Images

Photo shows the fall colors along the east side of the river road passing through the riparian hardwood forest dominated by the American beech (Fagus grandifolia) at the Patuxent Research Refuge.

Laurel, Maryland

Fall 2024 Photo Contest Winner: Serguei Drovetski, Honorable Mention

EESC's Fish biologist, Aaron Heisey, holds a shortnose sturgeon (acipenser brevirostrum) caught and released on the Merrimack River outside Lowell, Massachusetts.  This freshwater fish was captured as part of a 2024 population dynamics study.

One can really see how a Golden-crowned Kinglet got their name! This bird was handled and marked at the EESC Bird Banding Lab's Fall Migration Station. 

These tiny balls of energy are sometimes referred to as mice with the way they scurry around the forest floor. During the breeding season, males will sing one of the more complex songs out of North American bird species. Each song lasts 5-10 seconds and consists of unique bubbly notes which the individual will combine and modify over time.  

Cassia Busch is a Geneticist at the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center in Kearneysville, WV.

The sparrows pictured here represent the main sparrow species the EESC Bird Banding Lab’s Fall Migration Station sees each year. And last year, the White-throated Sparrow was the most numerous species banded at the station.

Sydney is a Biologist and Lab Manager of the USGS Bee Lab at the Eastern Ecological Science Center in Laurel, MD.

Cheyenne Smith (4th from left in front row), a post-doc researcher in Vicki Blazer's lab group, participated in the FEBS (Federation of European Biochemical Societies) Summer School on Advanced Fish Immunology from September 22-28 in Spetses Island, Greece. 

The hoophouse is where the crayfish research is done at Eastern Ecological Science Center in Laurel, MD

The crayfish in the picture is a New River riffle crayfish (Cambarus chasmodactylus)
 

An EESC Intern working with Paula Henry conducts crayfish research at the Eastern Ecological Science Center in Laurel, MD

What’s so cool about this bird? Check out that large seed-cracking, grasshopper-chomping bill, that helps us ID this as a Blue Grosbeak. Based on its plumage, the banders were able to determine this bird was born this year and was caught in the same net as two other young Blue Grosbeaks.

Dr. Cheyenne Smith of the USGS Eastern Ecological Science Center coaches USGS Idaho Water Science Center hydrologic technician Niko Parrish in dissecting a mountain whitefish from northern Idaho's Kootenai River. The samples for histopathology analyses were collected as part of monitoring and assessment of water quality in the transboundary Kootenai River basin.

Biologists from the Maryland Department of Natural Resources use electrofishing to monitor populations of invasive blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) in the Potomac River.

In 2024, the long-term fall migration bird banding station at Patuxent Research Refuge had it's first Prairie Warbler since 2019!  

Scientists at the banding station collect population data, including age and sex. Due to color contrast, Indigo Bunting wings are a great example of the feather wear and replacement that scientists look at to age a bird. This male Indigo Bunting has 3 different feather ages, which tells us it was born last year.

Hooded Warbler are a treat at the EESC Bird Banding Lab Fall Migration Station, as the station bands an average of two each fall. Based on data collected, the individual pictured hatched this year and is a male.

This house wren was banded during the fall migration banding activities at EESC's Bird Banding Laboratory in Laurel, MD. 

Headshot for Sydney Shumar, scientist with the The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Bee Lab at the Eastern Ecological Science Center.

Density plots showing higher probability of host occupancy, on average, under proactive disease management (b, right) versus reactive disease management (a, left) for chytrid fungus, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal). Adapted from 

Cheyenne Smith is a post doctoral research fish biologist with the Eastern Ecological Science Center