Over the past two collecting trips we have almost doubled the amount of collections we make per week! It has been a whirlwind of activity and quite the learning experience. We have been traveling mostly throughout Maryland and Virginia and I have slowly figured out how to best seek out collection sites in the expanse of an entire state park or national wildlife refuge. This past trip we used kayaks to gather seed from a few species like Sambucus canadensis and to scout potential sites. I really enjoyed getting to use kayaks and being out on the water, but boy they do pose a few challenges when using to collect seed. A few times I made the terrible decision to try and get out of my kayak onto what appeared as land and just sank into the mud. Also, after our second day of kayaking, I thought I was going to awake to find two new arms the size of the hulk’s arms. This did not happen, but I was sore for a few days. Despite the challenges, kayaking was my favorite part of the trip, we got to see some beautiful vistas and scout out some great populations of one of my favorite species Hibiscus moscheutos. 

Views from my kayak at Tuckahoe State Park

Hibiscus moscheutos in bloom!

In addition to the many amazing new plant species I have been learning in our travels, we have seen some amazing pollinators, moths, and various insects. It has opened my eyes more to insect biodiversity and has encouraged me to keep a lookout for insects as well as plants when out in nature. Below are just a few of the beautiful insects we have seen:

Furthermore, my team and I always discuss being opportunistic in if we see seed that is ready to collect on a plant that is not on our list to always try and key it out and collect it if possible. During our past trip we found this really awesome Schoenoplectus  sp.  that we later keyed out to be Schoenoplectus mucronatus. As none of us had ever seen this species before we got very excited and made a collection, however upon later research we discovered it is actually not native to the U.S. and had to begrudgingly microwave the seed (as to not spread exotic species around) and throw out the collection. Lesson learned! As exciting as it is to learn new species and be opportunistic where possible, I learned it is always important to do research on a plant and make sure you are not spreading an exotic species around. Overall, this past few weeks have been awesome and I hope we can keep up the momentum!

It can get pretty depressing spending every day of fieldwork searching for and mapping weeds. Monotonous as well, because (spoiler alert), we ALWAYS find them in abundance! Focus too hard on the knapweed, cheatgrass, and tumblemustard, and eventually it becomes all you see. That’s why I felt lucky the past few weeks to be introduced by Molly, our office’s botanist, to some Washington rare plants, and take a little time out in the field to focus on something more positive!

Long-sepal globemallow, Iliamna longisepala

Ute ladies’-tresses, Spiranthes diluvialis

Coyote tobacco, Nicotiana attenuata

Having rare plants to search for while out mapping weeds is a nice distraction. Mostly, I’ve just confirmed that certain known populations of these three plants are still around, but last Thursday I had the excitement of discovering a previously unknown population of coyote tobacco! Because my fellow weed-mappers and I are either harder-working or more foolish than some of our other coworkers at the Wenatchee field office, we tend to hike the steeper parts of our BLM parcels than most people would probably categorize as inaccessible. (There’s a reason this internship has me in the best shape of my life!) While we were walking along a high ridge and bemoaning the fact that there was dalmatian toadflax absolutely everywhere, I found a clump of at least 20 coyote tobacco plants, and then more as we walked along further. I was thrilled, and even more so later on when I told Molly about it and she said no one had reported that population before. For once, I was able to give somebody in the office some good news, and it felt great!

Though the mild weather this summer held out much longer than I expected, we are finally experiencing the Wenatchee heat that everyone warned us about, and I’m learning how to survive fieldwork in hundred degree weather. The keys, I’ve found, are water and a good sense of humor!

Here are some more pictures from the past couple weeks:

We rode in a UTV for the first time! It was mildly terrifying.

Since I’m not an entomologist, I’ve decided to call this little buddy a unicorn caterpillar!

Another day, another gorgeous, sweeping vista. I love my job!

Katherine Schneider, BLM, Wenatchee WA Field Office

Over the course of six weeks, I progressed the Mt. Pinos Ranger District initiative of creating a pollinator friendly garden at the Chuchupate Ranger Station. I surveyed Milkweed populations for evidence of Monarch reproduction, and made incidental observations about Monarchs and native pollinator and native plant interactions.

For the pollinator garden, activities included removing the noxious pepperweed (Lepidium sp.), researching planting and propagation methods for candidate plants in the garden, collecting seeds of native plants, and watering and measuring success of milkweed plants in the greenhouse. For the pepperweed, I performed one half day of removal on the property, filling a trash bag. However, the plant was back in full force within three weeks. I recommend aggressive removal and monitoring every two weeks. Collecting native seeds involved identifying healthy populations (>10 individuals) of pollinator-friendly, local plants, attempting to focus on those plants planned for the garden. In total, I collected 4,273 seeds, 2,204 of which are planned in the xeriscape garden (Seed Collection.xlsx). Seeds were collected in paper bags, counted in the office, and accessioned in a spreadsheet according to the quadrangle in which they were collected. Three times a week I watered the milkweed seedlings in the greenhouse at Frazier Mountain High School, measuring germination success at the beginning of each week. As of the end of July 2016, 44.1% of the seedlings have germinated and survived, 14% of the seedlings produced more than one shoot. I designed a straightforward data sheet for continued measuring of seedling success, corresponding to the layout of the greenhouse.

