Happy Thanksgiving!

Buffleheads

The Buffleheads have been foraging close to shore lately and I was able to get some photos in some decent light the other day.



I really like when I the sheen on their head is captured in a photo.

The Fall

The fall rut is on with the local Mule Deer. We have a number of deer that hang around town and these guys were pretty obvious as they started keeping company with the resident doe herd.



But that was before hunting season started. Even though the area they have been hanging around in is closed to hunting, it appears that all the bigger bucks have disappeared.



Some people (I will not call them hunters) apparently cannot resist the lure of antlers no matter what.







I am glad I got these photos before they disappeared. Even though they are "city" deer and a bit of a nuisance for those of us with gardens and other deer goodies in our yards, it is sad that they are the victims of the lust for antlers that seems to drive some people to disregard laws and treat our wildlife resources with such disrespect.

The Deck is Done

Laura and I finally got the deck done a couple of weeks ago. Thankfully the weather has held off a bit so we were able to get it stained too. Now for the siding, windows, back deck, landscaping, trees to plant, fence gates to fix....
I would like to thank my brothers-in-law Larry and Dave, and sister Chris for their help and advice.

Falling from the Sky Again

A year and a half ago I posted a few photos of Canada Geese falling from the sky here. Today the conditions were about the same and again, geese were falling from the sky. I had a ring-side seat as flock after flock returned to the river after feeding in the grain fields. They maintained altitude until they were just about to reach the shoreline, then they slipped sideways (or flipped completely over) and dropped out of the sky, turned into the wind towards the horde that had already arrived, slipped more wind out from under outstretched wings, dropped their feet, cupped their wings, and then backpeddled in the wind and settled in the water where they could find room.

This ranks right up there with watching a summer lightening show, Snow Petrels, and displaying McCown's Longspurs.

State of the Art - Greater Sage-Grouse

Most of the content from an upcoming Studies in Avian Biology devoted specifically to Greater Sage-Grouse had been posted to the SageMap website. Ecology and Conservation of Greater Sage-Grouse: A Landscape Species and Its Habitats is being produced by the Cooper Ornithological Society and published by the University of California Press and has been released online under an agreement between the authors, COS and UCP. The 24 chapters in the monograph have been authored by 38 experts and provide the latest information and innovative ideas on how Greater Sage-Grouse can be conserved in the face of an onslaught of impacts to the bird and its habitat throughout the west. One chapter in particular, Chapter 22 -Energy Development and conservation tradeoffs: systematic planning for sage-grouse in their eastern range - Kevin Doherty, David Naugle, Holly Copeland, Amy Pocewics, and Joseph Kiesecker, rather than merely criticizing the current lack of effective conservation measures for sage-grouse, provides an innovative and plausible method for conserving sage-grouse while also providing for energy development.



If you have any interest in Greater Sage-Grouse this will provide you with the best information to date concerning this species and it is wonderful that the contents have been made public in advance of the publication date so that many more individuals can have access to the information. I will still be buying the publication when it becomes available.

Greater Sage-Grouse and Energy Development

A recent article in the online journal PlosONE outlines the projected impacts of oil and gas development in the U.S. Intermountain West. Mapping Oil and Gas Development Potential in the US Intermountain West and Estimating Impacts to Species outlines the projected declines in Greater Sage-Grouse based on modeling the distribution of future oil and gas wells based on the potential for oil and gas resources to be present. The authors project that there would be a 7% to 19% decline from the 2007 levels and impact 3.7 million acres of sagebrush and 1.1 million acres of grasslands and the species that live in those habitats if oil and gas development were to occur at the projected rates.

Figure 2. Oil and gas simulation results for the two scenarios.This map illustrates the location and extent of expected development in the two scenarios. Areas in orange depict growth for the anticipated scenario. Areas in red depict growth for the unrestrained scenario. Bar graphs show the quantity of development projected for each scenario. Core areas for sage-grouse are shown to highlight expected areas of future conflict. (Click on the image to enlarge).

They also provide solutions to avoid these projected impacts by a creative combination of approaches to enhance access in some areas in exchange for avoidance of others, or outright purchase of already leased land in important habitats by the federal government of other interested parties. They also note the species in grassland and sagebrush ecosystems are under stress from a number of stressors including wind, solar, coal, oil shale, and uranium and they suggest that this model could be used for these stressors as well and could account for cummulative impacts from all of them. These proactive measures could be used by regulatory agencies and land managers to avoid "business as usual" and avoid impact to areas crucial for species conservation.

Copeland HE, Doherty KE, Naugle DE, Pocewicz A, Kiesecker JM (2009) Mapping Oil and Gas Development Potential in the US Intermountain West and Estimating Impacts to Species. PLoS ONE 4(10): e7400. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0007400