Conservation Media’s photo, entitled Sage-grouse in Gas Country is one of thirty jury-selected photos for the 2012 Environmental Photography Exhibit at the American Mountaineering Museum February 24th.

Conservation Media is pleased to announce that we have picked up two, count ‘em, two Merit Awards from the 34th Annual International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, AND two Finalist Designations! There may be more Official Selections to come!

Our film Crossroads, embedded below, picked up a Merit Award for Conservation Message and a Merit Award for Made in Montana film, the home of the long-running, prestigious film festival.

More to come!

Conservation Media is happy to announce that our film Crossroads is a Finalist in the Public Service Announcement category at the 34th International Wildlife Film Festival in Missoula, Montana this May.

If you haven’t seen the film, you can see it below:

This is a short web film produced for Montana Audubon addressing the impact oil & gas development has on sage grouse, a species recently warranted by the USFWS as worthy of protection under the Endangered Species Act. This film includes interviews with David Sibley, Dave Naugle, and Amy Cilimburg.

You can view a small version of the film here for faster loading:

The end of April brings frigid mornings which usually give way to enough warmth to melt the drifted snow. The first sage thrashers perch atop the tallest sage and fill the dawn with endless melodies. From the obscurity of the low sage comes a mysterious thumping and popping, and we were there in the blind to film the source in 1080p HD with our new Canon 7D, and our batteries completely charged by the sun with our Brunton 14W SolarRoll.

We set up our blind, then went for a walk in the evening sun to catch some of the great light and shapes.

The light from these mornings is always perfect, although much posturing passes before the first light hits these magnificent birds and their bizarre display.

The first poppings came before dawn, around 5:45. It was a good thing we were in the blind and quiet by 3:00 a.m. or we we have scared them all off. These birds make a living by detecting the slightest odd movement.

Bingo! After a four hour wait, birds came within 20 feet of the blind, posturing to each other, completely unaware of our presence.

The footage we captured will go into our next production for Montana Audubon.

This is a quick demo of the sagegrouse stuff I filmed this April for MT Audubon. This will go into a larger piece which will be posted here as well as on the MT Audubon website at www.mtaudubon.org