Time is flying by here in Vernal- it seems just yesterday that all the Astragalus species were in flower! These past few weeks have seen the Eriogonum, Chrysothamnus, and Artemisia genera begin bursting into bloom. It has been amazing witnessing all the different bits of color along the highway this summer, transitioning from the white Oenothera, to the orange Sphaeralcea, to the brown and yellow Helianthus, and finally to the yellow Chrysothamnus genera.

Cleome serrulata near Rangely, Colorado

Such a pretty plant!

This past week we finished collection of Cleome serrulata, or purple beeplant. When first scouting this plant, we saw that some pods on the plant were red, and others were green. Both the red and green pods contained immature green seeds. We found virtually no mature seeds that were still attached to the plant, suggesting that perhaps as soon as the seeds are ripe, the pods split open and the seeds drop to the ground. This was worrisome, because it would mean that we would have a very short window of time in which to collect mature seed before they split open and fell to the ground.

Cleome serrulata with reddish-green seed pods

We wondered if it would be feasible to collect the unripened pods, and see if the seeds would continue to mature off of the plant. We decided to take back the a small sample of Cleome seeds and see if they would continue to develop further and eventually darken and harden in the bag. We filled three paper bags with seeds, the first containing closed green seed pods, the second containing closed red seed pods, and the third containing immature green seeds without a seed pod. After several days, we opened the seed pods and examined the seeds in each of the bags.

Cleome serrulata with red seed pods

Surprisingly, the bag containing closed green seed pods was the only bag with seeds that ripened. It seemed as though the seed pods started out red, then as they began to ripen they turned green. In addition, since the seeds collected in the bag that were not enclosed in a pod did not ripen, we assumed that the presence of the pod was necessary for seed development.

Therefore, we concluded that we should only collect Cleome serrulata seeds that were enclosed in a completely green seed pod, and that these seeds should sit for several days in open paper bags (to prevent molding) while they developed.

By collecting green seed pods, we were able to successfully collect Cleome serrulata. The population we found was fairly large, so we did not have any problem meeting our goal of 20,000 seeds. In addition, we also noticed several albino Cleome serrulata plants, which was pretty cool to see.

White Cleome serrulata plants with green seed pods

All in all, this species was a lot of fun to collect and I am looking forward to wrapping up our last few collections of the year. Until next time!

Jinny (Genevieve) Alexander
Vernal, UT BLM

Woah! It’s September and my colleagues and I have done about thirty-five seed collections. Our squad has been pretty successful in scouting populations and collecting from them efficiently. Sometimes we do two or three collections in a day! I don’t actually know if this is impressive, though, I just feel like we’re doing alright.

We collected birdsfoot trefoil while a storm rolled in over the desert. We were completely safe, of course, and left the area before it got too serious!

When collecting in the rain it is important to wear the proper protective gear– in my case a dashingly fierce, hot pink rain coat.

We have three sites that we collect Eriogonum nudem, a pretty plant that is tall and easy to collect from. When put on as a headpiece, it makes an impressive nature crown. Try it out next time you see it!

This mint was a beautiful collection. Not only was it delightfully fragrant with maybe one hundred seeds per flower head, but this population was located in a pine forest overlooking Eagle Lake.

Sometimes collections are frightfully comfortable– Rachael was able to recline of the soft ground as we collected trefoil in a riparian area.

While collecting california prickly poppy– quite possibly one of the most prickly materials on this planet Earth– I stumbled upon the tiniest and most precious creature. A horny toad!

We’ve begun earnestly hunting for Mountain Mahogany, a fun collection if one can find trees producing enough seed to beat it off the branches. The experience is altogether unpleasant, however– the seeds are covered in tiny fibers which will work their way under one’s clothing and into one’s flesh. Very itchy.

I’ve got about seven weeks left at this internship. It’s truly shocking how fast it’s gone! I’m sure the coming weeks will be just as full of adventure as the preceding ones.

Until next time!

Lillie P.

My time as a CLM intern has been nothing if not a learning experience. Some lessons are easy to learn and some are hard, but each one was valuable.

