Monthly Archives: February 2012

Shirking My Responsibility

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I really don’t read blogs very often, but there are a few that I find worth visiting on a frequent basis.  Since this week is a whirlwind of activity for me (preparing to host a conference of 150 biologists next week) I thought I’d share one of those other blogs with you. 

In other words, I’m shirking my responsibility to write my own thoughts down this week.  Sorry about that.  On the other hand, I got to use the word “shirking” in a blog post.

The blog I suggest you take a look at is by Ian Lunt, a vegetation ecologist at Charles Sturt University in Albury, New South Wales, Australia.  Ian studies grasslands and grassy woodlands, and I find his work very interesting because the grasslands he’s working in are very much like those I work with – and also very different.  Since most of you who read my blog are not from Australia, I think you might find his site interesting for the same reasons.

His latest post happens to be a review of a great research paper about birds and habitat.  (Yes, my last blog post griped about how many bird habitat research papers there are these days, but this is a particularly good one).  If you scroll back past that post, you’ll find other posts that are more focused on plant communities and their response to management and climate. Very applied, and very interesting.

You can find his blog site here:

http://ianluntresearch.wordpress.com/

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As a special bonus, here’s a very nice blog post written by Adam Frank on National Public Radio’s 13.7 Cosmos and Culture blog.  Adam writes about why science is hard, and why that’s a good thing.  I think you’ll enjoy it.  Click here to read it.

Photo of the Week – February 10, 2012

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This has not been a great winter for snow photography.  Mild temperatures have made it nice for many outdoor activities (excluding ice skating, sledding, skiing, etc.) and for overwintering sandhill cranes, but there hasn’t been any snow on the ground since December.

That finally changed last weekend with about 11 inches of heavy snow and strong winds.  I haven’t had much time to get out and enjoy the snow yet, but I did manage a quick trip to a prairie west of town this week.  It was one of those days on which the sun comes up in a clear sky and there’s about 15 minutes of light between the time the sun pops over the horizon and the time when the sun becomes so bright that the glare makes photos difficult.  Because of that, I didn’t come home with very many photos.

Still, it was nice to be out in the snow.  Hopefully, it’ll stick around for a little while.

Canada milkvetch seed heads stick up above a snow drift. Restored prairie at Deep Well Wildlife Management Area near Phillips, Nebraska.

Snow changes things fairly dramatically for foraging animals.  This mild winter has made it relatively easy for animals to find what seeds and other food items are available.  With nearly a foot of snow on the ground, however, those animals have to either burrow around to find food or rely on food sticking out above the snow (like the seeds in these Canada milkvetch pods.)

The sandhill cranes along the Platte River right are suddenly unable to forage widely for waste corn in the fields, but are much more restricted to those areas where the wind scoured most of the snow off of high points in cropfields.  It appears that we’ll have cold temperatures for a while now, and that will keep the snow around.  It’ll be interesting to see if the cranes decide to tough it out here until warm temperatures return or head south a ways to find easier foraging.