In addition to seed collection, I made observations of pollinator-plant interactions, Monarch adults, recorded milkweed populations, and surveyed for Monarch reproduction on Milkweed. I made 44 observations of pollinators, 25 of which included pollinated plants, and 22 of which were Monarch adults. I recorded the location, number, and behavior of Monarchs (Pollinators MPRD.xlsx). Milkweed observations were made incidentally within Mt. Pinos Ranger District (Milkweed MPRD.xlsx, Sheet 1). Each data point corresponds to a 1 m² presence of one of three species of milkweed (Asclepias eriocarpa, Asclepias fascicularis, and Asclepias californica). Within the data sheet I included known populations of milkweed that were not recorded for GPS coordinates, elevation, and flowering status data. These locations may be visited at a later data for observations, field collection, or Monarch surveys (Milkweed MPRD.xlsx, Sheet 2). Four locations on the Mt. Pinos Ranger District were visited for Monarch surveys, following the protocol on mlmp.org, measuring the total area, estimate or count of milkweed plants, number of sampled plants, and number of Monarch eggs, instars, or chrysalis’. I designed a datasheet for these surveys. Over the four locations and five survey days (one site was surveyed twice) we observed 5 Monarch instars. Results of the surveys are located on “Monarch Data.xlsx” and are able to be registered on the mlmp.org but have not been registered at this time. The monarch survey results file also contains a sheet of all incidental observations of adults on the MPRD.

Other duties of the internship included removing cliff swallow nests surveys and removal to prevent avian window injury, designing and posting fire closure signs, surveying springs for water flow and use, collecting herbarium vouchers (Herbarium collections.xlsx), writing native plant newsletters for education and distribution in the MPRD, identifying and referring seed collection sites for an AT&T restoration project, and editing and participating in the production of a rare plants field guide for Mt. Pinos Ranger District by local botanist, Pam De Vries.

My recommendations for the pollinator initiative at MPRD are 1) Create a restoration-like plan for planting pollinator plants. Ideally, it would look like a hybrid of the AT&T Frazier Park to Pine Mountain Telecommunications Project: Habitat Restoration Plan and the USDA Technical Note: Plants for Pollinators in the Inland Northwest. The plan would apply to all candidate sites within the MPRD 2) Design a sampling method for population density of milkweed on the MPRD. 3) Design a sampling method for population density of Monarchs on the MPRD. Every year, record the first and last observations of Monarchs and make estimates of density. 4) Create an insect collection with an emphasis on pollinating insects, taking perfect note of the pollinated plants.

I’m working at the Greenbelt Native Plant Center on Staten Island, NY. Our small regional seed bank is working to make upwards of 300 collections of native plant seeds this year. These seeds will be used for restoration projects in areas damaged by hurricane Sandy. The first few weeks were filled with intensive training in plant identification and seed collection strategies. But now we’ve been loosed into the wild to do the work! We were assigned to teams in different geographic regions from which to collect. I’m working with my fellow intern, Laura, and we’re doing seed collection in the forests, dunes, and marshes of Long Island (which, in fact, is QUITE long, and quite a bit greener than I had expected). We have started to get into the swing of things, so here’s a look at what we did this week!

Monday: Every successful trip into the field starts with thorough planning in the office. Laura and I assess which species might be ready for collection and chose which new sites we want to scout. We book accommodation, plan meals, pick up our rental car, and contact park managers to let them know we’d be on site. We organize our tools: Plant press, clippers, GPS. rain gear, data sheets, collection envelopes etc. With (almost) everything accounted for, we head home and got an early night to prepare for the next day’s work.

Tuesday: I tote my backpack full of supplies through the subway crowded with commuters. I get some odd looks (my khaki field pants and and tie-dye t-shirt do not blend in with typical New York fashion) but I arrive on time at the subway station near Laura’s apartment in Brooklyn. We drive two hours until we reach our first field site: Rocky Point Pine Barrens Preserve. We spend a couple of hours hiking around, eagerly noting the abundance of bearberry (Arctostaphylus uva ursi) and wild indigo (Baptisia tinctoria). After we’ve sufficiently scouted this site, we head to Brookhaven State Park. We find some nice populations around several small ponds, and along a powerline cut.

pondside Cephalanthus occidentalis (Buttonbush)

Wednesday: Today we visit two new sites: Robert Cushman Murphy County Park and Sears Bellows County Park. Both are full of dried up pond beds, filled with interesting species. One of my favorite finds was a beautiful collection of Rhexia virginica growing happily in the mud of the dried up pond.

