Field season is rapidly coming to a close especially in the mountains, which is where most of our collections were made.  We have definitely been opportunists throughout this entire field season – trying our best to make each trip a productive one.

The blooming season has rapidly changed in the subalpine from the July to October. However, being away from the field for two weeks did not necessarily “help” our seed collection schedule – but we made the best of it.

Here are a few pictures below for your enjoyment:

Late spring in Leadville, CO.

Winter in Leadville, CO.

Parry’s Gentian (Gentiana parryi) capsules

Gentiana parryi seeds

There is plenty for us to do. In the next few weeks I will be preparing our herbarium vouchers to be sent to the Smithsonian and to other herbarium museums around Colorado. It’s always exciting looking through the many herbarium specimens and seeing the vast diversity of plant species that we have collected this season – this will be fun.

Until next time!

Darnisha Coverson

BLM – Lakewood, CO

Fall has certainly arrived. It has been getting colder around the Treasure Valley these last few weeks and I am fortunate enough to be inside the walls of the Boise Regional Seed Warehouse roasting away. Yes, there was a hint of sarcasm in that statement. Even with my unique experiences thus far, I am pretty jealous of all the activity my fellow interns have been able to practice outside the four walls of any building. After reading several blog entries, I am confident those experiences would not be traded in for my “desk job”. Even so, I digress, and will continue on with my personal extravaganza of late. Aside from the rather excellent seed decoration of my personal space within the warehouse, I have been working on calculating the amount of weed seeds that have been purchased within all lots of seed in the last year. Aside from noxious weeds, both prohibited and restricted, I have been paying most attention to downy brome (Bromus Tectorum), also known as cheatgrass. Surprisingly, some individuals believe that cheatgrass isn’t that bad of a weed and, in some ways, can actually benefit land after a fire has burned through. However, downy brome is detrimental to a variety of ecosystems. Not only does it quench beneficial growth of perennials and other natural vegetation, it can house rodents and other small insects that can harm the soils and any other grasses that still live. Even worse, it dries out very quick, resulting in an increased fire threat. It is obvious that fire has a negative effect on any portion of land that it burns. My work calculating the amount of cheatgrass seeds purchased within each pound of seed will help many researchers determine what portion of fire rehabilitation efforts add to the worsening of cheatgrass growth.

Once I have gathered all my research and input it into a worksheet, I will begin calculating the total amounts of the types of weed seeds purchased, the general area in which they were sold, and identify any patterns in amounts coming from specific regions of the Western United States. It will be very interesting to see how it all turns out. For my personal benefit, I am interested in seeing what amount of weed seed was purchased from any particular region, and if there has been an increase in weeds in the region where that specific seed was sold. Obviously, that will entail more personal research on my part, but since I have been working in the seed and fire rehabilitation business the last few years, I am interested in seeking out those results. A little less interesting will be the total lbs of weed seed purchased in relation to the total amount of seed purchased last year. For example, if the Boise Regional Seed Warehouse purchased roughly 1.5 million pounds of seed last year, how many pounds of that was weed seed? The results ought to prove interesting.

Fortunately, the Bureau of Land Management, Boise Regional Seed Warehouse, and each state individually have very strict policies on what weed seeds can be bought and sold within any given boundary. It is also nice to know that no matter the amount of weed seeds purchased and sold, the good seed will most always outweigh the bad seed.

Hopefully next time I will be able to report my findings of this project. For me, any day can bring a new project with a higher priority than the one I happen to be working on. Only time will tell. Until next time, enjoy the freedom of the outdoors and the splendor it surrounds you with.

Boise Regional Seed Warehouse

Bureau of Land Management

I’m officially done with my internship, I worked some pretty crazy hours during those last 3 weeks but I finished my hours and I’m comfortably sitting in Aurora, Colorado right now and soon I’ll be flying home to Buffalo, NY. This internship was a really great experience, I did what I expected plus a ton more; bird banding, bat mist-netting, a paleontology dig, endemic plant monitoring, and even camped out in the field and helped remove Russian olive for a week. For being an SOS internship, It really was unexpectedly wide ranging.

