I had a variety of tasks for this month and really enjoyed working at the preserve. I’m currently stationed at the Cosumnes River Preserve located south of Sacramento, CA working in conjunction with the Bureau of Land Management. A large part of the preserve’s mission is to manage the wetlands for resident and migratory bird species. The management is focused a lot on removing invasive species such as Italian thistle and also to promote vegetation that birds like to feed on. Lately, I’ve been collecting a lot of data on the wetlands so we can start looking at their volumes. This is important because it gives information of how to move soil within the wetlands in ways to promote the presence of certain plants. I’ve been working on some trail maintenance also. On some days, I was assigned to treat weedy species with herbicide and also to manage them with the weed eater. Overall, there’s plenty of work for me to do at the preserve and the tasks come in many varieties so that I’m never bored at work. 🙂

One Saguaro for you, Glen Coco! You go, Glen Coco!

That’s why the Nolina parryi is so big—it’s full of secrets!

Greetings from Needles, Ca—The Heart of the Mojave! (At least, that’s what all the signs say.)

Needles is also the home of Snoopy’s brother Spike, but we don’t talk about that.

My main project for the next five months is monitoring rare and sensitive plant species throughout the 3.2 million acres of desert within the NFO. The idea is to identify areas where endangered species (or species that are rare in California but common elsewhere) are present so they can be protected.  This mainly involves identifying favorable habitats, scouting for current populations, adding GIS plot points when a positive ID is made, and some pretty epic views.

Horse Thief Camp in the Kingston mountains

Whipple Wash

Amboy Crater

The view from the top of Amboy Crater!

A few of the rare California species we’ve found so far include hairy blazingstar (Mentzelia hirsutissima), Coves’s cassia (Senna cassia), and saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea).

Hairy blazingstar (Mentzelia hirsutissima)

Hairy blazingstar (Mentzelia hirsutissima)

Sometimes we get the opportunity to assist others with their projects. Earlier this week, we met up with some Northwestern University/Chicago Botanical Gardens graduate students near Prim, NV where they were searching for Walker’s sun cup (Chylismia walkeri tortilis), a member of the Onagraceae family and…

We found it!

Walker’s sun cup (Chylismia walkeri tortilis)

Walker’s sun cup (Chylismia walkeri tortilis)

It was a lot of fun to meet up with other members of the Chicago Botanic Garden clan! I’m looking forward to more collections and collaborations in the coming field season.

Jessica Samuelson

Needles BLM Field Office

When I told friends and family about this position I would be starting in the small, but not too small, town of Wenatchee, WA, the first statement was always “I’ve never heard of it”. My guess about it was as good as theirs. Some town just east of The Cascades with a population of thirty something thousand. Large enough to attract visitors from other parts of the start but small enough to stay off the grid with the rest of the nation. Little did I know that it’s a hidden gem. I drove from Denver with the help of my mother who was equally anxious to see the “quality” of this town neither of us had ever heard of. As we entered the southern part of Washington, we were greeted with agriculture and grasslands with rolling hills as far as the eye could see. After several hours, with 40 miles to go until our destination, we were all but certain this place would be in the middle of nowhere with surrounding cattle fields. Only when the route turned west did we realize that wouldn’t be the case. We turned onto a two lane road that began to descend into a valley. It was completely dark at this point, so as we endlessly curved around corners we only had our imaginations to tell us what the surrounding landscape was like. Finally, after 25 miles of us holding our breath around each corner in preparation of seeing the city did we finally turn to see a valley full of lights flickering. We could see the lights reflecting off the remarkably huge Columbia River that runs right by Wenatchee. After checking into our hotel, we headed to a pub to grab a beer and a bite to eat in celebration of completing our 2 day drive. I was still feeling skeptical about how this place would look in daylight and thinking about what I had potentially gotten myself into by taking this position. Sensing my uneasiness, our server came over and with the biggest smile told me to just wait until morning, I will love it here. She wasn’t wrong.

Three weeks later, I wake up each morning to surrounding hills and snow capped mountains. Wenatchee’s logo is “The Apple Capitol of the World” for a reason. The whole valley within and outside the city is covered with apple orchards as well as pears, cherries, apricots, and wine vineyards. The people of Wenatchee are just as sweet as their fruits. Everyone is so friendly and happy, always giving me advice on where I need eat, hike, camp, etc. I’ve always lived in huge cities (Denver, Houston) with so many different places, lifestyles, hobbies, focuses but Wenatchee gives off a real sense of a community that has one thing in common, love for the outdoors.

I began working at the Wenatchee BLM office almost two weeks ago now. There is one other intern from CBG in the same position as me. We’re actually living together to make things easier and we have the same name to make things easier. So far we have been in training mostly. Completing courses required by the DOI and reading up on the local flora and fauna. For our position we will mostly be working in areas burned in wildfires the last few years. Being on the east side of the Cascades the atmosphere is very dry after dropping all its moisture on the west side while heading over the mountains. Because of this, the area is particularly susceptible to wildfires. Restoration efforts are made on BLM after these occurrences and our job is to monitor them and collect data. On our second day we took a drive to a burned area up the river we’ll be working in. It was pretty barren with some scattered blackened woody debris. However, a closer look reveals life. Vegetation has begun to sprout, some from seeds put there by the BLM others from surrounding vegetation. Next, we drove up and out of the valley a ways to Greater Sage Grouse habitat, another species we’ll be working on. It was unbelievable, once you’re out of the valley it’s completely flat agricultural lands with intermittent sage brush habitat for many miles. The Cascades can be seen in the background but you would never know that there’s a huge valley when looking with the naked eye from the flat lands above. It was a really neat experience. Head 20 miles in any direction from Wenatchee and the terrain completely changes.

