It’s Christmas Eve and I am back in Jersey after the four-day trek from Buffalo, Wyoming. As I left Buffalo and the Bighorns got ever more distant in the rearview, I couldn’t help but feel sentimental (ok, and a little choked up, I admit) about my time spent at the Buffalo Field Office and exploring Wyoming. The past 8 months have been nothing short of amazing!

The last month of my internship consisted of updating and hunting down correct information for the RIPS database (range improvements), observing a pile burn with the remaining fire crew (super cool!), and scanning photos that were as old as I was into the computer. I also had the opportunity to attend the Petroleum Association of Wyoming’s Reclamation Conference in Casper to hear about how different monitoring technologies, treatments, and other reclamation efforts are effecting pesky species such as cheatgrass and medusa head. One of our own, Dusty, also gave a speech on how AIM was a useful tool in monitoring efforts, so that was pretty neat.

Reflections

I knew coming out West would be a very different experience. As an East Coast person, the pace of life, lesser volumes of people, and wide open lands were something I had to adjust to. It was nice to live in a traffic-free and more friendly environment for the majority of the year! I also knew I would learn a lot and hopefully further narrow down what I want to do with my career. Between all the trainings and then being able to get a whopping 30+ AIM sites accomplished with Nick, the summer 2016 field season was a success (despite the wind and the extreme dryness).

Over the course of this internship, my botany skills have improved greatly. While I wouldn’t consider myself an expert (yet!), it’s definitely become more interesting to me and I look forward to further improving upon those skills at whatever job or internship comes my way next. I’m also proud to say I never once accidentally sat on a cactus while working on our AIM sites, which may seem silly, but was a small personal victory.

I definitely will miss being able to escape into the mountains and working in such a great field office. When I think of Wyoming, I’ll be able to smell the sage and remember the mountains, badlands, and high plains. Nick and I had the good fortune of working in some cool country, seeing public lands that are difficult to access. The places we saw are rarely seen by others, and I’ll always be grateful of the opportunity to have spent time in those places. So, with that being said, it’s been a wonderful time and I can’t thank the CLM program enough for giving me this incredible chance!

Photo courtesy of Justin, legendary BLM intern

-Corinne Schroeder, Buffalo Field Office

Over the years, I’ve come to dread this time of year as it means the ending of another great field season.  I absolutely love my job and the plethora of environments I get to work in, but it’s still hard to say goodbye to a wonderful project and equally wonderful people. At the start of each field season, I always wonder if this will be the year where I won’t get along with my coworkers or that they won’t share the same passion for plants or conservation I do, but every year the love of science prevails and I somehow find myself surrounded by equally passionate people. Each year, not only do I get to work with plants while trudging through the mud, I get to work with people who bring a unique piece to our team and form an efficient cohesive whole. Each year I learn more and more about plants, ecology, and various research techniques and each year I am subjected to many different perspectives.

S.O.S for salt marshes!

Eriophorum virginicum from Ponkapoag Bog

Working with the same group of people in often challenging and uncomfortable environments brings about a certain closeness that other perhaps less intense working environments would. People bond while doing difficult things, like standing on a beach in howling wind while collecting Distichlis spicata, or getting lost in a dense sea of Phragmites, or even sitting through hours of endless traffic. These challenges and the connections I make with my coworkers are part of the reason I love my job so much. Outside of learning about the environment and plants, this practice of endurance also teaches humility, patience, and most importantly effective communication.

The Distichlis spicata collection

The CLM experience, both this year and last, has made me a better person and inspired me to never stop fighting for the planet and the wild places I love so much. I will never forget the skills I have learned or the people I have met. So for all of my crew members, Cassy, Krista, Julia, Matt, Kyla, Kent, and so many others, thank you for your passion, dedication, and drive. For all my supervisors, Michael, Patty, Don, and Glen, thank you for giving me the opportunity to make a difference and to learn. There are so many moments and skills that I will remember.

Cassy, Krista, Julia, and Me (Abbe)

I am so proud to have been a part of the CLM Internship Program and so grateful for the opportunity to meet so many people and work on conservation projects.