Another great experience was living somewhere different from what you’re used to, with people different from what you’re used to, away from your friends, family, and girlfriend. It wasn’t always easy but it gave me a lot of time to work on everything I wanted to do with very few distractions and no excuses. While out here in Utah, I got to know myself a little better and or at the very least became a little less wrong about who I think I am. I highly recommend taking any chance you can to move out of your comfort zone. It makes it easier when you know it’s only temporary but who knows, maybe you’ll like it so much you want to stay. As for me, I’m on to the next place, wherever that is.

Since being back at work since the furlough, I have been busy entering data into the different databases. It has been a long process, but I have learned a lot along the way. Currently, my mentor and I are looking for sagebrush collections before I leave in the beginning of summer. We are hoping to get at least one collection in, but it has been fairly rainy/snowy here the past week and has made things very difficult.

This past week, I had the opportunity to talk to the BLM managers and higher-ups about my internship and why it is good to have interns to help out on the District. It was a little scary presenting to them, but it was good to see that there is genuine interest to keep entry level younger people coming into the office to learn and gain experience.

Overall, the next couple of weeks will go by fast, and it will be bittersweet to move on to my next adventure; but sad leaving behind great people that I learned so much from. I’m always awed by the landscape and the opportunity to come out West.

The seed collecting season has finally come to an end.  Upon reflection, the last several months, working with the BLM in Medford, Oregon, has been an excellent opportunity to use my skills and knowledge, as well as gain a tremendous amount of valuable new experiences.

One major area of growth was my understanding of the geography of Southwest Oregon. Although I made good use of my previous knowledge of botanically interesting areas, I also had the experience of visiting and working in a great number of amazing new locations. As recently as six months ago, I had not even heard of King Mountain, Big Elk Meadow, Drew Lake, Walch Fen, and Josephine Creek. It is now difficult to imagine a world without such places.

Darlingtonia fen above Josephine Creek

Instrumental to the discovery of many of the new locations was GIS. I began the season with a good background in GIS, and was pleased to be encouraged to utilize and improve my skills in my new position. I was provided with ArcMap software, and used the technology to select promising new locations, track routes traveled and sites visited, and record locations of collected vouchers and seed. GIS also made easy work of obtaining and recording ecoregion and geology data for each seed collection. It was also fun to make use of the relatively new, data driven pages feature, to make a nice final set of maps, showing all of the season’s seed collection locations. I felt fortunate that, through my internship, I was given access to ESRI online tutorials, as well as USFS webcast classes.

Also, botanically, I had plenty of opportunities to build upon my prior knowledge. While for some time, I have been able to recognize plant families and most genera by sight, this past season afforded me plenty of opportunities to practice keying plants. The vast floral diversity of  Southern Oregon continues to surprise me, and presented our team with many interesting challenges. Some of the most perplexing, were a couple members of the family Asteraceae, as well as the genus Perideridia. Other botanical highlights included encountering rare plants such as Calochortus howellii, Gentiana setigera, and Perideridia erythrorhiza. Working with the CLM program has also allowed me the honor of having many of this season’s botanical vouchers placed with the U.S. National Herbarium at the Smithsonian Institution.

Deer Creek, Josephine Co., Ore.

This past season with the CLM program has given me many challenges and rewards that I will fondly remember for a long time to come.

With a continuation of conducive field weather, I’ve had the opportunity to help out with a mix of projects. The larger, longer lasting ones have been through fuels and wildlife. With fuels, I’ve carried on with cutting and stacking sticks to form piles worthy of our fuels ecologist’s approval. She can crack a whip like it’s nobody’s business. Gotta love her for it, though. When you see a side by side of someone’s careless, shoddy stack next to a sturdy, compact stack that will burn the first time, you’ll see the difference. It saves the BLM money and resources, too.

With wildlife, I helped with a sage-grouse habitat treatment project. This project basically entails cutting juniper trees down that are migrating outside of deep draws (waterways) and into sage-grouse habitat. The BLM was able to host Montana Conservation Corps (MCC) volunteers to assist with saws and well-needed backbone. Their assistance gave the BLM a chance to reclaim an important corridor for sage-grouse populations to flow between Wyoming and Montana. Fighting the good fight for a potentially listed species.

