Hello all,

Since my last entry, I’ve been assisting the range crew with more of their work. I’ve gotten to participate in Rangeland Health assessments (RLH), Proper Functioning Conditions assessments (PFC), and Multiple Indicator Monitoring (MIM). This has been a great opportunity to learn more about both rangland and riparian health and the indicators used to measure them. Below, I’m going to go into a little bit of detail about each of these, to give you a better understanding of how and why these are performed.

When assessing rangeland health, we go out into the field and follow a set of protocols that allow us to collect data on several aspects of the landscape. First, we dig a hole to check the soil type. Then, we run a line and collect vegetative and substrate data. We measure the gaps between each plant along the line. Two crews work on this, one measuring canopy gaps and the other measuring basal gaps. While they are doing that, another team will walk along the line and collect point intercept data. That means that every two feet we record if there is a plant, what the height of the plant is, and what the substrate is. While all this is going on, the last member of the crew is collecting soil samples in order to test for surface soil stability. Once all of the data is collected and everyone has seen the site, it is evaluated based on 17 indicators. We gather around the truck and discuss what we saw in reference to each question and then rate each indicator based on how much it deviates from what is expected.

The first photo is of some of my colleagues recording gap data for an RLH assessment. The second, is all of us gathering around the truck to evaluate the site.

This process allows the range technicians to evaluate the health of the land and manage it accordingly. The results of the assessment can tell them whether the current plan is working or if things need to be changed. For instance, if the area is being over grazed and the plant community cannot handle the stress, they can change the grazing permits to help the land recover. Another example is pinyon pine/juniper (PJ) encroachment. If the community composition is out of whack because of PJs coming in, they can formulate a plan for removing the invading PJ and helping the grass/forb/shrub community to rebound.

Next, I’ll talk about the PFCs. Performing a proper functioning condition assessment involves walking along the riparian area (stream, pond, etc…), photographing wherever there is a transition or disturbance, and paying close attention to the plant communities, stream banks, and surrounding environment. After observing the length of the area in question, we gather together and fill out the assessment form. The form has several questions which allow the observers to determine whether or not the area is able to function properly or if it may need intervention.

My co-intern, Zach, and I were walking down a stream taking photos for the PFC as the vegetative community changed or wherever there were signs of disturbance. After working in sagebrush and pinyon/juniper forests much of the summer, the lush green vegetation is always a welcome change.

MIM is another way of assessing riparian areas. In this case, we follow a protocol that evaluates various aspects of the stream. Several different methods are used to collect data on the vegetation, including species composition and abundance, canopy cover, and presence or absence of browse. The stream bank and stream substrate are also evaluated. We looked for signs of disturbance and animal usage (hoof prints) as well as stream bank stability. I think my favorite tool was the gravelometer. Essentially, it’s a piece of metal with squares cut out of it and you place whatever size rock you find during your pebble count in it in order to measure the size of the materials composing the stream bed. Honestly, I just love the name gravelometer.

Illustrating how one uses a gravelometer.

Like the RLH assessment, both MIM and PFCs are performed every few years in order to track the health of the riparian area over time. While water is always a precious resource in need of protection, it is even more so in the drought stricken southwest. Roads, cattle, wildlife, and recreation can all have a big impact on the functionality and health of a stream. Performing both quantitative and qualitative analysis of these areas allows the land managers to see what’s going on and if any changes need to be made in order to balance usage and conservation of our natural resources.

Using a range finder to determine the distance between the riffle crest and the deepest point in the nearest upstream pool. But to a passersby, I just look like a creeper.

On the wildlife side of things, I’ve gotten to go electroshocking for a fish study and install bird ladders in troughs. I’ll talk more about those in my next post!

As far as my personal adventures go, I’ve been quite busy. Within the last month, I’ve visited the Grand Canyon, explored the mountains nearby, hiked at Zion National Park a few more times, and have gotten to check a few animals off of my Utah bucket-list. It’s been a blast!

My fellow Wildlife Techs and I at the Grand Canyon.

