Greetings!

July passed by quite fast and I am so happy it did because it was really hot. It’s definitely the warmest summer I’ve experience thus far in life. Unfortunately, curiosity got the best of me and I found myself looking up the individual daily peak temperatures for July. I calculated the average temperature for the month down here at ≈100°F!! Woah! It’s alright, it was overall a fantastic month.

Finally, after two months of trapping for the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus) we hit the jackpot for four out of seven our sites. Don’t worry I have pictures!

Captured female S. arenicolus

We changed our strategy a bit with the placement for our most recent traps. Instead of placing our traps in completely new areas, we decided to just fill in the gaps around areas where there was a positive presence for the lizard in the past.

Captured male S. arenicolus in mating colors

I found it to be pretty awesome to experience handling this species as they were previously up for being listed as an endangered species.

Captured juvenile S. arenicolus

Anyway, for the most part our lizard-trapping season is done with. We’re moving on to bigger and better things – OK, not “better” just different. Last week we got up early (4 something o’clock) to visit a few heronry (heron nests) sites off in the distant corners of the Carlsbad Field Office. My mentor just wanted to check out how a few of the reported Great Blue Heron (Ardea Herodias) nests were doing. Our first site was seemingly pretty deserted but after a long look up into the canopy of the soapberry trees we spotted one juvenile GBH. We checked on the site a few days afterwards and were able to spot the juvenile again with its parents from a distant. They seem to be doing well overall but they are the only GBH nest at the site where previously, years before, there has been a colony of the species. We scouted out a few more active nests at another location where a colony did persist, despite there being a fairly large dieback of trees due to an industrial spill last year.

My most recent project focuses on monitoring some old Yellow-Billed Cuckoo (Cooccyzus americanus) sites along the Delaware River near the New Mexico-Texas boarder. I’ve yet to find any, but it has only been one day. I’ll update you all on how that goes in the future.

Yellow-billed cuckoo survey site on the Delaware River

Outside of work I ventured into the Carlsbad Caverns again for an extended scheduled tour of the Lower Caves. It was pretty amazing! Saw a bat encased in a stalagmite and even got to crawl through a few small tunnels throughout the tour. Definitely worth the month wait. I have no pictures unfortunately as I lack the equipment to take pictures in low light areas. Also went to visit the White Sands National Monument up and over the western side of the Sacramento mountain range. I never knew that such a place existed until recently, but it had a very “spacey” feeling to it along with being a unique and beautiful landmark – another recommendation.

White Sands National Monument

Take care for now!

Armand Cann
Carlsbad Field Office, Bureau of Land Management

Don’t get me wrong.  My fellow intern and I are doing a lot of useful work.  For instance, these last few weeks we have finished one entire fuels reduction project, completely designed the inventory scheme for another, completed over 30 inventories for said project, received  UTV training, and managed a trip to Fort Collins.  In short, things are really picking up in our work-load as we have over 100 more inventories to complete before our time here is up, two additional projects helping area foresters in the next month, and a trip to Yellowstone planned.  I never knew going into this internship I would be learning so much and having such a good time.  I think this may be my shortest blog post yet, but hey, there are pictures!

Best, Andee

Breathtaking Badlands

I want to call these the sherbet mounds. That sounds official to me.

You never know what you’ll run into on BLM property. I little of this, a little of that, a little 100 year-old homestead.

Give me an L! L!

Deciding the fate of trees with some paint. They give us a lot of power as foresters.

This is the life…the hot, dry life.

Has anyone been to Wall Drug near the Badlands? You need to go and ride this ridiculous Jackalope!

Hello all!

I can’t put into words how amazing it is to have the privilege to work outside nearly everyday. One of my favorite things to do lately is take a picture of the gorgeous scenery when I’m out working and post a photo on my facebook or twitter when I get home with the caption “this was my office today.” Fieldwork is such a rewarding experience. Yes, it gets hot and tiring sometimes, but the sights, sounds, and sheer adventure of it all makes it so fulfilling.

This is my current “This was my office today” photo.

Lately, I’ve gotten to contribute to several projects. My mentor sent all of the wildlife technicians out with the range crew and we have been learning how to read trends and assess sites for possible prairie dog relocation. Working with the range crew has allowed me to learn a lot more of the Utah plants. A brief overview of what reading trends consists of: We go out to either a historic site (an area where they’ve been collecting data for years) or a new site (where we set up a new plot) and take stock of what plants there are using a combination of methods (point intercept, line intercept, and nested frequency). It has been great getting to know our range crew, practicing new sampling methods, and learning new plants.

