My first month in Susanville, California has truly been an eye-opening experience.  Originally from northwest Indiana, the vast, open spaces and beautiful landscapes of the west are awe-inspiring.  I never thought of the desert as an attractive place, but I’ve developed an appreciation for it in the short time I’ve been here and can’t believe how much life there is in the harsh environment.  Even though most of the plants that I am working with are extremely unfamiliar to me since this is my first time out west, I have learned many of the plants already and am slowly acquainting myself with the intimidating Jepson manual.

I couldn’t be more pleased with the project that another Susanville CLM intern, Andrew, and I were given to work on throughout the duration of our internship.  We are ground truthing special status plant species in the 1.3 million acre Eagle Lake field office.  I was extremely overwhelmed with the incredible size of the task at first, convinced that we wouldn’t even be able to make a dent in the data and get things organized.  Since then, I’ve finally managed to become familiar with our field office and wrap my head around the project, making it a fun challenge rather than a daunting chore. 

The first few weeks of the internship were primarily spent indoors as Andrew and I attempted to compile all the data available to us from previous botanists in our field office.  It was a rather frustrating experience because we kept finding new data each day which altered our organization scheme.  We definitely learned a valuable lesson about metadata and good record keeping.  Making sure that the data we collect this summer is clear and easy for future interns and botanists to find and comprehend is one of our main goals.

Although the office work was tedious and frustrating at times, it was very necessary and worth it in the end.  Not only are we saving time finding and monitoring plants in the field, but I was also able to learn the basics of ArcMap and the handheld GPS unit.  The number of things that the program can do is mind boggling and I’m looking forward to becoming more proficient with ArcMap in order to manipulate the data and accomplish things more efficiently.

After a many long hours in the office sifting through file cabinets and computer files, we were extremely antsy to get outside.  We finally felt confident with the data collection and were ready to give this monitoring thing a shot, so we headed out in the field.  The area in Nevada in which we were working was a few hours away from our field offices, so we decided to camp there in order to save time as well as gasoline.  This was one of the most remote places I’ve ever been in my life and probably the smallest I’ve ever felt.  I was surrounded by sage brush country and lava rock for as far as I could see in every direction.  It was refreshing to get outside and explore the field office, and the week was extremely successful.  We were searching for a few rare plant species in particular, including Pentstemon sudans (Susanville penstemon), Illamna bakeri (Baker’s globe mallow), and Astragalus pulsiferae var. suksdorfii (Suksdorf’s Milk-Vetch) and found several populations.  I’m looking forward to all the treasure hunts this summer holds!

Since arriving in Susanville, California at the end of May, my time here has been a whirlwind of excitement.  Our team’s work on the ground truthing of Special Status Plants (SSP) for the BLM has proved to be both exciting and rewarding.  Essentially, our job is to update the sometimes decades old data pertaining to SSP population size and location. In order to do this, our work requires a mix of GIS, plant identification and old fashion field skills, to locate the often extraordinarily remote SSP populations.

The most challenging aspect of the project however, has definitely been from the data management aspect.  We have risen up to the task of combining all of the previously scattered SSP datasets, some of which date back all the way to mylar overlays from the 60’s and 70’s. However, the majority is made up of hand drawn and digitized, points and polygons from topographic maps. While more recent, yet still quite outdated, shapefile data from Arc 5.0 constitutes a reasonable amount of the data as well. Although, the work of merging and documenting datasets has been tedious, I can happily say that the reward of completing a succinct and comprehensive dataset is outstanding.

Our office work has allowed us to confidently go into the field, knowing that we are not missing any potential SSP sites and that our final dataset will be complete.

Working in the hills and mountains of North Eastern California has opened my eyes to the beauty and serenity of the seemingly sparse scrub landscape.  At times, it has been necessary to camp in remote areas in order to better access SSP populations in a timely fashion. I must say this is a perk of the job. Not many people are able to roll out of their sleeping bags, jump in their car and drive past a herd of wild horses on their way to work, only to later fall asleep gazing at the galaxies.

