I’m not scared of heights, but when I’m several stories up I don’t want to fall either. Likewise I enjoy a good thunderstorm, but when I’m standing on an exposed mountain my feelings toward lightening changes a little.

John Muir once said that “many of Nature’s finest lessons are to be found in her storms.” Any rational human being would call that an insane reason to wander a glacier field during a blizzard. And they would be right. That’s what makes Muir so much fun is that the guy was nuts. But watching a thunderstorm roll in while I was stubbornly trying to get work done, Muir does have a point. You see the field differently when you’re taking shelter under a juniper tree and considering if it’s worth the exposed run to lower ground amidst deafening thunder.

Of course, I exaggerate some. I wasn’t facing “the perfect storm” or anything. I was fine. But those were my musings as I contemplated how well I could jog down a mountain without needing to be air lifted. Cause there’d be a lot of paper work if I need to be “life flighted” out. And no one likes paper work. Or broken spines.

Thankfully there’s no paperwork. But it was one of those somewhat mundane moments in the field that does get you thinking.

My past couple weeks have been a riot with looking for raptor nests and marking them. Oddly satisfying work when you start to find them. The best was finding a Ferruginous Hawk nest with the two parents screaming away at me right over head. Made my day. I’m moving on to being fuels reduction this week, which will be a fun change of pace. Though that said, I will start to miss these punks:

Cheers!

Ben Robb

Our office and our community undergo an astonishing change between winter and summer months.  In winter, the community of Lopez Island consists of only 2,000 people.  It’s rainy and quiet and a lot of time is spent at the library, in the kitchen, or by the fireplace.  Similarly, the office of the San Juan Islands National Monument slows down, with only two employees (who none the less work tirelessly). As spring and summer roll on, the island swells with tourists and part time residents.  What was a sleepy village becomes a hive of activity as people enjoy the bakeries, biking, and public lands of Lopez Island.  During this time, the Monument also ramps up activity with a rush of seasonal employees (of which I am one) and events with the community as well as with the BLM.

The public lands on Lopez see huge increase in traffic during summer months.  Where maybe 10 people will visit a site each day in the  winter, it’s not uncommon to see 50 visitors in a span of a few hours on a sunny July day.

The change in the office is no less dramatic. At the moment (mid-July) we have two full time employees, three interns, and a youth work corp leader working out of our little 1000 square foot office.  Next week we expand further for two other seasonals.  Each of these people have an important function here at the monument: working with plants and seed, mapping and assisting with recreation management, engaging the youth, and helping to create interpretive plans for the monuments most beloved locations. That’s not to mention all the work our manager and recreation planner do.

This is my second year working here.  Last year, I collected baseline biological data for upcoming planning efforts.  This year, I am working with the Seeds of Success program.  My job is just one of many functions of the San Juan Islands National Monument, and its one that’s a little removed from the rest of the operation.  Still I get to meet different scientists and research specialists working on the islands as well as getting a look at the work of different BLM employees.  This past week I got to help out a team surveying wetlands in the area.  In previous months, I have worked with folks in forestry, wildlife biology, botany, bat biology, as well as interpretive specialists.

I frequently do work to assist and learn about other goings on in the monument.  I sometimes help at educational booths or farmers markets and I attend meetings that go way over my head.  Our Monument, which was designated in 2013, is going through an extensive planning process for its Resource Management Plan.  I’ve enjoyed learning about that process, attending lively Monument Advisory Committee meetings with members of the public, and sending my personal comments on the landscape.

Anyway, I guess I’m trying to say our summer is full of people and new learning opportunities (cheesy, I know).  Though at times I can’t wait for the quiet of winter, I’m pretty grateful for the chance to work with people in and outside of my field, as well as to learn more about the workings of a government office.

Greetings again from Idaho!  It has now been just over 2 months since my internship partner, Emile, and I have been transplanted to Boise.  We have worked around the Four Rivers Field Office long enough to have seen some pretty seedy areas.  Sometimes working with the BLM feels a little like working for the IRS because we are trying to minimize plant taxonomy evasion.  But all puns aside, if there is any doubt of the quality of the CLM internship program, I can personally voucher for the skills and experience gained through work related to the Seeds of Success program.

