The best thing about my internship here in Escalante is that we’ve been able to experience so many different aspects of the BLM’s conservation work. While our primary job has been collecting the seeds of native plants for the Seeds of Success (SOS) program, our CLM mentor is a wildlife biologist for Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument here in southern Utah, so we’ve been helping out with a lot of different projects.

Whoever thinks the desert is devoid of life will find themselves sadly mistaken if they ever come to the Staircase — at night, insects buzz and chirp and whir, and during the day birds soar overhead and chatter in the juniper and cottonwood trees. We’ve been catching bats to learn more about the different species that live on the Monument, and when we set up mist nets in the dark over rivers and streams, a chorus of croaking frogs and cicadas drowns out the silence of the dark.

My mentor works with the National Hummingbird Monitoring Network trapping and banding hummingbirds to study migration patterns and population dynamics, so every other week we get up long before dawn and head out to our monitoring sites to trap the tiny hummers. What an amazing experience. We have two native species on the Monument — the Blackchin and the Broadtail. Another species, the Rufus Hummingbird, migrates through every summer on their way from Alaska down to Mexico, an incredible journey for a bird weighing only about 3 grams.

In our spare time, we catch lizards and amphibians as part of ongoing baseline species surveys. The lizards I’ve talked about before in another blog, but we recently traveled up the Boulder Mountain north of the Staircase and found ponds full of morphing tiger salamanders. Weird little creatures, but so much fun to study.

All for now —

~Kate

BLM; Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT

Feeding hummingbirds after we weigh, measure, and band them

Tiger salamander working on growing legs

It’s official — fall has come to the desert. The mountains around Escalante are turning gold and red as the aspen leaves change, and the nights have gotten cold. Days are still warm on the Monument, but nothing like the scorching weather of the past few months; we are loving it. Seed collection is still in full swing here, so days are packed with monitoring, collecting and pressing herbarium specimens. My co-worker leaves in two weeks while I still have a month left here in Utah, so we are trying to get as much done as we can before she goes.

These past four months have been pretty incredible on a number of fronts — so many new experiences in a truly magical place. Living on Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument has really been a once in a lifetime experience; there is so much wildness here, so much space for roaming. I’d bet it’s probably one of the least explored places in the lower 48.

Canyon country is like no other place I’ve ever been, and it will always remain dear to my heart. As I’ve come to know the desert, I feel in a strange way like it’s come to know me as well; I’ve grown a lot while I’ve been down here with the red rock walls and damp canyon crevasses, and while I’ll be honest and say I’m excited to get back to the land of Big Water — I will definitely be back to the Staircase one day.

~Kate

BLM, Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, UT

Long Canyon Narrows

Adventure to Bryce Canyon National Park

30 days from now will be my last day as a CLM Intern here at the BLM office in Palm Springs. I can’t believe how fast the time has flown by, I feel like I just got here. As the time draws ever closer I face apprehension about what comes next, where I’m going to go from here. I have job applications out across the west coast and even a few in Nevada, Colorado, Wyoming and New Mexico. Last month I flew up to Northern California for an interview that turned out to be some what of a surprise as I learned that the job was rather different from the posting. They advertised that they where looking for someone to do pollution monitoring in their county and conduct air and water quality testing, but when I got there I found out that they actually needed someone to do pesticide monitoring. I reread the ad and the words pest or pesticide are no where in the ad. I asked about the water quality testing and monitoring and they said that that’s a separate division of their department.

In the mean time as I wait to hear from potential jobs I am trying to come up with a back up plan, maybe save up my money, hunker down for the winter and wait for field jobs to open up in the spring. But where to move to? I guess as each day passes I am closer to knowing the answer.

