Critter Chat

Critter Chat hosts Marney Blair and Susan Brandt interview the program director and biologist of Wolf Creek Community Alliance, Kristen Hein Strohm. Listeners will hear about the Wolf Creek watershed and some of the critters that call Wolf Creek their home.With its diverse assemblage of plants and animals, Wolf Creek begins above Grass Valley, California, flows through the city, turns roughly south, and eventually joins the Bear River at Nevada County’s southern border. The Nisenan have several names for each part of the creek for which they’ve enjoyed for thousands of years. The Gold Rush and urban development has brought challenges to the creek.Wolf Creek has inspired many artists and in this episode of Critter Chat will feature local composer Alexis Alrich and her The Wolf Creek Anthem. Sections of Alrich’s beautiful orchestration aurally describe this very special body of water for listeners. Critter Chat is written and produced by Marney Blair and Susan Brandt and edited with KVMR news director Claudio Mendonca. Critter Chat was awarded the 2024 Jody Fenimore Excellence in Public Affairs and Community Service Programming by KVMR. See critterchat.org for more information.Photo: Wolf Creek near North Star Mine, by Susan Brandt

Celebrate World Aquatic Animal Day Get to Know Your Local Riffle Sculpins Raise your hand if you’ve heard of the Riffle Sculpin! This local bottom-dwelling fish is a mystery to many, but these fish can be found all over the rivers and streams of the Sierra. This prehistoric-looking fish fascinates those who study them - why are they important? Get to know this local aquatic animal - a great way to celebrate World Aquatic Animal Day which is recognized worldwide on April 3.Scientists featured in this episode of Critter Chat help explain the many variations of this fish, how they co-exist with rainbow trout and what they have to tell us about the diverse waters of the Sierra and beyond. On this show, listeners have a special treat in hearing current research about these fish from Rob Leidy, Board President, Friends of Sausal Creek, Oakland, CA; Ecologist, Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California, Berkeley; and Gregory A. Giusti, Forests & Wildland Ecology Advisor- Emeritus, UC Cooperative Extension, University of California Department of Agriculture and Natural ResourcesSchool teachers are encouraged to use Critter Chat for their students with teaching notes that include vocabulary words like “riffle” and “salmonids.”Critter Chat is locally written and produced by Marney Blair and Susan Brandt. Each episode features one species of the many critters that live in the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains. Critter Chat was recently awarded the 2024 Jody Fenimore Excellence in Public Affairs and Community Service Programming by KVMR. See critterchat.org for more information. Image credit: Riffle Sculpin, American River, California, 2010 © Lisa C. Thompson

Critter Chat Celebrates the Year of the Snake with the California Mountain KingsnakeStarting the 2025 season having recently won KVMR’s prestigious Award for Excellence in Public Affairs and Community Service Programming, Critter Chat hosts and producers Marney Blair and Susan Brandt celebrate the Year of the Snake with the king of snakes, the California Mountain Kingsnake. Found in the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, these snakes are as beautiful as they are important to the ecology of a thriving wildlife environment. Guests on the show include:Emily Taylor, professor of Biological Sciences, California Polytechnic State University; director of Physiological Ecology of Reptiles Laboratory; and author of California Snakes and How to Find Them; Kevin Wiseman, biologist and scientific illustrator with the Department of Herpetology at the California Academy of Sciences, where he leads the workshop Reptiles and Amphibians of the Sierra Nevada.Jeannie Wood, executive director of the Community Asian Theatre of the Sierra (CATS) and host of the Chinese Lunar New Year Celebration “Year of the Snake" in Nevada City, California.As storytellers of Sierra Nevada wildlife, Blair and Brandt offer school teachers and community groups Critter Chat for their students and constituents with podcasts freely available. Also available are teaching notes with vocabulary words and concepts for each show, such as “talus” and “skull morphology” to learn about snakes.See critterchat.org for more links to California Mountain Kingsnake resources.Critter Chat is written and produced by Marney Blair and Susan Brandt and edited with Claudio Mendonca at KVMR. Each episode features one species of the many species that live in the Sierra Nevada foothills and mountains. Attached image credit: California Mountain Kingsnake photo © Gary Nafis