Thank you,

Abbe, Intern with the New England Wildflower Society

When I headed out to Safford, AZ in May I came from the mountains of Wyoming, a place I absolutely loved, in a move I knew would be a huge change of pace for me.  I had never lived in a desert environment before, and all of my family and friends wondered why I would move from one of the most beautiful places on earth to a small town seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  To them it may have not have made any sense, but inside of me I knew what my goals for myself were and if they were left unpursued, then I knew I would soon feel restless, even in the shadow of Tetons.  In high school I decided that I wanted to pursue a career in field biology, and chances like this that the CLM program offer do not come around often, so when it was offered I knew it was something that I had to do.

I will be the first to admit I often find myself daydreaming of hiking or skiing back in the high country. However, this experience has not only changed me for the better but also given me experience and opportunities that would not have been offered had I stayed in my comfort zone.  As I have mentioned in previous blog posts, our main project we work on is invasive species eradication on a National Conservation Area.  While sometimes monotonous, for the first time in my life I had a job that was goal-oriented with tangible objectives and signs of success, which led me to feel personally invested in what I was doing.  Not only did I enjoy what I was doing, I also felt that there was a reason to do what I was doing.  With the temperatures dropping, fish are not moving as much so we have halted fish work for the season, but our biologists feel pretty confident that our project (which has been going on for around a decade) is complete and the Green Sunfish has been extirpated from Bonita Creek.  With this objective complete, it means that I can look back on these eight months spent in a small desert town in a positive light.

This internship also proved to be a vital stepping stone going forward, as I will continue doing fish research with a private company in Phoenix that the BLM in Safford works with quite extensively.  This opportunity would never have come to fruition without this internship, which is another reason taking the internship has proven worthwhile.  Due to that, I would like to thank the Chicago Botanic Garden, the CLM program, Krissa, Rebecca and everyone else that gave me this opportunity.  Future interns, if you are reading this, know that this program can be a great stepping stone to that career you have in mind.

Thanks,

Taylor

Well folks, I’m back! Once again I find myself amongst some of the most adventuresome, hardworking and environmentally conscientious of America’s post college youth – The CLM interns. I’m a veteran at this point, as it is my 3rd time in the internship. I’m returning after my first season as a real government employee. Through my second internship in Prineville Oregon, I was able to be hired on the following season as a Biological Science Technician – Plants. Whew! What a handle. Lets keep it simple and call it a Botany Tech. There, that’s much easier. As a Botany Tech here at the Prineville BLM I was able to mentor the next generation of CLM interns tasked with seed collecting. I also had an introduction to performing Botany Clearance work. This entailed “ground truthing” projects before they are approved. For example, someone wants to build a fence, or create a new trail system. I go out to the field site prior to the action and ensure that no Special Status plants will be harmed in the course of this project, and to make suggestions as to minimizing the impacts of the project on the native flora at the site. Then, I go back to the office and write a report of all my observations. Much of my time during the field season was spent doing Botany Monitoring (I got to do this a tiny bit in my internship the year before as well.) This is by far the COOLEST part of the job. It’s a rare plant treasure hunt. I went to some very distant and extraordinarily beautiful places on our district, hiked up to 6 miles in a day over isolated and rugged terrain, all the while searching for rare/endemic plants. Much of the time I was locating populations that are mapped (it can still be a challenge to find them) but in a few cases I actually discovered new populations unknown to BLM humans. Or most likely, any humans. So these discoveries were quite exciting. The other large chunk of my time was spent doing AIM, (Assessment Inventory and Monitoring). This is a very specific protocol for monitoring the landscape. The effort is BLM wide. Myself and my partner set up AIM plots on areas that had burned in intense and large scale wildfires in year 2014. We collected really detailed and extensive data on vegetation and soils. I learned tons of new skills such as driving trailers, digging and interpreting soil pits, and how to perform the Point Line Intercept method. We completed 26 plots! Our data will be used to make management decisions regarding how to best rehab the native plant community and control invasive annual grass infestations. After I wrapped up my work as a Botany Tech, I accepted this 3 month CLM internship to act as a general Botany Program assistant. I will be mapping all the populations I monitored over the summer and my newly discovered populations into a GIS program the Oregon BLM uses called GeoBOB. I’m attending a training for that next week. I’m also handling the load of office and herbarium odds and ends that pile up during the field season. While I do love the field, I think this will be a good opportunity to see the behind the scenes work and planning that makes a good field season possible. Cheers to all of us sticking it out in office winter internships. We are tough cookies. I’m looking forward to the next few months. Following are some photos from my field season. I thought they would be nicer to look at than my desk!