Zach and I assisting the trend crew.

We’ve also gotten to pair up with the DNR (Department of Natural Resources) in a town near St. George. They have been seining the Virgin River in order to remove the invasive red shiner. Now that was physically exerting! It was wonderful getting to work in a riparian area again. There’s not an abundance of water out here in Utah, which is very different from what I’m used to. So getting to be in a river all day was quite a treat (even if I was sore for several days after). Unfortunately, since we were in the water all day (sometimes up to my neck), I wasn’t able to get any photos.

Last, but not least, we got to pair up with another DNR team and assist with a bat survey last night. I’ve always wanted to participate in bat monitoring, but I’ve never had the opportunity. When my mentor said he might be able to work something out, I was thrilled. After a couple months of contacting various crews that did bat work, we got the go ahead to help the Cedar City DNR, and my dream finally came to fruition. By some dumb luck, I ended up doing data recording. That meant that I got to see every bat we caught and help assess their age, sex, health, and a few other measurements. I couldn’t have asked for a better night!

Sporting the headlamp and taking a moment to cheese for the camera while helping assess a bat.

Zach and Ruth helping to set up one of the mist nets in the cave.

This month has exposed me to so many new skills and experiences. It’s been great working with both intra- and inter-departmental crews to get involved in different types of plant and animal research and monitoring.

In a non-work related note, I’ve had the opportunity to meet up with some of the other CLM interns in Utah and we have had some pretty great adventures. I’m thankful we all got to meet in Chicago at the workshop. I didn’t realized how many friendships would stem from that trip!

My CLM friends. Jinny (from Vernal), Jessie (from Escalante), and I (Cedar City) met up in Escalante and explored some of Utah’s wonderful outdoors. Here we are posing in a hoo doo.

        The following conversation has little to do with the CLM internship, I just think it is quite funny.

I was visiting a friend out in Miles City when I ran to the grocery store to grab supplies for our barbecue. As I was passing a bag of Cheetos to the cashier, the woman in line behind me squawks, “Don’t feed Cheetos to babies!”

“Excuse me?”

“Yeah, something about the cheese they use upsets their stomachs. I used to get stomach aches, but after I cut Cheetos out of my diet: nothing.” She drew a line with her hand to illustrate her lack of digestive distress. I stood there, unsure of the correct response to a woman whose cart was full of Oreo’s and potato chips. She kept talking.

“I’m just waiting for the American people to wake up and sue the FDA for the chemicals they are allowing in our food. Or, really what we should all do is stop paying our federal taxes.”

She was talking to three BLM employees, paid by the federal government.

“When the government shuts down, then we’ll see what happens,” she was nodding sagely at me, taking my shocked silence as agreement. My friends had already turned their back on her. “When China tries to invade, we’ll meet them at the border. If you know what I mean.” She cocked an imaginary shotgun.

Oh boy.

Stormy afternoon in Sage Creek. Beware of mud.

Eastern Montana aside, things in Dillon have become more familiar now. I know what I’m going to do any given day, the squeaking sink in the office no longer makes me think the fire alarm is going off, and parking the long box truck in the overcrowded lot does not gives me anxiety anymore. In a typical week I spend about half my time collecting seeds or scouting populations by myself and the other half conducting various riparian surveys and upland studies with the range techs. When my family and friends ask what I actually do, I tell them I mostly hike around and look at plants. It is a nice balance, and although I’m still learning constantly, the deer-in-the-headlights-am-I-doing-this-right feelings have mostly subsided.

Knapweed hunting

Occasionally, I mix up the routine and go out with the wildlife techs. I’ve gone out on ferruginous hawk surveys several times, but have yet to see a ferruginous hawk. Another day I participated in the office spray day in the Bear Trap. Armed with our spray packs (Ghostbusters?), about 30 of us set out to exterminate that pesky knapweed. Unfortunately, I encountered my first rattlesnake (right by my foot!), forgot to stay calm, and ran away yelling profanities in front of the renewable resources manager. Pat understood, although she still teases me about it.

