Want to see a bald eagle?

Today you're hearing from Sarah Nystrom, the
eagle coordinator for our region.

While many people think fall and spring migration or summer nesting season is prime time to spot this iconic bird, I suggest heading out now in search of this amazing experience.

Bald eagles, with their distinctive white head and dark body, can be easier to see in winter. Other birds can be harder to identify in their drab plumage.

Not to mention, it’s National Bald Eagle Watch Month! 

During the winter months, bald eagles tend to gather in areas that have a good food supply. A hungry eagle will eat just about anything that they can get their talons on. Fish are the majority of their diet when there is open water, but they will also prey on ducks and geese. Carrion, including deer carcasses, can be easier to find in the winter. Bald eagles may fly dozens of miles from one food source to another in winter, so a consistent source of food can be very important.

Best of 2012: 6) Safeguarding wildlife without borders

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

While the bird that sits on a rhino's back and cleans it of ticks and other insects is called the oxpecker, it's sometimes referred to as the “rhino’s guard.”

Black rhino male and calf in Mkhuze, South Africa.
The black rhino, as well as the Sumatran, Javan and Indian rhinos,
is protected as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and listed from critically
endangered to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. The only other species of rhino surviving
in the wild, the (southern and northern) white rhino, is listed on the Red List,
but only the northern white rhino is protected under the ESA.
Credit: Karl Stromayer/USFWS.

With poaching on the rise, the rhino needs more than these birds to protect it. And in February 2012, a major national U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service undercover law enforcement effort answered the call.

Best of 2012: 2) Recovering wildlife



New England cottontail at Great Bay National
Wildlife Refuge. Credit: New Hampshire Fish and Game.

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

Many threatened and endangered animals across the Northeast improved last year, and much of that progress is thanks to the many people working to recover and maintain healthy wildlife populations.

Gifts from nature: Farmers’ friends

American farmers have an unsung partner in bringing your holiday favorites to the table -- bats.

Bat hunting a moth. Credit: Bat Conservation International.

During this season of holiday giving, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would like to take time and reflect on the gifts we receive throughout the year from Mother Nature. Gifts of Nature are treasures to behold and wonders to be thankful for.

Gifts from nature: Healthy waters

She helps get it from forest to your faucet, but Mother Nature needs your help to continue providing clean water for people and wildlife. 

A project at Sedgeunkedunk Stream in Maine removed a dam and restored natural water functions. Credit: Meagan Racey/USFWS

 
During this season of holiday giving, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service would like to take time and reflect on the gifts we receive throughout the year from Mother Nature. Gifts of Nature are treasures to behold and wonders to be thankful for. 

Bringing bat science to life: Inspiring--and being inspired by--a budding biologist

Today you're hearing from Ann Froschauer, national white-nose syndrome communications coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

A few months ago, I was reading my daily news alerts about bats and white-nose syndrome, and I came across a story 
about a little girl who was in love with bats, and desperate to do something about white-nose syndrome. Miri, a seven year-old at the time, had been a bat lover since she was just a few years old, and had recently learned about WNS and research that the Boston University bat lab was doing to try to combat the disease. Miri wrote to Santa Claus last year, asking for his 
help in saving the bats, and decided that she wants to be a bat biologist when she grows up.

My heart melted- a mini-me! Although my interest in bats didn't really get going until I was a teenager, I felt like we might have a real window of opportunity to connect Miri to
 the thing she loved, and really inspire her to stay interested in science and bats. I immedately contacted my friend Nate 
Fuller in the BU bat lab and said "we have to get Miri out to see some bats and keep her excited about this!" Read the rest.

Bringing nature inside four walls

Today you're hearing from
Kristin Haider, one of
two AmeriCorps members working at our West
Virginia Field Office. 
She is finishing her master's degree in ecology from Penn State. Learn more about this AmeriCorps program.

Explore the inflatable bat cave. Watch a freshwater mussel lure fish. Stick your hand in a nature mystery box.