Since my last post, we have made multiple collections of primarily Elymus elymoides (Squirreltail bunchgrass) and Eriogonum heracleoides (Wyeth Buckwheat).  We also attempted to make a few collections of both Festuca idahoensis (Idaho Fescue bunchgrass) and Pseudoroegneria spicata (Bluebunch Wheatgrass), but unfortunately not enough of the seed pods were fertile to make the collections worthwhile.

Feeling like hunters with our fresh kills lined up in the bed of our truck

In addition to our work related to the Seed of Success program, we have also had the opportunity to help with other projects around our field office and others in the area.  One such project was monitoring “Species of Special Concern” in the Bruneau Field Office.  The species we were looking for was Astragalus yoder-williamsii, a rare milkvetch found primarily in Idaho and Nevada.  We located and analyzed 2 populations that hadn’t been monitored since 1992.  The plant itself is quite small (less than 8 inches wide/long and less than 4 inches tall) but seems quite tough; it was growing most densely in and along the dirt roads in the area.

Astragalus yoder-williamsii

Astragalus yoder-williamsii peaking out from beneath a savory pie

Idaho has also proven to have spectacular hiking, camping, and backpacking opportunities.  My first visit to the Sawtooth Wilderness a few weekends ago was amazing.  From camping along the Salmon River, to hiking to and swimming in freezing-cold, snowmelt-filled Sawtooth Lake, and relaxing on the bank of Redfish Lake, the Sawtooth wilderness weekend was a great one.  A subsequent hike in the Boise National Forest to Blue Lake and three rocky peaks surrounding it was also beautiful and memorable.

Beautiful Sawtooth Lake!

Beautiful Alpine Lake!

Beautiful Redfish Lake!

Beautiful Blue Lake!

Thanks for reading/looking! Until next blog,

Dan King – signing off

BLM – Four Rivers Field Office – Boise, ID

Over the past few weeks it has been unusually hot here in Klamath Falls. The worst being 102! So my fellow interns and I decided to spend July 4^th on the coast. For a not well-planned trip it turned out amazingly.  We lucked out and found a campsite not too far from the beach. And it was everything we had hoped for, the coast was cool, almost frigid and beautiful.  The small town we were near put on a great fireworks display on the beach.

Cape Blanco

Off the pacific coast scenic byway

Back in Klamath falls, the area is still suffering from a 5 year drought. It was expected that water at the dams would be shut off at some point. Over the July fourth weekend the water was shut off at the Gerber dam. When the water is shut off fish get stranded at the base of the dam, especially larger fish, and if they are not removed will die. The Bureau of Reclamation took on the task of trying to salvage as many fish as possible. We got a chance to go out for a day and help them with their endeavor. They utilized trap nets in the large main pool below the dam and electrofished the smaller pools. Any fish caught were transported to above the dam where there would hopefully be enough water for the summer for them to survive.

Gerber Dam

Erica having fun saving some fish

Unfortunately this catfish didn’t make it

We were especially interested in any sucker fish caught.  All suckers were photographed, measured, weighed, tagged and DNA samples taken. They are tagged with what’s called a pit tag, which is similar to what they use as microchips in dogs.  The tag is placed right in the underbelly, above the anal fins.  A small piece of anal fin was clipped for DNA analysis.

Sucker fish

Pit tagging

The next two weeks we spent trap netting in both Upper Klamath Lake and Tule Lake down in California. We are trying to catch suckers that had been released last year. The first week was disappointing.  We didn’t catch any, but we did catch a variety of other species such as: blue chub, tui chub, fathead minnows, sculpins, perch, pumpkinseeds, black bullheads and rainbow trout. Attempts on Tule Lake were not very successful due to our motor not wanting to start when trying to head back to shore.  We tried to paddle back to the boat launch, but the afternoon winds picked up, so we had to drift to the other edge of the lake and be rescued by our mentor. It was quite a long day.