Living in Montana has been awesome. Initially it took some adjustments: many restaurants close at 8 pm, driving an hour is “close,” and there is no recycling (the Portlander in me dies a little bit every time I throw away a piece of paper in the office, although I’ve set up my own efforts at home). Besides this, the mountains are incredible and the people are friendly. I hiked the Sphinx outside of Ennis and could see 14 mountain ranges from the 10,800 ft peak. I had a dress altered and the seamstress invited me in for gumbo and we talked for hours about skiing. People say the pace is different than city life, but I’ve found that really it’s a whole new walk.

View of the Madison range from the top of the Sphinx

Top of the Sphinx, as seen from the saddle

I’m going to start out this blog post by openly admitting that I came to Burns with the mindset that beef is the root of all evil. I stopped eating beef when I was 15 years old because of the environmental implications; it takes an estimated 2,000 gallons of water and 12 pounds of grain to produce just 1 pound of beef. That’s pretty darn inefficient, and a completely unsustainable way to feed humanity over the long term. With that in mind, let’s just say I had a fairly uncomfortable transition to an area where ranching is so common and cows are beloved by all. In fact, the BLM was formed from the former U.S. Grazing Service, so basically my job revolves around making sure the beef cows I am so adamantly opposed to have good land to graze.

There was a lot to be learned about cattle ranching in the Wild West, however. First of all, the cattle here are all free range, making it an entirely different ball game than beef production in the industrial system. I still wasn’t convinced, though, because I was frustrated by the fact that people seemed to prioritize grazing land over conserving the natural plant communities. For example, many of the wildfire rehabilitation sites that I monitor were seeded with “desirable non-natives” such as forage kochia and crested wheatgrass. These are highly palatable plants that cows love to eat, but they aren’t native to Oregon. So what’s the point in using plants that don’t even belong here? To me, it didn’t seem like a very environmentally-conscious rehab plan.

Vegetation monitoring at a fire rehab site

Here’s where it gets interesting. As I’ve mentioned before, wildfires are a huge issue out here. They burn hot and fast, and scorching all of the good plants like sagebrush and native bunch grasses in their paths. In the past, these plant communities would’ve bounced back naturally; however, with the introduction of invasives like cheat grass and Medusa head, the natives just can’t compete. Which means that if the fire sites are left to their own devices, cheat grass and Medusa head will completely take over (no animals will eat them and no other plants will grow back). That’s why the BLM uses non-native plants in their seedings – they do a better job at competing with and blocking out the invasives, whereas the native plants would never have survived. By preventing the invasives from taking over, there is a better chance that the native plant communities will eventually regrow and live cohesively with the desirable non-natives.

A fire site overrun with invasive cheat grass

That’s still hard for me to swallow. I am disappointed that the only way to prevent the spread of invasives is to plant non-natives, but I suppose that is the lesser of two evils. And I’m happy to know that they don’t plant things like crested wheatgrass because they want to make the cows happy, but rather because it’s the only choice they have. However, I still think more research is needed on how to control the invasives, and while the BLM does a good job stabilizing and rehabilitating the land after a fire, there really is no push to restore the native plant communities. So in that regard, I do wish the BLM put a little more emphasis on conservation and preservation, not just grazing.

All in all, I had a lot of misconceptions about how things are run out here. I’m not saying that I’ll be cooking myself a juicy T-bone steak anytime soon, but I’ve certainly learned a lot about fire ecology and beef production in the West. I hope to continue having my opinions challenged and horizons widened during my time here. Because that’s the beauty of exploring new places – you may not recognize how close-minded you are until you truly open your mind to the thoughts of others.

On a lighter note, here are some pictures from the past two (exceptionally muddy) weeks:

We were headed out of the field just as a huge storm rolled through…

…and things got messy real fast.

The very next day our truck got thoroughly stuck in the mud.

This week, we did stream restoration. Hauling all of those rocks was a dirty & tiring job!

Austin Yantes

Burns District BLM

Sericocarpus rigidus, the last species to count this summer.

Since starting at the BLM here in Eugene in April, the majority of my time has been spent doing various forms of vegetation monitoring. I’ve spent many weeks counting and documenting the number of individuals in a particular population of rare plants to help the BLM better understand the trajectory of these species and to continue or make changes to existing management protocols. As of today, we have completed the very last of our rare plant surveys. My feelings are mixed. I guess I’m not exactly sure what my main focus will be for the next few months and worry that my future holds a lot of data entry… which, as it turns out, I am terrible at. With a little luck I’ll figure out a way to get in the field with a machete and an weed whacker and hammer on some wetland prairie invaders, like prickly pear and blackberry.