I saved the saddest part for last, mostly because it’s the most affecting. Two of the interns have left town in pursuit of bigger things. Like all wonderful things (sunshine, fresh seafood, and monarch butterflies just to name a few), they had to set, rot, or fly to Mexico respectively. They were both awesome, and I’m so happy I had the chance to meet them. Sometimes you wish you had more time, but our universe doesn’t care about your wishes. All you can do is reflect on the great times you’ve had and move on to find more. I hope to see them again.

Two interns left to dominate Buffalo. Let’s see if we make the local newspaper. Well… until next time.

The last few weeks have been all about the the California Invasive Weed Symposium. The symposium happens every year around the same time and brings together weed warriors from all over California. This is the second time I have participated in this event and the first time being apart of the planning committee.

The symposium went off without a hitch and I was able to meet like minded people, all concerned with the health of the California landscape. Our keynote speaker, Ken Moore, said something that struck a cord in me.

“A sense of place means connecting with a place so strongly that it becomes an integral part of you, and you of it. There is also another kind of place, which each of us has within ourselves. Some call it the heart, others the soul. In this place resides the essence of who we really are, and what really matters to each of us. If we are to succeed in our goal of saving biodiversity by restoring ecosystem health, I will discuss how it may hinge on us understanding that these two places are, in fact — one.”

I have been living in Monterey County for the last 7 years and I realized that this area has become apart of me, as much as my home in Fresno. I have been learning and working in habitat restoration for the last four years and not until Ken said those words was it clear to me how much I love this work. The land I work everyday at the BLM is my home and I take pride in it. I want it to thrive and become healthier every day.

I attended college in this area and took many field trips out to the BLM for ecology projects, applied statistics, GIS AND GPS projects. I grew up in this area. This past week Monterey County voted down a proposition that would have put a race track, hotels, homes and businesses in the middle of oak woodland. This horse track would have taken out thousands of old oak trees. Ken put something into words that I couldn’t. I feel a true connection to this land. Its more than a national monument, it’s like a friend. I work and play in this area almost everyday.

The BLM is a part of me and I feel lucky to be this dedicated to something I feel is important.

Greetings from Wyoming!

With the fieldwork just about complete, the time has come to box up all those pressed voucher specimens and send them off to various herbariums. Keeping all the components of each collection straight is a bit of a challenge, since there are over 50 different collections at this point. Now I am finally getting a handle on exactly what we brought in this year.

It’s amazing to look through the pressed specimens and see the cross-section of Wyoming and northern Colorado plants and the many interesting places we visited this summer. It would be interesting to compile the SOS data in a way that would let you see the range for plants all across the West, probably using the data from herbarium specimens. The Rocky Mountain Herbarium here at the University of Wyoming already has a web-based map of its collections, which allows to search by species and see where you’re most likely to find them. That has been an invaluable tool for seed-hunting this year. Hopefully the specimens we collected will be additional data.

Next up, DNA lab work! Should be interesting!

Cheers,
Abby D.

It has been great to get back to work and jump back onto ongoing projects.

The past couple of months I have primarily been working on projects related to the desert restoration crews.  It has been a push to get everything completed as their season started in October!  I have been gathering field data and putting together work plans for the Student Conservation Association’s (SCA) Desert Restoration crews.  I have spent a good bit of time in the field hiking/driving around wilderness areas documenting restoration sites, seeing it rain (yes, it can rain here!), catching a glimpse of wild horses, and generally enjoying working in such beautiful terrain.  I have also spend a fair bit of time compiling all my data into maps and work plan portfolios.  I led 4 days of training for the SCA Project Leaders.  I trained them on fence building and hard barrier construction.  It was refreshing to be back out camping in the desert and enjoying the desert nights as we transitioned into  the desert fall!

In addition to all the restoration planning, I assisted in the opening of the Nadeau Trail.  The first National Recreation Trail in California.  It is an historic transport trail used by Remi Nadeau in the transporting of gold down to the LA area and supplies back up to the mountains.  It is now used as an off highway vehicle trail.  A pretty cool trail with lots of great views, old mines, and cabins.

