Critter Chat (Critter Chat)

Critter Chat Celebrates the Year of the Snake with the California Mountain Kingsnake

Starting 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 on February 23, 2025

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

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

Photo: © Annica Kreuter/Project Coyote

Join hosts Susan Brandt and Marney Blair as they chat about the incredibly beautiful, adaptable and clever coyotes that live amongst us in rural, suburban and urban areas. But how much do we really know about them? 

Guests on the show include:

Marc Bekoff, professor emeritus of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, and a former Guggenheim fellow. He has published more than a thousand scientific and popular essays and thirty books, including many books he co-authored with one of the world’s greatest conservationists Jane Goodall. His ground breaking work brings us the research to help us better understand coyotes. 

Shelly Covert is a spokesperson for the Nevada City Rancheria Nisenan Tribe who are direct, lineal descendants of the original indigenous people who inhabited Northern California thousands of years before the gold rush. Delight in her telling of the coyote/creator story and relating the many diverse characteristics of the coyote that reflect human morality and bring us important lessons to consider. 

School teachers are encouraged to use Critter Chat for their students. Blair and Brandt are developing teaching notes that include vocabulary words such as “diurnal” and conversations about the meaning of coyote vocalizations that include “yip howling.”

See critterchat.org for show notes and resources.

Naturalist, Author, Artist John Muir Laws and Biologist Ramiro Aragon 
Describe the Magnificence of The Great Gray Owl

Critter Chat hosts and producers Marney Blair and Susan Brandt are delighted to present this ninth episode featuring the Great Gray Owl - the largest owl in California and North America. But did you know a subspecies lives in the Sierra Nevada? 

In conjunction with the launch of John Muir Laws' new book, the second edition of Laws Guide to Sierra Birds featuring his painting of the Great Gray Owl on its cover, Critter Chat listeners get to hear directly from this author - a dynamic speaker and educator - about his observations of, and stories about this fantastic bird. 

In the second half of the show, biologist Ramiro Aragon of The Institute for Bird Populations, speaks to his direct experience gathering information about the owl’s behavior in the wild - quite special as this elusive bird, known at the “Ghost of the Forest” is very hard to find and observe.

School teachers are encouraged to use Critter Chat for their students. Blair and Brandt are developing teaching notes that include vocabulary words such as “snag” and “subspecies” to bring concepts to students. 

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. 

Want to learn how to draw owls? Check out this free, fun, and empowering 2-part owl drawing class taught by John Muir Laws! Free but registration required. $25 suggested donation to support the Wild Wonder Foundation, a nonprofit cofounded by John Muir Laws:
https://www.wildwonder.org/store/p/drawowls

To order a signed copy of the Laws Guide to Sierra Birds AND receive an exclusive bonus sticker of John Muir Laws’ beautiful Great Grey Owl illustration from the cover, visit
https://johnmuirlaws.com/product/the-laws-field-guide-to-sierra-birds/

BONUS: 25 lucky folks who order a signed copy of the book through John Muir Laws’ store (picked at random) will also receive a beautiful embroidered Critter Chat patch! 

Image credit: Great Grey Owl Illustration COPYRIGHT JOHN MUIR LAWS johnmuirlaws.com

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 Schulenburg

Thanks 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 America

Linda 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 Ornithology

Why 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 excavations
Article 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..."

The Sierra Newt, a charismatic, long-living amphibian found in the Sierra Nevada forests and streams, is the focus of the experts featured in this show. Learn about these amazing creatures, their movement, their living spaces and behavior.

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

Join Marney and Susan as the get to know bumblebees and the Western Bumble Bee.

Photo: Western Bumble Bee, Jeremy Gatten, US Fish & Wildlife

Thanks 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.

In 2023 the California legislature voted to make the Pallid bat (antrozous pallidus), the only flying mammal, a symbol of California. Bat biologist Dr. Dave Johnston has studied the Pallid bat for over 40 years and was the first to make the suggestion that this unusually golden-furred bat be the one to represent the Golden State. Then with the help of ninth grader and bat enthusiast, Naomi d’Alessio and wildlife advocates, they made a convincing argument noting the Pallid bats critical, beneficial role in California agriculture helping farmers manage insects without pesticides. In Modoc County alone, bats saved farmers $50 million by eating grasshoppers and significantly reducing the cost of pesticides. 

In November 2023, the charismatic Pallid bat was selected to join the other great state symbols: the California Grizzly bear, the California valley quail, and the California golden poppy.

In this episode of Critter Chat, hosts Marney Blair and Susan Brandt interview Dr. Johnston and Ms. d’Alessio as well as meet an actual Pallid bat that is in the care NorCal Bat rescue expert Corky Quirk. Why was this particular bat selected as the state bat? Why is it important to elevate the awareness of the health of bats in California? We discuss these questions with the experts bringing listeners a new found fondness for this little blonde beauty. 

School teachers are encouraged to use Critter Chat for their students. Blair and Brandt are developing teaching notes that include vocabulary words such as “echolocation” and “roosts” to bring concepts to students. 

Critter Chat airs on KVMR the first Wednesday of every month at 6:30-7:00pm. The Pallid bat episode will premiere on Wednesday, October 2 at 6:30pm. See critterchat.org for show notes and more links to Pallid bat resources.