This was my most challenging hike yet. That is a photo of Angels Landing. Yes, you climb up that narrow portion, all the way to the top. It’s a bit scary, but oh so worth it!

This is a female big horned sheep I saw at Zion.

Although they were quite a ways away, I saw my first mountain goats!

It’s my last day here in Dillon, Montana. It really snuck up on me. My time here has taught me so much. I’ve learned way too many field skills and tips to list here, but my co-workers recently told me I am now officially a professional mud driver (no brakes, no problems) and fence fixer (respect the barbs). The flora here has grown on me and I really enjoyed learning so many new species. Working so closely with the range department, I picked up a lot of management techniques and interdisciplinary perspectives. Less practically, it was interesting to work in a less academic environment and see how a land management agency operates given the information on hand. Getting away from the ivory towers taught me a lot of very practical skills and standpoints.

Some of the stickiest lessons I’ve learned have nothing to do with botany. Working so closely with quite a few people forces one to be flexible and communicate carefully. The range technicians, who I worked with most regularly, come from very different backgrounds than me, socially, politically, and geographically. I did voice my opinion and experience on certain issues, but I felt it was more important for me to listen and really think about what they were saying and how their experiences led them there. I tried to do the same with the land owners I came into contact with. For someone who is interested in environmental policy, these are the people who will be affected the most and who have a lot of insight into the logistics of how different conservation strategies actually work. In fact, many ranchers are huge environmentalists, although perhaps they would choose another word. A city slicker like me should take note.

When I moved from Portland, Oregon to Dillon I did not adequately realize how big of a shift it would be or prepare for it. I mean, populated liberal utopia to rural rodeo town can’t be that different, right? Horses trotted Main Street, the one coffee shop in town is closed on weekends, the doors to my house did not have locks. I had discussions with people on institutional racism and president Obama’s nationality (at one point I called my mom to confirm that Obama was in fact American, not Kenyan, like the three rational, educated people I was talking to tried to convince me). I went to my first rodeo and country concert and was amused that the concession stand gave people a plastic bag to hold all the cans of Bud Light. I lived abroad for a year in college, but felt like more of a foreigner here than anywhere I’ve been.

So yes, it was very different than Portland. Still, I learned a lot here and met some very nice and thoughtful people. I saw some incredible mountain ranges, rivers, and wildlife. I never caught a fish, despite my best attempts.

I am very grateful to the awesome people at the Dillon Field Office. Thanks for all the hard work you do and for making me feel welcome. I owe a huge thank you to my mentor Kelly, who taught me so much about the land and life. Thank you Leah, Berett, Haleigh, Cari, and Melanie for being patient with me, and laughing at my dumb jokes and poor taste in gas station snacks. And of course, thank you Rebecca and Krissa for working so hard to make all this happen!

When I first moved here, I was reading A Field Guide to Getting Lost by Rebecca Solnit. I highly recommend the book, especially to those working outside in the west, and wanted to share a final quote:

“…Not till we are completely lost, or turned round,–for a man needs only to be turned round once with his eyes shut in this world to be lies,–do we appreciate the vastness and strangeness of nature. Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we begin to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations.” Thoreau is playing with the biblical question about what it profits a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul. Lose the whole world, get lost in it, and find your soul.”

This post is unfortunately my last, as our internship has come to an end. Much has transpired in the weeks since my last post and I promise to catch you up before I depart. One major detail of our ending was the exit of our mentor, Ian Grinter. After three short (yet inspiring and informational) months with Ian, he left for Alaska to embark on a new chapter of his career. We are all very excited for his new opportunity. As for Kayla and myself, we carried on as usual.

We were able to make a few more collections as our season came to a close. In total, we made 32 collections. One fun collection made at the end of our season was Spiraea douglasii. The location (Silver Creek) of the collection was surprisingly beautiful and we made out with an ample amount of seed.

