Images

A Canada Warbler with new band at the Bird Banding Lab's fall station.          

A Connecticut Warbler banded at the Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station.

Sample boxes prepped in Utah for sampling to start take over offices as they wait to be delivered to facilities. 

Downy Woodpecker's tail is spread to better view marking and two new tail feathers growing in, during banding at the USGS Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station.

An adult female Blue-winged Warbler at the USGS Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station. 

A Brown Thrasher who has just received its unique 9-digt USGS band at the USGS Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station.

Photo of Hopewell Run below the reservoir (located off Leetown Rd) taken during a bird walk with the Potomac Valley Audobon Society. The reservoir above where this photo was taken often has ducks (such as wood ducks, gadwall, black ducks, mallards, and even canvasback) and geese swimming around on it.

An American Woodcock receives its USGS metal band at the Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station.

A Yellow-bellied Flycatcher banded at the Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station.

Photo of a technician working at a biological safety cabinet.                                                                    

This Northern cricket frog (Acris crepitans) was encountered while conducting dipnet surveys in Prince William Forest Park in Triangle, VA. These amphibian surveys support NPS goals of monitoring amphibians throughout all parks in the National Capital Region Network.

June 2021 "People" category winner Erick Hernandez

USGS Natiave Bee Lab, Magicicada cassinii, super rare Blue eyed variant

the rare blue-eyed version of one of the periodical cicadas

Conductivity, water temperature, and water level gages in Bullskin Run, West Virginia. These gages are part of a regional study to understand how groundwater-surface water interactions affect fish habitat and thermal resiliency to climate change.

Entrance to the National Fish Health Research Lab-EESC-Leetown campus-Kearneysville WV

Dr. Vicki Blazer and Dr. Heather Walsh extracting plasma from smallmouth bass sampled from the South Branch Potomac River.  The plasma will be used for the quantification of vitellogenin (an egg yolk precursor protein used as a biomarker of endocrine disruption in male fish).    

A female Common Eider is being held by graduate student Tori Mezebish while the duck is being anesthetized for surgery to implant a small satellite transmitter to track the duck during subsequent breeding years.

Dr. Glenn Olsen is performing surgery on a female Common Eider to implant a small satellite tracking device in the duck. The surgery is done under sterile conditions and general anesthetic.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service considers the Appalachian grizzled skipper (Pyrgus wyandot). The small number of known colonies, the small number of individuals per colony, and the lack of information on the genetic relationships among the colonies, populations, and metapopulations render the Appalachian grizzled skipper vulnerable to extinction.

The mysterious case of the Appalachian Rusty-patched Bumble Bee (Bombus affinis) holdouts. There are no more RPBB's in most of North American, people have looked, it's not really a question of overlooking them any longer, they are just all gone. Fingers point to a set of introduced European bumble bee pathogens.

A red fox with a pine vole in its mouth looking at the camera at the Central tract of the FWS Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, MD.            

An annual count has been conducted at Patuxent Research Refuge every year since 1941, when the refuge consisted of only the Central and South Tracts. In the last few years, bird watchers have regularly observed Lincoln’s Sparrows during the Christmas Bird Count at Patuxent Research Refuge.