Coming down to the final stretch out here in Newcastle; hard to believe it’s September already but the change in weather confirms it.  I’m continuing work on some projects and finishing others, in the coming weeks I’ll be tidying up my data and summarizing some things.  My point counts didn’t turn up any mountain plovers but I did see a few burrowing owls which was pretty sweet.  Except for a nest or two my raptor nest checks are complete.  Still tracking my sage grouse and in the next few weeks my mentor and I will be trying to get some of the young of the year sage grouse fixed with radio collars.  Didn’t get as far on my habitat assessments for sage grouse as I would have liked, but what can you do.  I had a blast this past summer doing bird work and I am ever grateful for being given this opportunity; I learned a ton about avian research and biological field work as a whole.  Bird work is where I want to stay and make my career.

Hello All!

It has been about 2 ½ months and over 800 pictures since my first blog. A lot has happened since. I have gotten to know almost everyone in my field office. They’re some of the best people I have ever worked with! I have seen parts of Wyoming not many people in Kemmerer have ever seen before. That is thanks to the 160 miles of hiking (and counting). My G.I.S. project is rolling and I have digitized over 560,000 acres of the field office. The crazy part about it is that I am only about 1/3 of the way finished! I have already finished one of my projects and I am very proud about it too. We had to go to 30+ oil pad sites and collect data for the final reclamation. In the beginning it took my partner and I about 2 hours per site. By the time we finished, she and I had each site finished in 50 minutes (thanks to our growing knowledge of western flora).

The amazing view from inside Raymond Canyon in the Smithsfork Allotment in the Kemmerer BLM Field Office.

Myself digitizing the perimeter of the disturbed area with a Trimble geoXT at one of the sites for the oil reclamations.

Myself at Shoshone Point for the Grand Canyon Workshop

The days are now getting shorter, I have to wear my winter jacket in the morning (only to work in shed layers throughout the day), and everyone is telling me snow will start soon. But, as for the rest of my time here in Kemmerer, Wyoming, so far September is booked solid….I don’t mind at all.

Larry Ashton
Kemmerer, WY
BLM

Entering my last month of work in Roseburg, Oregon, I feel like I finally have a moment to breathe!  The last few months have been hectic with population monitoring and seed collection, with my fellow intern and I attempting to maintain the balance of collecting seeds too early and risking that they’re not viable, and waiting too long and missing them completely.  It’s a much more complicated task than we ever imagined!  Now, however, with nearly three months of sunny skies and no rain, many of our targeted species populations have finished seeding, and we’re left with a lot of brown grass!  Amazingly, however, we’ve managed to identify a few lone native species hanging on throughout the hot summer, waiting until now to bloom.  Neither of us can believe that we can still go anywhere in the Roseburg district and still manage to find something worthy of collecting -I feel very thankful to be here!

Liz Thompson

Roseburg, OR BLM

The BLM interns in Farmington, NM have been keeping busy-

A couple weeks ago, Emily and I traveled to Silver City, NM for a Native Plant Society (NPS) conference. Professors and botanists presented on a variety of topics and lead field trips to see flora in gardens and natural habitats within the beautiful Gila National Park. It was really nice to spend time with people who have been observing and researching the native plants of the Southwest for years and they seemed to find it refreshing that a younger generation is interested in botany and conservation of native species.

In Farmington we’ve been working on checking off plants on our Target List: we’ve made some more seed collections, and very recently were allowed to go out in the field on our own to monitor sites and make more collections. We’ve also gone out with the BLM Rangeland Health Assessment crew to learn their methods and participate in assessment, while checking out new places and enjoying the scenery. It’s nice that we are getting to experience different aspects of the government’s role in public land management.

Although we aren’t seeing antelope or elk on a regualr basis, we’ve come to appreciate the smaller critters in the desert. We have run across lizards in spades, many of  them bright blues and greens and all of them super fast. The jackrabbits and cottontails bounding across our paths are wicked cute, and birds soar above our heads, calling. The surprise caterpillars and beetles we come across while picking seeds are quite the spectacle and kind of creepy. One species of red and black beetle in particular are like the witch’s soldiers in the Wizard of Oz.