I just saw that I got in the BLM News Bytes again. I was the DRECP where Secretary Jewell announced that California will use for 10 Million Acres of California Desert for renewable energy. A bunch of BLM folks that where in attendance all got together for a group photo and I just saw it in my email. Here in a link to the photohttps://www.flickr.com/photos/blmcalifornia/29399756270/in/dateposted-public/

For the reminder of my time here I will mainly be finishing up plant surveys out at Dos Palmas ACEC, continuing work with the Desert Pupfish, keying out unknown plant species, and finishing up SOS collections.

So many memories of the field season, so many amazing experiences. I have endured scorching temperatures,  found my self 8″ away from a coiled rattlesnake, and seen spectacular sites. I got to see my first petroglyphs too. I now know the raw beauty and wonder of the desert and just fallen in love with it.

Lost Lake at Dos Palmas

Selfie at Lost Lake

My mentor walking out onto a fallen Palm tree on the Lost Lake

What a great summer! I’m still kinda scared, but also looking forward to what this next chapter will hold for me.

Crystal Neuenschwander

Palm Springs, BLM

The fishermen know that the sea is dangerous and the storm terrible, but they have never found these dangers sufficient reason for remaining ashore. – Vincent van Gogh

Most of my memorable and worthwhile experiences comes while taking risks. BLM has standardized safety regulations to prevent accidents that allows comfort during such adventures as flying in a helicopter. Although risky, this last field assignment left me feeling susceptible and free. The heightened view from the air is beautiful, grand, and the closest thing I’ve felt to being a bird.

Here’s some images of me out monitoring for vegetation during a mining compliance trip up North off the Dalton highway

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I am each of these people at one point or another.

BLM-LFO

Fall has hit Lander, which means cooler weather, more precipitation, and that our seed collecting has come to an end. Except for the various Artemisia species and the occasional opportunistic collection, we have finished our Seeds of Success seed collecting. We managed to surpass our goal of 20 collections, and we are creating herbarium labels for our vouchers in preparation for sending our specimens out to the various herbaria.

Since we are spending less time monitoring potential collections, we have been able to help out with other projects around the office. We helped one of the fire guys by flagging juniper trees that are going to be cut down. The water-hogging junipers have recently started to encroach on areas of our field office that are used for grazing and are causing previously riparian areas to dry up. Rachael and I had polygons on our Trimble marking the areas that are going to be cleared, and our job was to flag the perimeter of the polygons so the cutting crew will know which areas need to be cut. We finished flagging the first three sections, and were gearing up for the last and largest section, which looked to be about 8 miles in circumference. However, we showed up to find that the polygon designated an area covered in sagebrush, with not a juniper in sight! Why someone thought that area might have junipers remains a mystery, but at least it saved us a lot of time.

The area we were supposed to be flagging- not a juniper in sight!

We also helped to conduct a survey in our field office of Ute ladies’-tresses (Spiranthes diluvialis), one of the four plant species in Wyoming listed as Threatened or Endangered. We began the survey by driving 4 hours to a site near Casper that the plant is known to grow at so that we could see the plant in person before we began looking for it in our field office. When we reached the site, we spent 30 minutes searching the bank of a stream for the plant. The plant is less than a foot tall and grows among grasses and sedges that are almost twice its height, which makes it very difficult to spot. Eventually we found one, and then another, making our long drive worth it.

Spiranthes diluvialis

We spent two days visiting potential habitats in our field office. Not much is known about where the plant grows, but there are a lot of factors that eliminate habitat as potential, such as banks that are too steep, too alkaline, or too moist. We did find two orchids, but neither was the species we were searching for. The only way to differentiate Spiranthes diluvialis from other orchids is by its flowers. However, each individual plant can go several years between flowering events, so the survey will need to be conducted for several more years to ensure the survey is thorough and complete.

Since our mentor is a wildlife biologist, we have been helping him with some wildlife work as well. For the past week, we have been visiting previously mapped white-tailed prairie dog colonies in our field office to determine whether they are still active. We have also found some colonies that were created more recently, so we are mapping those by walking around the boundary with a Trimble GPS. This is quite a bit more difficult than it sounds. The white-tailed prairie dogs spread their holes out, so it is not always possible to stand at one hole and see the next one. One colony we mapped was over 3 miles in circumference, and we could walk for several minutes before finding another hole.

