Tag: wildlife

Wildlife Camera Spring 2023

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Bobcat

April 7 through May 2, 2023

My Vertebrate Biology students deployed a wildlife camera on April 7th, which I retrieved on May 20. Water was flowing in the creek throughout the entire deployment. The only unfortunate thing is that I must have set the photo resolution too high, as my 2GB memory card ran out of space on May 2. But even so, I was excited to see the variety of wildlife that we caught on the camera. This entry features just some of my favorite shots. All my wildlife camera photos (from 2016 to present) can be found on wildlifeinsights.org.

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Natural History Illustration

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Earlier this year, I completed an online certificate through the University of Newcastle, Australia: “NHI101x: Drawing Nature, Science, and Culture: Natural History Illustration 101.”

I thoroughly enjoyed this 6-week course, and it genuinely helped me improve my illustration skills. Partly due to the techniques we learned and practiced, but possibly more important, by boosting my confidence as I worked through the assignments successfully. I am wholly satisfied with my progress, and am already planning to take another course in illustration in January (this time, focusing specifically on digital artwork).

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Ecosystem Exploration

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This week, I’m using some Virtual Field materials in one of my classes (Ecosystem Exploration: https://thevirtualfield.org/virtual…/ecosystem-exploration).

In addition to the questions provided with the videos, I’m going to ask them to do some additional field journaling, including sketches. Here are the two I drew as examples (based on the Mojave Desert video), to give them some inspiration. (They aren’t expected to render things as completely as the tortoise, but the level of detail in the plant illustration should be doable by everyone).

As an aside, I think that Gopherus agassizii was the first scientific name I ever learned. My parents had hand towels with these tortoises (along with the name). Wow. It’s not actually too surprising that I’m such a nerd.

Wildlife on Copeland Creek

- Wendy St. John Leave a comment

On Saturday, March 25th, SSU collaborated with the California Conservation Corps’ Watership Stewardship Program to start work on our riparian restoration project (more details about the work we did on Saturday coming soon). One of the side benefits of working alongside the creek is encountering some of the wildlife that shares the campus with us. Here are a few of the highlights of our day . . .

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Animals of Our Creeks, Rivers, and Marshes

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Had an amazing evening with some of the folks at the Sonoma Land Trust – They graciously invited me to speak as part of their 40th anniversary speaker’s series, and I gave a talk on wildlife in freshwater habitats in Sonoma County. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!

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What a great audience . . . they were engaged, and they laughed at my stupid jokes (hahaha), and then they asked me nearly an hour’s worth of questions after I finished my presentation. Really grateful for this opportunity to talk about some of the cool critters we have living in our local waters! (And I learned loads of stuff from them, as well . . . it was a wonderfully well-informed bunch of people). The SLT folks were all really wonderful, too. *hugs* SO MUCH FUN!!!!

Fairfield Osborn Kelly Pond

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Field trip to the Fairfield Osborn Preserve, with A Watershed Year freshman experience class. I hiked up to Kelly Pond with a group of students so they could collect field data for a research project. It’s quite a hike up to the pond, which is near the northern end of the preserve. Covered with Azolla, the pond is a peaceful and lovely place to visit. 

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Baby King Snake

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Few things feel better than a hot shower after three days in the field. It was a good three days, though. Found a total of eight turtles, and the most adorable baby king snake ever. I have never seen a king snake this small before; it was SO TINY AND SO PRECIOUS and really chill about being handled. So beautiful. I’m going to keep checking this location every time I go by; hopefully I’ll be able to see this precious baby again. Photos taken in Lake County, California.