I also joined the Wilderness Coordinator in attending the Wilderness Leadership meeting at the California Desert District office.  I was able to sit in on  some of the behind the scenes discussions that go on between BLM field offices and public groups concerning the management of wilderness areas.

I am currently emerged in the world of Wilderness First Responder training in Bishop, CA.  I am learning and practicing all the wonderful and valuable medical skills that are required to aid in a medical emergency in wilderness settings.  Bring on the patients, litter carries, splint building, injury make-up, sucking chest wounds, and wound care! We got this!

Farewell til next time!

Catherine

This will be my last post for the 2013 season at the BLM Mother Lode field office. I may return next Spring if funding is in place. The government shutdown was an unexpected disruption in my work schedule but luckily most of our major projects such as seed collecting and rare plant monitoring were done before the shutdown took place. The seasonal shift is in full swing. The summer heat has all but dissipated and snow graces the high Sierra peaks. The patches of black oak at Pine Hill Preserve (PHP) have taken on beautiful fall colors.

Since the shutdown ended I have finished mounting and labeling all of the herbarium specimens collected in the spring and early summer, and added them to the PHP herbarium. Deciding on how to place the specimens on the herbarium paper is an artistic process, and care must be taken not to damage them as they are glued down. I enjoyed the slow, methodical pace of this task.

Yesterday I was able to attend a fascinating forum called the Ecology and Management of Medusahead and Barb Goatgrass on California Rangeland. This was at the University of California Sierra Foothill Research and Extension Center, a property replete with research projects on grazing, weeds, oak recruitment, and more. Medusahead and Barb Goatgrass are undesirable exotic grasses that have spread across California at an incredible rate, and both occur on Mother lode Field office land. This event had around 100 people, including professors and researchers, UC extension agents, NRCS range and soil scientists, restoration ecologists, and of course ranchers. A multitude of data was presented on using tools such as fire, herbicide, and high intensity grazing to manage these grasses.

The internship has been great and I have learned a lot. I have enjoyed working for my mentor Graciela. She has been kind, patient, extremely generous, and willing to answer all of my questions. It has been interesting to hear about her experiences of working in myriad locations such as Mexico, Colorado, and California. Since I have been working almost exclusively at PHP, I have gained insight into what goes into managing a small (for BLM standards) preserve with rare plant species, including federally endangered plant species. PHP is a partnership between many county, state, and federal agencies. Graciela is an expert at working with different agencies and understanding legal and bureaucratic intricacies. The Mother Lode field office is unique in that almost a third of its funding comes from outside sources (i.e. not the Department of the Interior). This funding is what runs special areas like PHP and Cosumnes River Preserve, and it comes from proactive action such as grant writing. In this time of budget cuts, Graciela and others at this office have convinced me that important conservation projects can still go forward.

Working here has also made me think a lot about plant monitoring. We have implemented various monitoring methods on the rare plants and fuel breaks at PHP. I have thought about the purpose of plant monitoring and how I would go about designing a plant monitoring project, if it were up to me. I have lots to learn in that regard but this summer has been a big step.

I enjoyed the opportunities to explore areas of this field office besides PHP, particularly seed collecting and raptor surveying at the Cosumnes River Preserve. Parts of CRP are riparian jungles full of birds and other wildlife that provide a picture of what the Central Valley may have looked like before the levees, farms, subdivisions and highways. I also enjoyed other opportunities such as leading native plant walks, going to workshops, and participating in river monitoring.

One of my favorite days was pulling yellow star thistle at the Red Hills in Tuolumne County. That is generally not a great job, especially in the middle of summer, but on that day Poor Man’s Gulch involved little star thistle. While slowly walking the riparian margin with eyes out for star thistle I couldn’t help but be blown away by the contrast between the parched, stunted vegetation of the serpentine uplands and the verdant, explosive greenness of the creek, not to mention the nearly complete lack of any signs of human activity. It’s days such as that that attract me to a job like this and… well… Edward Abbey put it better than me (I’ll leave out the obligatory vindictive end of his quote for the purposes of this blog):

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am – a reluctant enthusiast….a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves…”

With that in mind I am soon going to the Dominican Republic to visit my brother who is doing the Peace Corps, before I make my next move.

Joe Broberg