Hello, my name is Nathan Reese and I am interning for the Chicago Botanic Garden at the Bureau of Land Management, Coos Bay District. I was hired to conduct a survey of a number of different noxious weeds with the top priority being Scotch and French Broom. I have lived in central Illinois my entire life and this has been my first true experience with the Pacific Ocean except for a small trip to Seattle three years ago. Living on the coast has been amazing so far. On my last day driving out here, I started my day in Mountain Home, ID and drove the 600 miles thought the high desert of Eastern Oregon up to the Cascade Mountains and back down to finally meet the Pacific Ocean. It was an amazing sight to see the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean for the first time.  The second day was spent exploring the coast line and every stop we made left me in awestruck over the beauty of the west coast.

In the four weeks I have been here I have had several opportunities to experience many of the different career fields that are stationed in the Coos Bay office. One day we went out with one of the BLM wildlife biologists to replace deteriorating bat boxes with new Purple Martin boxes and went to Dean Creek Elk Viewing Area and got to get up close to Roosevelt Elk.  One day we made it out in the field with a botanist to help with identifying many native species as well as the noxious weeds.  We also drove out to the to the sight of the Doerner fir which is the world’s largest Douglas Fir at 329 feet tall (I am 6’2” with an equal wingspan). I had never been next to a tree that large before and I still can’t believe how amazing it was to walk through such a large old growth forest. Just this last week, I went out with The Snowy Plover Crew to put up 3 miles of rope fencing and got to see nearly 30 birds. After talking with the biologist, he indicated that the populations have been getting larger over the last 10 years.

My best experience I have had so far was to go out with the Spotted Owl surveys. We went out on a daytime calling to see if we could locate any individuals in a potential area. The very first sight we went to, we immediately picked up one calling about 150 m away. We quickly followed him to a tree where he met up with a female. We were able to call them down from the top of the trees to the branches just 12 feet above me. We had brought along mice to bait them down and observe how they went about feeding which indicates there reproductive status. By holding a stick with a mouse three feet away from me, the male owl flew down and grabbed the mouse. It was amazing to have such an endangered bird fly so close to me. We fed them 6 mice in all and I was able to lie down and have them fly above my head to retrieve the mice. This is quite possibly the only chance I will ever get to see these birds in my life.

After 6 weeks of adult sucker work for USGS we have made the move back to FWS.  Getting to work for two different government agencies within the same internship has been an awesome learning experience in and of itself.  In this area USGS serves almost as an private contractor that helps to fulfill the research needs of FWS and BLM in this area.  BLM and FWS both have a special interest in many of the local large management decisions (in a simplified way, water for farmers and endangered fish respectively), so USGS helps to provide unbiased data.

We’ve said goodbye for now to adult suckers and are moving on to some lost river and short nose juvenile work, plus prep for other upcoming projects.  Currently we are working on a man-made pond created in the Lower Klamath Wildlife Refuge where suckers have been stocked to gain a better understanding of their response to an artificial environment.  We set fyke nets over night and then collect length data and PIT tag numbers to measure their growth since being moved to the pond.  Hopefully the data we collect will begin to shed some light on whether an artificial stocking program is a viable option for these endangered suckers.

Pulling the fyke net

Juvenile sucker

Collecting juvenile data

Two weeks in and I am settling in nicely here at the Cosumnes River Preserve working at the Bureau of Land Management for the Chicago Botanic Garden.  The weather has been all sun thus far, the fresh produce is ripe and readily available, and the wildlife is abundant and diverse.  I have spent my first two weeks doing a variety of things, including many hours of certifications and training (ATV safety course, UTV safety course, defensive driving course, etc).  I have also been training on some of the heavy equipment operation here (tractors, backhoe, brush mowers, and the preserve’s boat).  This organization seems to have all the right equipment to accomplish the tasks faced by any conservation land manager which is a nice change for me after having worked for a small county conservation organization prior to attending graduate school.

I have greatly enjoyed networking with all of the other staff at the preserve.  This preserve works in connection with The Nature Conservancy, The US Fish and Wildlife Service,  private landowners, as well as many other organizations and partners.  Needless to say, there are always new people to meet.  Interestingly, by the end of June there will be three interns with the same name as myself, Patrick, so things may get a bit confusing.  I have been coordinating schedules with as many other people as possible to get out to other preserves, get involved with seed collections, and accompany other “plant nerds” like myself on surveys for rare plants.  A great deal of my time at this preserve will be spent monitoring and collecting seed from three species, Grindelia camporum, Agrostis exarata, and Eryngium articulatum.  This seed will then be used for restoration projects on the preserve.

