Images

Rising mist and fall colors at Snowden Pond, Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, MD. Patuxent Research Refuge is the only National Wildlife Refuge established explicitly for research purposes, and is home to both USFWS and USGS programs, including the Bird Banding Lab.

Gotcha! A ruby-crowned kinglet waits to be extracted from a mist net at the Bird Banding Lab's fall migration banding station. Powerlines that run through the Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge, near Laurel, MD are managed as shrub habitat instead of mowed, which provides stopover habitat for migratory birds.

Recently a long-time resident of Patuxent Wildlife Research Center (now part of the Eastern Ecological Science Center) made the Washington Post. A color photograph of "Zinc" and "Mrs. Zinc" was featured in a story about naming animals. Zinc received his unique name when he was less than one-year-old.

A Cape May Warbler pauses during fall migration on its journey south in Owings, MD

At Poplar Island in the Chesapeake Bay, MD, Peter McGowan (USFWS, left) and Diann Prosser (USGS, right) capture fledgling common terns to read plastic colored leg bands that identify individual birds. Here interagency collaboration leads to benefits for wildlife and people.

Northeast Region Photo Contest Winner | October 2018 | People 
Salamander sampling crew

Think habitat: not grass. Powerlines that run through the Patuxent Wildlife Research Refuge, near Laurel, MD are managed as shrub habitat instead of mowed, which provides stopover habitat for migratory birds.

Great Blue Heron at Snowden Pond, Patuxent Research Refuge, Laurel, MD. Patuxent Research Refuge is the only National Wildlife Refuge established explicitly for research purposes, and is home to both USFWS and USGS programs, including the Bird Banding Lab.

A not so common Zebra Swallowtail nectaring on the the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, MD

View of the barrier islands off Lafayette, LA while conducting low-level aerial seabird surveys in the Gulf of Mexico, as part of the GoMMAPPS project.

Oil platform in the Gulf of Mexico viewed as part of GoMMAPPS aerial surveys for seabirds.

Eelgrass (Zostera marina) forms extensive meadows in low intertidal and shallow subtidal areas of estuaries and embayments along the Northwest Atlantic coast. Eelgrass meadows are noted as critical habitat for many recreational and commercial fish species as well as small forage fish.

Standard wing markings on a US Fish and Wildlife Service Kodiak amphibious aircraft used to denote strip-transect distance bands to aid observers in data collection for the GoMMAPPS aerial seabird surveys from 2017-2020 and 2022-2023.

This is a larval American Bullfrog, a large species of frog found throughout the eastern US. The larvae of this species can be identified by their large size and small black spots on the tail fin.

A Red-tailed Hawk pursued by Common Grackles and an Eastern Kingbird along the Williamsport Breeding Bird Survey route

USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center (formerly Leetown Science Center) National Fish Health Laboratory, Kearneysville, WV

A cerulean warbler (Setophaga cerulea) in a shrub, partially obscured by branches. 

A flock of Blue-winged teal at Uhler Marsh at the Eastern Ecological Science Center on the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, MD.  

A photo of an adult spotted salamander (Ambystoma maculatum). Spotted salamanders are found throughout the northeast US, where they spend most of their lives underground. They emerge in the late winter and early spring to breed and lay eggs in vernal pools.

Mycobacteriosis is a bacterial disease that can affect many species of fish around the world.  We are studying the impacts of mycobacteriosis among northern snakehead from the Potomac River to better understand this disease in the species and the potential impacts to other aquatic animals.

US Fish and Wildlife Service Kodiak amphibious aircraft used in the GoMMAPPS aerial seabird surveys from 2017-2020 and 2022-2023.