Lesson 1: Collaboration is an integral component to creating a well-oiled, functional machine. This is true in any job, but it may be particularly applicable when government agencies work with communities and non-profits to improve environments and save species. When individuals and groups work together, then the whole becomes greater than the sum of its independent collaborators. In the face of an uncertain future, collaboration between bodies interested in protecting the environment will be to conservation what biodiversity will be to ecosystem resilience – one cannot exist without the other.

This is Ronald. He is the love of my ornithological life.

Lesson 2: A coffee addiction is no joke and is really expensive. Starting in May, my co-intern and I spent three days every other week sampling hummingbirds with the BLM and USFS wildlife biologists, Terry Tolbert and Lisa Young, for the Hummingbird Monitoring Network. The Network’s protocol dictates that the sampling sessions begin within half an hour of sunrise and continue for five hours. The three study sites included the Escalante Visitor Center, Calf Creek Campground (half an hour from Escalante), and the Wildcat Visitor Center (an hour from Escalante). Getting to the latter two sites within 30 minutes of sunrise meant that we needed to be up and on the road at some unfortunate hour. Coffee, in those instances, became a sort of a lifeline.

Lesson 3: SOS is a multi-faceted, comprehensive program that is going to be invaluable should the worst of climate predictions come true. As the world journeys to the cross-roads of an uncertain future where the only sure things will be death, taxes, and stochasticity, advanced planning now will be one of the best self-preservation acts that humans can perform. Working within this program has been an immense honor for me because my work has encouraged me to embrace the long-term view of resilient conservation practices.

Terry took us to see a Moki storage building. Jessie Dodge for scale.

Lesson 4: A good mentor is worth their weight in gold. I cannot speak highly enough of Terry Tolbert as a mentor and it is difficult to construct a paragraph to his credit without resorting to superlatives. Terry is a Wildlife Biologist with the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, but boy howdy – that man knows his plants. His knowledge on the local floral diversity and location, in addition to his knowledge of previous SOS teams’ work and BLM land boundaries and treatments, have been invaluable. In addition to helping our team to make sense of the vast seed collection opportunities on the Monument, Terry also introduced my co-intern and me to wildlife biology and taught us how to conduct good surveys. On top of being a first-rate mentor in exposing us to the scientific aspects of the Monument and working within the BLM, Terry was never hesitant to give us history lessons, show us fossil dinosaur prints that only locals know about, teach us about the (confusing) sedimentary structures and layers, take us to see historic dwellings of ancient peoples, and show us pictographs and petroglyphs in order to help us gain a more complete understanding of where we were working. Working with Terry was, simply put, a joy.

Lesson 5: Wildlife biology is rad. Not only did I get to learn the practical skills of what it takes to study wild animals like hummingbirds, bats, and lizards, but I experienced a personal scientific reawakening. My affinity for animal biology in how it relates to conservation biology was raised from its slumber and I have a desire to pursue wildlife field work in the future in addition to building upon my hard earned plant knowledge.

A 30-foot tall mist net to catch bats.

Lesson 6: Escalante is one heck of a beautiful place and if you have never been there, then get thee there soon. Public lands are something that I took for granted until I moved to Escalante and discovered that there are new paths to be found every day and that I am free to wander when and where I please. It is an incomparable feeling to be amidst the desert scrub and know that I am alone. It’s choice.

Lesson 7: Monsoons can put a real damper on seed collecting and driving dirt roads for hours. My co-intern and I learned this the hard way after our seed bags threatened to tear because they were so wet, the lightning struck close to our populations one too many times for comfort, and we slipped and slid back home as we raced the rain.

There you have it. Six months in seven lessons. In the spirit of Bilbo Baggins,

Roads go ever ever on,

Over rock and under tree,

By caves where never sun has shone,

By streams that never find the sea;

Over snow by winter sown,

And through the merry flowers of June,

Over grass and over stone,

And under mountains in the moon.

 

Roads go ever ever on

Under cloud and under star,

Yet feet that wandering have gone

Turn at last to home afar.

Eyes that fire and sword have seen

And horror in the halls of stone

Look at last on meadows green

And trees and hills they long have known.

– The Hobbit

Cheers!

Elise, Escalante Field Office

I suppose it won’t surprise you that there was no reprieve from the summer heat of August as opposed to the inferno that was July? Yeah, I wasn’t very surprised either… It’s OK, my body handled the intensity much better this go around.