It has been interesting to get a sense of all the monitoring that is required for the sensitive species in our field office. As October approaches, our work will probably turn away from plants and more towards wildlife (and office work). Our mentor has some sage grouse related projects lined up for us, and we have been working on tidying up the loose ends for our Seeds of Success collections. Beyond that, we are excited to take on whatever projects come our way.

Bonus pictures:

Petroglyphs at Castle Gardens, a popular destination for visitors in our field office

When searching for plants, sometimes you find other surprises

Cirque of the Towers, one of our weekend backpacking destinations

Lara Grevstad

BLM Lander, WY

Floating the River

The sky still dark and stormy

We set off late, damp

Floating the river

Water thick with sediment

Red as the canyon

Floating the river

We treat teasel and thistle

Avoid the milkweed

Floating the river

Searching the grassy shoreline

Perfect habitat

Floating the river

Anticipation building

An orchid, hiding

Floating the river

Found our tiny friend in bloom

Ute Ladies Tresses

Floating the river

Rain drops fall on our dinner

The clouds have come  back

Floating the river

Bald eagle dives and catches fish

Shares it with a friend

Floating the river

Wind is blowing at our backs

Mission accomplished

Recently, the weather around Salmon, ID has begun to change to fall. We have had our firsts frosts and snow, the mornings are much colder now, and it is harder to wake up in the morning with the reducing daylight. The changing of the season has also brought a change in my work. Working more with the range crew at the office, I have begun a fence mapping project of one of the more remote areas within my BLM field office. The mapping project forces me to hike all day long in country that I otherwise wouldn’t get to. It has been absolutely beautiful. I am seeing parts of the field office I didn’t even know existed, and am in awe with the beautiful landscape that is right outside my front door. The wildlife has also been amazing. The other day while GPSing fence, I stumbled right across 3 moose, 2 foxes, 2 rattlesnakes, and the largest herd of elk I have ever seen. To be quiet out in the wilderness surrounded by such amazing wildlife is almost a sublime feeling. This project has given me such an appreciation for the beauty that the Salmon field office holds.

Signing off for now,

Austen, BLM, Salmon, ID

As September rolls in the field season is starting to roll out. We still have some work to do in the field, mostly range tasks. This includes checking on range improvement projects and utilization. Range improvement projects are things like troughs, cattle guards, and exclosures. We drive out to them and evaluate how successful they are. For example we check to make sure the cattle guard hasn’t filled in with dirt, which would allow the cattle to cross it. This has involved a lot of driving through a lot of new country. This can be challenging because a lot of the BLM roads are either not marked or not in great condition.  Some days were more successful than others. Utilization involves looking at the height of grazed and ungrazed grasses to see how much of the forage has been consumed. The University of Idaho has developed a tool to estimate the percent of weight consumed by looking at the height. We did several of these transects, then visually estimated the percent utilization across the pasture.

One of the more fun things we got to do was go out with a group from the office to do a proper functioning condition (PFC) evaluation on a stream in Muldoon Canyon. This area is a beautiful part of the field office, where there are stands of both Douglas fir and aspens. Getting to see how a PFC works was really interesting. A PFC evaluation is more of a qualitative evaluation than a quantitative one. A plant list is made and then various aspects of stream condition is looked at. The group goes through a list of conditions that should be met for a healthy system and then discusses if they are met or not. It was really interesting to see how this process works.

We also got to go out and do a tour of a fire area that burned a couple of weeks ago. There was a large fire in the field office that burnt part of the field office near Crater’s of the Moon National Monument. We went out with people from Idaho Fish and Game and the Agriculture Research Service. There are some state sections inside the fire and Idaho Fish and Game came out to coordinate their rehabilitation with what the BLM was planning to do. The ARS came out because they are going to set up some test plots inside the fire to look at what types of grasses do best. It is extremely important for the BLM to be able to get perennial grasses out after a fire to prevent cheatgrass from taking over, the ARS is looking at different cultivars, natives and near native cultivars to see how they do competing against the cheatgrass. It was really interesting to hear about the fire rehabilitation plan and to hear about the planned experiments.