In Critter Chat episode 8, hosts Marney Blair and Susan Brandt chat with Dr. David Herbst of the Sierra Streams Institute at Little Deer Creek in Pioneer Park in Nevada City as he dredged up an aquatic critter living in the sediment of the stream, a little dragonfly nymph. While we spend many hours of our lives pondering the agile aerial flyer that is the dragonfly, we rarely get to see the early stages of the dragonfly nymph which spends years developing underwater, molting 5-10 times, and eventually emerging to become the enchanting creature we see in the air. Dr. Herbst gives us lots of information about the intriguing lives of these little critters and their stream habitat. This nymph in particular, will become the elusive dragonfly, the Grappletail Dragonfly. With cryptic coloring and secretive manner, this dragonfly is very successful as an apex predator in both aquatic and aerial phases, eating insects, mating and lasting only til the end of the warm seasons of a year. In the second half of the show, we hear from experts, Greg Kareofelas of the Bohart Museum of Entomology; and UC Davis PhD candidate Christofer Brothers, who specializes in the predatory nature of the dragonflies, about what is unique about this particular Grappletail Dragonfly.School teachers are encouraged to use Critter Chat for their students. Susan and Marney are developing teaching notes that include vocabulary words such as “teneral” and “metamorphosis” to bring concepts to students. Critter Chat airs on KVMR the first Wednesday of every month at 6:30-7:00pm. The Grappletail dragonfly episode will broadcast on Wednesday, November 6 at 6:30pm. See critterchat.org for podcast available the day of the show and more links to Grappletail Dragonfly resources.Photo: Grappletail Dragonfly, courtesy Greg Kareofelas, Bohart Museum of Entomology, UC Davis

A survivor of six ice ages, the Sierra Nevada Bighorn Sheep, with populations documented living 300,000 years ago, is now on the endangered species list. These majestic animals struggle on in small numbers, braving the highest peaks and harshest winters in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountains. What do we know about these herds of hidden mountaineers? What are the experts saying as to their populations and health? Photo: Steve Yeager

Join Marney and Susan as the get to know bumblebees and the Western Bumble Bee. Photo: Western Bumble Bee, Jeremy Gatten, US Fish & WildlifeThanks to our guests on the show:Helen Loffland, a Meadow Bird Specialist, she received her B.S. in Wildlife Biology from the University of California Davis, and her M.S. in Biology from California State University Sacramento. She has spent the last 20 years studying Willow Flycatchers and other meadow birds, raptors, carnivores, insects, plants, and fish, primarily in the Sierra Nevada. Kristen Hein Strohm, programs director, Wolf Creek Community Alliance, is a wildlife biologist with 25 years of professional experience in field biology, habitat restoration, education, and watershed planning, including leading development of the community-based Bear River Watershed Restoration Plan, of which Wolf Creek restoration is a part. Steve Reynolds, a bee lover since childhood, a short time spent as an adult keeping honeybees. Currently mostly interested in native bees.

Known as the "clown of the forest," the Acorn Woodpecker is an essential species in the Oak and Pine forests of the Sierra Nevada mountains and foothills. In this show we will talk with some experts who teach us some great information about these beautiful birds.Photo: Acorn woodpecker (Melanerpes formicivorus bairdi) holding a nut in its beak on the campus of California State University, Chico. © Frank SchulenburgThanks to our guests on the show:Nancy Barbachano, a 25 year veteran of bird rehabilitation, Nancy has rehabilitated hundreds of birds as well as teaching and advising the wider rehabilitation community. She has worked with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology on an important study about the release of rehabilitated Acorn Woodpeckers and contributed to Hand-Rearing Birds edited by Rebecca S. Duerr, Laurie J. Gage.Nathan Pieplow, teaches first-year writing and rhetoric, an upper-division writing course for engineers and science majors, and an upper-division writing course on the rhetoric of humor. Nathan has been fascinated by birds since his childhood in South Dakota, and has intensively studied bird sounds since 2003. He authored the Peterson Field Guide to Bird Sounds Western North AmericaLinda Tuttle-Adams, is a biologist and wildlife artist. She works as a wildlife rehabilitator and as an advocate for conservation of wildlife through public education. Linda is also a talented artist, creating over four hundred original watercolor paintings and an illustrated glossary for her seminal book: Baby Bird Identification, an invaluable resource for wildlife rehabilitators, those who find baby birds in their yards or recreational places, and anyone who enjoys watching or studying birds in the wild.Our thanks to the Audubon Society and the Cornell Lab of Ornithology for Acorn Woodpecker sound recordings.References & Resources:eBird, a project of Cornell Lab of OrnithologyWhy Do Woodpeckers Like To Hammer On Houses? And What Can I Do About It? , The Cornell Lab of Ornithology.Story of Woody Woodpecker inspiration and more. Birdnote, October 14, 2020.Walter Koenig, University of California, Berkeley | UCB · Museum of Vertebrate Zoology Ph.D. Fungal communities associated with acorn woodpeckers and their excavationsArticle Apr 2022 Michelle A. Jusino Natasha D.G. Hagemeyer Mark T Banik[...] Eric L Walters. "Wood-decay fungi soften wood, putatively providing opportunities for woodpeckers to excavate an otherwise hard substrate..."