I just moved out here to Vernal Utah a week ago after living in North Carolina for 13 years and I have to say the change in scenery is a bit of a shock. Out east there are so many trees you feel closed in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s really pretty out there but with the exception of farmland and city you never really get to have a view. When I first saw it open up on the drive over it felt like I had landed on an alien planet. I had been surrounded by trees for so long I had almost forgotten what it felt like to see the horizon.

pretty

The lack of trees wasn’t the only change in scenery. Vernal happens to be a big oil and gas site, so in certain areas you have well pads dotting the landscape as far as the eye can see. If you look closely at the picture above you can see more than the horizon. That was a picture I took of a tank on an oil pad that looked like it was about to explode. I figured out how to zoom in the camera about ten seconds later so here is a better picture.

nevermind

It seems like there is never a dull day out in the field. With the combination of finding exploding chemical tanks, getting our truck unstuck from a muddy ditch, to being introduced to dozens of new species of which I have never seen or heard of before it seems like I am going to be learning something new every single day. Although it can seem overwhelming at times, it sure beats having to stick to a routine.

We got the truck out.

We made quite a mess.

I know it’s misspelled.

A lot could happen in five months. By the end I could either love it here or hate it, but so far I have to say that my first week has left a good impression.

Midway through my academic career studying biology and environmental science, I came to the figurative fork in that good ol’ path called life and got stuck deciding whether to specialize in botany or wildlife. After some path pacing, it came down to botany for two simple reasons: plants don’t move and I can slice them open without tasting my breakfast for the second time. I’m joking, kinda.  I believe that ultimately, your passion finds you.

So here I am now, a CLM intern at the BLM field office in Tillamook, OR studying under the botanist Kurt Heckeroth, and I could not be more grateful! Of course the best part about being the intern is that you get to do all sorts of cool stuff, which may include hanging out with wildlife biologists all day banding Northern Spotted Owls. This experience I am about to share does not reflect what I do on a daily basis as an aspiring botanist within the Seeds of Success Program. But there will be more news of that nature next month!

I am lucky to have ended up in the Pacific Northwest, as it is the home of the oldest cathedral forests on the planet. The remaining old growth forest canopy towers over 300 feet occupied by ~1000 year old Pseudotsuga menziesii, ~500 old year old Tsuga heterophylla and Thuja plicata. Here one can become lost studying the symbiotic connections between all trophic levels of life. This web has many center points, one of which includes the Northern Spotted Owl (Strix occidentalis) as part of a keystone complex*, involving ectomycorrhizal, Hypogeneous fungi (truffles), P. menziesii, and the Northern Flying Squirrel (Glaucomys sabrinus). Truffles are an essential food source for the squirrel, as well as a major contributor to water and nutrient cycling between host plant species, such as P. menziesii. The squirrels disperse truffle spores, scattering them along the forest floor by way of their feces. Spotted owls prey on flying squirrels and thereby bring the tropic levels full circle.

Spotted owls are specialized organisms, needing large swaths of intact old growth to breed and hunt. They are thereby incidentally good indicator species, one whose absence/presence tells us about the health of a forest. Due to extensive logging of PNW old-growth timber beginning in the 1830’s, the spotted owl was listed as threatened in the 1989. Today, with less than 13% of old growth forest remaining and the barred owl invading their territory, the spotted owl population is still declining.

Me and my BLM coworker, Wildlife biologist, Jessi Huck.

Many of the wildlife biologists that I went out with to band the owls commented on how their days as a species could be numbered.  When the wildlife biologists at the Tillamook field office invited me out to band I knew that as a botanist, this was a once in a life time opportunity I could not pass up: to lay my eyes up the charismatic organism that symbolized the fight to save old growth trees.

After too long of a drive, we rallied and walked into BLM land of the West Cascades, with a container of mice and Scott, one of the only certified bird banders in the Salem district.  We were not 500 feet off the road when a male spotted owl responded to Scott’s impression of squeaking and hooting.  But, it was the female who showed up first.  One of the many tricks of bird banding is feeding the owl mice, a lot of mice.  After about the third mouse, the owl becomes more comfortable, and if you’re experienced enough, you can catch them in mid flight.

