Weighing a prairie dog

Saying hello to a prairie dog

A Badger we caught at the prairie dog release site

Prairie doggin II

It has been a very busy few weeks here in Utah! I've been working 10 hour days, which is why I haven't been updating my blog! Sorry :) A couple weeks ago we got to go to a wild horse adoption/auction. Basically, there are way too many wild horses around here, so they are starving and damaging a lot of vegetation, so the BLM captures them and if they are 3 years old or younger, they auction them off to the public. The day we went, we sold 10 horses. Bidding starts at $120, and that is the price all but one went for. For the last three weeks, we have been working with the Utah DNR translocating prairie dogs. It has been a lot of fun to actually get to work with the prairie dogs. They mostly live in the city, so we have been trapping them at the baseball fields, golf course, cemetary, and private properties. Before anyone can build a house or any building for that matter, they have to get approval from the DNR, and if there are any prairie dogs on thier property, they have to pay the DNR to remove them, which is where we come in. After we trap them, we weigh them, record their information, put ear tags in them, and bring them to a release site near Bryce Canyon National Park. The release sites have man-made burrows, made of plastic tubing, where the dogs can hide until they are acclimated to thier new environment and disperse to make thier own burrows. The DNR also does predator control at the release sites, and sets traps for badgers. So far they have captured about 6 of them. We have been working with the DNR on this project for about four weeks, and it has been a nice change to actually be working with the animals instead of just assessing thier habitat.

Lucy's warbler, the smallest bird we caught

Rock Swallow nests

Lily retrieving a bird from the mist net

Brown-crested Flycatcher

Prairie Doggin

This week was again spent doing prairie dog habitat monitoring, but we are nearly done, and then it will be time to file away all the data we've collected. Many of the sites we've been evaluating do not actually have prairie dogs on them, but at one time did. I think they will be translocating pest prairie dogs from agricultural lands to these places. When they do, the biologists have makeshift tunnels and burrows for the dogs, which are made of large PVC pipes. Eventually, the dogs will colonize the area and make thier own burrows. We saw plenty of abandoned PVC and natural burrows while doing our surveys. We also did get to actually see some prairie dogs, which was good. We also worked with the state DNR again, catching and banding song birds. Although we didn't catch as many birds as we did last time, there was quite a different variety, so we got to see different birds than we saw last time. Some of the new species we caught were a black-chinned hummingbird, Bullock's oreol, Black throated sparrow, house finch, and a Lazuli bunting. Mist-netting and banding song birds is one of my favorite projects I've worked on so far during my internship.

Golden Eagle nestling that we have been waiting four weeks to see fledge

Paragrine Falcon that we have been observing for about four weeks

This week was spent surveying current and potential Utah Prairie Dog habitat. We did get to see a few prairie dogs, which was cool. We have a hundred something points in several different allotments that we have to survey. We basically have to find each point and walk four transect lines, determining what kind of cover (plants, rock, bare ground, etc.) there is at each step. I have realized that the task ahead of me will be challenging and time consuming. As well as trying to find transect points in the middle of nowhere using terrible maps with no GPS points, I also have to organize 20 years of very disorganized prairie dog data contained in at least 20 three ring binders! But I am up for the challenge!

Wild horses in Hamlin Valley

Hiking at Bryce Canyon National Park

Well, it's week five and going strong! Like we do every week, we started the week checking on the paragrine falcons that we have been observing. We were beginning to lose hope that the pair had reared any offspring, but this week we heard the youngsters! We can't wait to see them venture out of the nest and start flying. It should be any day now. We'll continue to observe them until they fledge, to try to pinpoint exactly when they start flying for the first time. We also started doing some habitat assessment in sage grouse habitat. Unfortunately, we only saw signs of sage grouse in one of our plots. Hopefully that isn't any indication of the presence of these cool looking birds. Part of this assessment is to note signs of any other animals, and we found sign of cows, wild horses, coyote, elk, deer, rabbit, and sage grouse. Plenty of animals use that area! On our way out to the study site, we got to see wild horses for the first time! We were beginning to wonder if they really did exist! We had a pretty good view of them, which was lucky for us, because they are usually very skittish around people. We also had another first this week: RAIN! We are coming into what the people of Utah call "monsoon season," although I highly suspect that the term monsoon is quite an exageration!

A scrub jay that we caught while mist netting birds

It has been yet another fun and exciting week as a wildlife biologist! We spent the first two days of the week with a couple people from the Utah state DNR mist netting song birds. We set up 10 large nets along a 3 mile stretch of creek, and then we would drive down the line and untangle all the birds that got stuck in the nets. Although the task seemed daunting at first, we were pros (almost!) by the end of the day. We had to bring them back to the truck, record measurements, and put a leg band them if they were not yet banded, drive them back to the nets and release them and start the process all over again. It was an eleven hour day, but it was so fun it didn't even seem like work. Some of the birds we caught were yellow warblers, lucy's warblers, black phoebes, blue crested flycatchers, mourning doves, a robin, a scrub jay, and a couple others. We also started doing some habitat assessment on the Utah Prairie Dog sites, which is going to be one of our main projects for the summer. While there, we only saw one prairie dog and a bunch of old abandoned burrows. Hopefully that isn't any indication of the current population. We are also keeping watch on the paragrine falcon nest that we started observing a couple weeks ago. We still have yet to see any young, which isn't a good sign, but we're still hoping, and we'll still continue observing them!

