Baby squirrels

What's cuter than a pail full of baby squirrels? Nothing I can think of.

Jeremy found a nest in the air filter while servicing the snowcat today. Not too uncommon. But this time, there were four noses looking up at him.

We had to move the little varmints, so I shot this video while we were at it.

We put them in a bucket and the mother moved them to new digs this afternoon when things quieted down.

Thanks to Per Johan and Frank Ritcey for additional wildlife footage.

Dual Projections

Environmental artists Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison were commissioned by the Center for Art + Environment, at the Nevada Museum of Art, to create Sierra Nevada: An Adaptation which proposes a series of long-term ecological responses to temperature increases in the Sierra Nevada. This visualization was created in collaboration with the Desert Research Institute (DRI), in Reno, Nevada, to demonstrate possible outcomes of differing forest management strategies - in this case for Independence Lake.

Learn more about the Harrison's potential project at Sagehen, in partnership with the Nevada Art Museum's Center for Art and the Environment, at Sagehen News.

Sagehen ants on National Geographic TV

We provided stock footage of Sagehen's slave-making ants for National Geographic's "When Aliens Attack!".

This segment about official protocol when encountering space aliens reminds me a lot of the brouhaha after the accidental discovery of the California wolverine by Sagehen researchers.

Much like in the program, Sagehen researcher Bill Zielinsky was presented with an official Forest Service plan for the encounter (which he himself had prepared many years before for just this eventuality, never really thinking it would happen, of course).

It's dumping!

After almost 2 months without snow, we finally got hammered with 10.5' in the upper basin.

The Last Self-Reproducing Lahontan Cutthroat Trout in the Truckee River Basin

The Last Self-Reproducing Lahontan Cutthroat Trout in the Truckee River Basin from F. Felix on Vimeo.
August 20, 2009: For Sagehen Speaker Series #27, Gary Scoppetone of the USGS talks about the past, present & future LCT recovery program at Independence Lake.

More information about LCT research and outreach at Sagehen.

Black Bear Research in Sagehen Basin

Black Bear Research in Sagehen Basin from F. Felix on Vimeo.

When we made this, our first Sagehen documentary, free web video was still pretty restricted; you couldn't put up longer content like this, and the quality was bad. Rather than breaking it into short chunks or creating six different, buggy file resolutions and formats for PC and Mac, we decided to distribute this program via download and DVD through Amazon and Createspace.

Now you can watch it on-line for the first time.

June, 2007: CA Dept. of Fish & Game researchers in California's Sagehen Creek Basin struggle to outsmart the black bears, hoping to GPS-collar them for further behavior studies...but the bears have other ideas.

Still photos and filmmakers blog.
Learn more or order DVDs.
More videos about Sagehen bears.
Sagehen bear news.

Preview of new Aldo Leopold film

Aldo's son Starker founded Sagehen Creek Field Station in 1951. After a recent meeting with the Leopold Foundation, Sagehen is looking forward to working with the Leopold Foundation in the future to promote this legacy.


Green Fire: Aldo Leopold and the Land Ethic in the 21st Century from Jeannine Richards on Vimeo.

Truckee Talks segment

The Sagehen Forest Project from F. Felix on Vimeo.
Jeff Brown, Malcolm North & Scott Conway talk to Maia Schneider about the Sagehen Forest Project underway in the Sagehen Experimental Forest.

More information on the project blog at http://sagehenforest.blogspot.com/

"Ants: The Invisible Majority"

Sagehen provided stock footage for this broadcast program about ants by KQED Quest. There are shots of our slave-making ants marching out on a raid & their hosts keeping house.


QUEST on KQED Public Media.

Or watch online & read associated materials.

UCNRS Annual Meeting at Angelo Reserve

UCNRS Manager's Meeting, 2009 from F. Felix on Vimeo.
The crew gathers at Angelo Coast Range Reserve for the annual meeting. Here are some highlights, including Don's amazing abalone technique.

Hummingbird research at Sagehen.

July 1, 2009: Chris Clark discusses his fascinating research into hummingbird courtship displays that include mysterious sounds that are not vocalizations.


Hummingbird research at Sagehen from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Here's a short video from Chris introducing his research:

Sagehen Pine Martens

August 23, 2007: For Sagehen Summer Speaker Series #18, Dr. Bill Zielinsky of the US Forest Service PSW discusses past & upcoming American marten research in Sagehen basin. He also discusses how forest management practice influences marten habitat.

Past & future pine marten research at Sagehen from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Katie Moriarty talks weasels.

August 7, 2008: For Sagehen Speaker Series #22, researcher Katie Moriarty discusses her work on martens in the Sagehen basin. She also discusses other Sierran predators, including the big surprise that turned up on her camera trap on February 28, 2008.

Moriarty, K. M., American Marten Distributions over a 28 Year Period: Relationships with Landscape Change in Sagehen Creek Experimental Forest, California, USA. 2009, OSU. 108 pp. [PDF]

Moriarty, K.M., W. J. Zeilinski, A. G. Gonzales, T. E. Dawson, K. M. Boatner, C. A. Wilson, F. V. Schlexer, K. L. Pilgrim, J. P. Copeland, M. K. Schwartz, Wolverine Confirmation in California after Nearly a Century: Native or Long-Distance Immigrant?

More marten research at Sagehen.

Watch Pine Marten videos.

American Martens in Sagehen Basin. from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Gary Roller & Jeff Brown discuss Sagehen SPLATs research.

10-25-2006: Here's an old TTCTV broadcast of Maia Schneider interviewing Gary Roller & Jeff Brown about SPLATs research at Sagehen.


Gary Roller & Jeff Brown discuss SPLATs research. from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Dropping trees.

During a wind storm in May, a dead tree fell & hit the Leopold Cabin. Before we repair the damage, we have to remove the remaining dead & dying trees in the area, so that this doesn't happen again.

Bear cubs released.

February 3, 2010: CADF&G released two more orphaned cubs into the wild here at Sagehen. This makes #6 & #7 for us.

More information.

Bear cubs reintroduced to the wild. from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Sustainable management of fire-dependent forests. from F. Felix on Vimeo.

8-13-09: For Sagehen Speaker Series no. 26, Dr. Malcolm North discusses a new, multi-discipline publication from the Forest Service PSW, "An Ecosystem Management Strategy for Sierran Mixed-Conifer Forests".

Amazingly, it seems all the players are agreeing on this document. Wildlife, timber harvests, clean water & healthy forests: maybe we can have it all?

Download a copy of this publication from the Sagehen Events page:

Forest mystery.

Forest Mystery from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Who dug that little hole in the pine forest floor, & why?

04:20

Interview with Andrew Sheldon

Interview with Andrew Sheldon. from F. Felix on Vimeo.

Andy Sheldon was the last Resident Biologist at Sagehen Creek Field Station. We button-holed him during his recent re-visit for a Plecoptera Society meeting.

Sheldon talks about Sagehen's wild early years, the value of elevational transects, & why field biology will survive the ascendancy of genetic analysis.

MP3 file of unedited interview available here [turn sound down!!!].

09:00

Mountain Yellow-legged Frog?

Here's a frog I spotted in Perazzo Meadows a little while back.

What do you think--is it an endangered Mountain Yellow-legged Frog [Rana muscosa]?

More info about these frogs from our friends at Sierra Nevada Aquatic Research Lab: http://www.mylfrog.info/