After catching the owl, another person has to be sitting down ready to be handed the owl.  The seated person holds the owl legs firmly as the bander applies the bands as well as weighs the bird and inspects the bands of the tail feathers.  With the female owl, Scott also inspected the brood pouch.  If it was wide and a little inflamed with a reddish, purple hue, that indicates that the bird is nesting, but alas, the female we banded was not nesting.  Scott also checked the ears for infection or mites, because that indicates the overall health of the owl.  There is video footage of the banding that I uploaded to the media gallery, unfortunately, they did not post well to this blog.

Jessi Huck, holding a male spotted owl

Me, pretending to be a wildlife biologist

Reference for keystone complex*(http://www.drakehs.org/academics/seadisc/endangeredspecies/2008/northern_spotted_owl/northern_spotted_owls_niche.htm)v *

Tillamook BLM Field Office, OR

The last part of April and early May have been very rainy here in Maryland.  The spring ephemerals have done their thing and the early summer bloomers are out in force.  A lot of sedges are on the verge of being ripe as well.  The field season is well in its prime.  I’ve seen some very nice displays including the fringe trees along the Potomac Gorge not far from Washington, D.C.

Chionanthus virginicus, Fringe Tree

One particular habitat that I have visited once and hope to more in the future is the Shale Barren.  It’s an Appalachian specialty.  They occur on relatively high elevation slopes, with shale parent rock, on generally southern aspects.  The barrens are maintained by the erosion of loose rock caused by streams below that undercut them.  This creates a very hot, dry, and rocky landscape.  Several plants are endemic to these areas.  They specialize in the extreme conditions and low competition from other plants.  Most of the endemic plants of the barrens have only been described in the last 100 years.

The slight white haze in the understory is Phacelia dubia flowering in the thousands.

The picture above is what I would consider to be on the periphery of the barren.  The more rocky and less vegetated center is not seen here.  This picture does show the general habit of trees that grow here in being slightly stunted.  When I first got here I thought to myself this looks like a recently burned area.  While fire may have played a role in enlarging these barrens, they are maintained naturally by erosion.

Astragalus distortus, Bent Milkvetch. The major distribution of this one is in the central U.S. but a disjunct population is limited to the Shale Barren habitat of the Appalachians.

Trifolium virginicum, Kate’s Mountain Clover. The distinctive vegetative character for this species is the length of the leaflets in relation to their width.

The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal runs 180 river miles across the state of Maryland and contains 200 or so state-listed species within it.  Because of this I have prioritized some species based on their global rank.  My target for instance on this occasion was Trifolium virginicum.  This species is listed with a G3 rank.  That means it is considered globally vulnerable and there may be as few as 80 occurrences on the entire planet.  For this particular species, each occurrence has a small number of individuals within the population.  I was lucky enough to relocate this record and found that the population is stable.  The last time the record was updated was in 1995.  I plan on visiting more shale barrens in the future to update records for a couple other G3 species that occur here.

Viola pedata, Birdsfoot Violet. This is not a shale barren endemic but I included it to show the rocky habitat and because I liked this particular plants flower coloration.

Occasionally you will stumble upon a plant that is common but because of its stature or pure happenstance you have never seen it before.  As many times as I have been botanizing in the woods of the eastern U.S. I have never come across the following plant.  I was happy to see it in flower and add it to my photo collection.

Obolaria virginica, Pennywort. Of the Gentian Family.

Also happy 100th birthday National Park Service.  I am looking forward to the centennial celebrations this weekend at the canal including the park-wide Bioblitz.

Coleman Minney, Field Botany Intern

Chesapeake and Ohio National Historical Park

It is butterfly season here in Eugene, Oregon and the Fender’s blue butterfly (Icaricia icarioides fenderi) has already reached its seasonal peak and is on the down slope much earlier than expected.  For most of my position with the West Eugene Wetlands I primarily monitor endangered/rare wetland plants.  However, along with one of our monitored plant species, Kincaid’s lupine (Lupinus oreganus), is the Fender’s blue butterfly (FBB) that uses this endangered lupine as its larval host, laying its eggs on the underside of the plant’s leaves.

Myself with Kincaid’s lupine.