This past month my tasks fell very heavily towards seed collection. We had a lot of our local flora ready to drop their seeds, and had to take the opportunity while it was there to collect as much as we could. I think we completed at least 6 seed collections during that month, on top of other wildlife duties all the interns and myself had. There are several species, such as an Andropogon spp. and other sand-dune country grasses, that have continually held onto their seeds despite how hot it’s been. Fortunately for the region, we’ve been receiving quite a bit of rain, but unfortunately that has delayed the maturing of some of the species that should have already been ready. We’ll continue checking up on them as the season winds down. Since this is the first year for SOS in the Carlsbad field office district, we don’t have reliable data to go on for when seed maturity is generally reached for most species here. We’re doing it as we go, which can be challenging but rewarding since we are the forerunners of the program for this office: writing protocols and recording collection schedules for future interns.

One of our collections sights while El Capitan in the Guadalupe Mountains looks down on us.

As September has come and Fall quickly approaching, I’ve written a surveying protocol for Scaled Quail (Callipepla squamata), which is a common game species in states such as Texas, Colorado, Oklahoma, and of course, New Mexico. We just want to get a good idea of how their populations are so we can make appropriate management decisions regarding quail harvesting. As I’ve said, it’s been a “wet-ish” year, so we suspect their populations to not be of concern as there should be more resources for the quails to take advantage of. I’ve also written the protocol setup in the form a pilot study for a potentially longer observational study. My mentor and I want to look at the effects of sprayed areas on quail populations. Will there be a significant difference in the number of quail observed along roads that have been sprayed with herbicide versus non-sprayed? Simple, but hasn’t been looked at too much. I should say–the herbicide is used to reduce the cover impact of shrubs such as mesquite (Prosopis spp.) and shinnery oak (Quercus havardii) as they compete with grasses and other forbs that cattle eat. We’ll see how it all goes. I run my first test run next week!

These next several weeks are also going to be focused on the goal of bat monitoring within our field office. We want to conduct a few bat counts of some local roosts we know of that contain colonies of Mexican free-tailed (Tadarida brasiliensis) and the cave myotis (Myotis velifer) bats. We also had the idea to take a video of the exodus of these bats for future reference and for the potential ability to get a more accurate estimate of their population’s numbers. I’ve read papers on the estimation of some bat colonies varying from millions of individuals to only a few hundred thousand. A big difference, and from what I’ve read, it’s mostly due to the complications of quantifying a (sometimes) blur of objects circling yet gradually leaving their caves in large numbers. If time allows and if we are able to capture a good video of an exodus, I may try looking up some strategies for estimating myself.

As for recreation, I’ve been busy (perhaps a bit lazy as well). The busiest was when I drove the 9 and half hours up to Leadville, CO to visit a couple friends. We camped out and successfully summited the second tallest peak in the contiguous, Mt. Elbert – a devious one. It had a deceptive peak that tricked pretty much all of the hikers we saw that day, though, we all endured. Very worthwhile and beautiful vistas! On another solo trip I went up to Ruidoso, NM to hike a trail in the Sacramento mountains – lots of burned trees, but, yet again, all so beautiful nonetheless…

Vista from “somewhere near the peak”

Mt. Elbert summit

Lincoln National Forest / Sacramento Mountains

Until next time!

Armand Cann
Carlsbad Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

Cenchrus tribuloides – Sanddune sandbur

Definitely one of the more interesting plants in our range here. If you’ve never had the misfortune of encountering these jerks of the grass family, let me paint the scene for you. Imagine you’re walking along, heading toward the beach with your family and friends, dragging a beach chair and complaining about how hot the sand is on your feet, despite the sandals you’re wearing. You’re just getting to the part of the conversation when start feeling hopeful about the cool water you’re about to step into, when – BAM! No, that wasn’t your beach chair unfolding on its own and bruising your ankle. That was a sanddune sandbur. 8 mm long spines have pierced your flesh, and its not just one, but 15 burs that are sticking out of you like you’re made of Velcro.

Now you can stop imagining – because you have to collect the seeds of this gem.

But seriously, how do you collect something like this? My partner Maggie and I had planned on buying a raggedy old bed sheet from a consignment store, and dragging it across the landscape to collect our burs, however, we forgot to get the bed sheet. Luckily though, Maggie had two old towels in her car, so we decided to try our luck with them. Towels are more like Vecro than human skin, right? And more so than a bed sheet.