Orobanche uniflora – a little parasitic cutie

Hiking up steep ephemeral streams in search of rare plants

Scutellaria nana of the Great Basin pumicey soils

traffic jam in the Ochoco Mountains

Monitoring site on a stormy day

Achnatherum hendersonii– a special status grass

Rainbow from the AIM plot

My beloved botany rig and rare Castilleja

Scavenger hunt under the Pondos

November has started to fade into December and things haven’t seemed to change much.  While the temperature has continued to fall and now there is a fairly consistent snow on the ground, things seem to keep on going.  Much more of my time has been devoted to office work, given the fact that it is actually winter.  However, I have managed to get out into the field scouting for pygmy rabbits, learning the basics of fence repair, scouting out Oregon spotted frog habitat, and checking nests for eagle activity.  These field days are a breath of fresh air after staying in the office for days on end.

However, I am currently writing this from home, (not Oregon home, but back in my real home in Ohio).  I am working on finishing up descriptions of sensitive species to be used in later NEPA documents, and since that can be done electronically, I am able to telework. The whole process for teleworking was not too arduous, I just needed to jump through a couple of hoops, get some forms signed, and watch a training video.  My supervisor and her boss were wonderful in supporting me to be able to spend the holiday with my family and to help me though the process.

In my pursuit of knowledge of sensitive species, I am currently investigating the Oregon spotted frog, and I am actually reading the paper in 1996 that found strong genetic evidence of a separate species of spotted frog that would eventually become the Columbia spotted frog.  This kind of literature review can be extremely rewarding, especially once you have a finished product after organizing and compiling all of your notes.  If I have to be working over the holidays, there aren’t a lot of other things that I would rather be doing.

Aside from work, I was able to get some good birding in back in Oregon, and hope to be able to do some in Ohio.  There is a red-phase screech owl that seems to be roosting in a set location, so I may take a drive up there and see if I can find it and take some photos!!  Recently, I was able to get some really nice photos of sage-grouse out on a wintery morning in late November, and finally got a decent photo of my frustrating barn owl.

Sad to say that after six months, I have now finished up my CLM internship with the New England Wild Flower Society. I must say, I wouldn’t trade the experience for anything, but I’m quite happy to be off the Boston roads! I’ve learned so much since starting this internship, most importantly I have gained so many skills in botany. I came to this internship being able to identify most common trees, and I left with the skills to use a dichotomous key to key out most plants, and the sight ability to identify many of the common native plants of the northeast. In addition to the skills, I’ve learned that I LOVE knowing what plants are around me. In addition to my new found love of botany, I have developed skills in group work, field knowledge, and interacting with landowners.

The fall brought a wonderful change to Boston (as it always does in New England), and I felt like I got an extended Fall, as we got the colors all the way from Maine to Connecticut and then I travelled to North Carolina and caught the colors there! The fall brought relief from the terrible hot weather we had this summer, bringing with it some rain too. We reached our goal of 200 collections and then some, ending with 305 collections for the year.

As I reflect on my time in Boston, I think about some of my favorite things. My favorite seed to collect was Ilex verticillata once the leaves fell, as the berries could simply be raked from the branches. My favorite day in the field was one day at Pachaug State Forest in Voluntown, CT. It was early November and just two of us were in the field that day, and the forest was simply beautiful! My favorite field site was private property on Cape Cod, MA that used to be cranberry bogs. My favorite activity we did as a group was one day when we had some extra time we adventured to Cape Cod National Seashore. I am so fortune to have explored coastal New England from Scarborough Maine to Hammonassett Beach, Madison, CT throughout this internship.

Looking towards the future, I will be attending the University of Connecticut as a graduate assistant in the Natural Resources Department. I look forward to learning more about management and building my skills towards a career in land management.

