The big earthmovers are rolling again at Lee Vining Airport this week, even though the runway is newly flattened and paved and new lighting is nearly complete. Their goal now is to remedy one of the major unexpected consequences of the runway rehabilitation project: an obtrusive 10-acre material stockpile located beyond the north end of the runway.

Material is being relocated to the oversized drainage ditch on the west side of the runway. Photo by Geoff McQuilkin.

The height and size of the stockpile raised substantial concerns from local residents, visitors, and the Mono Lake Committee due to the impacts on (more…)

Researcher Sacha Heath looks for insects on a "control" cottonwood.

Last week, I followed Sacha Heath down the Lee Vining Creek trail (and across the frigid stream, in my sneakers) to help count Lilliputians that live in trees. Sacha directed the Point Reyes Bird Observatory research in the MonoBasin for many years, but this season, for her Master’s thesis at Humboldt State University, she’s studying the impact foraging birds have on populations of herbivorous arthropods—i.e. plant-munching bugs—in cottonwoods. Bugs affect the growth of trees, of course, and Sacha picked the Mono Basin as her research location not only because she has an unparalleled knowledge of its riparian communities, but also because it’s a restoration setting—here, new growth is at a premium. The goal of the study is to assess ‘”the ecological service” birds likely provide. (more…)

Have you ever seen a wild bird that looks like a cross between a chicken and a turkey? A churkey? A ticken? Well, I haven’t either … but I have seen Sage-Grouse! Sage-Grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) is the largest grouse in North America, where it is known as the Greater Sage-Grouse. Sage-Grouse are, in fact, related to chickens and turkeys because they belong to the same taxonomic order of “Galliformes.” They range in length from 31 centimeters (12 inches) to 95 cm (37 in), and tend to weigh from 0.3 kilograms (11 ounces) to 6.5 kg (14 pounds).

Greater Sage-Grouse. Photo courtesy of Joe Fuhrman.

Adults have a long, pointed tail and feathers from their bodies to their toes. Adult males have a yellow patch over the eye, are greyish on top with a white breast, a dark brown throat and a black belly. Adult females are mottled grey-brown with a light brown throat and dark belly. (more…)

The Bodie Hills, just north of Mono Lake, are a spectacular place that are receiving attention as a possible area for National Monument designation. Discussions are quite preliminary, but the Los Angeles Times has a nice article, video, and photo set reviewing the 14 locations up for consideration by the Interior Department—look for the Bodie Hills feature and Lee Vining locals in the video!

LA Times: National monuments? Maybe they will be

After I finished my day’s data collections of stream flows for Mill Creek, I took the time to explore the Mill Creek bottomlands and the Black Point Marsh at the lakeshore. I eagerly hiked down the stream, bushwhacking through sagebrush, stopping to closely observe wildflowers, and frequently crossing the creek to observe curious Killdeer through my borrowed binoculars. Suddenly, completely out of the blue, I stepped onto the pumice sand of the beach and I was in a new world.

Where Mill Creek's water meets Mono Lake.

Not only had I had never seen Mono Lake from this angle, but following the trickle of Mill Creek water into the lake gave my weekly flow measurements and data collections new meaning. I am monitoring (more…)

The California Gull breeding grounds northeast of Negit Island in Mono Lake.

Last July, in a chicken-wire fenced plot on an islet known as Little Tahiti, California Gull banders Kristie Nelson and Nora Livingston spotted one notable adult gull among the masses. It had both a white plastic band and a metal ID band above its ankle, on the “drumstick” part of its leg (though that may be an unsavory description). Odd, they thought, no one bands that part of the leg these days.  Kristie, who has headed up the gull banding on Mono Lake’s islets since 2005, remembered seeing this distinctive bird in the same corner of this particular study plot during other seasons, too. She suspected it was an old bird and knew that, in early banding days on Mono Lake, researchers had placed colored bands—white, say—on chicks from different  islets.

The banding scene on the Mono Lake islets is well-described as calm and collected chaos. While the adult gulls scream bloody cacophony, two banders, including Kristie, sit on overturned crates, sheets spread across their laps like aprons. Then, brave assistants such as Nora (more…)

Now available on the Mono Basin Clearinghouse are documents pertaining to the construction of the Mono Basin extension of the Los Angeles Aqueduct:

Map of the LA Aqueduct facilities from Lee Vining Intake to West Portal
A 4.3 megabyte download, this high-resolution JPG file shows the control stationing and original names of most of the features of the Mono Basin portion of the LA Aqueduct. Click on the image at right to enlarge, or click on the link above to download the full map.

1933 Map of Mono Basin property ownership, hydrographic stations, wells, test holes, gages, and streams
A 2.4 megabyte download, this high-resolution PDF file shows the Mono Basin as of 1933. Included on the map are (more…)

by Julia Runcie and Hannah Doherty

Normally when the two of us head down to Rush Creek on Tuesday afternoons it’s an easy wade through ankle-deep water to reach the eastern bank. We hike through a willow thicket to a very old and overgrown utility road, and then the hunt begins for the six piezometers, or groundwater gauges, that hide in the brush on either side of the trail. At each piezometer we extend a tape measure deep into the throat of a PVC pipe until it hits water, and we record the depth. It’s often a struggle even to catch sight of the pool at the base of each pipe. But last week was different. (more…)

Water cascades over the Lundy Lake Reservoir spillway on its way down Mill Creek to Mono Lake. Photo by Sarah Melcher.

I grabbed the flow meter and eagerly drove out to Lundy Canyon, where our beloved Mill Creek runs in its complicated course to Mono Lake. As the intern assigned to monitor Mill Creek this summer, I got to be one of the first people to see Lundy Lake Reservoir spill into the usually less-than-full creek bed.

Typically, Mill Creek is diverted at Lundy Lake to the SCE power plant. Some of that water is then diverted for delivery to water rights holders, but (more…)

We’ve just posted Lee Vining weather data for June 2010 on the Mono Basin Clearinghouse. It was a windy June, with an average wind speed of 4.7 mph–the highest average wind speed since 2001’s 5.1 mph (2005 came close with 4.6 mph). The maximum wind speed of 47 mph was unremarkable.

It was also warm at night in June. The lowest minimum  temperature of 37.6 F was the highest since 2003’s 40.6 F (unofficial data). The average minimum temperature (more…)