Photo of the Week – April 3, 2015

A month ago, we apparently had a large number of white winged visitors hanging around our Derr Wetland Restoration.  I only know this because our timelapse cameras picked them up.

Snow geese.  March 3, 2015.  3pm.

Snow geese. March 3, 2015. 3pm.

Snow geese are common along the Platte River in the late winter and early spring.  Flocks of tens or even hundreds of thousands of birds are frequently seen, resembling huge white clouds of feathered chaos.  Except, of course, that chaos is not the right word since the geese seem incredibly adept at avoiding collisions as they swirl up and down between earth and sky.

Although it was somewhat less impressive visually, another photo from the same cameras showed two bigger white birds in our wetland a few weeks earlier.  Trumpeter swans are rarely seen in our neighborhood, so it was a real treat to know they’d recognized our restored wetland as a good place to hang out.

Trumpeter swans on the restored Derr Wetland.  February 13, 2015

Trumpeter swans on the restored Derr Wetland. February 13, 2015

We can’t (unfortunately) be out at the wetland every minute of the day, so we miss a lot of action. Even though our timelapse cameras only fire once an hour, it’s amazing how much we can learn from them.

(Thanks, as always, to Moonshell Media for their help with our timelapse project.)

Media Coverage of Our Restoration Work

Our friends at Platte Basin Timelapse (PBT) created a very nice radio piece about our restoration work that aired on NET Radio (Nebraska Educational Telecommunications) today.   The link below includes that audio, along with a transcript and short video of our staff harvesting, mixing, and planting seed.  You can also see video of me describing what we’re doing and why.

It’s always difficult to distill the complexities of land management and restoration into sound bites and video clips, but this was a very good description of our work.  I really appreciate the time and consideration that Ariana Brocious, Peter Stegen, and others at PBT put into this project.

If you’re interested, you can see and hear the story HERE.

Ariana Brocious (with headphones) and Pete Stegen (green coat) collect audio and video footage as we prepare to overseed a degraded prairie back in January of this year.

Ariana Brocious (with headphones) and Pete Stegen (green coat) collect audio and video footage as we prepare to overseed a degraded prairie in January of this year.