One thing that I’ve realized after two botany-related internships over the past year and a half is that being outside and working with plants is only part of what I want for my future. Oddly enough I yearn for daily struggles, problems with open-ended solutions, and the ability to adapt my actions to meet these challenges. To me this confirms my desire to work in restoration. Before studying habitat restoration, the term adaptive management was unknown to me. Now that I’ve seen a variety of restoration and research projects aimed at supporting native plant populations, it has become my creed. Oddly, the notion that I could spend the rest of my life working to unlock the best possible way to restore native plant communities… and never truly find that answer… is one of the most appealing aspects of becoming a restoration practitioner. Unending challenge and the constant need to adapt, re-think, and start over, sounds like a lot of fun. Field work detached from that thought process will never hold my interest for more than the short term. Although positions like I find myself in now are not my ultimate end-goal, I am comforted that it will take me one step closer. As I get older (I’m 31 now), I often wonder if I’ll know when I’m at that jumping-off point, that moment when the next chapter starts. Will I recognize that moment when it’s time to quit that last safe job and launch full force into a risky but rewarding career? I’m not sure how long or what it will take for me to get to that point, but I’m hoping that starting graduate school this fall at OSU will bring me closer.

A long echoing hello again from canyon country. The past week took us to the Virgin River area near Zion Canyon. We sampled abandoned oil well sites dating back to the late 1920’s with some as recent as the early 80’s. The oil drilling scene there was very different from those near Bluff or Moab, UT. In those two areas drill sites are flat, expansive, and far apart. However, the sites near Zion are clustered together wherever there was a flat space to be found, no matter how tiny. The wells are everywhere! Sometimes right next to each other.

A fun vegetation survey to me means lots of plants to ID! Which is exactly what we got! Our team was unfamiliar with many of the species found, so we have been spending lots of times pouring over Utah Flora and Intermountain Flora and debating over glumes, phyllaries and various bracts, and of course the many wonderful types of plant hairs (Ilovestellateplanthairs). We have been IDing so much that I dreamed about IDing Sphaeralcea. “It’s all about the leaves,” my dream-self recommended.

Here’s to dreaming of plants and spectacular Utah!

Cheers,
Amanda

USGS Henderson, NV

Typical well cap

Vegetation Transect

Oil Well turned Campsite

Despite our rough start, we made it out to the Delmarva Peninsula last week, and managed to get a fair amount of scouting in for our SOS seed collections.

After only about 140 miles from our start at the NC Botanical Garden on Monday morning, we stopped on the side of the road with a flat tire. Changing a flat on a truck is really no different from changing one on a small car, but at first we had trouble finding the spare. Once we located it under the truck (who knew?) we got it lowered, jacked up the truck, and replaced the tire. We all took turns using the jack, which for some reason was made in such a way that with every turn, the hook came out of the loop. I don’t know cars well enough to give a better description than that, but in the end, it made a simple job just a little bit tougher. Here are some pictures of the flat:

Flat as can be!

Emily’s turn to crank

Big hole!

Our first stop was at the Great Dismal Swamp, and as the name suggests, there is something very dismal about it. The water barely moves, so the mosquitoes were out in full force! I had on a mosquito net over my hat to protect my face, and we all drenched ourselves in bug spray. We did see a lot of potential at this site, however there was nothing ready to be collected in a large enough quantity for our purposes. We did see some Magnolia virginiana (Sweetbay) there, but by far not enough to collect. There were also really pretty legume flowers that I photographed.

Magnolia virginiana

Some kind of pea

That evening we ate dinner at a hole in the wall Mexican restaurant and grocery store called El Crucero Tienda y Taquería. They had amazing, freshly made food. Unfortunately we were too hungry to stop and take pictures, but I had Huaraches (look it up if you’re not familiar – the pictures are mouth-watering) and Emily got Pupusas. Maggie and Lauren both got a vegetarian version of Fajitas, or something similar – I can’t remember exactly. I was entranced by my meal!

El Crucero

We saw a beautiful sunset from our hotel room in Pocomoke City, MD, and rested up for the next day.

We started off not too far from our hotel at Nassawango Creek Preserve where we saw lots of potential for the upcoming months in seed collection for species such as Rhexia mariana (Maryland Meadowbeauty) and Asclepias sp. (we saw a few), as well as populations of species like Vaccinium corymbosum (Highbush Blueberry) that are definitely large enough to sample from next summer.

