Images

Yellow-headed blackbird fledgling. This species is also recorded in the Bird Phenology Program cards.

Volunteers Derek Smith (white shirt) and Reuben Anderson sort through migration cards in the Bird Phenology Program Office.

African rock pythons are the largest snake in Africa, but now some have been found in Florida. They can eat goats, warthogs, and even crocodiles. In Florida, they are an invasive species.

The endangered Devils Hole pupfish lives only in Devils Hole in the Mojave Desert.

The Faka Union Canal Weir #1 (Collier County, Florida) helps create a downstream hydrological haven for manatees. During the cold winter months, the right flow conditions can maintain a salinity gradient known as a halocline that traps warm water near the bottom of the residential canals at Port of the Islands.

Silver carp are a large a troublesome invasive species from Asia found in the great rivers of the central United States. Silver carp have been observed to jump in response to rocks thrown in the water, passing trains, geese taking off from the water, or just when they unexpectedly find themselves in a tight place.

Bighead carp are a large and troublesome invasive species from Asia found in the great rivers of the central United States.

Bristle-thighed Curlews (Numenius tahitiensis) are large shorebirds that breed in Alaska and spend the nonbreeding season on atolls and small islands throughout Oceania. This life history pattern requires curlews to migrate long distances each year.

A distinctive feature of the Bristle-thighed Curlew is its cinnamon-colored rump and tail. This feature helps distinguish curlews from similar species like the Whimbrel (N. phaeopus), particularly in places where the two species overlap in Alaska and Oceania. These curlews migrate long distances each year.

In general, Whimbrels (like the one in this photo) are brown and grey in appearance in contrast to the brown and cinnamon tones of curlews. In addition, these two species can always be distinguished by their vocalizations.

Curlew Chicks hatch in late June and are almost immediately ready to leave the nest. The coloring and pattern of the downy chicks provides camouflage to protect them from avian and mammalian predators. Chicks follow their parents on long hikes to feeding areas. Curlews also migrate long distances each year.

Curlews migrate long distances each year. Captured birds are quickly removed from mist nets and transported to the care of a veterinarian, who performs the implant surgeries to outfit the bird with a tracking device. In June 2007, USGS scientists tagged 13 curlews with satellite transmitters at their southern breeding area in Alaska.

A group of Devils Hole pupfish forage along the edge of the shallow spawning shelf in Devils Hole.

USGS Cooperative Research Unit graduate student Ambre Chaudoin monitors pupfish spawning behavior in Devils Hole, the only habitat for endangered Devils Hole pupfish.

USGS Cooperative Research Unit graduate student Ambre Chaudoin monitors dissolved oxygen levels, pH, and temperature in endangered Devils Hole pupfish spawning habitat in Devils Hole.

USGS researchers discovered a new species of turtle. The Pearl River map turtle makes its home in the Pearl River of Louisiana and Mississippi.

USGS biologist Paul Cryan. Biologists hope to learn more about the scale and causes of bat fatalities at wind turbines by searching for carcasses of bats beneath turbines and carefully documenting the conditions under which they are found.

USGS biologist Paul Cryan releases a bat carrying a miniature radio transmitter. Researchers are increasingly turning to high-tech methods to try to learn more about the mysterious lives of bats.

Brutus, a wolf being studied by USGS scientists, is chemically immobilized, measured, ear-tagged, and fitted with a radio collar near the Eureka airstrip on Ellesmere Island in the High Arctic, Nunavut, Canada.

Late in the evening, two wolves make use of the trail that leads to the head of the fiord. Studying wolves in the High Arctic allows scientists to follow the wolves during their travels, assuming the scientists can keep up. All-terrain vehicles are needed, and the 24-hour daylight at this time of year is critical.

USGS biologist Dave Mech has spent more than 20 summers studying Arctic wolves on Ellesmere Island, where they are unafraid of humans and can be observed at close range.