Every day I feel lucky to have been provided this opportunity with the Chicago Botanic Garden.  However, it is when I am traveling on the weekends, taking advantage of Susanville’s prime location, that I know the opportunities provided by this internship far surpass workplace experience alone. Whether it is hiking and swimming near Lake Tahoe, scrambling up to alpine lakes of the Trinity Alps Wilderness or waking up on a beach overlooking the Pacific, the opportunity for new adventures appears never ending.

Enjoy this random assortment of sights from my time thus far.

In addition to the valuable career experience gained through the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Conservation and Land Management (CLM) Internship program, there are plenty of good times to be had as a CLM intern! When working on public lands, it’s important to be on guard; one can never fully anticipate the plethora of dangers that could be lurking in the grass, underneath a shrub, behind a tree, or ANYwhere!

RATTLESNAKE. A few months ago, I encountered my first rattlesnake in the wild! I was so excited (especially because I wasn’t under immediate danger as it was about 10 feet away)! Another intern and I heard it rattling behind us then turned to see it’s rattle-tipped tail slithering from the dirt path into the golden-brown grasses and forbs. I really wanted to get an awesome photo…but I also did not want to end up in a hospital that day so I kept my distance and took the best shots I could get using the zoom.

Can you see the rattle?!

Rattlesnake in its liar under that rock outcropping

DEVIL’S CLAW. Now what kind of plant is this!? I came across it on the border of public land and someone’s backyard. Lovely flowers but oofta! It’s odor is definitely not one to market as a perfume fragrance. The big green pod-like fruits are coated with a stinky wet substance…and the dry skeleton of these fruits–vicious-looking! These are some serious hitchhikers–watch out. But, on a lighter note, they make for a great jack-o-lantern moustache. 🙂

Devilish fruit with semi-slimy, odorous fleshy coat surrounding a sharp-pointed wood-like capsule

As good as they are at hitchhiking, Devil's claws make pretty good moustaches.

Can you see the Chaparral Crawl participant in this photo?

On this particular day, my pants did not survive the chaparral unscathed

DEFENSIVE DRIVING. Assuming the average CLM intern has been driving for at least a few years by the time they begin their internship position, it may be that some, maybe many, don’t pay that close attention to the defensive driving training. The key is to remember it is just as much about awareness of other drivers in other vehicles as it is about you in a government vehicle. Here’s an example: this “truck” appears to have been put together by students in a high school shop class using pieces of various vehicles left in a junkyard. Besides lacking doors, the body of the “truck” was not centered on the axles, on which it appeared to be resting or tied together with a few pieces of wire rather than bolted together; thus, whenever this so-called truck took a curve, we slowed down (defensive driving!), bracing for it to tip on its side. Because it eventually turned onto a side road, we can only assume this vehicle succeeded in transporting the driver and passenger safely to their destination.

Appears to be dangerous...are vehicles like this even legal?

I would not trust that truck to not tip over!

I’ve become a  shade seeker in the past month, contorting my body in the shape required to escape the direct rays of the sun.  There aren’t too many trees out here, so shade is hard to come by, but the shadow of a shrub or Saguaro will do in a pinch.  Never would I have thought that I could experience an excess of summer… specifically the relentless 100+ degree heat produced by that desert sun.  Despite the aforementioned, (and somewhat overstated) heat, I have relished the opportunity to begin learning a new suite of plants, and catch glimpses of elusive desert critters.  A recent encounter with a desert tortoise made me feel very blessed and grateful to be exactly where I am at this moment in my life.

Greetings from Buffalo!

After a roundabout trip back from Chicago we have all made it back home safe and resumed work. It’s amazing what can change after just a week being gone.  Before we left everything was still green and growing.  On our first day back in the field we quickly discovered that almost all the grasses have gone dormant, most of the forbs have stopped flowering, and everything is now yellow.