Rhexia virginica

Around the main pond on site we find an abundance of a rush called Juncus effusus that is seeding. It takes a bit of bushwhacking through the surrounding thickets, but we collect from the entire population.

We also find this little guy.

Thursday: We return to a site that we visited last week, Connetquot River State Park, to finish a collection of two grasses. We move swiftly through the roadside grasses, stopping to find another population of Juncus effusus around a stream that flows through the middle of the park. We finish up the day happy with our three completed seed collections.

Friday: Back in the office, we lay out our seed to dry in the lab, and plan for more botanical adventures ahead!

Can’t believe it’s already halfway through the season! It was a slow start in April but now it has been constant work outside. We had a nuisance bear at one of our campsites so no more picnic baskets for Yogi and Boo Boo.

One of the engineers welding for the bear proof garbage can.

End product to keep the bears away from the trash.

My cointern and I have also been on a mission to change out BLM road signs and so far have accomplished about twenty transitions from old and decrepit to new and refreshed signs.

New sign

Old sign we replaced.

We have also been monitoring our WSA’s, which can be an interesting truck ride, considering some roads are not maintained. Monitoring consists of us pounding in carcinites and putting on stickers to mark the boundary, scoping for wildlife, and checking for intrusions from people not using designated trails.

Wild horses by one of our WSA’s

Rocky Mountain Columbine in another one of our WSA’s

and here’s an encounter with a prairie rattlesnake in town.

He’s a big one

Until next time from the Rawlins Field Office.

Rebecca Radtke

In the thick of summer, I am in the thick of seed collection.  The target list that my mentor and I developed consists of over 30 species and I am the only CLM intern here!  So, I had to solicit the help of some great local Youth Corps.  They work 10hr days, so with transportation that adds up to over 12hr days for me (leaving not sooo much blog time).

Reason 1. Had 12 hr work day, the majority of which was at Yaquina Head Lighthouse collecting Gaultheria shallon.

Reason 2. Spent a wonderful morning with my mentor schooling Youth Corps on how “mossome” nonvascular plants are!

Then my parents came to visit all the way from MD!

Dad and me at Cascade Head on the Oregon Coast: Where the Salmon River meets the sea.

Reason 3.  Had 12 hr work day, some of which was collecting Rubus leucodermis with a great crew.

Reason 4.  Had 2 12 hr work days, the majority of which was collecting Bromus vulgaris and carinatus as well as Elymus Glaucus.  We need 10 pounds of each species for BLM grow out, and I could not have gotten the collection started without the Columbia River Youth Corps!

I think a stonefly, on Elymus glaucus

So after a busy week and more to come, I kinda feel like this…

Hey all!

This has been a great week in the Salmon, Idaho BLM office because we got to trade our normal work for the forestry tech work.

The biggest tree we found- a DBH of 67.1″

It was quite a nice break to try doing another job. The forestry work was a lot of data measurements, and it involved hiking up so massive hills with some radically steep inclines. It was tough work but we got it done.

And as a trade off we got to take the forestry techs out on one of our collection days. That way they could see what our job entails as well. We collected bluebunch wheat grass and we were very thankful for the set of extra hands on the site to help us with a difficult collection. They in the end, decided that they much more preferred the sanctity of the cooler temperature that the forest canopy provides, and didn’t want to be out in the open sage heat as often as we were.

It was a nice week of shared learning experiences, and a gain of new job perspective within the field office.

Hope you guys finish out the summer strong!

-Sierra Sampson

This past month has been an exercise in nostalgia– we’ve been revisiting our earlier FRGE sites to record a more in depth survey of the vegetation. We’ve also been ‘data mining’, a phrase I’ve never heard. It basically means we spend hours in the office pouring over old rare plant site forms. It’s a hoot~

We still get to see the bird’s eye view of these little towns sometimes~

Visiting our old sites is pretty exciting because we get to see how the plant communities have changed over the summer. At the beginning of my internship the oak trees were just starting to bud and we had to use fallen leaves and acorns to identify them. Now, we walk through fully leaved oak woodlands. It feels magical and it’s a major relief from the harsh and relentless sun.

This hillside is a beautiful oak woodland, but you can’t really tell from this picture.. but you can see highway 238!

Not all of the sites we are revisiting are our old sites, however. Some are contractor sites that we don’t have site forms for. It’s been interesting to go to these new sites, especially ones that had quite a few FRGE plants. Seeing flagging with nothing under it strikes me as funny, for some reason.

We found a dried up seed FRGE seed pod underneath a dried up FRGE plant. It’s been lovely watching these plants go through their life cycle!

