owyhee avalanche

Sage-grouse habitat tour planned

A Boise State University biology professor will lead a habitat restoration tour in the Owyhees next Wednesday.
The Owyhee County Sage-grouse Local Working Group announced the field trip recently. The event is open to the public.
Participants must bring hiking shoes, warm and wet weather gear, a chair and umbrella, a lunch, and water to stay hydrated.
Participants should also bring ideas on community collaborations to move forward post-fire restoration and resource monitoring.
The field trip will meet at 9 a.m., at the M&W Market parking lot in Marsing. The meet-up to start the tour is planned for 9:45 a.m., near the Rockville study site on Sands Basin Road (coordinates 43.3478, -116.9487).
At 10 a.m., the group will view a plant as a sage-grouse would using UV lights and blinds.
Local plants and reseeding plants will also be collected at the burn edge.
The second stop at noon will be for lunch and experiments such as diet selection using UV lights, studying diet quality using particle size and studying habitat quality using chukar dissections.
If there is enough time, participants will practice “seeing” like a bird at the common garden during a third stop between 2 p.m., and 4 p.m.