Hello! This was my first week on the job, so I don’t have too many exciting stories yet. Most of my adventures thus far had to do with my drive from the midwest across the nation to Utah. It really is amazing how the sights change as you drive along. I’d have to say my favorite part was going through the Rockies. It was breathtaking!
The Rocky Mountains covered in snow.
Of course, I had to stop and see Arches National Park on my way to Cedar City. After seeing Delicate Arch on the welcome sign to Utah, I knew I had to see it in person.
Delicate Arch! The rock formation found on Utah’s license plates and welcome sign! A bit of a hike, but worth every step!
Cedar City is a great little town and even though I’ve only worked with the BLM for a week, I know it’s going to be amazing. The flora and fauna are almost completely different from back home, which is both overwhelming and exciting. There is just so much to learn and experience! As a wildlife technician, I’m going to be doing a lot of field work and identification. To help with that, we’re working on putting together a quick reference field guide to assist us when we find something new.
Putting together a quick reference guide by researching the wildlife we’re likely to see in the two counties we’ll be working out of.
We’ve also been doing a lot of reading up on the project sites we will be monitoring. Today was my first day out in the field. The station’s recreation officer took a fellow intern and I out and showed us the access roads so that we would be able to find all of our worksites.
We drove to the top of a trailhead we will be monitoring and the recreation officer helped us get an idea of where we would be working over the next few months.
We spent the day hiking the mountains looking for signs of wildlife and recording all of the birds, reptiles, and mammals that we found. I’m still getting used to the high altitude, but other than constantly being out of breath, it was pretty fantastic! Hopefully by my next update I’ll have exciting work stories and more pictures from the field!