In the meantime, we have escaped to greener pastures by backpacking up to a glacier lake in the bighorns.  Up there are still flowers aplenty and being above the smoke haze was certainly a nice change.  However, it should be noted for future trips that marmots like to eat water bottles. Watch out.

The 4th of July was great.  There was still one fireworks show going on despite the fires, and it was probably the longest show I’ve ever seen…and I like fireworks.  This weekend is the Bighorn Mountain Festival, so we’re looking forward to a ton of awesome bluegrass music and a great time.

I can’t believe it has almost been two months since I arrived in Farmington, we have been so busy looking for seeds, keying out plants, and learning the flora of this area time is flying. Upon our return from the Chicago Botanic Garden we were greeted with the beginning of the summer monsoon. It is impressive how fast the plants have responded to moisture this past month. The perennial bunch grasses are re-sprouting and the once crispy looking forbs are starting to flower up! Hopefully this is the start of a new precipitation trend because with a couple more weeks of wet weather we should have lots seeds ripe for collection.

With few seeds to collect we have been focusing on learning the local flora, last weekend was spent at a tree and shrub workshop discovering the wide verity of local woody plants in San Juan County. One of the teachers, Arnold Clifford, is an avid geologist, botanist, and ethno botanist working on the Navajo Reservation and surrounding four corners region. It was exciting to not only learn new plants but also the Navajo uses for the plants as well as the geologic formations each plant prefers. Our other teachers Ken Hyle and Bob Savinski had a wealth of knowledge on the woody plants of the Farmington area and led us all over the county so we could look at the dominant plants of many ecosystems.

We have also been able to branch out of the botanical world a bit. Last night we went out to mist net bats and trap rodents with the threaded and endangered species biologist. Though the catch wasn’t too bountiful, we only caught one bat, one moth, and a bird, it was interesting to learn about bat ecology and netting. Bat echolocation is amazing as far as predator prey dynamics are involved. Bat sound wave frequencies very widely from species to species mostly because of the specific hearing ranges of the moths and bugs the bats are feeding on. So a bat that likes to eat moths will hunt at a frequency below what the moths can hear, take that Christian Bale!

Deidre on the hunt for some seeds

Our only bat, Myotis spp.

The Sphynx moth we caught was larger than the bat.

The outdoors.
A place I have competed to work in since I was a child.
A place that when I enter makes me sigh in relief ever since my job started to develope into being behind a desk more and more with each passing year.
A place where I am happy to be free of phone service.
A place where the internet is forgoten and viral videos go unwatched.
A place where blogs go unread.
A place I dream of.
A place I wish to stay.

Well, I have just finished my last month with the Bureau of Land Management in Bakersfield, CA.  I feel like it went by both very slow and very fast.  I learned so much, met amazing people and did things I had never experienced before.  I got to study an ecosystem I had never before witnessed – the desert.  I saw what it was like to be in a region with very little water, and how the plants have come to survive and even thrive here.  I’ve learned amazing things about the native serpentine soils and how they support endemic plants, such an awesome relationship in my opinion and I recommend you read more about it here.  I saw breath-taking stretches of the wild upper Kern River and lower sections where it sadly has been captured and turned into a lazy lake or a or a docile creek or.. nothing – just a dry bed where water used to flow in plenty.
I learned so much about genera and species of California, and how to identify so many plant families based on their characteristics. I fell in love with flowers I never even knew existed, like Salvia carduacea and Cirsium occidentale.  I managed to successfully utilize the mother of all keys, The Jepson Manual, for which I am very proud.  🙂
Through this whole summer though, I am most happy about my contribution to the Seeds of Success Program.  Before I started this job, I had no idea what it even was.  It was in the job description though, and when Krissa described it I was all for it.  Upon arriving to Bakersfield, there had been no accessions collected from CA160 (our collection team number).  It was an exceptionally dry year, and my mentor said I shouldn’t expect much.  A mere three months later though, my co-intern and I had collected 20 different accessions of seed for the Program!!  I am so proud to have made such a great contribution to such a meaningful endeavor, and I plan to utilize my training in the future.
I am beyond grateful to the Chicago Botanic Garden for providing the Conservation and Land Management Program as a great learning tool and stepping stone for myself and others.  Krissa and Marian have been of the upmost help, and I am thankful for the passion, vigor and patience that they bring to this program.  I am beyond grateful to have been selected to participate in such a prestigious program.  I hope you all continue to have wonderful experiences throughout your journey, within this internship and beyond.