Below are some pictures from throughout my time in New England. 

My wonderful side-kick, Daisy, welcomed me home!

Thanks to NEWFS and CBG for everything.

–Julia Rogers, NEWFS, SOS-East

It’s finally time to end my internship with the BLM at Fort Ord National Monument. I had a huge number and variety of experiences here, and I’ll definitely miss all the people, places, plants, wildlife, and ecosystems that I’ve gotten to know.

I’ve learned a lot during my time at Fort Ord, way more than I would be able to describe in this post. Some of the main things, though – I gained a lot of experience with plant, wildlife, and ecosystem identification, as well as plant anatomy and taxonomy. I’d be able to tell anyone how to ID a Fort Ord grass based on its ligule, or the subtle differences between Ericameria ericoides and Ericameria fasciculata seeds (not that anyone would ever ask haha). I’ve also seen first hand what conservation work is like, as well as work in a federal agency, which has been invaluable in helping decide the next steps for my career.

And, one last lesson Fort Ord taught me before I left was how to respect and deal with poison oak. I’d touched poison oak before and gotten small rashes here and there, but a week ago I carelessly worked through a stand of it while repairing goat grazing plot fences, and sure enough now I have big angry rashes across my arms, shins, and stomach (even after washing with Tecnu!). I now realize just how nasty and uncomfortable poison oak can be, but I also feel that I deserved it to an extent – I didn’t really respect it enough until that experience set me straight.

Overall though, I am really glad to have had this amazing opportunity. I feel very grateful for all I’ve had a chance to learn and do, and to all the wonderful people I got to work with, especially my mentor, Bruce, who guided and supported me in more ways than I’d possibly be able to articulate.

Six months ago I would have been able to tell you the latin names of maybe twenty different plants, usually only when they were in flower, and correctly identifying them would probably take a few tries. I didn’t know any coastal or salt marsh species, sedges and grasses were out of the question, my botanic vocabulary was very limited. Floras and dichotomous keys were intimidating books to only be touched if you wanted to induce a headache. I had only been camping two times. And I had definitely never collected seeds.

However yesterday, I was able to look at a list of 305 latin names of the species we collected from, and know which of these collections would be appropriate for a project manager to use at their dam removal and freshwater stream restoration site. I am probably able to identify a few hundred species on the spot, and can easily figure out a few hundred more using floras and keys. I realized a few months ago that I can look at a tray of seeds and identify what plant it came from.

We’ve traveled over 10,000 miles up and down the five coastal New England states, made over 300 collections (our goal was 200), and collected from up to 13 different species in one day. I’ve witnessed the breathtaking panoramic view from the tops of the Parker River sand dunes on Plum Island, the vast Atlantic spreading out beyond the horizon on the East, and miles upon miles of pristine salt marsh teeming with life on the West. I’ve been unexpectedly sucked knee-deep into mud more times than I can count (but managed to bring my boots back to the surface every time!). I’ve bounced through trampolines of sphagnum bogs, tip-toeing around rare plants that non-botanist eyes would never have noticed. I was humbled each time we came back and saw our footprints remaining in the same spots months later. I’ve felt the heavy helplessness of watching a freshwater marsh go through a drought, lily pads crunching underneath our feet on the dry, cracked mud. And I was lucky enough to see that same marsh finally retaining water when the drought let up – I will always be in awe of the resilience of plants.

During this internship, I was always thinking of a section of my favorite poem, Wendell Berry’s “Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front”:

            “Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns. Put your faith in the two inches of humus that will build under the trees every thousand years. Listen to carrion — put your ear close, and hear the faint chattering of the songs that are to come. Expect the end of the world. Laugh. Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.”

I had always read most of this poem as a metaphor. However during the past six months I was literally harvesting what I never planted. We had to put our faith in the natural cycles being able to overcome droughts and man-made disturbances. We were simply collecting seeds that Nature had done all the planting, farming, and caring for. Granted, my job depended directly and literally on the harvest of these ecosystems. Yet having this new, close-up perspective from this season allowed me to take to heart even more the lessons of optimism and resilience from plants.

