Getting prepared for the start of the field season means more forays out onto Public land to dust off my Botany skills. This included a trip down to the Organ Mountains Desert-Peaks National Monument outside of Las Cruces, New Mexico. This is a stunning BLM-managed Monument which provides an intimidating jagged ridge line (see photo below). Although most well known for the abundance of beautiful granite and rhyolite formations, the Organ Mountains are (arguably) the most botanically diverse range in New Mexico, including several endemic species.

Sunrise creeping over the Organ Mountains from my campsite

My little jaunt into this Monument took me up 4000 ft to the highest peak in the range, the Organ Needle. As I hiked creosote desert shrub-land transitioned into fields of wildflowers, oak and juniper woodlands, and ponderosa pine forest. At the summit I was rewarded with an outstanding view north in White Sands National Park and south into Mexico and Texas.

View into White Sands National Park from Organ Needle peak

Of course the hike took me twice as long as it should since I was stopping every few minutes to admire/key the myriad forbs, grasses, shrubs and trees that accompanied me along the way. My favourite of the day was the beautiful (and delicious) Desert Onion as seen below.

Allium macropetalum – abundant on the footslopes of the Organ Mountains

As well as botanizing to my heart’s content I have also been preparing for the upcoming AIM training in Grand Junction, CO next month. One of my responsibilities as an instructor is to gather and process soil samples for the 70 participants to train with. While this does involve exciting expeditions out into the field to source these soils, it also requires hours of tedious sieving and quality control. Below is my makeshift workstation.

Sieving soil for the upcoming AIM training

Three weeks have passed since I made the big move out to Bishop, CA. My first week here was full of training videos and driving tours of the land. My mentor and I spent a couple days in the field together that week, I was armed with plant lists and ready to learn the native flora. It’s crazy how many shrubs are out here, distinguishing among the Atriplex species is still driving me crazy. I’m looking forward to honing in on my shrub ID skills though- lots of studying to be done! I have mainly spent my time surveying the land the Bishop field office manages (meaning I get to go off-roading all day in big trucks!) for any wild flowers beginning to sprout. My aim is to find large enough populations of plants to collect seed from when the time is right. There are so many beautiful cactus and bright yellow annuals popping up currently. So far I am anticipating a seed collection of a Lepidium flavum population and maybe a Mentzelia population. Other flowering plants popping up include species in the Eriophyllum, Syntrichopappus, Phacelia, Cryptantha, and Amsinckia genus. I spent a few days last week camping in the Amargosa Valley with Sarah DeGroot, the Seeds of Success coordinator from the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden. We went over how to properly collect seed in the field and how to do tissue sample collections. It was a very useful and fun experience.

Besides the Seeds of Success program I have been involved in the Sage-Grouse study our field office does. I’m looking forward to learning more about these funny looking birds as I have more opportunities to participate in the lek counts. I’ve heard the counts take place around sunrise when the birds are the most active, which means I will need to be out of bed around 4 am, the joy! I have also heard about bat surveys which take place a little later in the summer and I’m hoping I can tag along for some of those. I love the variety of work I am able to participate in, it makes the days go by fast and I absolutely love learning new things.

Working with the BLM has been great fun so far and I’m looking forward to all the new experiences to come.

Brittany Betz

BLM Bishop Field Office

For my second CBG stint, I have been sent to the Salt Lake Field Office in Salt Lake City, Utah. Instead of focusing all my energy on AIM, I now join the vast league of interns who have and who currently are participating in the Seeds of Success program. I have been here with the other SOS intern, Theresa, for about a month now. In that time, we’ve tried to educate ourselves on our focus species, other species that our office has a particular interest in, and some opportunistic species that we may have the ability to collect.

In addition to learning about these grass and forb species, we have been fiddling around on GIS trying to make adequate maps for where we can potentially find some populations. Theresa and I have the unique experience in being the first official SOS interns this field office has ever had. While that is exciting, it’s also kind of difficult at times. Compared to the last BLM office I was in, this office lacks a lot in materials available to us. Luckily, we have a substantial budget that gives us the ability to order all the supplies we think we’ll need this season. The most valuable thing to us so far has been a copy of Utah Flora and a small grasses booklet.

The best key we have to use

I can’t help but compare where I was last year in Buffalo, Wyoming to where I am now. For being neighboring states, there is already a whole bunch of new vegetation and landscapes to get to know. Luckily, there’s some old favorites that I can recognize as they start to pop up in the warming weather. Technically I am in the West Desert district now, so it’s going to get super dry before I know it!