In exciting news we found a new occurrence of a special status plant and didn’t even know it! We did a plant clearance for a project along a spring near the Snake River. We were doing the survey  for the Chatterbox Orchid, in addition to finding the orchid we found a new occurrence of Sand Verbena. The Sand Verbena is a new addition to Idaho’s rare plant list. We are now going back and adding it to the plant clearance next years interns will have to do a full survey for it.

When I first told people I accepted a job in Shoshone, ID I received a lot of interesting comments.  From, “isn’t the whole state just potatoes,” to “are there even people there?” For this post I have decided to compile reasons why Idaho is more than potatoes, and why it has grown on me.

I have found Idaho to be an excellent home base for exploring the west. I have had the opportunity to visit Crater Lake, the Wallawas, the Avenue of the Giants, Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park, Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, Craters of the Moon, and Glacier National Park. I feel that it is fitting that I have been able to visit so many of our National Parks during the park service’s centennial year. I am also excited that I got to see one of Glacier National Park’s 25 remaining glaciers, which are predicted to disappear as early as 2030! Something else I have enjoyed doing is comparing the photos I have taken at these places to pictures from 1961 that a past professor has been sending to me as I visit them. As you can see below, not much has changed at crater lake in 45 years except the photo quality.

Grinnell Glacier today

Grinnell Glacier in 1961

Wizard Island in Crater Lake today

Wizard Island in Crater Lake in 1961

Phantom Ship in Crater Lake today

Phantom ship in Crater Lake in 1961

The gem state also has a lot of “small hidden gems” that don’t exactly fit into the precious stone category. My fellow CLM interns and I have stumbled upon a hand carved Tibetan prayer wheel blessed by the Dali Lama (one of two in North America), the widest main street in the nation (right here in Shoshone!), the jump site for when Evel Knievel attempted to jump the Snake River in 1974, the Perrine bridge that people commonly base jump from, Shoshone falls (which is 45 ft taller than Niagara falls!), the tallest single-structured sand dune in North America (Bruneau Sand Dunes State Park), Hells canyon which is the deepest gorge in America, the first city in the world to be powered solely by nuclear power (Arco), and the site of the first nuclear power plant and nuclear meltdown in the world (Atomic city).

Another benefit of working in the Shoshone field office is that the staff is amazing. There is never a shortage of garden fresh veggies or fruit for us to take home, they are extremely helpful with career advice, looking out for new opportunities for us, and can always be counted on to give great recommendations for weekend recreation. From the beginning they have all made us feel welcome. Both my mentor, Danelle, and the other CLMs’ mentor, Joanna, deserve a special shout-out. They have gone out of their way to make sure that we get the most out of our internships, which I feel like is a challenge since there are 5 CLM interns in the office.  Even though I was hired for Seeds of Success, the list of projects I have participated in takes up almost an entire page, and I expect it to continue to grow until I leave in November. We recently received the excess from our collections back from Bend. The amount that we got back shocked me, since it feels impossible to gather over 10,000 seed when you are actually collecting. However, turns out that we well surpassed that limit on 6 of our collections, and still have one more to send in!

The excess seed from our collections. It is so satisfying to see how much we got back!

Perideridia gairdneri collection

There is never a dull moment here. As I was finishing this post the woman who works the front desk came into our cubicles, and told us a bull snake was in the hallway by the break room. Marissa, one of my fellow CLM interns, sprinted down the hall to wrangle the snake. Being the team player that she is she, in her own words, “threw her body in the way to protect everyone in the office,” and as you can see he was truly terrifying.

Marissa after capturing the snake

Our Thursday afternoon visitor