Rhexia mariana

Asclepias sp

Next was Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge. We ran into some trouble identifying species of the genus Eleocharis, since a microscope is essential for differentiating between minute details in the structure of the tiny nutlets. We also saw Schoenoplectus americanus (Chairmaker’s Bulrush) and a slew of other sedges and rushes on a section of the Refuge on the side of the road. In another area, we saw tons of Typha angustifolia (Narrowleaf Cattail) among other species on our list. We made a collection of Schoenoplectus pungens (Common Three-square), though it cost us $3 per vehicle to enter that section of the Refuge.

Lauren botanizing

Pretty landscape

S. pungens seeds

Wild turkeys!

We’re finding that both Maryland and Virginia love taking money from people, be it by way of toll roads, bridges, National Forests, Nation Wildlife Refuges… you name it. Luckily our native North Carolina doesn’t charge us to enter any preserve nor to cross any bridge or use any road. To add to that, NC sites don’t seem to lack at all in quality, ease of navigation, helpfulness of rangers, etc. I’m a big fan of NC!

Next we visited (or tried to visit) Choptank Wetlands. The highlight of that visit was a sighting of a few Bald Eagles. Due to the fact that the only access road into the wetland was a road cutting through private property, and that we don’t own a boat, canoe, or kayak, we weren’t able to actually visit the site. However, on the way there we saw fields full of Hibiscus moscheutos (Crimsoneyed Rosemallow) and Kosteletzkya virginica (Virginia Saltmarsh Mallow), both of which we hope to be able to collect in the near future.

Kosteletzkya virginica

Hibiscus moscheutos

Hibiscus galore

Saggitaria flowers!

Our visit to Battle Creek Cypress Swamp was an enjoyable one, and we hope to return in the fall to collect Taxodium distichum (Bald Cypress) and other species. We only made two collections this trip, but we got a lot of scouting out of the way!

Bald Cypress Swamp

Till next time!

Wow, I cant believe we are already into August! It feels like my time here is whizzing past!

We have had another couple of extremely productive weeks at the Eagle Lake Field Office. We have gone out to the field nearly every single day, scouting for new seed collection sites, checking on old ones, and performing collections.

We are up to 17 completed collections, with a few more species on the back burner until the seeds are slightly more mature.

Our band (SOS team) album cover.

We love to have photo shoots in the field. Photo taken at Painter’s Creek, CA.

Im starting to realize how different each area in our field office is. My fellow interns and I ventured up to one of the higher areas in our field office yesterday to the Ferdonyer Peak. This was one of the prettiest areas that we have scouted so far! We were surrounded by trees and a smorgasbord of species we havn’t even seen since we have been working. We could see most of the field office by doing a 360 degree turn, everywhere from Observation Pt. to the other side of Eagle Lake.

View from the lookout at Ferdonyer Peak! Thats the very low Eagle Lake that you see in front of the mountain.

Andrea, Lillie, and Rachael doing some scouting at the peak.

While at Ferdonyer, we also got a chance to visit the lookout. It was a very interesting day to be there becuase we could see the smoke from the Dodge Fire, which has been burning since Saturday night. I’m thinking I wouldn’t do the best job at scouting for fires from the lookout, since Monday I was looking at the same area that was burning, thinking the clouds were looking exceptionally cool, and failing to realize it was actually a fire burning!

What do you think, Fire or crazy awesome cloud?

Since then, it has burned to 10,700 acres. This is an area that we visit often for seed collections and it is crazy to think of how much of this area will now be burned the next time we see it.

We also had the chance to work with a couple of the interns from the Alturas field office this week! We assisted them with the collection of Idaho Fescue and Snowberry on a beautiful Mountain in the Modoc Forest. They were a couple of species that are lacking in our field office, and were pretty fun to collect.

Hunter gathers picking snowberries.

My weekend adventures have also continued. I had another trip to San Francisco and Santa Cruz a couple weekends ago. It has been so long since I had the chance to play in the sand and put my toes in the ocean.

Bonny Doon Beach in Santa Cruz, CA.

And just this past weekend, I had an amazing reunion with a few of my friends from my Puerto Rico internship! We visited both Lake Tahoe for a little hike and play in the water, and Lassen National Park!

Me and my PR pals in Tahoe!

At at beautiful waterfall in Lassen Volcanic National Park.

Well! Thats it for now! Until next time, Jillian