One of the more populous BLM sites in Eugene for both lupine and FBB is Fir Butte, where I get to spend glorious afternoon after glorious afternoon catching butterflies.  This is something I did in my childhood and never imagined I would be getting paid to do later on in my adulthood.  In addition to FBB there is a look-a-like, the silvery blue butterfly (Glaucopsyche lygdamus) or SBB that also uses Kincaid’s lupine as a larval host, but instead lays its eggs along the stalk of the flowering raceme.  There are two minute physical differences between these species that we use as identification features when netting the butterflies.  First is the markings or “dots” along the border of the underside of the wings.  On SBB there is one row of dots and on FBB there are two rows of dots that can sometimes be very visible and other times, usually with an older butterfly, nearly impossible to distinguish.  So that is why we use the second identification feature for “back up”.  The cell-end bar located on the fore wing of the butterflies in from the row of markings is much narrower on the SBB than the FBB.  In addition, the row of dots on SBB are much more circular than on FBB which tend to be more irregular-shaped spots.

A male Fender’s blue butterfly  with damaged wing.  Notice the faint second row of irregular-shaped markings along the wing border and the large cell-end bar.

Mating pair of Fender’s blue butterflies. (Awesome photo skills of Christine Calhoun).

Mating pair of silvery blue butterflies.  Notice the one row of circular markings along the wing border.

Our first mode of action in sampling FBB is to take a ratio of male FBB to male SBB.  My mentor, Christine, and I spread out among the lupine at Fir Butte with our nets and each sample around 10 to 15 butterflies.  We then determine whether the butterfly is Fender’s species or silvery as described above.  Second, we determine its sex by noting the color on the top of the wings.  Males in both species are a bright blue and female FBB are copper-colored whereas female SBB are a darker brown, both females have some blue on the body of the butterfly. We record all sexes of both species but use only the ratio of males to males for our next mode of action, distance sampling, as it is much easier to see a bright blue male flying or sitting than it is to spot a brown female among the foliage.  Distance sampling occurs along six transects stretching the length of Fir Butte.  One person walks the transect with a distance pole held perpendicular to the transect calling out to the second person, the recorder, the distance (in half-meter increments) from the center of the transect the male butterfly was seen along with information on whether it was flying or sitting, the cluster size, and sex ratio if females were in the cluster.  An ideal day for sampling FBB is above 60 degrees, a light breeze, and sunny.  It’s the most optimal conditions for the butterflies and I’d say the most optimal for me, too.  Who doesn’t like 60 degree sunny days?

Male Fender’s blue butterfly.

Female Fender’s blue butterfly on its larval host, Kincaid’s lupine.

Other efforts towards the success of the Fender’s blue butterfly are being put forth by some members of the West Eugene Wetlands Partnership such as the Institute of Applied Ecology who are making “nectar islands” at Fir Butte.  Some native nectar species of FBB include Checkermallow (Sidalcea malviflore), Oregon geranium (Geranium oreganum), Camus (Camassia quamash and C. leichtlinii), Oregon sunshine (Eriophylluym lanatum), and the Oregon iris (Iris tenax).

Thanks for listening and ta-ta for now.

Danica Maloney

West Eugene Wetlands

Oregon

The FRGE hunting continued this past month with mild success. It seems to be a bad blooming season for our elusive lily, which is unfortunate because we have a huge FRGE task force this year. But the plants do as they please and we are helpless in the wake of their unwillingness to bloom.

This is me recording data into my GPS after an empty site. Can you see the dejected hunch in my shoulders?

Disappointment aside, the sites that we’ve visited are mostly stunningly beautiful. We had the opportunity to camp out at the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument to have more time to get to our sites out there. The monument is probably the most wild place we’ve been to– most of the roads have been decommissioned to allow for wilderness to take over. Mt. Shasta loomed in the distance as we hiked along mountain streams to our sites. Outside of the Monument, Kiki and I hike through oak woodlands and mixed conifer forests, along mountain ridges and down in the valley, over downed trees and through thick stands of Ceanothus and manzanita. At the end of the day there’s usually a litany of complaints streaming from my mouth because I’m tired and my feet hurt and my hair is a plant detritus magnet, but it’s incredibly rewarding and relaxing to walk through the great outdoors all day. Even when we don’t find plants– which, truthfully, is more often than not– I’m glad to have the opportunity to experience so many different places that are relatively wild.

Our lunch spot close to one of our last FRGE sites in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Mt Shasta rises mightily in the distance.

We hiked through this area quite a few times to get to sites deep in BLM land without any roads. It’s beautiful!

This mountain overlooks the town of Gold Hill– easily one of my favorite spots in the field office.

This is us enjoying the view, we love it!

We had to climb high above I-5 one day. This is our view, with the town of Rogue River beneath us.