In our cubicle, we’ve done a massive amount of herbarium research and plant species identification, as well as some data entry for a grey vireo project a wildlife biolost is doing, for which we aided him in plant inventory of his study sites.

Over the next two weeks we’re going to be going on field trips with local middle school students to help educate them about native plant species. More on that in a few weeks! Peace!

I reflect on my life in Nevada, otherwise known as “The Silver State”:

When I first arrived in Nevada, I was greeted by an 8″ snowfall.  Later, I was able to watch the Sagebrush shrubs unfurl their tiny leaves with the arrival of spring.  Over the following months, I observed the green hillsides melt into a pallet of browns as the spring forbs senesced.

Working in Nevada was a pleasure that I did not anticipate…

Yes, there were days when pulling thistles or spraying tall whitetop in 90 degree heat was the last job I wanted to do. But, if I had never come to Nevada, I would never have met my fellow interns, experienced the hurricane force winds of Washoe Valley, or attended quilting gatherings at a nearby town.  Working for the CLM and BLM has broadened my understanding of applied botany, preparing me for exciting days ahead in a new chapter of my life.

As I say goodbye to Nevada one last time, my heart is full of many wonderful memories and life lessons that will follow me in the days ahead.  Blessings to you, Nevada, Carson City team, and beautiful Sierra Nevada Mts. I will miss you!

–B. N.

9/2/10

Carson City (BLM)

September 2, 2010

I’ve been in Alaska for about three months now, but until last week I hadn’t learned much about the annual Iditarod sled dog race or the historic winter trail that the race takes it’s name from.  That all changed on a trip to the historic Rohn Roadhouse.  As part of a team of four I spent three days removing infestations of non-native plants around the cabin.

Idyllic Rohn cabin

This trip was exciting because I spend most weeks working on a seven-hundred acre BLM property in Anchorage, so  getting to take my first trip  in a small fixed wing plane was very exciting.  The “bush plane” as these vehicles are known here  is a uniquely Alaskan creature.  These wonderful machines are used almost like a charter bus is in the lower 48.   Except in Alaska charter vehicles need to fly because the majority of the state’s land area is not connected to the road system.  That means that people and supplies from the outside come in by barge or plane in the summer, and by plane, snow machine, or in the old days dog team in the winter.

Alaska AirTaxi "Beaver" at Rohn airstrip

When we arrived at the cabin to begin removing weeds we were greeted by two sheep hunters sprawled out next to the airstrip napping.  They were waiting for a ride back to Anchorage and had their meat and sheep skin hanging up next to them.  The hunters said that another group had bagged a caribou, but they were nowhere to be seen.  We brought out supplies over to the cabin and began working.  I was surprised to notice that throughout the day a plane seemed to land or take-off about every twenty to thirty minutes.  When I asked the other members of my team about this they simply responded with “It’s huntin’ season”.

The bi-hourly winged arrivals calmed down during the next two days and we were able to get to work.  On this trip I was designated as the “invasives expert” and it was my job to identify which plants were non-native and needed to be removed.  The situation was a little unusual because I was technically in charge of three people in their fifties.  It felt good to have knowledge that I could share with others and that could allow us to perform our job effectively, but it was novel and a little uncomfortable to be in vague position of authority that reversed the habitual age hierarchy.

Bagged plant materials from Rohn cabin infestations

In the end we worked well as team and got the job done.  Two of my workmates are Iditarod volunteers.  That means every year in March they spend one or two weeks at the Rohn Cabin for the Iditarod sled dog race.  They set up the checkpoint, feed dog mushers, clean up after mushers, load planes with trash and extra food, cajole straggling mushers into leaving the checkpoint, and much more.  They told wonderful stories about having to get their gear and them selves under 180 lbs to get on the plane, broken down snow-machines, and forty below temperatures.  They made it sound like one hell of an adventure and it was exciting to work with them to preserve an area that they truly love and cherish!

Carl Norlen

Bureau of Land Management, Anchorage Field Office

Anchorage, Alaska

For the past few months I have been lucky enough to work with John Carlson at the Bureau of Land Management in Glasgow, Montana. Being here has been quite an experience for me; my background is in marine biology and being located in a land-locked state and working in a prairie is considerably different from the coral reefs of the tropics! However, since my start date I’ve developed strong interests in this ecosystem…to me, it’s new and fascinating.

