Images

A female northern harrier (Circus cyaneus) gazes into the camera at Suisun Marsh, CA.

USGS scientist holds a young skunk with an ear tag ID and a lightweight GPS collar. The USGS is studying the movement patterns of skunks and raccoons in Suisun Marsh, CA to learn how they use different landscape features, like levee roads, to navigate to waterfowl nests.

Photo of a passive acoustic monitor or "song meter." Scientists use these tools to study the distribution of seabirds without causing damage to sensitive habitat or disturbing the animals.

Photo of a high elevation community in the northern Mojave that had burned at high severity 27 years before the picture was taken. Note that the cover of shrubs and trees has not returned to preburn levels and invasive grasses (red brome and cheatgrass Bromus tectorum) are a significant component of the ground cover.

Landscape shot of a mountain and the low elevation Mojave Desert.

Picture of a mid-elevation plant community in the Mojave Desert.

This is a low elevation community in the Mormon Mountains that had burned at moderate severity 12 years before the picture was taken. Note that shrubs are returning but are not at preburn levels, and invasive grasses (red brome and Mediterranean split grass Schismus barbatus) dominate the ground cover.

An unburned low elevation community in the central Mojave where the interspaces between shrubs have been filled in with a continuous layer of Mediterranean split grass Schismus barbatus. If a fire started here it would spread much more rapidly and be far more extensive than in a low elevation community where the interspaces are rocky or bare.

Image from a remote camera placed in a golden eagle nest in the Mojave Desert.  The parent is feed the chick a snake.  

Equipment used during a shore-counted portion of the annual range-wide sea otter census.  On the clipboard is a paper map, with sea otter locations, numbers, behavior and habitat recorded, as well as some other environmental variables.  The spotting scope is used to view sea otters that are far away, and binoculars are used to scan areas for otters.

USGS ecologist Lisa Allen carefully removes an endangered Least Bell's Vireo from a net. She and Principal Investigator Barbara Kus are studying these birds' migration patterns to provide the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and international efforts with information to assist in species recovery.

USGS researchers Lisa Allen and Ryan Pottinger survey Miraflores Wash in Baja, California for Least Bell's Vireos, an endangered migratory bird.

This old male tortoise was experimentally translocated to a site that had been previously burned in wildfire to understand how tortoise grow and survive in habitat that is disturbed by fires.

USGS WERC scientist Jonathan Felis on False Klamath Rock doing seabird monitoring research. 

USGS WERC scientist Emily (Emma) Kelsey at False Klamath Rock doing seabird monitoring research. 

Pelicans on a rock, observed by the USGS Western Ecological Center Seabird Studies team.

USGS WERC researcher Julia Ersan gets prepared to release a hoary bat (Lasiurus cinereus) after capture and examination. USGS researchers are conducting multiple projects to learn about the ecology of Western bats, including long distance migrants like the hoary bat.

Scientist Nate Stephenson with a large juniper tree in the Sierra Nevada

Photo of driftwood, and invasive grasses and iceplant at Point Reyes National Seashore, CA. Such "dune drainages" make surprising habitat for a threatened species of amphibian: the California red-legged frog.

Dead trees like the ones featured in this photo still provide valuable habitat for wildlife, including birds.

Pat Kleeman, USGS WERC, searches for threatened California red-legged frogs in a dune drainage, Point Reyes National Seashore.