Images

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.

The Eastern Ecological Science Center's Leetown Research facility has multiple quarter-acre and half-acre research ponds to use for fish rearing and other outdoor laboratory applications.  Here we are cleaning sediment and debris from the "kettle" collection area of the ponds to keep them ready for use.

The Eastern Ecological Science Center's Leetown Research facility has multiple quarter-acre and half-acre research ponds to use for fish rearing and other outdoor laboratory applications.  Here we are cleaning sediment and debris from the "kettle" collection area of the ponds to keep them ready for use. 

American Shad captured in the Penobscot river n the U.S. state of Maine. (Credit: Joe Zydlewski)

Male adult Ring-necked Duck part of a multi-state, multi-year research project looking at migration routes and breeding area for Ring-necked Ducks that winter on freshwater wetlands in the southeastern US.

Neogale vison, American Mink crossing the Duval bridge at the Patuxent Research Refuge in Laurel, MD

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Dr. Glenn Olsen and Mary Anderson at work doing a surgical procedure to implant a small 1 ounce (30 gram) radio transmitter in a Ring-necked Duck. This procedure is part of a multi-year study looking at wintering Ring-necked Ducks in the southeastern US.