Fritillaria recurva with a backdrop of mountains. Kiki is quite the photographer, I think!

Of course, some of the best sights are of the pretty wildflowers. This is Collinsia grandiflora, my favorite so far.

One thing that is surprising to me is how little wildlife we see. Sometimes there are turkey, sometimes there are deer, but usually there’s just lizards! Part of me is thankful for this– we have seen bear scat and bear tracks, and once we saw mountain lion scat. I’d be terrified to see a mountain lion in the wild! Kiki and I have both scared turkeys off their ground nests (on accident! we were probably as scared in the moment as the turkey hen), and that’s the closest encounter we’ve had.

A turkey hen’s ground nest. I suppose turkeys aren’t as susceptible to poison oak as we are.

Kiki and I have a great time out on our own, sometimes I wonder if people can hear our cackling in the distance and worry that some wild beasts are coming to lay waste to their towns. We’re a great team, I’m really happy I get to work with her! (Also she tends to make cookies on the weekends and we get to enjoy them at lunch during the week)

This is after a particularly rigorous hike– please excuse any haggardness you detect in our appearances.

The work week really wears us out, but we made time one weekend to check out the Rogue River. We hiked along the Rainie Falls trail to the biggest rapids on the river. It was a beautiful trail!

The Rainie Falls trail follows the Rogue as it winds through the countryside. It’s a lot more magnificent than my phone camera can capture~

Scrabble is still our dominant weekend activity, though. I’ve even managed to win a few times! I think Kiki is starting to view me as a real competitor.

Seen here: the posture of defeat

We’ve been lucky to not stumble upon too many people out on our treks. One day, though, we were visited by old man willow..

Kiki, our resident gagperson. Sometimes it just makes sense to put lichen under your hat like a wig.

We’ve visited all of our FRGE sites and will be moving on to Cypripedium fasciculatum, the clustered lady’s slipper orchid. I’ll miss our pretty lilies!

FRGE in its prime– strong, sturdy, vibrant. A sight for sore eyes, as they say.

FRGE in its twilight– weak, frail, dull. Slightly monstrous. The stuff of nightmares, truly. It looks like the cold hand of death reaching from the grave.

Til next time!

Lillie P

It’s 90 degrees out by 9 a.m

The Asters conspire against you.

Your ankles are constantly under attack by Bromus madtritensis.

Sitting down without getting burned is a struggle.

And you get startled by the monsters in the canyons… that turn out to just be the wild burros braying at you.

— BLM Needles Field Office —

I have been in the Shoshone, Idaho BLM field office for the past three weeks. This summer we are going to be conducting vegetation surveys for greater sage-grouse habitat in the Bennett Hills.

View from the Bennett Hills

We are using Habitat Assessment Framework (HAF) Protocol to conduct our monitoring this summer. Earlier this week a group came down from the state office in Boise, ID to help train our office and the Jarbidge office on this protocol. The protocol focuses on sagebrush and forbes. Sagebrush provides important cover for the sage-grouse. They use different species overwintering and for nesting, so knowing which species dominate the site is very important. Forbs are an important food source for sage-grouse. They prefer forbes with milky-sap, so being able to identify the forb species present is important to understanding the quality of the habitat.

Sage-brush steppe

These past several weeks have been about preparing for field work. The first two weeks mostly involved training, including first aid and CPR training. We’ve also been spending the week getting to know the roads and plants in the area. Learning to get around the country on the BLM roads in very important. Some of the roads go through really rocky areas, and clearance underneath the truck can become a problem. The other day one of the range specialist in the office went through maps of the area and highlighted which roads are in good condition and pointed out areas to avoid.

We have gone out to a few of our survey sites with range specialists. Sites are generated randomly so they have to be checked to make sure they will work. Several of the sites have been underwater or in the middle of roads. The sites are then monumented so they can be returned to. Next week more members of our crew are coming and we will start monitoring our HAF sites! Stay tuned!

Nicki Gustafson

BLM Shoshone Field Office

The last month and a half of this internship has been filled with long drives through Utah’s extensive desert country.  Initial activities have mainly been surveying populations of listed cactus species to help see the population trends over time.  Traveling through Utah in search of cacti has allowed me to see the beautiful desert ecosystems of both the Colorado Plateau in the east and the Great Basin of the west.

