Learning from Dead Stuff--1 May 2009

One thing that most wildlife biologists really like to do is find dead stuff. Dead stuff falls into many categories including fresh, too old to stink, and "Holy cow, what is that burning in my nose?". Not that there are only three categories--it's more of a continuum. This piece of carrion fell somewhere closer to "too old to stink" than "Holy cow!" so I decided to examine it a little more closely.

I realize when most people think of minnows, they typically picture a small, silvery fish ranging in size from pizza topping to bait. Minnows in California, however, tend to be especially large, with many species greater than two feet in length. This dead fish, a common carp (not native to California), was a tad over 24 inches. It is in the minnow family.

As one of the most successful fish families in California, minnows here have evolved to fill all sorts of niches that we don't ordinarily expect them to occupy. For example, the Sacramento pikeminnow is a large, predatory species that feeds almost exclusively on fish and grows to three feet in length. The Sacramento blackfish, which can be found at Kokopelli Wildlife Area, is like the whale shark of California's fresh water, cruising through still backwaters and filtering tiny particles of food from the water.

One interesting thing about minnows is that they don't have any teeth in their jaws. So all you swimmers who got out of the water when I wrote about the pikeminnow can get back in. They do have teeth, but they are located back in their throat and they are called pharyngeal teeth. And, like other animals, you can usually get a pretty good idea of what they eat by looking at their teeth. The pikeminnow has sharp, knifelike teeth for gripping and shredding live fish. This is what the teeth of the dead carp looked like (this picture is taken from the bottom side of the fish looking just behind the gills):

I'll post some pictures of the grinding surfaces of these teeth another time, but you can see they look sort of like molars. Carp use these to grind plant materials against the bony plate above. I hope to clean this specimen up and create a clean skeleton from lips to the back of the throat to show kids how minnows eat.

For more information about California fish, I highly recommend Peter Moyle's landmark text: Inland Fishes of California. It's really, really, really, really........great.

Receding Floodwaters-- 6 March 2009

Now that a couple of weeks worth of rain have passed through, the floodwaters at Kokopelli WA are beginning to recede. Typically, the summer water levels at KWA are about two feet below sea level, held at bay by a dike with a top elevation of about 3.5 feet above sea level downstream of our property. This dike was constructed in the 50’s in order to make farming in the area a little bit easier. Our refuge is located at the bottom of a 50 square mile watershed. The watershed is all below 300 feet in elevation, so the only water receive is rainfall. But, 50 square miles of even moderate rainfall can add up in a hurry. Yesterday, our water elevation peaked at almost exactly 5 feet above sea level—quite a swing, but nowhere near our record level of just over 14 feet. As you can probably imagine, 16 foot swings in surface water elevation can create maintenance issues. We try to storm proof everything we can, but we always have some kind of spring clean-up to do ranging from repairing irrigation systems to removing trash and debris from water control structures to repairing blowouts on our dikes and roadways. The high water levels do make certain tasks easier though, such as trimming trees or repairing wood duck boxes from the comfort of a boat rather than a ladder.

staff gauge showing water at 5'--note how deep 14' would be!

The green behind the staff gauge is a summer road, the trees mark the summer creek bank, and behind that is another road!

this non-native red-eared slider didn't seem to mind the water. Catching a little sun.

Sometimes at this time of year, it’s hard for me to discern between winter and spring. One aspect about Kokopelli WA that differs greatly from the area I was raised is the concept of winter annuals. These are plants that germinate with the first rains and end up completing their cycle before spring really even gets started.

spring? or winter?

closer on the wild mustard

this groundsel is already done for the year

wild radish

I showed some photos of tree swallows utilizing our artificial nest boxes a while back, but these birds are also fond of natural tree cavities. In fact, when a tree dies or begins dying, it enters the period of its existence when it provides the most habitat value for other creatures. Insects begin infestations, providing food for others higher on the food chain, branches snap off leaving rotten cavities for nesting animals and dead snags provide high visibility perches for hunting raptors.

this dying cottonwood provides many cavities for the iridescent tree swallow

Wildlife Notes: Say’s Phoebes are still here—I saw one today. Also, the first Swainson’s Hawks of the spring showed up overhead. Yesterday, I saw two common ravens, which is a fairly rare bird for Kokopelli—this is probably the fifth record.