If you’d been with me over the past few months, you would
have had a chance to try all of these things.

This past September, I joined the team at the Service’s West Virginia Field Office as an AmeriCorps member. I was thrilled
to use my background in ecology and conservation, so I jumped right in and represented the Service at a number of outreach events this fall.

Needed: Batman-proof bat caves

Today you're hearing from
Eric Schrading, a biologist
in our New Jersey Field Office.
Read more from Eric.

Sure, some people either don’t understand or don’t like bats.

They make up fearful stories about bats and their habits and associate them with villainous creatures such as vampires. But let’s lay down some facts about these truly unique and wonderful creatures.

Bats are the world’s only flying mammals. They can consume nearly one-third their body weight of insects in less than half an hour (that’s a lot of agricultural and forest pests, mosquitoes, and stink bugs), and they are also one of the only animals that are associated with one of America’s most popular superheroes: Batman.

Big partnerships help even the smallest creatures

A unique union formed between a utility company, a land preserve and two government agencies has created an impressive opportunity for conservation in New York.

National Grid, an electric and gas conglomerate, owns and manages rights-of-way in the upstate Capital District that run through the Albany Pine Bush Preserve and contain patches of wild blue lupine and other wildflowers—a coveted habitat for some uncommon wildlife. While National Grid serves millions of people in New York, as of October, they started serving another, much smaller crowd. 

The company’s rights-of-way have become a favorite spot for two rare butterflies—the Karner blue and frosted elfin. The tiny, bright Karner blue and the brown frosted elfin butterflies thrive only in these open areas with the wild lupine plant, which is their primary food as caterpillars. 

Karner blue butterfly. Credit: J. and K. Hollingsworth.

Students take pride in contributing to turtle conservation

Today, wildlife biologist Stephanie Koch and four high school students share their reflections on raising and releasing rare Blanding’s turtles as part of an experimental head-starting program.

BLANDING'S TURTLE

This medium-sized freshwater turtle inhabits wetlands in parts of the upper Midwest, New York, New England and southern Canada. Throughout the Northeast, populations appear to be declining. More

Bristol County Agricultural High School students have partnered with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and others to help nurture Blanding’s turtles, considered threatened in Massachusetts, and later release them with a greater likelihood of survival at Assabet River National Wildlife Refuge in Sudbury, Mass.

The program, intended to establish a new population at the refuge, involves collecting hatchlings in the wild, raising them in captivity and releasing them back in the wild when the turtles are large enough to survive most predation. Head-start programs are one of many tools that the Service considers in the conservation of species like the Blanding's turtle.

Over the last three years, Bristol Aggie teacher Brian Bastarache and Stephanie have led students in releasing more than 150 turtles. This year's release was on May 23.

Improving a WV river's health by bringing back endangered mussels

Did you think we were through with freshwater mussels? Never! Hear from Barb Douglas, an endangered species biologist with our West Virginia Field Office, on an effort to save endangered mussels from a bridge project and bring them to several sites in other states, including West Virginia. A Pennsylvania biologist shared her perspective last month.

It was a beautiful autumn morning, a perfect day to be out on the Elk River, my favorite river in the state, and doing something I love: restoring populations of endangered mussels.

WATCH THE VIDEO

The WCHS-TV crew tagged along the day these endangered mussels were released. Check out the Healthy Mussels Means Health Rivers eyewitness webcast.

The Elk River has the highest diversity of fish and mussels of any watershed in West Virginia. It’s home to 100 types of fish and 30 types of freshwater mussels, including four endangered mussel species. Populations of many of these species have declined because of poor water quality in the river.

One of those endangered mussels, the northern riffleshell, hadn’t been seen here for almost 20 years. Fortunately, the Allegheny River in Pennsylvania still has a large northern riffleshell population, and our partners there were willing to allow us to transfer some of their mussels out of the path of a new highway bridge and into the Elk River, near an area where they historically occurred.