Silver Creek in Silver Lake, Oregon

Silver Creek in Silver Lake, Oregon

Silver Creek in Silver Lake, Oregon

At the end of our last full week, Kayla and I were given the opportunity to visit the Bend Seed Extractory. We pulled up with a truckload of seeds and anticipatory excitement. I was shown how hard everyone at the extractory worked in comparison to how much seed they processed, and to the size of the establishment. Everyone who worked there was extremely knowledgeable and kind.

The equipment used to clean the seeds we all send to the extractory.

Screens for seed and excess material separation.

Another excitement came before our takeoff, the arrival of Flora of Oregon. We were all very excited to read through this new volume, not to mention admire the beautiful cover art.

Outside of work, the festivities in the town carried on as usual. The next festival in town was the Lake County Fair. The fair came around with a bang and was a joy to everyone. One main attraction, that I personally loved, was the Lake County Round-up. This was my first rodeo, and it left me very impressed. Although shocking at first, I learned the horses were trained for years to put on such a show and saw how skilled the riders were as the competition continued.

The rodeo with a beautiful backdrop.

On my last day at the Lakeview BLM, I was sent to the Rockbottom Nursery outside of Bonanza, Oregon. My mission was to pick up an assortment of plants and take them to their new homes at the Union Elementary School greenhouse. The nursery, which specializes in growing native species, had an accompanying koi pond and horse stable. In addition to the beauty of the farm, its owners made a lasting impression and my final day one to remember.

The nursery at Rockbottom Nursery

Rockbottom Nursery

Rockbottom Nursery

Rockbottom Nursery

Rockbottom Nursery

For my last post I leave you with my favorite room at the BLM…

Lakeview herbarium

Lakeview herbarium

And a look into my loop…

Regards,

Erin Berkowitz

Today is my last day working from the Bishop Field Office. The plan was to spend one more beautiful day taking in the scenery of the place I now proudly call home, the Eastern Sierra, surveying for pygmy rabbits in the Bodie Hills. However, Bishop awoke today to the blessed sound of rain hitting its thirsty desert dirt. So here I am on the dry side of the window reminiscing over the many amazing field days I have had out there over the past two years.

The Bodie Hills are a place that I have grown to know at an intimate level, the time and space we have shared are incomparable. A vast open landscape, that at first glance appears to be a monotonous sea of sage, is truly an irreplaceable expanse harboring 14 unique plant communities, ancient cinder cones, gently rolling hills, meadows, aspen stands, hidden conifer groves, and much more. These diverse communities support an important collection of fauna including the iconic greater sage grouse, pronghorn antelope, and a variety of endemic rare plants. Perhaps one of the greatest features of Bodie is its removal from the beaten path and because of this I found great value in the hours spent seed collecting while day dreaming. The opportunity to carry on a continuous thought for extended periods is something that a lot of people infrequently have the luxury of doing. Never doubt its value.

As the rain outside continues to steadily fall, my mind is being flooded with feelings of satisfaction from knowing the strength my surroundings have on shaping my attitude. True happiness comes from within, but the things that bring it out are what matter. People and places matter, conservation land management matters, and the opportunity to be a steward of the land is rewarding far beyond our day to day feelings. So the next time you are filling your government vehicle with gallons upon gallons of gasoline and the feelings of being a conservationist are fleeting, remember that your efforts are for everyone. We cannot predict when the (proverbial) sun will shine, but when it does we CAN make sure to embrace it. Edward Abbey sums it up better than I can: “it is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it.”

Beyond the places I get to spend my work time, I also must extend great appreciation to everyone in the Bishop Field Office They are a strong community that has made me feel both welcome and valued. Thanks to them and those at the Chicago Botanic Garden.

Marsh grass (Spartina alterniflora)

Spartina alterniflora covered in seed, ready for harvesting.

A natural rope of Spartina alterniflora

The days are getting shorter, particularly for the New England crew, but despite that, there is always so much to see. Fall has descended upon us and the seed collection has been kicked in to high gear.