Signs of Spring- 20 February 2009

Our group of biologists at Kokopelli Wildlife Area have a kind of joke about one of the mitigation measures we commonly have to comply with during capital improvement projects. It's a measure designed to reduce impacts to nesting birds. The measure basically requires that any removal of trees associated with a project must be completed prior to February 15th because after that day, the breeding season has started. The joke is that on February 15th at 12:00 AM, all birds are now nesting. I know, it's not a great joke, but we're biologists, not comedians. Anyway, on my drive today, there were several birds beginning the nesting process, so maybe the magical calendar is right.

Most of the ducks are paired up, double-crested cormorants are at their nests, and red-winged blackbirds are setting up territories. The first example I got some photos of were these tree swallows using one of our artificial nest boxes:

There were several others competing for this attractive condo.

One nest box down the trail, this red-tailed hawk seemed to be a little confused. Not only will she probably not fit inside, she doesn't even nest in cavities.

I also encountered two different nests of one of our earliest breeders, the great-horned owl. This particular bird has taken over a nest that belonged to a Swainson's Hawk last year.

While these birds are already knee deep in the breeding season, others still haven't even returned to their summer ranges yet. These long-billed curlews are staying busy trying to keep fat for their return flight home.

I was able to follow this beaver around for several minutes before he got too busy for me. I snapped a few crummy photos as well as captured a little video.

And here is the video--the first ever video clip posted to Field Notes... This is an historic moment. Sorry if it seems a little Pattersonesque--it's my first try.

Engineers and Vanity- 17 January 2009

This should actually be two separate posts, but since I don't seem to be able to blog as frequently as I'd hoped, I'm combining them into one.

At my refuge, we work with a variety of engineering staff on a regular basis. Our staff of wildlife biologists provide services to various construction projects such as environmental awareness training for the workers, biological monitoring during the project, and wildlife surveys to reduce the impacts of the project on the various wildlife and habitat at Kokopelli Wildlife Area. In so doing, we interact with everyone on the project from the security personnel to the equipment operators to the engineers who act as project managers. Most of the time this works out pretty good. There have been notable exceptions but I'm not going to discuss those today.

What brought this topic to my mind was when I was out making my rounds the other day and I noticed the aftermath of one of the projects that I was the biologist on. We have this utility line bissecting one of our large wetland cells and riparian areas and one of our jobs is to keep the trees in the area from encroaching on this corridor. A few years back, three of the poles needed replacement because they were rotten. I know this doesn't really sound like it would require the services of an engineer, but here at KWA, engineers are put in charge of all kinds of small projects. Basically, anytime you have to hire somebody to do some work, you can plan on having an engineer facilitate the process. Sometimes, even the best engineer gets a little "engineery" for lack of a better term.

I guess this guy thought that the project wasn't worthy of an engineer either, so he decided to add a little pop to the job. He decided that the row of fifty or so poles wouldn't possibly be able to function properly in the future unless each was individually numbered. It came out something like this:

You'll also notice that not only was it not good enough to merely number each pole, but also to name them "PL" which, to my knowledge, stands for pole, or maybe powerline. Brilliant. These letters are probably about 8" tall and they are possibly smelted from 98% pure sterling silver to avoid corrosion. I know what you're thinking: four symbols times fifty poles equals 200 characters. Wow. Especially at what, $7 or $8 bucks a pop? But is that really good enough? What if you're standing somewhere that you can't see the labeling? What do you do then? Circle the pole while hopelessly lost, looking for some kind of sign to tell you where you are? Which direction do you go? Clockwise? Counter?

Fortunately, this guy thought of everything:

Yes, that's right. You will only have to walk halfway around the pole to get your bearings.

On another note:

Many people assume that humans are the only animal that has the capacity for vanity. Actually, nature is full of examples of this superficial behavior. Look no further than peacocks, or even drake mallards. It's not often, however, that you see animals that are worried about their figure. I snapped this photo of a red-tailed hawk. I must have surprised him, because he didn't even bother to suck in his gut. I probably caught him in between smokes.

After he realized what was happening and saw that I had a camera, he decided to show off a little bit.

Now that's what a hawk should look like. But the take home message is this: the next time you start to worry about humanity and our superficial nature, just realize that we are fighting against something that's probably buried deep in our genetic code somewhere.

