Hello from Missoula, Montana! My name is Rachel and I started my CLM internship with the BLM on June 4th. Where, oh where to begin. In the past month I have been cramming my brain with new information, meeting all of the wonderful, friendly people in my office, hiking and adventuring in the beautiful country around Missoula and also exploring the awesome city itself.

On a more day to day basis, my mentor, my field partner and I have been doing a variety of things in the field, most of them revolving around vegetative surveys or monitoring BLM sensitive species plants and culturally important plants. Relating to the BLM sensitive species plants, we have been scouring potential habitats for Keeled Bladderpod (Lesquerella carintata), a rare mustard that is found in dry, steep sites with very loose, rocky soil. This is not easy hiking by any means due to its preferred habitat, however the scenery and views are stunning (as pictured below).

The culturally important plants we are monitoring are Camas (Camassisa quamash) and Bitterroot (Lewisia rediviva), two beautiful wildflowers that are shown below. Bitterroot is my favorite wildflower I have seen in Montana, it grows very close to the ground and has small succulent leaves, if leaves are even seen.

Later on in the summer when these plants are seeding, I will be collecting seeds, along with a few other species of shrubs (including Bitterbrush, Purshia tridentata, which is also pictured below).

The vegetative surveys we are conducting are Pace and Daubenmire surveys. These are conducted every 5 years to monitor changes in species diversity and soil, litter, moss and rock cover as a result of cattle and wildlife grazing in the area. Each survey involves finding the transect location using a GPS and photos from previous years. Once the transect location has been found the surveys are different in their methods. A Pace survey involves walking 100 paces from your starting point along the contour of the land (following a specific azimuth) and identifying the plant touching the tip of your boot and any over-story. A Daubenmire survey, which is shown in the picture below, involves running a 100ft tape from the transect’s starting point and placing the Daubenmire frame (the red and white rectangular box in the picture) every 5 feet on one side of the tape and every 10 feet on the other side of the tape. Then, all of the plants within this frame are identified in terms of their percent of ground cover.

Both of these surveys have helped me a great deal in learning my native plants here (and unfortunately non-natives too). Additionally, since the transects are scattered throughout BLM land, I have been lucky enough to explore lots of different habitat types and areas. I have seen some incredible landscapes and wildlife, including a Snowshoe Hare, a Red Fox den with playful pups, Mule and White-tailed Deer, Elk, Wild Turkeys, raptors of all sorts and so much more.  I have also been learning a lot about using GPS units and GIS software which is often frustrating and slow going but a necessary skill to have in any field of biology.

Overall, I have had an amazing month! My internship is off to a great start, it is hard to believe sometimes that I get paid to go hike in beautiful country and look for and identify awesome plants! Thanks for reading!

Until next time,

Rachel

Top 5 new plants in no particular order (I thought about doing “things I left at the hotel in Chicago” but it would have been longer then 5):

1.)Indian paintbrush (Castilleja spp.) The colorful bracts are beautiful, I’ve seen a bunch of different colors so far and I can’t really pick a favorite. I recently learned they were parasitic which is pretty nifty.

2.)Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) Okay, its everywhere but it smells amazing and its fascinating to see a climax ecosystem where sagebrush is the big kahuna instead of oak/beech which is what I’m used to seeing

3.)Pineapple-weed (Matricaria disocidea) Smells amazing, highly recommend you find some.

4.)Sego lily (Calochortus nuttallii) A really pretty delicate flower, almost seems out of place in some harsher areas

5.)Lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) Finally this guy, we only have a bit on our BLM land but its really nice to be in a forest because I’ve found out that shade is a luxury in the basin.

I would just like to start out by thanking all of the staff and interns at the workshop.  It was really an amazing experience to talk to other interns and see who they are and what they are doing with their own internship.  I was really amazed at the amount of knowledge and dedication to natural resources that the other interns had, as well as just being awesome people (especially the Nates….but I may be biased).  After meeting with a number of interns it really inspired me to look a lot harder at the prospect of grad school, thanks for the motivation guys! I’m really looking forward to doing some camping with some of the WY, CO, and UT crews.  The CBG was amazing; I could have spent all day in the greenhouses just looking at all the impressive adaptations.  All and all I couldn’t have asked for a better week, it was really eye opening and inspiring. Fast forward to this week and EVERYTHING IS ON FIRE!!!!…..okay that was a bit much but as someone coming from NJ it feels like that’s the case.  On Tuesday morning the Worland BLM had its first large fire and everyone just jumped into action, these guys do not mess around! The office has been pretty empty the past few days because everyone is either out on the fire or playing some support role.  The whole basin has been smoked out from the local fire as well as the fires from CO.  I’ve been learning fire terminology (like tanker means an airplane, not a truck), firefighting methods, as well as reading up on post burn weed control to prevent noxious weeds from coming up after the burn and dominating the area. Its been a pretty crazy couple of days but hopefully the fire can be contained and everyone can stay safe.  I’ll end this with lots of random pictures I’ve been meaning to upload.

-Nate T

Here’s a link to a slideshow on my personal blog of some photos that I took from the CLM Workshop last week:

https://tradologist.wordpress.com/2012/06/27/clm-workshop-recap/

Enjoy!

Jeff Gicklhorn

BLM Needles Field Office

1) When I put cheese on my sandwich and spend the day in the field, the cheese is perfectly melted by lunchtime.

2) This is one of the least disturbed regions of the U.S. My job of monitoring wilderness characteristics has trained me to distinguish between natural and cultural influences on the landscape. While there is evidence of failed ranching and mining endeavors scattered among current infrastructure for resource (electricity, gas, and water) transport to cities, this landscape is huge. Solar projects and other developments seriously impact treasured species, but the landscape has survived in many places. I have climbed mountains, scanned over 30 miles in multiple directions, and not been able to detect a single human deed.

