Posts tagged birds
CU men’s golfs team in sixth at NCAA Central Regional
May 16th
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — The University of Colorado men’s golf team opened strong here Thursday in the NCAA Central/Fayetteville Regional, with the Buffaloes in sixth place and definitely in contention for a top five finish and the berth into the NCAA Finals that comes with it.
No. 33 Illinois leads the pack with a 6-under 282 score, thanks to the efforts of two true freshmen that combined to go 11 strokes under what some call the “happy side of par.” No. 4 Texas is second (285), followed by No. 11 Oklahoma State (286), No. 22 Kent State (288) and No. 12 and host Arkansas (290).
The Buffaloes, ranked No. 58 by GolfStat and No. 67 by Golfweek, turned in a 4-over 292 to stand in sixth. No. 20 SMU is five back of CU, with the remaining seven teams in the field all at 300 or higher.
The top five teams out of 14 competing will advance to the NCAA Finals, set for May 28-June 2 in Atlanta, Ga., as will the top two individuals not associated with the five teams that qualify.
The four Buffs who contributed to the team score made the turn at 1-over; they had a collective hiccup on the first four holes on the front side (4-over), but played the last five at 1-under. The end result was Colorado placing four in the top 25 through 18 holes, matched only by Texas, Oklahoma and Arkansas, three of the nation’s top 12 teams.
“It was definitely a good start, which we chalk up to our primary focus today being was to be patient and have a great attitude,” head coach Roy Edwards said. “The guys were phenomenal with that. I’m really proud of them, and that’s really the main reason we enjoyed a solid round.
“We need to do the same thing for tomorrow,” he continued. “That’s to be patient, take it one shot at a time. Right now, they’re only thinking about their first tee shot (Friday). You cannot get ahead of yourself here. It rained overnight and the course was really soft, so it played as easiest as it’s going to get today. The scores are likely not going to be as low, so the emphasis will be on the importance of being patient. That’s what we’ll stress.”
Sophomore David Oraee led the Buffaloes with a 1-under 71, which has him tied for ninth individually. He had a steady round with four birdies and 11 pars against three bogeys; the four birds tied for 10th most in the field. Playing to even par much of the round, he finished with birdies on Nos. 7 and 9 with a bogeys sandwiched in-between to get it into red numbers on the 7,251-yard, par-72 The Blessings Golf Club course layout.
Freshman Philip Juel-Berg continued his stellar rookie season, posting a 1-over 73, which has him tied for 20th. He had three birdies, 11 pars and four bogeys on his day, as he made the turn at 3-over but played the front side at 2-under, thanks to birds on Nos. 6 and 9. There are 14 freshmen in the field; Juel-Berg finished currently is seventh among them, with three of the six ahead of him recording even-par rounds of 72.
CU’s No. 1 player and stroke average leader, senior Jason Burstyn, fashioned a 2-over 74, tying him for 25th; he had four birdies like Oraee, along with nine pars, four bogeys and one double. The latter came on No. 6, a 418-yard, par-4 that played as the day’s fourth toughest hole; that pushed him to 4-over on the day, but he bounced back and closed with birdies on Nos. 7 and 9.
Senior Derek Fribbs also shot a 74, with three birdies and 11 pars against three bogeys and a double. He got off to one of the hot starts of the day, standing 3-under after he birdied Nos. 12, 13 and 15 – a par-5, a par-4 and a par-3, respectively – but came back down to Earth with bogeys on No. 17 and then on Nos. 1 and 4. He was cruising along at even par until his final hole of the day, the 535-yard, par-5 No. 9, where he doubled after hitting his drive into a hazard. It was his first double bogey in six rounds.
“I was hitting it in their close and utilizing the slopes,” Fribbs said of his start. “But after a while, the putts weren’t falling. I still had opportunities on the back nine, I just couldn’t make any putts to take full advantage of things. The course played a little easier today than expected because you could hold your shots better than we thought, but we also had good course management today.”
Junior Johnny Hayes shot an 8-over 80, tying him for 60th, as he recorded two birdies and nine pars against five bogeys, a double and a triple. He scored the latter two in his first four holes to get to 5-over quickly, but settled down over the final 14 holes.
“Johnny had a rough start, but regrouped and then held it together pretty well for a bad start,” Edwards said. “For the most part, any time anyone made a mistake, they worked hard to make a bogey and nothing worse.”
Hayes certainly wasn’t alone in his struggles; the average score by the non-scorer for all 14 teams on Thursday was an 81.6; he actually tied for the fourth lowest as only three managed to break 80. Despite his troubles, he played the par-3 holes at a collective 1-under, tied for eighth best in the field.
Illinois freshman Charlie Danielson turned in the best round of the day to take the individual lead, as the 2012 Wisconsin state high school champion opened on the back nine and shot a 30, including five birdies over a seven hole span; he added two more birdies on the front side to finish with a 7-under 65. Freshmen dominated the top of the leaderboard Thursday, with Oklahoma State’s Jordan Niebrugge tied for second (67) and Illinois’ Thomas Detry fourth (68).
