We woke up on our last day in Ucross to a September snowstorm! On our way to the airport with Mike Latham, we came upon two battling male pronghorn antelope! Unfazed by our presence, they fought for dominance just a couple dozen feet from us. Stay tuned for the exciting conclusion!
Ambika and Charlie set up a number of mobile acoustic recording stations around the ranch during the last two weeks of September. Our five homemade units were distributed for sunrise to sunset recording in riparian and sagebrush habitats. Many bird calls to come!
Panorama shot from a high point in the West Skeet Range pasture. Not perfect stitching, but gives one a sense of general topography on the ranch. The valley and cottonwoods in the left of the photo are at Shady Lane, and the Bighorn mountains can be just made out behind the glare of the sun.
Leafy spurge, one of the priority invasive species on the ranch, goes through a number of morphological changes throughout the growing season. We found a single site last week with spurge displaying colors commonly found at three distinct times during the summer: June (bright green on the left), July (green with yellowing leaves in the Read more about Leafy spurge rainbow[…]
Needless to say, there’s a lot of beautiful open space on the Ucross Ranch. Spending time there, one begins to feel at home under the grandeur of the “big sky”. As Mike Latham expresses, “it really gets into your blood”. But the open space is truly full of character — both naturally existing and added Read more about Traffic signs of Ucross[…]
Following up on our last post, here’s a close up of ‘needle and thread’. As you can see, the common name for this plant very poetically describes its structure! The tips of the seeds are truly quite prickly (just like a sewing needle)!
Back in Ucross for some Fall field work! Devin points out ‘needle and thread’ (Hesperostipa comata) – a common (and sought-after) native grass – to our colleague Ambika Khadka and professor Chad Oliver.
Pronghorn antelope running along the truck at sunrise yesterday. Not the best quality, but enjoy!
Sewing covers for the external microphones on the ARU’s.
Charlie has been hard at work building a set of five homemade acoustic recording units (ARU’s). These units consist of a high capacity Olympus digital recorder wired to 4 rechargeable D-cell batteries, housed in a waterproof Pelican case, and connected to an external weatherproof stereo microphone. The ARU’s will be deployed around the ranch between Read more about Building acoustic recording units[…]
More traffic at the Clear Creek bridge in the 1950’s! Many thanks to Mike Latham for these historic photos.
Before the completion of Interstate 90, Wyoming State Routes 14 and 16 were the primary corridors for travel from the east coast for tourists heading to Yellowstone, and east-west truck commerce. As more and more cars hit the road in the mid 20th century, demand increased along these isolated state highways for amenities – gas Read more about Early days at Ucross[…]
Check out the Yellowstone traffic backed up at the intersection of 14 and 16 at Ucross in the 1950’s. This is what things were like in the summers before I-90!
We’ve been playing around with a number of methods for sharing our spatial data. Star has been working with CartoDB – an open-source, cloud-based, spatial database – for some of his urban planning work. Check out this map of pastures and watering holes at Ucross. The delineation of pastures and watering holes was one of Read more about Default title[…]
The sand hill crane is a common resident of Wyoming during summer breeding seasons. These elegant birds have distinct vocalizations that can be heard from miles away. Sand hill cranes nest in open grasslands, meadows, wetland, and riparian areas. We’ve seen a number of breeding pairs around the ranch, including many with small offspring! http://www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/sandhill_crane/lifehistory