Chub caught in one of our nets

This last week on Upper Klamath we caught four suckers in a single day, which is a pretty good catch.  This size of sucker is not seen very often and is similar in size to the fish we have in our net pens.

Sucker caught in our trap nets

Over the weekend we finally made it to Crater Lake, which is practically in our backyard. You can hike about a mile down to the water to swim or jump off the cliffs. The water was a spectacular blue and of course freezing cold.

Crater Lake

Hi everyone,

We Richfield interns are exactly halfway through our CLM internship, I feel like I’ve learned so much. For the past couple months we have been focused on cacti, but the past couple of weeks have transitioned into SOS collections. We’ve learned to collect vouchers, fill out the data sheets, and have made 6 collections of globemallows, Hesperostipa comata, Chaenactis steviodes, and Machaeranthera tanacetifolia. While I’ve liked the cactus work, I’m enjoying the new tasks and seeing new parts of Utah. Most of our collections are coming from western Utah (since there is a focus on Great Basin plants this year). There are some very remote parts out there, such as Ibapah, which is only accessible by dirt roads (90+ miles of dirt roads).

We’ve seen lots of wildlife, such as badgers, gray fox kits, a hoary marmot, and rattlesnakes. We’ve also seen beautiful birds such as a Scott’s oriole, mountain bluebirds, western bluebirds, northern harriers, long-billed curlews, and Say’s phoebes.

My brother visited me and we went down to The Buckskin to hike the Buckskin Gorge. We also went up to Boulder Mountain and canoed on one of its many lakes.

More coming soon (since it’s the end of July and I never submitted my June post…).

Ellie

Buckskin Gulch Slot Canyon

Great Basin gopher snake

Over the past month, we started working on a new project out here in the Mojave Desert–one that actually took us out of the desert and Las Vegas, and up to the Colorado Plateau! We’re assessing the vegetation and soil recovery on old oil drilling sites, from a wide range of timespans and in a couple geographic areas. We spent about two weeks in Utah measuring these sites, and it was definitely a change in scenery, from the dry and muted landscape of the Mojave:

Or the sandy dunes of Eureka Valley in Death Valley National Park:

To a landscape of bright reds and greens and scattered with canyons:

We were looking at sites mostly dominated by blackbrush (and sagebrush sites will also factor into this project), but recorded any perennials we found on our transects, which of course meant looking up a whole new batch of species we hadn’t encountered in our normal work in Nevada. There were also some familiar genera, like Sphaeralcea, that had different varieties or species up there for us to key out.

While our primary focus was on plants and soils, we also did get to say hello to some wildlife while there:

The geology of the area was also super interesting–it took us about 6-8 hours to drive from the Las Vegas Field Station in Henderson up to the general Moab, UT area, depending on the sites in question. On the way I read the entire Utah Roadside Geology book at least twice, and inflicted most of it upon my fellow car-mates, whether they cared about the rocks or not. Seeing all the different formations and knowing the vastly different landscapes that produced them (huge fields of aeolean-driven dunes, shallow seas, tidal flats, and more) and just how long it takes to create even a few feet of sedimentary rock–it really puts the geologic timescale in perspective in a very tangible way.

Above is a mysterious blue member within the Entrada formation, at one of our Campsites, near Tombstone Butte/the Needles… my best guess is it was anhydrite/gypsum, but as to why it stops so suddenly, I can’t say. The grains were too large for it to have been an ancient lake sediment, so maybe a narrow tongue of a tidal flat is my best guess.

Anyway, as a photographer, the vast array of landscapes I’ve been able to experience while out west has been truly inspiring, so I will close by leaving you with some of my favorite photos I’ve taken while here. These were shot in places all around Nevada, California, Utah, and Arizona.