Throughout the summer we had been visiting salt marshes as various species go into seed. Despite going to areas several times, each visit allowed us to experience something new, be it a another species going into flower/seed or unexpected wildlife. Many of these places/species have become very familiar and after months of waiting for the marsh grass (Spartina alterniflora) to go into seed, and when at last we were able to collect the large fruiting spikes, it was a like meeting up with a long awaited friend.

This past week we visited the Boston Harbor Islands and as the wind picked up and the waves splashed against the marsh grass, I noticed this long rope spanning the length of the shore. The recent tides and larger than normal waves had plucked the dead and freed marsh grass leaves and rolled them into a long contiguous cord. I would have never imagined these natural phenomena and look forward to future wonders.

Our group has been spending a lot of time camping out in the field the past few months working on Seeds of Success seed collecting, vegetation monitoring for past fires, and completing a little bit of weeds work. With so many days spent out in the grand expanses of the Great Basin desert, I have had ample time to observe this ecosystem, revel in its beauty, and attempt to put into words my experiences.

This poem is one of the attempts I have made to put the desert into words. While I realize one cannot possibly use words to give justice to the desert, I thought I would try to convey one small portion. The poem focuses on the two extremes I face each week when I bounce back and forth between living in the desert for work and living in a city on the weekends. Enjoy!

Desert Peace, City Melancholy
Quiet, noise
Unhurried, restless
Stillness, bustling
Open, constricted
Plants, people
Coyotes, dogs
Sagebrush, lilacs
Stars, streetlights
Cadence, cacophony
Humbled, prideful
Unrelenting, comfortable
Moments, minutes
Rocks, concrete
Wild, tamed

Content to stay, anxious to leave

-Maggie Gray-

Until next time, enjoy the fall season!

Maggie Gray, Carson City BLM

Hello World,

Unlike many folks in the BLM and in the CLM intern program, I live in a place that basically doesn’t burn. Natural fires are extremely rare in the Chihuahuan Desert, although relatively common in the nearby mountains (mostly USFS lands) and occasionally dropping down to the higher, pinyon/juniper portions of the Las Cruces District Office. There are sometimes anthropogenic fires, particularly along the interstates, but these are generally quite small. Neighboring Fort Bliss occasionally starts unintentional fires in the Organ Mountains. We’ve done some prescribed burns, and can generally get a good blaze going up in the pinyon/juniper. Prescribed burns at the lower elevations, in the Chihuahuan Desert that makes up most of LCDO, haven’t been as successful. The more densely-vegetated draws can burn OK, but otherwise the landscape just doesn’t seem to have the fuel load to carry a fire. So far as I can tell, natural fires are basically unknown. We don’t know if they ever played an appreciable role in Chihuahuan Desert ecology or how the landscape reacts to a natural fire. Interestingly—and diametrically opposed to the prevailing view that fires reduce or exclude woody plants while promoting grasses—the few studies on the effects of prescribed burns in the Chihuahuan Desert indicate that the opposite is true. Our grasses are less resilient to fire than our shrubs. So all that’s the long way of saying that I was a bit excited when one of my interns and I drove out to a seed collection site at Aguirre Spring on the northeastern side of the Organ Mountains… and saw this on the way:

This is, to our understanding, a natural fire ignited by lightning. There was a big thunderstorm system on 3 Oct 2015, but this area did not receive rain. This fire burned a pretty small area, 70-80 acres, and went out when the rain arrived the next day. So far as I can recall, this is the only natural burn on LCDO land that I’ve seen in the 11 years I’ve been in Las Cruces. So, we postponed the seed festivities a bit and I got some photo points—that one above, and these two:

For each, I’ve got the photo and a list of all identifiable plants within a 10 m radius. Hopefully I’ll be able to revisit these over the next few years and see what happens. And, no, the third one didn’t burn. We can pretend it’s a control.

Here’s a view of the whole burn area, seen from the Aguirre Spring picnic area:

So that’s probably not too exciting to most of you: “Yup, that’s a little burn.” To me, though, it’s pretty awesome. I have a rare chance to watch the response to a natural fire in a place that basically doesn’t burn.

