In the Dark (remember Billy Squire?)

I went out to my former place of employment to do a night hike last night. It was for a group of high schoolers from the Charlotte area that has been coming to Charleston for 4 or 5 years to do mark-recapture studies on Littorina sp. snails in the salt marsh at one of the other county parks. My replacement was off this weekend, and the instructor apparently enjoyed my past performance and requested that I do the program, though I'm sure my former colleagues are more than capable. It was incredibly cold and windy, but we did, at least, get to hear a barred owl and see some bioluminescent earthworms (Diplocardia longa, I think). These critters are noted to be fairly obvious after rain events, and, from further reading, I'm now wondering if this might have something to do with ozone-derived hydrogen peroxide, which is reported to be the catalyst for the luciferase-luciferin reaction. In fact, I'm wondering if the whole thing has any remaining benefit to the worms, or if it is simply a vestigial thing from their marine ancestors.
I did get to use the new camera, finally, but I've yet to get a USB cable or drive to get the photographs into the computer. I only took a couple of shots of a southern slimy salamander that I found under a log, but on the LCD panel of the camera, they look to have come out fairly well. I'll fix the situation, soon, since Spring is just around the corner, which, hopefully, means lots of blooms and bugs for the blog.

I'm heading to Cheraw, birthplace of Dizzy G., for an interview with the state park, there, on Tuesday. The job sounds much more interesting than the ranger positions that I've flirted with over the past year or so. It is centered on biological inventories of the site, and the site is nearly 8000 acres and in the sandhills! Man, if Cheraw was any less in the middle of nowhere, I'd be all over this, but we'll have to see if the job could compensate for the lack of amenities/culture that Charleston has to offer...the best record store in the state, 52.5, organic food groceries, Whole Foods and Earth Fare, great independent booksellers, Ravenous Reader, and so forth. Besides, I'm feeling a little differently about living out in the country after reading a recent article in "Conservation" magazine.
http://www.conbio.org/CIP/article10811.cfm
After the interview, I'm headed to Asheville to visit a good friend and take in Built to Spill with the Meat Puppets at the Orange Peel. What a nice way to blow off the steam from an interview.