June 6 - June 8.
This week, we worked alongside the Aquatic Wildlife and Fisheries & Terrestrial Wildlife crews at the Arapaho & Roosevelt National Forests & Pawnee Grassland (USFS, ARP).
On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to conduct road and stream mapping near Red Feather Lakes with the Aquatic Wildlife and Fisheries crew. We used a program on our tablet called Field Maps in order to reference and create new maps.
Photos taken near Red Feather Lakes by Jennifer Singer.
In order to do this, we drove down pre-established forest roads and kept an eye out for any unmapped roads or streams coming off the main road. If we found an unmapped road or stream, we would track the length of the new finding up to our specific project boundary line of 100 yards from the road in each direction, if applicable.
Photos of myself mapping a stream (left) and other crew members surveying a "road" (right) taken by Bodie Spinner and Jennifer Singer, respectively.
On Wednesday, we went out with the Terrestrial Wildlife crew in order to conduct Northern Goshawk (Accipiter gentilis) surveys in the Red Feather Lakes area. Northern Goshawks are a type of raptor that are known to be large, powerful-predators of the mountain wooded areas. To conduct these surveys, we used a protocol that involved playing their call on a loud speaker in 10 second intervals and waiting quietly for any feedback. If feedback from the species was heard or seen, the team would then attempt to find the nest. The call was repeated if no feedback was received for an allotted period of time. These surveys were being done in order to locate the nesting sites of the sensitive species to protect them from future projects being done in the area by the USFS. Unfortunately, we only conducted one survey due to inclement weather, but we did (potentially) see and most definitely heard an individual!
Photo of a Northern Goshawk (Post 2021)
On Thursday night, we had the opportunity to survey Flammulated Owls (Psiloscops flammeolus) with the Terrestrial Wildlife crew in the south-western Loveland area. These tiny owls come in at around 6 inches and have both a grey and red morph. Their most distinguishable trait is their dark, black-eyes.
Photo of a Flammulated Owl (Matera 2020)
To conduct these surveys, we hiked a total of ~4.5 miles in, and ~4.5 miles out. On our way out, we stopped every ~550 meters to set up our call points. We used a protocol that involved playing their call (which consisted of a mix between their one "hoot" and their double "hoot") at different call points on a loud speaker in 30 second intervals and waiting quietly for any feedback. The process was repeated as need be for an allotted period of time until we moved onto the next call point. If feedback from the species was heard or seen, the team would then attempt to find the actual bird, not the nest necessarily. Throughout our surveys, we heard a few calls from both Flammulated Owls and also Common Poorwills (Phalaenoptilus nuttallii), which are a type of nocturnal, ground-nesting birds. This shift ended up beginning at 3:00pm and ending at 2:30am!
Photo of the beginning of the trail taken by Jennifer Singer.
References:
Matera, K 2020, Flammulated Owl Psiloscops flammeolus, digital image, Macaulay Library, accessed 10 June 2023, https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/245776791.
Post, R 2021, Northern Goshawk Accipiter gentilis, digital image, Macaulay Library, accessed 10 June 2023, https://macaulaylibrary.org/asset/298044011.
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