In my free time  I have been viewing the wildlife of the preserve.  I am particularly interested in snakes and other herpetofauna, and have thoroughly enjoyed identifying as many California species as possible which are all new to me having moved here from Iowa.  Snakes are very common on the preserve.  Since arriving I have identified Pacific Gofer Snakes, Red-bellied Garter Snakes, and Western Yellow-bellied Racers.  Allegedly, there are Giant Garter Snakes present at this preserve as well which are endangered and as I’m told, very hard to find.  I may have an opportunity to view one if I can link up with researchers at a later date.  In general, I have really been enjoying this experience.  I am greatly anticipating the events that have been arranged over the next several months; what a great opportunity!!  I’m including some of the pictures of the snakes I have seen while out exploring and a picture I snapped while camping at Englebright Lake.

In between doing SOS collections and scouting this month, we have been going out and doing field monitoring. Monitoring is my favorite part of the CLM internship experience. I’m the only intern in the office, and I spend a lot of time on my own in the field doing seed collections or looking for rare plants. While I learn the plants that I’m looking for intimately, nothing compares with going out to monitor vegetation with my mentor. I find it the best way to learn some of those pesky forbs that are constantly dying, and so seemingly unidentifiable.
Plus there is nothing better than spending a day in the field with other people. And then all the number crunching…!

I keep telling everyone I meet that I am from the desert, so I won’t have a problem working in eastern Oregon. “I am used to the dry air, the heat, and the sagebrush,” I tell them optimistically. Who am I trying to fool? After working for three years in a rain-forest ecosystem in the high Cascade mountain range, I really do miss the trees. I miss the smell and the sound of the water outside my back door. I miss the shade of the trees and the feeling of comfort and concealment it brings.  I miss the early morning dew and the low hanging fog that gives the wildlife just enough confidence to spend their mornings browsing in visible open areas. All of these things are only small realizations and memories of fun summers past. This summer and living in Lakeview, Oregon, have already begun to present new and exciting opportunities for adventure and field experience. There are not many places left in the world where you can open your eyes and look as far as you can see without spying a single building, human, or car passing by. There are not many places where the horizon meets the landscape without fault and then seem to melt together in a real-life version of a cowboy movie sunset. I cannot compare the feeling of endless open space to any forest setting. I have an idea to open up a treatment center for people who suffer from claustrophobia…..not really.

As a rangeland technician, I have been learning how to complete range trend assessments that mainly look at the species and abundance of vegetation in different pastures. These studies have been completed in Lakeview for nearly 50 years! I know this not only by looking at the dates, but also by checking out the hairdos in the pictures. Hello, Farrah Fawcett. As a part of the trend assessments, I am completing “Line and Intercept” transects that assess the amount of shrub cover in the area. Tall sage, rabbit brush, bitter brush, and greasewood are the main types of shrub cover that I have found so far. This information will be used to determine critical sage grouse habitat and nesting sites. I had heard about the sage grouse countless times throughout college, and yesterday, I finally saw two. They do exist! I have yet to see a grouse on the lek, but that is definitely on my bucket list. Another project I am working on involves completing “Pasture Utilization” studies. These studies are completed after a herd of cattle is removed from the pasture and looks at the overall use of the allotment. We have also been updating range allotment health assessments that determine how well or how poorly a pasture is being managed. All of these things are giving me a great, in-depth look at how the BLM range conservationists manage the 3.2 million acres of land within the Lakeview resource area.

I look forward to learning more and being able to appreciate this vast wilderness for all of the unique qualities it has. I just need to remember to wear my sunscreen!

Life continues in the Mojave Desert despite the skyrocketing temperatures. I have continued my internship here in Needles, CA with the BLM. I have spent most of my time since my last post monitoring mines. I check the bat-compatible gates and cupolas that were constructed to keep allowing bats access to the adits and shafts while keeping the public safely out. In the past, people have vandalized these structures. I am happy to note that none of the structures I have visited up to this point have been altered in any fashion.

Shaft with Cupola

Adit with Bat-Compatible Gate

I have also had the opportunity to conduct or assist on several bat surveys. I arrive about one hour before sunset and sit in the vicinity of these structures with night vision goggles and counters. I count the bats as they enter/exit the mine for about an hour after sunset.

Nighthawk Pallid bat

 

I have become quite busy the past couple of weeks on various projects. I recently just returned from a BLM training for Indicators of Rangeland Health. Although I am a Botany Intern, the rangeland health training really broadened my knowledge of the ecosystems present in the West. The training took place in beautiful St. George, Utah right on the edge of the Mojave Desert. I got to learn new plants and learn many new techniques to better analyze the status of a piece of land. I am excited to use some of the techniques I learned and share with the rest of my intern team. I think that protocol for analyzing the 17 indicators of rangeland health can be useful to anyone working in natural resources, not just the range specialists because it incorporates hydrology, geology, wildlife biology, and botany.

