BioBlitz 2012

 This last week I've been busy with the Great Basin National Park BioBlitz. This year's BioBlitz focused on Diptera (flies). Professor Riley Nelson from Brigham Young University led the event, and above he's talking with Park Superintendent Andy Ferguson.

 The BioBlitz is a three-day event, with a 48-hour collecting period. The idea is that if you get a lot of people searching, you can find a lot in a short period of time. For this event, people came from Nevada, Utah, California, Arizona, Colorado and even the countries of Oman and Germany!

 We started with a Diptera workshop, with talks about flies and how voluptuous they are.

 The talks were really good. Then everyone was ready to start collecting!

 Some park rangers got in on the action. All through Tuesday afternoon, people collected flies all over the park.

 In the evening, Dr. Nelson gave a campfire program, which was a big hit.

He even made it interactive, asking the kids what insects they saw on this rock from the nearby creek.

 Little collectors pause to see what's on the ground.

 The next morning I saw Dr. Nelson collect some flies from the edge of a stream with his aspirator.

 The flies came in all shapes and sizes.

 That evening, volunteer Ken gave a talk about flies that included lots of interesting facts, like flies taste with their feet and smell with their hair.

 Folks turned in their specimens at Baker Hall, and this family checked out what the Nevada State Entomologist had under his microscope.

 A group of kids came in and they were put to work sorting the insects out of the vegetation that had all been mixed together from the netting. They were amazingly good at sorting quickly and accurately.

 Several programs were part of the BioBlitz, including a kids program by Ranger Robb.

 His program involved painting, but not just any kind of painting.

 He's ready to unveil the surprise.

 Baby flies (aka maggots) helped with the painting.

 Both little kids and adult kids enjoyed the art.

 Back at Baker Hall, more sorters were hard at work.

 Once the insects had been sorted out of the vegetation, it was time to sort the flies from the "others."

 The microscope table was put to use.

 This is Bjorn, the scientist from Germany. He really knew his flies well and kept a list of all the families he had collected. He may have collected more diversity than any other individual.

 
At the end of the collecting period it was time for a lunch sponsored by the Great Basin National Park Foundation and raffle prizes from the Western National Parks Association. Thank you! Dr. Nelson also gave a talk about the preliminary results. Over 50 people collected thousands of flies, with about 20 families added to the park list. Wow, that's impressive!

Dr. Nelson will take the flies back to his lab and one of his students will spend most of the rest of the summer sorting out what was collected. We will find out more about the flies over the next months.

Some of the folks that collected! Everyone who participated had a great time. There was even a family who asked about next year's BioBlitz (still to be announced), as they want to plan their family reunion during the same time. It's a really fun event, so if you have a chance to be part of a BioBlitz, go for it!

Kit Fox

 I've been teaching cave rescue out in Alabama for the last week+. I really enjoyed all the greenness, and the trees didn't even make me feel claustrophobic. The humidity was actually really nice, and I thought it was awesome to be able to go swim in a river without totally freezing in five minutes.

Nevertheless, it's always nice to get back home. The greasewood looks especially green, the mountains are dusted with snow, and we saw some kit fox. This is such a beautiful place!

I still have a mountain of laundry to wash before I go through all my photos, but here a couple more of the kit fox. It was such a treat to see them.

Finding Frog Eggs

 A couple weeks ago, I had the opportunity to help the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (DWR) look for frog eggs in the West Desert. Above is a photo of a typical road in the West Desert. Actually, this is an excellent road in the West Desert. Many roads are just two-tracks. Wondering where the pavement is? There's a short section, about 100 m long. That's it. If you travel much in the West Desert, you invest in good tires. And you plan on a new windshield frequently.

I followed Kevin and Vanessa out into the marsh. We all wore hip waders and carried basic supplies in our packs.

We didn't see many frog egg masses at first, but I did like this snail shell.

The marsh alternates from alkaline soils to thick vegetation to springheads and channels. It makes walking a good workout.

While we were in the marsh, we heard aircraft. Dugway Proving Grounds is not too far to the north, and various military planes fly over this area.

Finally, some frog eggs! After frogs mate, the female lays a mass of eggs. Counting egg masses provides an estimate of the frog population. Each egg mass means two frogs. It's always amazing how many frog egg masses we find, because we never see or hear nearly that many adult frogs. Each egg mass has about 100 or so eggs. It takes a few weeks for the eggs to hatch into tadpoles.

We saw a number of these structures out in the marsh. The little white pipe holds a measuring device to measure the depth of water. Utah DWR is concerned about the water levels in this marsh because Southern Nevada plans to pump extensive amounts of groundwater south here.

Here's a view looking south. The highest snow-covered peaks are Jeff Davis and Wheeler Peak, part of Great Basin National Park.

The marsh is fascinating, with winding streams, a variety of vegetation, and quite a few birds. We also saw some fish: least chub, Utah chub, and speckled dace.

At lunch time I wandered over to a nearby spring. The water was an amazing color. Even more intriguing were the shifting sands on the bottom of the spring. The spiral soon changed into another shape. I could have happily sat in a lawn chair, drink in hand, under a sun umbrella, and watched that spring all afternoon.

I had forgotten to pack a lawn chair, so instead we headed to a different marsh to continue looking. Ahead of us was Gandy Salt Marsh Lake. Right now it has water, but by late in summer it's pretty much dry. Along its edge are numerous springs and marshes. It is an extremely hostile place, but even so, a remarkable amount of life can be found there.

We saw numerous northern leopard frogs.

We were mostly interested in Columbia spotted frogs, but we kept count of these guys, too.

I love being out in the West Desert. It is such a remote place, and I feel like I am in the wild. It is freeing, exhilarating, and just a little bit scary.

We had no problem finding frog egg masses in this area. One cluster had over 40 separate egg masses. That must have been one big frog orgy! (Or maybe they just all prefer the same habitat and feel the odds for their progeny to survive are best there. But that sounds a little boring.)

I was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day, but it was well worth it. Hopefully these frogs and their offspring will be able to continue to enjoy the wilds of the West Desert for a very long time to come.

Pinyon Jays

 I saw a flock of birds the other day, up near the transition between sagebrush and pinyon/juniper. This meant the flock was pinyon jays, a neat bird. You usually don't see them alone--they like to hang out in big groups. Despite this, very little is known about where they nest. I figured that this would be a good opportunity to try to photograph them, after all, there were a lot.

But when I started following them, they kept flying farther away. I persevered and got a couple okay shots, so you can at least see that they really are pinyon jays!

They are really bright blue, a very pretty color. They hang out in this area year round, and it sure is nice to see their splash of color.

By the way, the Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up soon, February 17-20. This is a good excuse to check out what's in your yard.

Introducing Henryosaurus

 This is Henryosaurus, the rearticulated dinosaur found in Bone Canyon. Desert Boy and my husband had a fun time putting it together.

 As you can see, Desert Girl doesn't quite know what to make of this fantastic creature with multiple sets of teeth.

I have a feeling that we will soon be adding to our unique dinosaur collection.