The
windows look out from the basement of our Fish Observation Building into a controlled
segment of the actual Sagehen Creek main stream channel.
The
fish you are watching are mostly native & endangered Lahontan Cutthroat Trout
(Oncorhynchus (=Salmo) clarki henshawi). You may also see some smaller
Brook, Brown & Rainbow trout. If the water is cloudy, it's either raining
or snow is melting & run off is high. If there are human legs in the windows,
it's glass cleaning day!
More information
about:
LCTs
Virginia
Boucher & Peter Moyle's research project abstract for these particular fish
Science films made in the Sagehen Fish Observation
facility (some titles available at the Truckee Public Library).
 |
Click for periodic updates about the fish & other Sagehen happenings. |
|
Spring... Stream-flow increases, water temperatures rise & fish reactivate as food becomes
available. In a wet year, this can be well into June but will more often be May.
Dark
spots on windows are snails or caddis, mayfly & stonefly nymphs. Shiny cylinders
in channel are water temperature data loggers (not beer cans!). You will begin
to see groups of visitors in the observation chamber. |
 |
| Summer... Fish are active & appear before the windows in great numbers. Watch
for the appearance of an American Dipper that nests on the building above the
channel--she frequently swims in the stream & her nestlings toss their egg
shells & white castings into the water. |
 |
Fall... The stream bed accumulates a layer of golden willow leaves & brook
trout spawn in the gravel beds in front of the glass windows during the day.
See
a video clip (12.4M) of spawning Brook trout highlights from the film Reproductive
behavior of the brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis), by R. L. Butler and V.
M. Hawthorne. |
 |
| Winter... During winter months the surface freezes & anchor ice forms on the
channel bottom; trout are sluggish & rarely seen, so we don't often get into
the frigid water to clean the windows. |
 |
|
|
|
2003.
The Regents of the University of California