Once I returned from my training I have been kept busy preparing for a large outreach project at a local recreation hot spot, Sand Mountain near Fallon, NV. My fellow interns and I have been scrambling about trying to get all the info we want to share with the public to try to increase the appreciation for our surrounding nature and public lands. It has been quite a hectic process trying to organize all the gear and information, but I am confident everything will come together in the end to make for a successful outing.

Lastly, I have been working on an Microsoft Access database to use in the field on Toughbook tablets. I have little experience with Access, which is making things difficult at times, but I am learning a lot about the program and its usefulness. I am confident that in a month or two the field database will be working well enough to actually try to use it in the field to collect plant and general spatial data.

William Rutherford

CBG Intern-Carson City District Office

Phlox stansburyi

At 4798 feet, Lakeview, OR, calls itself the “tallest town in Oregon”, a claim that may or may not be true.  Either way, Lakeview is on the northern end of Goose Lake, in South Central Oregon, and is surrounded by plenty of high mountains and lots of sagebrush.  Since arriving here three weeks ago, I have had a chance to meet some great people, and experience some of the beautiful outdoors working with the BLM.

Bald Eagle and its Nest

We are currently working on a project up near Silver Lake, doing botany clearances before a juniper cut and burn.  We scour the ground for rare plants and invasive species, and make a list of all the plant species we see.  On our first day, my fellow CLMer Liz Thorley and I found a bald eagle and its nest in a big Ponderosa Pine.  We can’t see the chicks but we can hear them peeping!

We have seen some cool plants and gorgeous flowers, including sand lilies (Leucocrinum montanum), eyelash pappus (Blepharipappus scaber), cold desert phlox (Phlox stansburyi), golden currant (Ribes aureum) and death camas (Zigadenus venenosus).  Many more are on the verge of flowering, so I think it will be a great spring!

Emily

The landscape around Lakeview, Oregon is full of contrasts. Volcanic rims tower over rolling pastures and grazing cows. Electric green and orange lichens graffiti gray and brown cliffs. Golden eagles perch on telephone poles that dot the sides of the highway. It is a landscape that can seem at once both innocuous and magnificent.

My internship with the BLM here has allowed me to explore some of this amazing landscape. Fellow botany interns and I have spent much of our time thus far working on a botany clearance. This entails surveying a parcel of land for listed plant species, creating an overall plant species list of the area, and flagging large populations of invasive species. This particular parcel is about 1,000 acres, sliced into three sections by a diverging creek. We have hiked through (and sometimes over) a majority of it at this point, which varies from moss-encrusted soil to boulder piles spilling into the creeks. Grassy slopes lead to cliff walls that tower above the creeks. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata), and rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa) fill out the parcel, where juniper trees have not encroached yet. We feel fortunate to be able to spend so much time on this diverse piece of land.

While we have not found any listed species at this point, we have found flowers hiding among the sagebrush and junipers, surprising us with their vivid color among the washed out greens and browns of their surroundings. The bright white and red of the bitter root (Lewisia rediviva), mottled purple and green of the purple fritillary (Fritillaria atropurpurea), and deep purple of Anderson’s larkspur (Delphinium andersonii) are a few of my favorites to find. Their beauty enhances the high desert backdrops that they grow against. It often feels like we have stumbled upon an open flower at just the right moment, as if we are the lucky audience for their performance of color in this fleeting spring.

This is my second month here in Carson City, NV.  The job is great, I’m finally starting to understand what it is I actually do.  We have been doing quite a few outreach events recently and we are doing another one for the Memorial Day weekend.  This upcoming event will be at Sand Mountain, which is a 600 foot mountain of sand that has been slowly forming since the glaciers retreated and the ancient Lake Lahontan dried up. Today was the first real day it rained.  Normally we just get the “Nevada 15 minute rains”.

Last week we planted the willow cuttings that we harvested earlier in the spring when we cut several thousand sections of willow branches, each about 6 inches long. We then buried these cutting underground to allow roots and shoot to form. We planted the willows in two places: Red Rock and Winter’s Ranch.  Fires had removed much of the smaller trees and grasses in both areas,  so planted along rivers that were already showing signs of erosion.   We had buried the willows in several different locations, and one of the burial sites ended up being completely submerged by a raised water table.  We lost about a thousand willows that day to various kinds of fungus.  It was disheartening.   We did, however, manage to plant thousands of healthy, happy willows and I think the cuttings we planted will do well and grow.

-Cole