Once we got to poking around at seeds around Aguirre Spring, we found that one of my nemeses thus far, Setaria leucopila, actually had seeds. I mentioned in my last post that I’d checked multiple populations of this species that had well-developed, mature inflorescences, but no seeds that I could find (not “very few”, but “none”, “nada”, “zilch”, “bupkus”). Well, this one still had an unimpressive seed set rate, about 1 in 10 fertile florets actually contained a caryopsis. But there’s plenty of it up there, so we collected around 400,000 of those fertile florets and we should be OK. Here’s the collection site:

And here’s Setaria leucopila:

Fertile florets (top) and caryopses (bottom; grass terminology: a caryopsis is a fruit with a single seed and the ovary wall highly reduced and adherent to the seed; non-agrostologists usually just call the whole thing a “seed”):

I enjoy photography and particularly like having an excuse to take macro photographs of plant bits that we don’t usually see. So I’ve been appreciating the SOS dictum to take pictures of the seeds we collect. I probably go a bit overboard. Also, some of these grass caryopses are pretty hard to separate out from the fertile florets. It’s fun, though. Here are some of my other seed pictures:

Aristida adscensionis:

Bothriochloa barbinodis:

Bouteloua aristidoides:

Chloris virgata:

Pectis papposa:

Sphaeralcea emoryi:

I guess that’s about it. Seed collection is winding down here. We could probably do more of it, but we’ve met the 2015 collection target and made a few collections that go into fiscal year 2016. There’s one more I want to try for in a couple of weeks, but mostly we’ll be back to looking at Peniocereus greggii var. greggii until my interns leave at the beginning of November. I’ll leave you with a pair of photographs. The one on top is from the New Mexico State University archives, Oct 1912. I took the one on the bottom on 19 Sep 2015.

Hello!

The past month here at the Carlsbad, NM field office has kept me very busy. Most of my recent task has been focused on birds, which I have absolutely no complaints about! As I believe I mentioned in my post from last month, I developed and was preparing to implement a protocol for surveying scaled quail (Callipepla squamata) for future management of the species. As it is a game species, it is important for this field office to keep tabs on the populations so the natural resource can be shared with public land users under the paradigm of sustainability. What I didn’t say before but what I’ll admit now, is that I first thought of this task as a cinch, but I quickly discoverd how difficult it was to create your own protocol that will be unique to the environment, culture, and condition of the land you’re working with. I couldn’t just translate one protocol from one region to the next, and I also didn’t have the same resources to work with. Needless to say, after some discussions and adaptations I accomplished the task, and over the past few weeks I have been putting it in practice successfully.

Two weeks ago I was able to participate in the celebration that is Public Lands Day. I was fortunate enough to help out at the BLM’s booth at the Living Desert Zoo and Gardens State Park. It was my first time getting to explore the facility in full. Overall, I found it to be one of those gems you stumble upon while living out your busy life. I had no idea they had so much biodiversity there, so although all of the displays and exhibits were exemplary, they don’t get enough attention… Anyway, I helped out at the booth by explaining the SOS program and melding that with the idea of successful restoration and wildlife management to fit the culture of the local community.

This week the wildlife crew took a nice little mid-week field trip to the Milnesand Prairie Preserve near the border of Texas and eastern New Mexico. Oh, and by “nice” I mean early, and by “early” I mean waking up at 3:00am to drive 2 hours to our work site. Only joking, or at least… it was a very enjoyable trip despite the extremely early morning. Our goal for this trip was to shadow a biologist who performs regular roadside surveys for the Lesser Prairie Chicken [(Tympanuchus pallidicinctus) for now on LPC]. The LPC is a federally threatened species of grouse that inhabits the arid and shortgrass grasslands in the west. Its habitat over the past century has been extremely reduced, unfortunately, and the species population has suffered. After solidifying our understanding of the surveying methods, the biologist took us on a tour of the prairie preserve where we scouted out old lekking grounds for LPCs as well as observing the different management practices seen throughout the property. The biologist we worked with was so informational, too! I loved every minute of listening to her talk. She was a local of the area, and has been working there for the past decade, so no wonder she served as such an amazing encyclopedia.

