Water & Birds!

Well, at Gretchen's invitation I launch my initial foray into the blogeshpere. Hope it proves of interest to those who read.

Water has been the focus that has brought together a very disparate aggregation of somewhat strange "bedfellows" in the concerted effort to ensure that the very life blood we all depend on is not taken. Some places like Fish Springs need water to ensure that the charge to provide for wildlife that we have been given by Congress can be met. Some need water for cattle or farming operations and we all need to have water come out of the tap when we turn it on. Regardless of where you are on this spectrum, we can't do those basic things that are critical to our respective life and job descriptions if the water is gone.

For nearly all of the Snake Valley residents, as has sure been the case for me, this process has been quite an education. I was not versed in geology, geohydrology, Utah and Nevada water law, or a whole host of other things I have had to learn to lead the charge to ensure the Refuge's water continues to provide the critical wildlife habitat here. I did have some limited concept of this thing we all now call the Regional flow system but never really had much of a concept regarding how much flow the various basins provided. The recent work and best "hydrological speculation" by the Utah Geological Survey and the results of the BARCASS study were a real eye opener. If you had asked me two years ago, I would have told you that I thought we got most of the flow to our springs from the east slope of the Deep Creek Range. If the current hydrological experts are correct in their speculation, boy was I wrong! It appears that only about about 1/8 of our total outflow volume comes from the Deep Creek Range while about half comes to us from the more southern portion of the Snake Valley north of US 50 and the remainder comes to us via the Fish Springs Flat and is a result of flow fed from the Whirlwind, Wah Wah, and Pine Valleys!

As a land manager and wildlife professional, I also have great concerns about the wetlands of the Snake Valley in this process. Aside from many being very critical habitat for least chub and spotted frog, they are also vital to the biodiversity of the valley. One does not have to spend too much time in the Snake Valley to see that springs and their associated wetlands are a minuscule portion of the land area. These sites are vital habitat for an amazing array of migratory and resident critters. Any reduction in their area and health will have a disproportional impact on the Valley's biodiversity and that would be a real tragedy.

On a different note, we have just completed our annual Audubon Christmas Bird count here at the Refuge. For those not familiar with this massive North American effort, it is sponsored each year by the National Audubon Society and includes thousands of counts in every state and even in Canada and South and Central America! All of this takes place in a thee week period wrapped around Christmas. Both Great Basin National Park and Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge sponsor counts.

The object is to count all the species and total number of birds in a circle of some 15 miles in diameter in one 24 hour period! Quite an undertaking and one that requires a good cadre of volunteer counters to be successful. For our count at Fish Springs we had 16 dedicated individuals who braved a low temperature of 4 and only a high of 18 to help out.

These counters and thier efforts are often referred to as "citizen science." The vast majority of those involved are not biologist but rather folks who have varying degrees of ability to identify birds but all have a passion for "bird watching." They collectively, at the national and even international level, accomplish what no level of effort or organization among biologist could do. This massive survey effort results in a hemispheric "snapshot" in time of our wintering bird populations and the resulting trend data that has been generated over the years has been of enormous value. The Christmas Bird Count effort has been going on and growing for 108 years so collectively a lot of great data has been generated. The first red flag that waved for many of our bird species that are now the focus of fmany federal, state, and regional conservation agencies and international and local conservation organizations came from Christmas Count data which showed declining wintering populations trend for some species. For more information on these counts and how you can participate in your area go to http://www.audubon.org/ .

In our Fish Springs count we noted 50 different species of birds and a total of 4,420 individual birds. The vast majority of those were closely associated with our thermal springs in this very cold weather. They depend on that open water for the basic life requirements to get through the winter. Let's hope that it can forever remain so.