Anyway, we tried that, and as it turns out, there is a critical mass of burs that will stick to any given towel. I’m going to approximate that the number is around 200 burs per side. Seeing as how we had two towels, two sides per towel, that only gives us about 800 burs. I was finding there to be 1 seed per bur, so in the grand scheme of things, 800 seeds will do us no good when our goal is 20,000.

We then tried a different method – walk through this big patch of Cenchrus tribuloides wearing our rubber boots, and clip the mature inflorescences with our pruners into a paper bag. That worked for a while, but after noticing how many burs were sticking to our gloves and pants, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Quite literally. I threw my pruners to the ground, readied myself, and grasped an inflorescence with my (gloved) hands. Applying only the slightest amount of pressure, I attempted to strip the stalk of its burs – and voila! The mature burs stuck to my glove, and the immature burs remained on the stalk.

After that we were able to collect our goal – and then some – in record time. The sheet was an inventive idea, as were the towels, but lo and behold, our hands were the best tool we had.

Never again will I underestimate what my hands can do – and neither should you.

Till next time.

It’s hard to believe I’ve been here in Ridgecrest over 6 weeks now! It has been quite busy. On the seed collection front, we have managed to make a few seed collections and are monitoring a few other sites for harvest-ability. Last Thursday we were picking Cleome sparsifolia, and let me tell you–it took quite a while to get rid of the pungent odor on my hands. Yuck.

In the office I have been helping put together a grant proposal which I’m enjoying doing research for, but my main side project has been digitizing the RIFO herbarium. Entering all the data has been a bit tedious, but having a digital copy of the herbarium contents will be a valuable resource to the field office, and I’m a little surprised no one had done it yet! Going through all the vouchers has also helped me familiarize with more of the species we encounter and get a better idea of what can be found in the area.

I’m enjoying the field office here so far. I’ve finally made some friends which has helped, and my mentor is an outstanding guy with lots of great advice for my career. Outside of work, I’ve been enjoying having access to the mountains, and my favorite weekend trip so far has been the visit to Mammoth Lakes!

Mojave Tarweed: We encountered a rare plant, Deinandra mohavensis, during our most recent visit to Short Canyon.

California Loosestrife: Got a collection of Lythrum californicum in some damp areas of Short Canyon.

California Kingsnake: I was very excited to see my first snake since being out here! A friendly Lampropeltis californiae. Still keeping my eyes peeled for rattlers.

Olancha Dunes: Collection site for the Cleome sparsifolia. Quite a pretty area, though be ready for eyes and airways full of sand if it’s windy.

Amphibians! Found some unk tadpoles in Surprise Canyon. In my opinion, the surprise was that there was running water somewhere out here!

Surprisingly colorful: I’m taking a lichen to California! Eh? Eh?

California rocks! The noun, or the verb.

Paintbrush: We collected seed for Castilleja linariifolia at Short Canyon recently.

Mammoth: A beautiful place that realize how much I missed trees and water.

As my internship begins to wind down here at the Eugene BLM office I find myself basking in the anticipation of my first term as a masters student at Oregon State University.

Two summers ago I took an intensive 2-week course in ecological restoration and knew from that moment onward that I wanted to one day become a restoration practitioner. I still had over a year of course work ahead of me to finish my B.S. and had not given serious thought to graduate school. When the professor of my summer restoration course recruited me to be in his new lab at Oregon State University it felt like one of those moments when you just have to say yes without a second thought. I did say yes, and I’m truly glad I did, but I never would have expected how things would actually play out.

It’s two years later and I just now feel like I’m starting to understand how all the pieces fit together. I had so many misconceptions going into this whole process that it’s kind of amazing it worked out at all. One of the hardest lessons I had to learn was how to tell the difference between things I had control over and those I didn’t… to put my future in the hands of my advisor and a host of strangers… and to just hope everything would work out. I also had to learn to be my own advocate.