The field has been re-paired according to score for the second round; Colorado, the No. 10 seed here, will tee it up off the No. 1 tee beginning at 7:20 a.m. MDT with Kent State (No. 5 seed) and Arkansas (No. 2), who occupy the fourth and fifth spots ahead of the Buffs. The final round is set for a 7:50 a.m. start on Saturday.
CU media release
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CU study: Southwest regional warming likely cause of pinyon pine cone decline
Feb 12th
Creeping climate change in the Southwest appears to be having a negative effect on pinyon pine reproduction, a finding with implications for wildlife species sharing the same woodland ecosystems, says a University of Colorado Boulder-led study.
The new study showed that pinyon pine seed cone production declined by an average of about 40 percent at nine study sites in New Mexico and northwestern Oklahoma over the past four decades, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Miranda Redmond, who led the study. The biggest declines in pinyon pine seed cone reproduction were at the higher elevation research sites experiencing more dramatic warming relative to lower elevations, said Redmond of CU’s ecology and evolutionary biology department.
“We are finding significant declines in pinyon pine cone production at many of our study sites,” said Redmond. “The biggest declines in cone production we measured were in areas with greater increases in temperatures over the past several decades during the March to October growing season.”
The cones in which the pinyon seeds are produced are initiated two years prior to seed maturity, and research suggests the environmental stimulus for cone initiation is unseasonably low temperatures during the late summer, said Redmond. Between 1969 and 2009, unseasonably low temperatures in late summer decreased in the study areas, likely inhibiting cone initiation and development.
The study is one of the first to examine the impact of climate change on tree species like pinyon pines that, instead of reproducing annually, shed vast quantities of cones every few years during synchronous, episodic occurrences known as “masting” events. Redmond said such masting in the pinyon pine appears to occur every three to seven years, resulting in massive “bumper crops” of cones covering the ground.
In the new Ecosphere study, the researchers compared two 10-year sequences of time. In addition to showing that total pinyon pine cone production during the 2003-2012 decade had declined from the 1969-1978 decade in the study areas, the team found the production of cones during masting events also declined during that period.
Some scientists believe masting events evolved to produce a big surplus of nut-carrying cones — far too many for wildlife species to consume in a season — making it more likely the nuts eventually will sprout into pinyon pine seedlings, she said. Others have suggested masting events occur during favorable climate conditions and/or to increase pollination efficiency. “Right now we really don’t know what drives them,” Redmond said.
“Across a range of forested ecosystems we are observing widespread mortality events due to stressors such as changing climate, drought, insects and fire,” said CU’s Barger. “This study provides evidence that increasing air temperatures may be influencing the ability of a common and iconic western U.S. tree, pinyon pine, to reproduce. We would predict that declines in pinyon pine cone production may impact the long-term viability of these tree populations.”
Wildlife biologists say pinyon-juniper woodlands are popular with scores of bird and mammal species ranging from black-chinned hummingbirds to black bears. A 2007 study by researchers at the University of Northern Arizona estimated that 150 Clark’s Nutcrackers cached roughly 5 million pinyon pine nuts in a single season, benefiting not only the birds themselves but also the pines whose nuts were distributed more widely for possible germination.
For the new study, Redmond revisited nine pinyon pine study sites scattered throughout New Mexico and Oklahoma that had been studied previously in 1978 by Forcella. Both Forcella and Redmond were able to document pinyon pine masting years by counting small, concave blemishes known as “abscission scars” on individual tree branches that appeared after the cones have been dropped, she said.
Since each year in the life of a pinyon pine tree is marked by a “whorl” — a single circle of branches extending around a tree trunk — the researchers were able to bracket pinyon pine reproductive activity in the nine study areas for the 1969-1978 decade and 2003-2012 decade, which were then compared.
Pinyon pines take three growing seasons, or about 26 months, to produce mature cones from the time of cone initiation. Low elevation conifers including pinyon pines grow in water-limited environments and have been shown to have higher cone output during cool and/or wet summers, said Redmond. In addition to the climate-warming trend under way in the Southwest, the 2002-03 drought caused significant mortality in pinyon pine forests, Redmond said.
“Miranda’s ideas and accompanying results will be of value to ecologists and land managers in the deserts of the Southwest and beyond,” said Forcella, now a research agronomist in the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service. “The work is evidence that the University of Colorado continues to cultivate a cadre of high-caliber graduate students for which it rightfully can take tremendous pride.”
Pinyon nuts, the Southwest’s only commercial source of edible pine seeds today, were dietary staples of indigenous Americans going back millennia.
For more information on CU-Boulder’s ecology and evolutionary biology department visit http://ebio.colorado.edu.
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Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks begins seasonal bald eagle closures
Nov 5th
The City of Boulder Open Space and Mountain Parks (OSMP) Department has begun the seasonal bald eagle closures at the Kolb and Weiser properties (near 75th and Valmont) and Coal Creek area (east of Highway 93 near Marshall Lake). The areas were closed Thursday, Nov. 1, and will remain that way until July 31, 2013, or until nest monitoring indicates that the areas are OK to open.
Bald eagles generally return to these nesting sites in November. At this early stage of the mating season, the birds are assessing areas as potential nest sites, and disturbances may deter the birds from continuing to nest in these areas. OSMP thanks the community for respecting these closures.
For more information, visit the OSMP website at www.osmp.org or call 303-441-3440.
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