up.

 Bill Gee