Interesting fact: I recently learned that a month ago a federal judge vacated the federal protection of the species temporarily from its listing in 2014. For reasons that are far too complicated for myself to explain, let alone understand completely, this action was taken. I’m not going to muddle your mind with my biased opinions, aside from the openingly admitted fact that this news initially frustrated me deeply for understandable reasons. However, I think this is only a temporary halt in the species’ protection.

Aside from work, here are a few representative pictures of my recent adventures!

That’s all for now! I only have one more month left, so be prepared for my concluding post of my experience in November!

P.S. October has thus far been an incredibly wet month here in Carlsbad. Is it “normal”? Can’t say, but it’s keeping the desert flora pretty rich in greenery.

Armand Cann
Carlsbad NM Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

A population of Baileya multiradiata “desert marigold” of which we made two collections.

We have had a rather exciting month of plant collections.  Down here at the extreme southern end of that which constitutes BLM land, our ability to make collections probably tends to come much later in the year than for many of y’all folks in the northern lands.  This, coupled with the general weirdness of precipitation patterns down here in the deep Chihuahuan Desert, has resulted in unusual and often belated phonologies of our target species and sites.  It has also required of us that we be somewhat spontaneous in that we collect seeds of those species that are collectible, rather than what is necessarily on the collection target list submitted by our crew leader.  For example, we were able to collect Sanvitalia abertii, Verbesina encelioides, Machaeranthera bipinnatifida, and Panicum obtusum (syn. Hopia obtusa); most of which were on our original target list, but that are excellent candidate species for the stated goals of the Seeds of Success Program.  Sadly, we have been unable to collect some species from the target list that, for whatever reason, did not produce viable seed this year such as Bouteloua gracilis,  Bouteloua eriopoda, and Enneapogon desvauxii.  However, this morning we were able to complete a collection of Setaria leucopila, a hot target species that until last week we had practically given up on as a lost cause.  But then we checked one final population for it and found that it was setting seed.  It was doing so at a low rate, but nonetheless, a collection was achieved.

Although a few species on our target list weren’t collected, we did make a lot of collections and we were able to make more collections than our goal of 35 for the duration of the internship.  As October is our final month and our collections are winding down, Jeanne and I will be presenting our work with the Seeds of Success Program to the office around October 20^th.  Aside from the presentation we will be doing some Peniocereus greggii var. greggii monitoring and vegetation monitoring at the Jornada Test Range.  One cool thing we’ve discovered about P. greggii is that this species seems to have a tendency to die back completely to the tuberous root, only to resurrect later on.  This implies that it may be less rare than previously thought.

We went out for two days on a trip up the lower Gila River Box to get some time lapse photo points.  In the early 90’s, the area was excluded from grazing because the riparian habitat had been so heavily denuded.  It turns out that cows really like to eat baby cottonwoods, an apparently short lived tree species, so young plants weren’t ever given the chance to mature to replace the older dead or dying trees.  Now, almost 20 years after exclusion the cottonwoods and willows have returned full force.  It is beautiful to witness the resilience of nature.  Furthermore, we got to see some very cool Indian ruins and petroglyphs.

In addition to our other duties and endeavors we will be getting some much welcome training in ArcGIS and NEPA. We have had some really great experiences to be sure. We have seen so many rattlesnakes that I have long since lost count. One time we even found a pair in the throes of coitus. We stared for a minute and left them to their business.  Coyote song has often accompanied our field work.  Yeah, the desert does have its charm, if you can take the heat.  Until next time fellow naturalists.  I hope your adventures have been as fun and satisfying as ours.

Best wishes,

Dave Morin, Las Cruces District Office of the BLM

Petroglyphs from Lowe Gila Box

a granary from Lower Gila Box

An annoyed Western Diamondbac

Pectis papposa, a collection we made that smell and tastes quite lemony