Well it’s hard to believe that two months have already passed since I first set foot in Lakeview, OR. The last month has been full of activities such as the CLM Workshop, Safety Week, and the holiday week where most interns left the area for adventures elsewhere. My crew has now almost finished our rare plant monitoring and we are beginning to move on to seed collection and fire monitoring. I’ve really enjoyed the variety of work and skills that I have gained during my internship so far.

I am looking forward to putting the Seeds of Success workshop knowledge to good use. So far it seems as if it is going to be a more difficult year for seed collection than the last year. We have begun a few seed collections but are going to need to do more scouting for sufficient sites.

Fire monitoring has been really interesting at the Poker Jim Fire site in the Lakeview Resource Area. I have had the opportunity to get experience with some of the same monitoring done by the range crew. We even have used nested frequency, which I first learned at the CLM Workshop. We are examining the impacts of the difference management practices used by the FWS and the BLM. The data should be interesting!

FWS land on the left and BLM on the right

Monitoring using a nested frequency frame

Good luck to all that are or will be collecting seed!

Hello from Roswell, NM! This is my first post to the blog, and I feel like I have a lot to cover!

This is now my 4^th week on the job, and just about a month since I’ve been out here in New Mexico.  I am originally from the Pittsburgh area, so moving to the desert has been quite the adjustment.  Before I came here, I personally thought I had a pretty good understanding of botany.  As I was packing up my things for the move, I noticed all of my botany field guides didn’t apply for this area! And now I’m out here, I completely understand.  But nonetheless, I have been quickly learning all about plants that can survive (and thrive!) out here in this hot, dry place!

I am thoroughly enjoying my time out here working for the BLM – I feel like a real scientist! Some of the projects/methods I’ve been introduced to are:

-Mesquite monitoring.  We went out to a study site that has been previously sprayed to control mesquite, which is a native plant (with some nasty thorns) that has been out-competing other important plants.  At the study sites, we did a qualitative assessment of the growth by looking to see what stage of growth the mesquite was in.  As one of the range scientists put it, we don’t want the mesquite to be gone completely, but it would be great if 70% of it was gone.

-Rangeland Health Assessment. Or more commonly, RHA’s.  These are also qualitative and take some getting used to, mostly because you rate the land based on what it is supposed to look like, and I don’t have much to compare it to!

-Traditional monitoring. This includes some different things (that I’m still trying to wrap my head around) like a one-line and production.  These are both quantitative, and provide some real data that can be analyzed later.

-Compliance checks. Although these are a little tedious, they are equally important.  Occasionally we will drive around the rancher’s property to basically check and double check that everything is running smoothly.  This includes counting cows (sometimes the most exciting part) and generally having a look around the property.

As I said earlier, I am just starting out at the BLM, and still trying to wrap my head around everything.  My apologies to whoever reading this already knows all about the daily life of a range scientist, but it actually helps me to organize all of it like that.

Besides all this monitoring stuff, the Workshop a few weeks ago was an awesome time! Not only did I learn  A LOT about working for the federal government and field work in general, but I have a new sense of pride for my job.  Every piece of data counts and is extremely important to get the most accurate measurements.

To summarize things thus far: the BLM “speaks for the trees” and I  need to learn my grasses! But as any botanist knows… grasses are hard. I’ve included some pictures of pretty scenery, cows, and aliens. -Jaci