Images

Photograph of a Horned Lark nest with newly hatched nestlings.  Nest was found in Phillips County, Montana near S. Wagner Road.

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.

Photograph of a Lark Bunting nest with four eggs.  Nest was found in Phillips County, Montana.

A view through the belly port of a plane while cameras collect images during an aerial photographic survey.

The Seabird Studies Team at the USGS Western Ecological Research Center is conducting aerial photographic surveys of the ocean off central and southern California to create comprehensive maps of seabird and marine mammal distributions.

Tile drainage pipe being installed in wetland catchment to reduce water inflow into a wetland basin in North Dakota.

Biological Science Technician surveying breeding birds on a grassland managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

USGS scientist Zach Wenderott extracts a tree core from a charred ponderosa pine in Lassen National Park as part of a study of how prescribed fire influences tree growth.

Land cover map of an area of the Missouri River used to classify potential breeding habitat for least terns and piping plovers on emergent sandbars.

Photograph of Radio-collared wolf. Radio-collared wolves are aerially tracked and the numbers of their packmates are counted annually

A native brown-belted bumble bee (Bombus griseocollis) visiting leadplant (Amorpha canescens).

Great egret at a multi-species waterbird nesting colony at Chase Lake National Wildlife Refuge, North Dakota.

– Scientists at the USGS Massachusetts Cooperative Fish and
Wildlife Research Unit at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, in
collaboration with The Rockefeller University’s Vertebrate Genome Laboratory,
New York, are releasing to a public repository at the vertebrate lab, for use by

Citizen scientists after a day of collecting dragonfly larvae for the Dragonfly Mercury Project.

Dr. Phillip van Mantgem cores a ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) in Lassen National Park, CA.

Scientists use a tool called an increment borer to remove cyllindrical tree cores from living trees. The cores show the tree's rings and help scientists learn about its growth.

A Tetons sunrise in Antelope Flats, Wyoming.                                         

Vehicles drive on an elevated road segment that allows amphibians and reptiles to pass safely beneath and cross the road.

USGS scientist Todd Preston using an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV).  USGS is actively exploring the use of small unmanned aerial system (aka drones) for scientific data collection and testing whether or not they are useful in monitoring wildlife.

A weather station located in a sagebrush ecosystem in southwest Montana—a major ecosystem type managed by the Bureau of Land Management

A Yosemite toad on a road. Amphibians and reptiles are particularly susceptible to negative effects of roads within their habitat. Many are slow moving, do not avoid roads, and are simply too small for drivers to see and avoid. During rains many amphibians travel long distances regardless of the presence of intersecting roadways.

A Yosemite toad looks through mesh fencing alongside a road used to mitigate negative road impacts and guide amphibians towards safe passages.