I have actively been engaged with a broad array of wildlife work that this office conducts on an annual basis. Projects have ranged from Greater Sage grouse habitat assessments to burrowing owl surveys to NEPA training and writing. Learning a new flora and fauna early on seemed like a daunting task, however, it came quickly to me and now it’s official…it made it to the resume people.

Now, as the field season has really winded down and we’ve completed all of our objectives (as far as field work is concerned), I’m working in the office every day. Though considerably less exciting than field work, it’s a good time for me to focus on an entomological project I began earlier this season…the hope is that the results will be publishable, but time will tell. Other than delineating a mass amount of insects, I maintain my sanity by learning GIS and familiarizing myself with NEPA analysis and writing. These are two skills that will surely make me more marketable and I’m glad to take advantage of the opportunity to become better acquainted with them.

Aside from the work I’ve been doing at the BLM, the town of Glasgow, Montana is a pretty good time. It too has grown on me a great deal since I made my way here about four months ago. I spend a good deal of my time fishing and running around the town…the fishing here is rather amazing, Fort Peck Lake is stocked (I mean REALLY stocked) with walleye. I would consider myself to be a bad fisherman at best, fishing here is like cheating…you just catch stuff, all the time.

I’ve also become addicted to Glacier National Park, which I regularly visit about once every two weeks now. I’ve spent a fair amount of time camping around the country, but Glacier is by far my favorite…I would highly suggest it to anyone who enjoys the outdoors (all of ya!).

As my time here is now beginning to wind down, I intend to learn as much as I can and enjoy myself as much as possible. I’m hoping to head westward (Washington/Oregon-ish) once this internship has ended for me in late November. I grew up in Buffalo, New York and I enjoy the left (west) side of the country a fair bit more, my hope is to kick it out here for awhile/ever @_@. This internship has been a wonderful experience thus far and has provided me with a great deal of useful skills that will certainly buff up my resume a bit. Aside from that, working in a federal government setting has been fantastic; it is something I will hopefully have the opportunity to do again in the near future.

Hope ya’ll are having as good (or better) of a time as I have had thus far!

Cheers,

Joe Carlo

We’ve been very busy since our last post!  It’s monsoon season here, which means everything is starting to flower all at once.  The desert landscape certainly gets a lot greener when you add water, and some locations we’ve been to many times look unfamiliar now that they’re covered in thriving, blooming plants.  This has been a great year for desert marigold (Baileya multiradiata).  Driving into the Bootheel area, we saw what looked like two big yellow seas on the horizon.  Overcome with curiosity, we walked about a mile to find that they were acre-wide expanses of densely-packed marigolds.

Naturally, with all of the flowering, there are more and more seed collections to do.  While we were struggling to get one or two collections a week in July, now there are so many seeds to collect that it’s becoming hard to keep up.  Not to mention, now we have to be careful to keep the truck from getting stuck in the mud.

We have also been busy helping with other projects going on around the office.  The most consuming of these has been the search for the rare scurfpea near the Hatchet Mountains. This includes long days of walking miles of transect lines with many BLM staff.  So far, we’ve found a few snakes, lizards, and many crickets, but no surf peas.  It’s interesting to see what the job of a rare plants botanist is like, but it’s satisfying to get back to seed collecting, where we can see the physical results of our work.

Hello again! Well, what can I say. It’s been about 2 and a half months and I absolutely love Boise, Idaho and don’t want to go back home to Washington D.C.  The experience so far has been challenging yet thrilling at the same time.

Let’s rewind to my first month here. It’s a bright Monday morning at the office and Susan (my mentor) sits Denise (the other CLM intern) and myself down and says that we will be going camping on Wednesday night and returning on Thursday. I was so excited and they didn’t understand my enthusiasm until I told them both that I had NEVER been camping. Upon hearing this, Susan was extra excited about my trip and she and Pam made this first time experience extremely memorable for me.  Susan got me a tent from the fire crew that assembled in just seconds. It was wonderful!!!