When I’m not attempting to be a botanist and also not on the hunt for housing (SLC is notorious for a large housing demand it can’t keep up with I have learned), I’m trying to explore the area as much as possible. SLC feels more like a big town than a city, and it’s not a bad thing. There’s plenty of cool hiking trails in the Wasatch Range in the city’s backyard that I’m eager to check out and there’s plenty of museums and other things to occupy my time. I’ve never lived in a place so dominated by one religious sect, so that’s been a new and interesting experience for me as well.

Overall, I’m looking forward to this field season and contributing to the SOS network of native seeds!

-Corinne Schroeder
SLFO

Freedom, though not necessarily ease, of movement over expanses of land allows for a far more visceral understanding of the lives of wild animals and plants than could any amount of reading. The two ways of knowing are, of course, deeply and necessarily complimentary, but not until a student of nature has moved for a time across a landscape wide enough to allow them to experience and negotiate a variety of environments and conditions will they have more that an abstract understanding of the lives and histories of the place’s inhabitants.

(The Clan Alpine Mountains, Churchill co., NV, from the floor of Dixie Valley)

A student of biogeography, one interested in the peculiar distribution of a montane species in the the basin and range province offers a useful illustration of this complimentarity. A review of the literature concerning this hypothetical species shows that it hasn’t been recorded beneath about 7000 feet in elevation. Strangely, though, not all areas above 7000 feet in the region harbor this species. Why? Clearly the hot, alkaline basins surrounding montane areas in this region are insurmountable barriers to migration.

(Equisetum sp., in Ash Canyon, Carson City, Nevada)

A long hike or drive on dirt roads from ridge to ridge via an intervening basin, taken with plenty of water but with no books, lays the foundation for this abstract answer to become a visceral understanding of what is, of how things operate. The mountain air where the species is found cools the sweat on the brow while the basin’s hot wind leaves skin dry and with an accumulation of gritty salt and dust. The distances involved, easily laid out on a map, are more comprehensible from the point of view of a wild thing after half an hour of bouncing across a dirt road brings only a small change to one’s view of a distant ridge.

(A violet in a a sunny ponderosa pine woodland)

This week marks the first paid position I have had as a scientist.  In my confusing middle twenties I tried a lot of different jobs and walked a winding path towards where I am now.  I have always been curious and appreciative of the outdoors, but it wasn’t until I stumbled into a job as a summer school teacher, which eventually led to an “outdoor fun” position where I got to take kids hiking everyday, did I consider doing it as a job and career.  I kept this job for the next 4 summers, while I eventually went on to get a Master’s in Environmental Education.

While studying I bumbled towards another realization that as much I loved and still do love sharing and experiencing nature with students I became interested in other aspects of our interaction with the environment.  Along the way farming and agriculture took ahold of me, and I spent a year helping to manage a mixed organic farm.  Farming likewise will keep a part of my heart, but my favorite part of it was the idea of land restoration and conservation and understanding the native plants in the area, and again felt drawn towards another opportunity.

Now I feel like I have arrived at a new window and opportunity in my life.  Taking on changing career paths from a Business undergrad towards a Biology based career took an intense amount of time, effort, and self-discipline to take extra classes and go a bit above and beyond to feel confident and competent in my abilities to change.

I have often felt worried and self-conscious about my wandering jobs and interests, and watched as friends pass me in their development of their jobs and lives as I felt I was moving sideways.  However, the joy of starting a job I know I am going to love, and of finding a milestone through a string of big and confusing decisions, really brings me a sense of contentment. Plus it also brought me to some flowers.

Cat’s Ear Lily, a common flower that is in the same genus as a lot of endangered lilies in the area

One of the federally listed endangered plants in the Rogue Valley of Oregon

The past month has been been filled many new experiences and opportunities. I have had the opportunity to survey for potential SOS vouchers in places like Desert Lily Preserve that had an abundance of  Hesperocallis undulata (desert lily), Abronia villosa (sand verbena), Oenothera (evening primrose) and Plantago ovata (woolly plantain).

Insane blooms at Desert Lily Preserve

Evening primrose

I have also had the opportunity to learn tissue and seed collection protocol from the SOS team at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Claremont, CA. We collected Chylisma sp. for tissue collection for DNA analysis and collected seed from Chylisma claviformis (Brown-eyed primrose) and Chaenactis fremontii (desert pincushion) for SOS in the Mojave.

I helped with environmental education with high school students at San Jacinto Mountain. The mountain is about 8000ft in elevation and actually still had snow! Did not think I would be seeing snow so far south and in the desert.