As the weather warms, our internship activities are transitioning to seed collection preparation for the Seeds of Success program.  I am looking forward to continuing to learn the region’s native plants (such as Sphaeralcea grossulariifolia seen below) and viewing more of Utah’s vast landscape.

Globemallow filled valley of the Great Basin

Cassie Heredia

Richfield, Utah

This last month has been chalked full of activity.  At the start of the month I participated in a week long AIM training.  AIM stands for Assessment, Inventory, Monitoring.  It is a protocol used to evaluate landscapes on their flora.  It measures plant cover, species richness, as well as information about soil type and stability.  The week long intensive training started with presentations in a classroom setting and then transitioned to learning techniques in the field.  It was certainly a challenge learning all the techniques and rules to the survey, but towards the end of the week everybody was feeling more confident and ready to practice it on their own in the field.  Two weeks later, the AIM team at the Prineville office met up on Friday and headed out into the field to calibrate.  The practice of calibration is meant to ensure that everybody on the team is getting similar results so that there is no bias depending on who is collecting the data.

After the training there was work to do around the office to prepare for the upcoming field season.  Much of this work was attending safety trainings so that I am prepared for all of the unexpected situations that I could encounter in the field.  Other than trainings, I prepared maps and routes to field sites that I would be traveling to in the future.  My first set of excursions into the field focused on Greater Sage Grouse again.  This time instead of monitoring active leks, I was monitoring unoccupied-pending leks.  These leks are essentially ones that have not been documented to contain Sage Grouse for a certain number of years.  My job was to drive out to these leks, then hike out to the lek center and check for signs that they have been utilized recently.  This mostly meant checking for clockers and cecal tar (two types of Sage Grouse excrement).  Most of the leks that I checked had old signs, but a couple had recent signs indicating that they should be examined more closely next year.

Greater Sage Grouse Cecal Tar

Greater Sage Grouse Clockers

After I surveyed the leks that I was assigned to, I was ready for the next adventure.  This turned out to be conducting wildlife clearance for Juniper thinning.  A little bit of background here about Junipers.  Junipers have been rapidly encroaching on the western landscape from their traditional distribution.  They are cleared by ranchers and farmers because of the water that they hold, but they are also a major threat to Greater Sage Grouse (GSG).  GSG lek and live in open habitats that are optimally free from tall structures.  Raptors and Ravens perch on these structures and use them as a vantage point from which to hunt.  Depredation from raptors and ravens has a highly deleterious effect of GSG populations, so we are trying to reducing perching locations for these predators.  It turns out that Junipers are perfect structures for raptors and thus need to go.  However, due to the Migratory Bird Act of 1918 that we cannot destroy nests of birds, so that is where I come in.  I go out to the areas that are prioritized for Juniper thinning and check for nests.  If I see a nest I take a GPS point and mark it with flagging tape.

Before I embarked on this new field assignment I took advantage of a three day weekend and planned a birding itinerary.  Earlham College, my alma mater, has an annual bird count and I was eager to be a part of it this year.  I left Prineville and traveled to Smith Rock and the Sisters area, where I located many species of woodpecker, the highlights being Black-backed woodpecker and the White-headed woodpecker.

White-headed Woodpecker

Black-backed Woodpecker

I then traveled to Corvallis before stopping by the coast.  I managed to find many of the shore birds thats I was searching for including the Black-bellied Plover, Western Sandpiper and Whimbrel as well as many other species including Common Murre, Black Oystercatcher, Harlequin Duck and Brown Pelicans.

Whimbrel

Western Sandpiper and Black-bellied Plover.

Then I spent the morning in William L. Finley National Wildlife Refuge and saw a wide range of species from the Black-throated Grey Warbler to the Western Tanager and Black-headed Grosbeak.  Then I returned to Prineville and picked up a couple of species before heading home and calling it a weekend.  All in total I had seen 130 different species over the weekend, a fairly respectable showing.

Shortly after this, I headed out into the field and started to search for nests in Juniper trees.  This consisted of a heavy dose of hiking, but through a wonderful landscape. Not only was the scenery beautiful, but is provided me another opportunity to search for birds while looking for nests.  The highlights so far have been a long-eared owl, a variety of sparrows, as well as a very photogenic Wilson’s Snipe.

Vesper Sparrow

Gray Flycatcher

Nest in a Juniper tree

Wilson’s Snipe

I am loving working with the BLM in Prineville and cannot wait to report on my next adventures.