Hiking in Dixie National Forest

The endangered Pygmy Rabbit, it was no longer than six inches from nose to tail.

Rattlesnake eating a squirrel on the Spring Creek Trail

Rattlesnake, Part II

This week was filled with much of the same kind of work as last week. We went out to do vegetation monitoring one day, and paragrine falcon and golden eagle monitoring for a couple days. Something new that we got to do was a Mexican spotted owl survey. The owl is highly endangered, but the BLM biologists know of a place they have nested in the past, so we went to check it out. On our way through the canyons we all of the sudden heard the sound of a rattle! Yes, we came across another rattlesnake! But we soon realized we were in no danger of being attacked, as it had a squirrel shoved half way down its throat! Our supervisor said she never sees rattlesnakes unless Lily and I are with her. We're either good luck charms or bad luck charms; I suppose it depends on whether you want to see a rattlesnake or not. We didn't end up seeing or hearing any owls, but the trail went through some cool slot canyons, and the sunset made the rocks a beautiful glowing orange, and we had to hike out in the dark, with our dorky little head lamps on. Another new thing we did this week was a riparian habitat assessment. We basically determined the health of a little mountain stream. While doing this, we saw two pigmy rabbits, another highly endangered species. The literature says these little creatures require a sagebrush habitat, but there was minimal sagebrush at each place we saw the rabbits, so a habitat study is sure to arise from these sightings.

Watching a golden eagle nestling

Petrified dinosaur tracks, petroglyphs, and the summer solstice at Parawan Gap

Pronghorn Antelope

California Condor, the largest bird, by weight and wingspan, in the the world

Hiking in the slot canyons of Kannarra Creek

Week Two

My second week was great, we were in the field and out of the office all week. Our week started out with vegeatation surveys for three days. After identifying them for three days, I know my desert plants like the back of my hand! Later in the week, we did a couple paragrine falcon surveys. We went to an active nest site and observed two adults for a few hours. Although we did not see any young, we suspect that they have some who are too young to venture out of the nest. We'll continue to monitor them and not the dates that the young emerge and fledge. We also checked out a new site of a potential paragrine nest. It was the middle of the day, so we didn't see any activity, but we'll be going back this coming week to check it out again. We also spoted a golden eagle nest, with a nestling in it. His parents had just brought him lunch, so we watched him eat for a while. On Saturday, we went to Zion National Park, where some of the rangers put on an event to see wild california condors, the largest bird in the world (wingspan 9 1/2 feet), who are experiencing a very successful comeback. Thier numbers were at one time down to 22, all of which were in captivity. After successful breeding programs, many were released into the wild, and there are currently around 300 individauls, about 150 of which are in the wild and breeding successfully. In the park they've had five chicks hatch in the wild just this year. In the evening, we went to Parawan Gap to observe the summer solstice the way the Native Amercans did. The sun sets right in a gap in the mountains on the longest day of the year, and the area was sacred to many different tribes of Native Americans. Also in the area are numerous petroglyphs and petrified dinosaur tracks, wood, and plants that are visible in the rocks.

View of Zion National Park from across the valley

Red-tailed hawk nest, about three feet in diameter, 10 feet off the ground

The Greenville Bench, burned by a prescribed fire that got out of control last summer

Prescribed burn to open up the understory

First Week!

My first week as a wildlife biologist was an exciting one, for the most part. On our first day out in the field, we had to clear a site of a future wind turbine. The energy company is about to put up a test tower on BLM land, so we went out to check for raptor nests and other concerns we might have about how the test tower might affect wildlife. It was all clear, so we gave the go-ahead for the test tower. Oh yeah, and we surprised a rather large rattlesnake on the way back to the truck! It was hissing and coiled up, ready to spring at me. Luckily, it didn't, and I got my first lesson on what to do when you encounter a rattlesnake. The next day we went searching for red-tailed hawks. There was reportedly a nest with nestlings in a recreation park, so we went out to find it. After journeying through the forest, we eventually found the female, then the male, but we couldn't find the nest, although we knew we were close, since the parents were squawking at us and circling around. While searching for the nest, we saw a third hawk flying with the parents and realized it was their offspring. The BLM likes to keep track of the reproductive success of raptors by counting the number of offspring to fledge, so although we didn't find the nest, we knew at least one hawk had fledged. We also checked up on a site where golden eagles were known to nest, and sure enough, there they were, and they had one nestling in the nest, almost ready to fledge. Our final project for the day was to locate a red-tail hawk nest that the division of wildlife had found. We found the gigantic nest in a juniper tree, with signs of ealier use, but no recent use. Today we went on a tour lead by the forestry service of an area that has been managed with prescribed burns for the last five years. The area that was burned last year showed little signs of succession (new growth), but the foresters were expecting good recovery next spring.