I shudder to think what life would be like here, with no air conditioned truck to take me back to an air conditioned office and house. I marvel that it has been done for generations.

Four weeks ago I repacked the entire contents of my college room and made the 6-hour drive to Lakeview, Oregon. Although I was thrilled to be moving back to the colorful desert after a 4-year hiatus in rainy western Washington, my untrained eyes saw only sagebrush and cheat grass on the roadside as I sang along to oldies in the car. After one intense week of fieldwork with the three other range interns, the familiar landscape along the highway suddenly transformed before my eyes. After altering my search pattern, I not only spied the rabbitbrushes and bunchgrasses mixed in with the sagebrush I know and love, but I found myself subconsciously keeping a running tally of family names and species in my head.

That classic issue that many biology students know intimately – that of having their uninhibited enthusiasm about the natural world met with bored and blank stares – has not been an issue here. Everyone around me is so excited about working for the CLM. We talk about plants and sage grouse during work, after going home, and even on weekend hikes and camping trips. We would probably talk about them before work too, if we conversed at all through our 6:00 am stupor.

Most importantly, my reservations about living in a middle-of-nowhere town have been assuaged. However, the locals have been as friendly as can be and the accessibility to nature more than makes up for the lack of conveniences and abundance of conservative values. I don’t envy my college friends striking out to New York City or Los Angeles, as far from the natural world as a person can get. A couple of weeks here have awarded me with spectacular views of antelope, wild horses, jackrabbits, sandhill cranes and pelicans, as well as fresh bear tracks, bobcat scat, geysers, astoundingly gigantic stars, and a triple rainbow. These combined with the desert colors and constant sunshine keep me energized about going to work each day.

-Anna Moeller

Castilleja and rock formations in the Lakeview District

Work has continued at the Cosumnes River Preserve.  The last few weeks have been spent doing some serious weed control.  Mowing, spraying, and pulling have taken up the majority of my work hours.  Target species we are dealing with include Cocklebur, Fennel, Star thistle, Italian thistle, Milk thistle, and Bristly ox tongue.

The CLM conference in Chicago has been underway this past week. It has been a great experience.  I have had the pleasure of meeting many interns in my area and the surrounding states.  I have learned a great deal about where others are working and what they are doing.  I have had a great time learning new field techniques and uniting with the rest of the CLM family.  It was nice to meet so many other interns with similar interests and finally put faces with the names I have been working with via phone and email at the Chicago Botanic Garden.  The gardens are amazing; what a wonderful setting for a conference.

Hello,

I have been incredibly busy the past few weeks monitoring past burns within the Carson City BLM District. We have been learning great techniques for monitoring. We have also participated in some outreach events, where we did some rare plant monitoring with a local plant society. Overall I have been quite busy, but enjoying every minute of it.

-Austin

The last few weeks have been a blur, consumed by our new favorite activity – sage grouse nest site monitoring.  Sage grouse is the big buzz word around here as the local subspecies may be put on the threatened or endangered list soon. So besides counting males this spring, the Bishop field office put radio collars on a few birds, and as been tracking them as they nest.  Now that the females have left their nests, team Botany gets to get off the bench and get into the thick of it – by monitoring the vegetation around the nests.

All I can tell you is that sage grouse like to nest  in some pretty remote areas. That we have to hike to. With all of our equipment.

An example of sage grouse nesting spots

Its a great way to see some of the most beautiful mountain views, away from everything 🙂

It’s been four weeks since I left Chicago for Buffalo. The experiences I have had in these first few weeks have been a bit overwhelming. Once I overcame the initial culture shock, I found that Buffalo wasn’t at all the boring small town I thought it would be. While definitely small, both the town and the field office are full of some of the most fun-loving and kind-hearted people I have ever met. The people of Buffalo know the value of the land that they live on and take full advantage of it. Hiking in the Big Horns, camping in Middle Fork Canyon, running on the creek-side trail that runs through town or fishing out of it are only a few joys found around Buffalo. I can’t forget to mention the bluegrass Thursdays and weekends at the local BBQ joint. I have the pleasure of living with enthusiastic, career oriented, young people like myself, from whom I have much to learn.

I had never really heard of the BLM before coming to Buffalo. Coming from the flat, enclosed, and busy environment of Chicago, I could not have understood the scope and value of the land and the kind of work that the BLM does. At work I am surrounded by people who truly dedicate themselves to serving and protecting public land. I has been amazing for me to see how all these disciplines (biology, geology, archaeology, natural resources, etc.) are involved in managing land.

My particular task is to assemble a Visual Resources Inventory (VRI) for the Newcastle field office. As a biologist, I never even thought about how difficult it would be to mitigate all the visual impacts of the developments that we employ on BLM lands, not just oil fields and transmission lines, but solar and wind farms as well. In order to mitigate visual impacts on the BLM lands, an inventory of the visual values of the lands is needed. A VRI is a method of quantifying the visual values of landscapes.  The Visual Resources Inventory is used to establish Visual Resource Management classes, which are then used in the writing of resources management plans. The biologist in me hopes that there is much more planning involved in developing projects to protect the landscape that only taking visuals into account, and there definitely is. However, after attending a week-long course of Visual Resource Management, I see the necessity for taking visuals into account.

That is about it for my first month. I have been training, working with kids, getting used to living in a big house with five other BLM-ers, and more training. I have at least four more months to learn, work, and enjoy; but I am sure they will pass very quickly. Here are a few pictures of what I have seen this first month. More to come next month!

Right before my situational awareness training

Just a casual drive through on our first weekend in Buffalo

I need batteries for my SLR