– Jessica Mikenas

US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center

The plants in Escalante have finally started seeding! The spring showers brought a flood

Nelson’s Globemallow (Sphaeralcea parvifolia),

of blooming flowers. Nelson’s Globemallow (Sphaeralcea parvifolia), is one of my favorite plants that my co-intern Elise and I are collecting. The Hopi Indians used this plant for multiple purposes, some of which include curing sores, cuts, and wounds (Colton 1974). I even found a rare white S. parvifolia! Another fun

A rare white Nelson’s Globemallow (Sphaeralcea parvifolia),

plant that we have to collect is Indian Rice Grass (Achnatherum hymenoides). Apache Indians used this plant to make bread (Reagan 1929) and it is an important plant for cattle grazing (Ogle et al. 2013).

Besides seed collecting, I also joined the wildlife biologist for the Forest Service, Lisa Young, and the wildlife biologist for the BLM, Terry Tolbert, when they went bat trapping! We traveled to the Last Chance wash near Lake Powell and set up two, thirty foot

Lisa holding a Brazilian Free-Tailed Bat (Tadarida brasiliensis)

high nets above the creek. When the bats swooped down to drink water, they would get caught in the nets. Terry and Lisa would then go untangle the bats and then collect data on them. Data collection included identification, tarsus measurements, wingspan, and weight. After the data was collected on a bat, they were then released.

Terry has also been showing Elise and me how to rope lizards. We take simple fishing polls, string them with fly fishing string, make a loop at the end and then the hunt begins! After hunting in the hot desert sun, searching under sage brush and cliff rose, it is

BLM Wildlife Biologist Terry Tolbert releasing a Desert Spiny (Sceloporus magister) that I caught

most satisfying to catch a lizard. The lizards we catch are

Desert Spiny (Sceloporus magister)

measured from snout to anus and then from snout to the tip of their tail. After the lizards are weighed, they are released and a GPS coordinate is taken so we can estimate their range of habitat.
This internship has so far allowed me to expand my knowledge of plants and has given me the opportunity to work with wildlife. I cannot wait to see what else my time in Escalante will bring!

Me with a Desert Spiny (Sceloporus magister)

Since my last blog post, the weeks have become a whirlwind of work! I have really started focusing on SOS, and figuring out how to determine seed readiness and collection strategies. I think the biggest challenge so far has been adjusting to the level of variety in the work, as collections for virtually every plant species is performed differently. It has been helpful to have resources like the SOS flickr page that showcases past collections, as well as the office’s own data files from past SOS interns, but overall it appears that most of my job is learned in the field and as I go.

Gaillardia aristata– one of the populations that I will (hopefully!) be collecting sometime this week

During the first part of this month, myself and the office’s two range interns, Jade and Sara, performed the first seed collections of the season! This first collection was Needle and Thread grass. It definitely was a learning experience, as on the day of the collection we found that much of the seed had actually dropped over the weekend. 🙁 We collected what we could, but overall it was a lot less productive than what I was planning for. But like I said, I’m finding that a lot of my job is “learn-as-you-go”. Plants definitely work on their own schedule, which means that monitoring populations for readiness requires a lot of travel to-and-from the office and a healthy amount of estimation. That being said, the next week was a lot more productive as far as seed collecting! With the help of Jade and Sara, three more collections were performed all in ONE day (& all in the same allotment thankfully!) Bluebunch Wheatgrass, Lewis Flax, and a boatload of Miner’s Candle (~120,000 seed)…shout out to Sara for her enthusiasm for collecting Miner’s Candle! Just this week, I have sent out the shipment to Bend of these species and continue to monitor other populations I have found. Hopefully all goes well in processing the collected seed!

On a personal note, over the Fourth of July weekend, myself and some of the other interns made a road trip to Yellowstone, Jackson WY and the Tetons. This was my first trip out to this area, and I had a blast! We spent four nights camping in the area and sightseeing during the day. It was exhausting to say the least, but we saw so much wildlife during these four days including elk, pronghorn, bear (grizzly and black), mule and white-tail deer and even a moose! I’d say our time in the Tetons was definitely my favorite part of the trip, and I’m already dying to get back there to explore more trails and sites!!

Our view of the Tetons from our campsite over the fourth of July weekend.

A bear we came across in Yellowstone one early morning.

-Katie

Buffalo Field Office, WY