I am truly grateful for this incredible opportunity I had to contribute to the cause of native seed collection, and to be a part of the CLM internship program and the New England Wild Flower Society. I’ve enjoyed every bit of it, and am excited to take all that I have learned with me into the future.

Here are a few pictures from the season that never made it into my posts – enjoy!

One of my favorite views at Great Marsh in Barnstable, MA – miles and miles of marsh.

Top of the sand dunes at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge on Plum Island – acres and acres of this view, it was stunning.

Small bayberry (Morella caroliniensis) was a tricky plant to collect from, but well worth it for the smell – definitely one of my favorites!

The boardwalk trails at Ponkapoag Bog (Canton, MA) through cedar and sphagnum moss forests

By far the most whimsical plant we ever collected – tawny cottonsedge (Eriophorum virginicum)

Botanist problems – having plants attack you when you just want some soup from the fridge… [keeping root stocks of switch panicgrass (Panicum virgatum) fresh to send to researchers at UNC]

Krista Heilmann

Seeds of Success East

New England Wild Flower Society

Framingham, MA

The seasons are changing here in Buffalo, since the last blog post we’ve been hit with our first large snowstorm, and there is a looming cold front soon to demand warm blankets and hot chocolates out of all of us. But I’ll be out of here before that hits! The last month or so has been filled with wrapping up the finishing touches on my seven or so month internship. Included in that has been assisting with rangeland health reports, NEPA documentation, and as always some GIS mapping. But, at last I am about to head on out of Buffalo. The last seven months have been both a blast and one heck of a learning experience. And no better way to expand on just how much has gone on this internship than one big ol’ list!

• Enormous amounts of new botany knowledge. From little to a lot in a short while.
• A Chicago Botanic Garden intern workshop. A week of lectures and learning. Also meeting the many other lovely interns. Not to mention all the coffee.
• Expansive training. A week-long AIM (Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring) training, 4×4 driving, UTV driving, CRP & First Aid, GIS training.
• 36 or so Rangeland AIM plots established and completed.
• GIS Mapping of fencelines, allotments, pastures, wells, reservoirs, etc.
• Microsoft Access database entry and report creating.
• NEPA documentation.
• Report writing.
• NISIMS (weed database) mapping.
• Environmental Education opportunities.
• Office filing.
• Fixing up of the Range Improvements Database
• Many other small but meaningful tasks.

And of course the fun stuff:

• A trip to Grand Teton National Park and Salt Lake City.
• A trip up to Bozeman, MT and Missoula, MT.
• Starting mountain biking.
• Starting to learn guitar.
• An outstanding time at a mountain festival know as Antelope Butte in the Bighorn NF.
• My first ever competitive trail running race.
• Many weekends spent camping.
• First time actually catching fish while fly fishing.
• First time seeing a moose.
• Yet another trip to Grand Teton National Park, with a short visit into Yellowstone.
• An outstanding trip to the Black Canyon of the Gunnison NP, Moab, Arches NP, Canyonlands NP, Zion NP, and back to Salt Lake.
• Visiting the lovely land of Nova Scotia.
• First time ever backpacking alone in the wilderness.

Boy, I am sure I am still missing some things. Overall it has been an incredible time and an incredible internship. My confidence in my abilities to be an ecologist, biologist, or who knows maybe even a botanist in the future has grown immensely. The list of skills gained is expansive, and so is the practical knowledge. For those wondering what Buffalo is all about, it is a small town, but it has its charm. If the city is all to go on then maybe the internship could be a drag (though I sure enjoy bluegrass jams at the local saloon), but with the Bighorn Mountains on your doorstep, and a fantastic office to work for it’d be hard to pass up the chance to take an internship here. The internship offered a large amount of freedom, which is perhaps a little daunting early on.  Though by the end you’ve realized that independence was a benefit. It challenged my fellow intern, Corinne, and I to plan our field season mostly independent of the staff here, a skill that is invaluable. Throughout this whole position I had felt as though I was a part of this office, both asking questions of the people around me, and having them ask questions of me. And now it is a little sad to be leaving, but with this internship under my belt I can now enter the unknown of 2017’s field seasons with confidence, with future grad/career opportunities beyond.

Farewell Buffalo!

Nick Melone