GISing On A Rainy Day- 5 January 2009

This picture shows my ordinary defense mechanism for postponing tasks that I would rather not do. The art of procrastination begins and ends with the skill of maintaining a highly disorganized office. This is just a small slice of my workspace, but the astute observer will quickly realize that almost everything I will need in any given month is likely all within arms reach. And, if the wheels on my rolling chair are functioning properly, suddenly everything for a whole quarter is at my fingertips. What does all of this efficiency have to do with procrastination? Simple. Although my office organization technique makes me highly efficient, most people wonder how I can accomplish anything at all. Therefore, if I want to put something off until a later time or date (which I usually do) I simply spend three to four days cleaning my office. Disorganizing it, if you will, all under the guise of efficiency.

Today, I didn't have that luxury. I have a mapping assignment that's been on my plate for awhile now that was unofficially due on Wednesday. Last Wednesday. So, I decided to start on it today. I've been working on a GIS project that basically divides Kokopelli Wildlife Area into several (140, to be exact) different areas and stores a set of attributes for each parcel all in one spot. Things like acreage, current habitat type, infrastructure, soil type, and photos. GIS stands for Geographic Information Systems--it is basically a system that allows you to store all kinds of data and have it referenced to a place on a map. After you get all the information you need into a program such as ArcGIS, you can spit out a map that looks something like this:

The different labels and lines and colors all mean different things. In this example, the large yellow numbers correspond to soil types and the small, green numbers are the numbers of the parcels that I carved out of Kokopelli WA. When a parcel is clicked, a magical spreadsheet opens up that tells you everything you need to know about that specific piece of ground. I know this all sounds really cool, but just imagine how much more fun it is to actually do it. But before you get to do all this fun stuff, some poor stooge has to actually enter in the data and draw the boundaries, and all that other exciting stuff. Enter Pikeminnow, the wildlife biologist.

Basically my day was spent typing in attribute information for all 140 of the parcels of Kokopelli WA, so that people can play around with it later and create pretty maps. And steal all the glory.

I know, I know, now all of you are probably jealous and wondering how you, too, can live the glamorous life of a wildlife biologist. Oh, well, at least it was raining out today...

Christmas Bird Count 2008- 3 January 2009

I don't know if this photo captures how my eyeball feels right now, but if it looks raw, fiery, and a little bit tired, then it almost captures the moment. Today was the 2008 installment of the annual Christmas Bird Count at Kokopelli Wildlife Area. No, that's not a typo. This year the 2008 count actually took place in 2009. Don't ask.

Today, a team of biologists and volunteers scoured the several thousand acres of Kokopelli Wildlife Area trying to count and identify every single bird on or above the property. The tradition of the Christmas Bird Count began in 1900 as a sort of protest to annual Christmas "side hunts" when North Americans everywhere celebrated the birth of the baby Jesus by killing as many birds as they could in one day. From its modest beginnings of about 27 individuals in 25 locations, the bird count now draws more than 50,000 participants in more than 1500 locations.

I realize that the knowledge of this type of volunteer event probably really freaks out around 85% of the population, but it's actually a lot of fun. And, to be perfectly honest, no one invited me on a Christmas side hunt this year. So I left my shotgun at home and, armed with only binoculars and a camera, made the drive in to Kokopelli to do some birdwatching.

We met at the headquarters at 0600 and split into teams to more efficiently cover the farthest reaches of KWA. Ten hours and several liters of Mountain Dew later, we all converged once again on the headquarters to tally up the numbers. For the day, we notched just shy of 120 species and somewhere around 200,000 individuals.

I took a few photos.

Here's one of a relatively common bird at KWA in an uncommon pose. Makes my neck sore.

killdeer

This little one has a feather out of place.

yellow-rumped warbler

Good birders usually hear and identify a bird before they ever see it. Once a bird is identified by it's call, a little bit of patience is often rewarded with an actual sighting. It takes a lot of practice to become really good at this, but after you learn even a few calls, a whole new world opens up around you. To me, the eyes on these birds look fake.

spotted towhee

Sometimes the smallest birds seem to be trying to compensate by wearing something shiny. My daughter would love this outfit.

Anna's hummingbird

And this last bird is my wife's favorite. A tiny falcon that often hovers in mid-air while looking for a meal.

American kestrel

I have one more photo to share, but it's not a bird. This is just a lowly fungus, but it reminds me of a whale.

magic???

See, even lazy government biologists even have to work on weekends sometimes. And sometimes they don't even get paid for it. I hope this inspires some of you to go find your own Christmas Bird Count to participate in next year. For the rest of you, you can wake up now.