After several years of constantly feeling like everything was either just about to work out or blow up in my face I often look back and think of many things I wish I had known or done differently. Other times I look back and am glad that the road was rough because it forced me to navigate a very confusing and nebulous bureaucratic system, gave me an appreciation for how difficult it is to find funding for research, and to accept that there are many many things that are just simply out of my hands. Maybe the emotional roller-coaster I’ve been on the last two years was a product of my stubbornness to learn these lessons.

For anyone thinking about graduate school, (and more specifically a research-oriented M.S.) I cannot stress enough how important it is to lean heavily on at least one faculty member who has lots of experience advising graduate students and who has consistently found grant money for said students. At face value it seems like you can do most of the heavy lifting to get a research project up and running by yourself so long as you get accepted into a graduate program, but in reality for things to go smoothly one (or several faculty members) have to essentially pave the way for you (and they have to pave it well).

I’m just about to start school in 2 weeks and have a grant with enough funding to get me most of the way through my degree. Since I first embarked on this journey I’m just now about to start working towards my degree for real, all after hopping between half a dozen research ideas, three different departments at OSU, authoring several grant applications, and arriving at many many dead ends along the way. Despite the rough road I still feel very fortunate to be where I am now. I also can’t shake the feeling that I’ve already made it though the hardest part. At least now I can mostly see the path forward and have gained the confidence to know that with the help of my committee and and others I will be able to see this through.

Devils’s Tower. Huge, amazing, and people actually climb to the top!

One of those sub-par photos of a very gorgeous natural water feature in Yellowstone.

Oh you know, just a pic from my view driving home. #wyo

My family and friends worry sometimes…I wonder why!

At the moment, my fellow intern and I are getting ready to go the Bighorns for a week to help a forester in Casper with field work. Last night I went a little crazy making food and packing. I mean, I have enough food for two weeks. I’d say I won’t go hungry for these 4.5 days just a short drive from Buffalo. Oh well-never hurts to come prepared!

I recently took a bit of a vacation to Yellowstone and found that my iPhone is a pitiful camera for such occasions. It was amazing and beautiful, of course. But I came back telling everyone that I think the places I work everyday are better than Yellowstone. In fact, the drive back to Newcastle, via Cooke City and highway 296, had the most spectacular switchbacks and views. Even walking in the National Forest behind my cabin is gorgeous and I can go whenever I want. I hope everyone is finding beauty in all the mundane -yet fleeting things during their internships. I’ve been trying to remind myself to take the time to smell the roses, so to speak.

Our inventory projects are going very well. I think we finally have the hang of a proper field day. However, there was one time that neither of us brought the data sheets. Have you ever done that, where each of you thought the other person had grabbed something only to find that neither of you did. That would have been fine, as we could simply recreate the data sheet on normal paper right? Wrong. We had NO scrap paper. So what do enterprising young ladies do? We record all the data on the iPhone in the notes section and copy and paste it into an email at the end of the day and have it on our computers to use! There is something to be said for this technology stuff!

Also, we were assigned another project that included driving all over a huge piece of land and digitizing major vegetation types and later doing timber inventories for a fuels analysis. Except 85% of the roads on the map we had were ATV Trails! In short, we got a little stuck in certain places and had to hoof it in some STEEP areas. But when it’s steep, there are almost always good views. I hope we plan a little camping for work there, because there is this one camp site that has a 300 foot drop 20 feet away from it, overlooking a view to die for. A very desolate view, but hey, that’s Wyoming for you.

I hope everyone is doing once-in-a-lifetime type things!

Andee

Cheat Grass,

Downy Brome,

Bromus tectorum,

Wretched Fiend.

You have many names,

and have taken many lands.

When a band of horses turns the earth,

when a herd of cattle lingers at water,

when a fire sweeps through the sagebrush,

in the bare earth

you spring up

first and foremost,

claiming every inch of space,

cutting in line,

and unwilling to share.

You are the earliest bird

who gets the worm,

steals the land.

Establishing a blockade,

the natives can not grow,

and you are free to thrive.

You weave yourself

into my socks,

and poke my ankles

when I’m trying to work.

Fire monitoring drags on

when I cannot see

stunted perennials

through your shadow.

Sometimes,

in the evening light,

you glow

and sway in the breeze,

and I forget

you are so terrible,

so pervasive,

and for this short moment

I enjoy your presence.

What a treacherous cheat!

You are a formidable foe.

-O

Carson City BLM