We got to the camp site around 6 on Wednesday evening, and I was wondering where we were exactly. We stood on the pier and were waiting, until I realized that we were waiting for a boat to come pick us up and take us to the camping site. Pam’s husband arrived in the boat and took us for a crazy fast ride across the lake and within minutes we arrived at our home for the night. Once we got there, we started assembling our tents and because I had the fancy one, I was done within seconds. A few hours later we sat down for dinner, and guess what we had – fresh caught trout, along with corn, bread with kalamata olives and penne pesto pasta. Amazing or what??!! And for dessert, what else but the classic – Smores. Again, I never had smores before so I definitely indulged in the chocolate and marshmallows until I couldn’t breathe.

I slept like a baby that night. Perhaps it was the fresh clean air or the fact that I ate way too much, but regardless, I woke up well rested. I thought we would eat something quickly for breakfast such as oatmeal, but no way, we had French toast, eggs and Italian sausages. What a way to start the day! Well, all in all it was a memorable experience, one that I will never forget.

Now that was my first camping trip experience, my second camping trip experience was just as exciting yet quite different. Pam and myself (The PK team) headed off to Bruneau to collect some Penstemon accuminatus and Munro globemallow. As the site was quite a ways from Boise, we decided to camp over. The food this time was just as extravagant; we had Mahi mahi and wild rice with Portobello mushrooms. Now, another first for me was that I had never seen stars before. I know I know, you must all think that I live in some odd place, but to tell you the truth, Washington DC isn’t a great place to look up and see the stars. Idaho, however is just the opposite. I got to see the Milky Way, some constellations and get this, even a meteor shower that night.

Now while we were seed collecting at the Bruneau river, I was able to get a firsthand experience about the detrimental effects of a wildfire. I had always heard about the wildfires here in Idaho due to the extreme heat, yet I had never seen the aftermath of one, until this trip. The fire had destroyed the habitat of so many species, including some Native Indian petroglyphs on the river canyon walls. It was devastating!

I never realized the impact of fires till this point and then it clicked, the Firewise Garden (an instrumental work by Roger Rosentreter with the BLM) was exactly the answer to these fires. The firewise garden shows you how to landscape different fire resistant plants around your house as a response to wildfires. Quiet an ingenious idea!!!

Well, last but not least, I would like to tell you about my fantastic white water rafting trip with Roger Rosentreter and the seed collecting crew from Vale, Oregon. It was quite a wonderful trip. I had never been rafting before, so when the idea was suggested, I got right on board. After getting the basic training from Roger (an expert kayaker) we got into our boats and began the thrilling ride down the Payette River. Surprisingly, we got some seed collecting in as well. We rafted and pulled over to different areas and climbed up on shore and collected seeds from Philiadelphus lewisii as well as learned to identify various plants growing near riparian zones. That would be some job – rafting and collecting seeds at the same time. Who knows, maybe I could be the first to do something like that in the future! A dream job incorporating both work and play…

Karen Dante

Boise, Idaho

Bureau of Land Management (State Office)

Contemplating the last 5 months working at the San Diego Zoo's Wild Animal Park

Five months of collecting seeds is coming to a close.  As I think back through the months working at the San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research, I’m amazed at how much I’ve experience and learned.  Not only have I had the opportunity to learn about the plants native to Southern California’s deserts, chaparral, and coastal sage scrub ecosystems, but I’ve gotten to see how research is conducted at a location other than a university, and even more uniquely at a non-profit organization.  The Applied Plant Ecology Division at the Institute has collected seeds for the Royal Botanical Gardens Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank the  for several years.  With a system already established, it was easy to learn the process of locating target populations, monitoring, collecting, short-term storage, and shipping.  We completed our required 50 collections, plus several more, giving us a feeling of accomplishment.  The long hours working in the hot blazing sun pay off when you come back with two complete collections of 10,000 seeds, one for SOS and the other for the Zoo’s seedbank.  There have been many great adventures from the past few months that will be told over and over, making this an experience I will never forget.

Sarah Brewster

San Diego Zoo’s Institute for Conservation Research

The San Diego Zoo's sign board describing their commitment to the conservation of native plants

The field truck with a flat tire

The seed drying room full of seeds