San Jacinto

This week we also began seed collecting. Many of the blooms that we had even a week ago have now turned brown and produced their fruit. The challenge will be to get the right sites at the right time to make sure we do not miss any collections. We have started collections for Eremalche rotundifolia (desert five spot), a pretty little mallow with pink petals that each have a red spot on them, Geraea canescens (desert sunflower), Malacothrix glabrata (desert dandelion), a yellow aster that sometimes has a purple dot in the center and Salvia columbarie (chia), a mint with small purple flowers in spiny clusters.

Desert five-spot

A BLM Haiku

Last month spent training

 On how to drive, GIS* and spray.

Now fieldwork begins.

Starting with a Short-eared Owl survey in Dixe Valley! Photo courtesy of Britney Zell.

*GIS pronounced here as “jiss.”

Many things have changed since my last blog post about a month ago. Our group of four interns turned into five when we welcomed our newest member to the team a few weeks ago. I am now a certified pesticide applicator, I learned how to key out the tricky Poaceae family and I finally got my first night of field experience in the Great Basin.

The introductory phase of this internship is coming to a close and the field season is about to begin. I had more trainings this March than I have over the last couple of years. Now, I get to take what I’ve learned and put it to use.

We have been in the office more than I would have liked to be, but with the Sierra snow pack melting and the ground still being saturated with moisture, it has been difficult to get out into the field. That is rapidly changing, however, as it warms up and dries out. Just two days ago, we participated in a Short-eared Owl survey in Dixie Valley, which is part of the 5,000,000 acres that the Carson City BLM oversees. Unfortunately, we did not spot any owls, but we saw several birds of prey including Northern Harriers, Red-tailed Hawks, and potentially Golden Eagles (unconfirmed). After the survey, we had the opportunity to camp beneath the crystal clear, star soaked sky.

The following morning, we were introduced to the flora that we will be working with for a majority of the internship. The Great Basin ecosystem is surprisingly diverse. Superficially, Artemesia, Atriplex and a few other genera dominate the landscape, but upon closer inspection it is evident that hundreds of species contribute to a complex network that make up the desert community.

Sphaeralcia spp. in Dixie Valley

Astragalus spp. in Dixie Valley

On a side note, much of our free time is spent in Ash Canyon or the Sierra Nevada/Lake Tahoe area. Already, we have hiked to incredible viewpoints, skied across state parks and birded for countless hours in beautiful valleys.

Lake Tahoe Sunset

Ash Canyon Valley

So far, I am thoroughly enjoying my time here in Carson City and I cannot wait to see what the future holds.

Jason Fibel

Carson City District Office-BLM

Week one in Grants Pass, Oregon. Compared to my fellow crew who traveled from New York and Texas I drove a mere 6 hours from Truckee, CA to get here so I cannot quite say my travels were great, but they were beautiful.

A few things I have learned this week:

1. Highway 5 is very fast. People are crazy fast drivers and truckers pass each other in the emergency lane. When you are driving the federal vehicles, you really have to pay attention to your speed because the flow of traffic is ridiculous!
2. You can find a little piece of home everywhere you go. My first day here I decided to venture to Mount Ashland and find the snow! Unfortunately I cannot share pictures because I do not have service/wifi where I am staying (Smullin Visitor Center).
3. You do not need service/wifi if you are living on the Rogue River. Too beautiful.
4. All the answers are in the CLM guidelines.
5. Friends make anything enjoyable. The week has been full of trainings, but we intermix story telling and getting to know each other and its been a jolly ol’ time.
6. Fred Meyer is an awesome grocery store.
7. Still not used to not pumping my own gas.
8. REI and Trader Joes are right next to each other. Dangerous.

Well,  I will continue to learn the area and meet people. In the mean time I am stoked on my crew and excited to get out in the field!

Things are finally starting to bloom at our field office and accordingly the field season is starting to get extremely busy. This week we put up some trail cameras to monitor what wildlife is visiting some ephemeral ponds that we built last year. Tomorrow I will help build a fence that will protect Verbena californica from being grazed or trampled by cattle. We are also starting to collect herbarium vouchers for our presumptive seed collections for Seed of Success such as this Erythonium species pictured below. Tons of stuff is starting to bloom! One of our rare plants Ceanothus roderickii is starting to bloom and was getting pollinated by Bombus vosnesenskii and Bombus melanopygus which I had never seen before.

Better get going because there is plenty of work to do!

-Landon from the BLM Mother Lode Field Office in El Dorado Hills, CA.

Bombus melanopygus on Cenothus roderickii