One of the sites we went to was in the Cascade-Siskiyou National Monument. Stacy joined us, and along the way we were walking on a decommissioned road that was paved with Calochortus greenei. It was exciting to see this rare and beautiful plant! But commingled with it was a startling amount of invasive and noxious weeds. I wondered how different the road would have looked if it had been left to nature’s devices rather than turned over and seeded.

A very pretty plant! The cup the petals form is so deep, I was surprised. It’s a warm little hiding place for bugs!

We’ve been seeing a lot of pretty lilies on our hikes this time around! They’re so big and beautiful, they lift morale instantly!

This lily is tall! We’ve seen some that are taller than me! (But, if we’re being honest, I’m a pretty short Lillie)

These lilies have huge flowers!

Our hikes don’t go quite as deep into the backcountry as they used to, but we still work up a sweat and see interesting things. Kiki and I have had a busy field season, so it’s odd to be in the office so much. It makes me nostalgic for the days when I would complain about how sore my feet were and how much plant material was in my hair. Our longest hikes were the ones we avoided for our revisits, but I almost wish we would have gone back to some of them. Almost. One thing is certain– office days don’t provide much material for good blog posts.

This trunk is interesting to me, it reminds me of Freddy Krueger’s face.

This bee impostor sat next to me all during lunch one day.

You can’t stop Kiki from climbing trees and pretending they’re horses.

We always make time for selfies.

It’s berry season here in southern Oregon and we have been reaping the benefits. Blackberries grow all over town, making it easy to stroll around in the evenings (tasty free snacks are good incentive for casual exercise). We stumble on blackberries, thimbleberries, and strawberries on our hikes as well. These boost morale even more than seeing the pretty lilies! There’s nothing better than a handful of wild strawberries after a hot hike.

These blackberries are a bit more tart than the ones in the store. Kiki says it’s because they’re not totally ready yet but I like them this way~

Wild strawberries are the most delicious food to eat. Just thinking about them makes me swoon~

On our off time, Kiki and I visited a lavender festival. It was very hot but we cooled down with some delicious lavender ice cream. We walked through the growing fields and reflected on how hot it was that day. The lavender plants were very pretty though!

There were quite a few different varieties of lavender but they all smelled the same to me.

We also went on a backpacking trip to the Devil’s Punchbowl! It’s a big snowmelt lake at the top of a mountain. The hike was pretty, with blankets of twin flower (Linnaea borealis) lining the sides of the trail for most of it. The punchbowl itself was very bowl-like indeed– it seemed as if the devil’s hand might reach over the rim for a taste at any time. The water was cool and refreshing~ I recommend it!

The sign is spooky, especially in the middle of the woods!

Our cute little campsite~

We, of course, made time for scrabble on our journey.

There’s nothing like a game of scrabble next to a beautiful lake.

I went home for a week to see my sister before she moved away for graduate school. It was really nice to be at home without any responsibilities, but I’m glad to be back.

Officially, I went home to see my sister. But seeing my dog was a huge bonus.

I’ve now entered my last month here. My heart aches to think about it!

Lillie Pennington

Grants Pass, OR

This past month, we’ve been mega busy setting up and monitoring pitfall traps in various locations as well as doing recon for seed collections here in Carlsbad. Our pitfall traps are set up in dunes for a presence/absence survey of the dunes sagebrush lizard, Sceloporus arenicolus. This species is not yet listed as endangered, but it’s been proposed by the US Fish & Wildlife Service. Its numbers have dramatically decreased because its habitat in sandy dunes dusted with shinnery oak and sand sagebrush are also prime locations for oil wells. Although we haven’t yet found any dunes sagebrush lizards in the locations surveyed, we have found many side-blotched lizards as well some Texas horned lizards and common lesser earless lizards.

Side-blotched lizard- Uta stansburiana

Texas horned lizard- Phrynosoma cornutum 

Common lesser earless lizard-Holbrookia maculata

Rifling through the pitfall traps

To determine whether or not we are recapturing the same individuals, we sharpie the digits of any lizard caught before releasing it from the trap. On the tinier juvenile lizards which are starting to become abundant as eggs hatch, this can be a little tricky! In addition to lizard monitoring at these sites, we’ve also started on an insect collection since so many insects are often caught in the traps. There hasn’t been much study on the insect diversity in the area, so I look forward to identifying the insects we’ve collected so far.

Besides our weekly lizard monitoring, we did our first seed collection this month!

Ratibida columnifera– our first seed collection!

Along with the HACU interns at the BLM, we also did a cleanup at a nearby recreation area, Conoco Lake, which included milkweed planting to set up monarch waystations! The cleanup was super, and we are planning on planting more milkweed in several other sites in the coming weeks both for restoration and to set up more waystations.

Me and two of the HACU interns, Jorge and Nicole, planting some milkweed!

Meridith McClure- Carlsbad, New Mexico BLM