My other half….for this position

Examining the riparian vegetation

The McCartney Creek canyon

This past week we have mostly stayed in the office learning about the surrounding area as well as the basics on ArcPad. We went out into the field again this past Tuesday to a place called McCartney Creek that’s located in another valley you wouldn’t know was there to shadow a coworker looking at the stream behavior. It became quite an ordeal after we couldn’t find a way into the canyon without putting ourselves in danger so the walk became an extensive hike around the canyon to find a way in. We learned a valuable lesson, perhaps know more about the area you’re trying to get to in the future. The next month includes three weeks of training in Prineville, Oregon and Reno, Nevada. Hopefully after that we’ll be set up to be on our own in the field every week!

Headed to McCartney Creek

Katherine

Bureau of Land Management

Wenatchee, WA

Although I arrived in Wenatchee, Washington for my CLM internship two weeks ago today, I still look around as I step outside every morning with a sense of wonder and excitement. The city is in a valley–to the east, across the glittering Columbia, are foothills and orchards quickly giving way to a rolling expanse of sagebrush steppe, while to the west looms the magnificent Cascade mountain range. Having lived in the Midwest my entire life, I’m overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the landscapes that surround me, and I’m not sure I’ll ever get used to it. It’s a different world here, and I love it already.

Despite the fact that we’ve been living in a motel for the past two weeks waiting for our apartment to become available, my fellow CLM intern and I have been settling in here effortlessly. Although larger than most places I’ve lived, the city has a small-town feel that makes it seem very homey to me. Most everyone we’ve met here has been friendly, and they all seem to have a suggestion of a trail we need to hike, a restaurant we need to try, or a town we need to explore. I don’t think we’ll ever run out of recreational opportunities!

Since both of us are new to the area, Katherine (my fellow intern) and I have been working hard to learn the flora and fauna of the sagebrush steppe. So far, most of our work days have been spent in the local BLM office, completing various training requirements, studying field guides, reading up on fire ecology, and learning to use ArcMap and ArcPad, which will be vital to our upcoming fieldwork. We’ve had three days in the field so far, shadowing our supervisors and learning to navigate to various study sites on some of the roughest roads I’ve ever driven! We’ve had some exciting wildlife sightings so far–on our first day out, we saw a sage grouse AND two golden eagles! We also learned how long it can take simply to arrive at a site. Earlier this week, we traveled to a place called McCartney Creek to help collect data on the riparian system. The creek was located in a canyon, and simply finding a safe route down took almost an hour! I never imagined that there would be so much topography to navigate in the sagebrush steppe, but I’m learning quickly that this place is full of surprises.

April is already shaping up to be a busy month. Today, Katherine and I are finally moving into our apartment! Hooray! I’m not sure what I’m more excited for–having a kitchen or having my own bedroom! However, we won’t have long to enjoy it. Next week, we’re traveling to Prineville, Oregon for a GeoBOB (Geographic Biotic Observation) training course. The week after we’ll be in Wenatchee, but then we’ll be back on the road, first to an AIM (Assessment, Inventory and Monitoring) training in Prineville and then to a Rangeland Health course in Reno, Nevada. Hotels are really starting to feel like home!

We hiked up to Saddle Rock our first weekend here. Gorgeous!

View of McCartney Creek from the top of the canyon

Katherine takes a GPS point

We found this cow skull in the creek–so cool!

Home sweet home these past 2 weeks!

Katherine Schneider. Bureau of Land Management, Wenatchee, WA.

Greetings, readers, from the Mojave of California!

Palo verde blooming in Whipple Wash

Hedgehog cactus (Echinocereus engelmanii)

How cute is Coryphantha chlorantha?!

Joshua tree (Yucca brevifolia)

Our mentor, Lara Kobelt, pointing out the trail to Sierra Club members.

When asked to conjure up a scene of natural beauty and serenity, the go-to image for a lot of folks I know – including myself from a not so distant past – is a lushly vegetated vista. Maybe it’s psychological, or linked to some evolutionary hard-wiring. After all, lots of green, lots of wet, lots of resources. Or at the very least a good place to string up a hammock.

Moving to Central Oregon’s “high desert” – in quotation marks because many areas around here are actually semi-arid and get a touch more than ten inches of rain a year – has, for me, added some third party intrigue to the marital suite shared by lushness and beauty. First of all, photos of the sagebrush-steppe around here don’t always do them much justice. It’s hard to capture the emotive vastness and calmness of being out there. It can also be easy to wash out the soft shades of the forest-gray of the Artemisia with its reddish-brown to tawny inflorescence skeletons; the mint-gray of the rabbitbrush (a sure sign of disturbance and/or overgrazing) with its yellow star-like flower remains; the deep blue of the buttes and mountains that line the distant horizon from nearly every direction; the little pops of near neon orange, yellow and green on volcanic rock formations; and yes, the more vibrant greens of the new shoots of bunchgrasses and forbs screaming hey! Look at me! Under your foot, ya oaf! Spring is here!

Secondly, there’s a lot of narrative going on here in this ecosystem, and there isn’t a thing this girl loves more than some natural history. A strapping tale of over-grazing, water-suckin’ (although native) western juniper creeping into shrub-steppe lands due to fire exclusion, noxious invasives at every turn – with our protagonists, the native bunchgrasses and forbs, trying to push back against all odds with the help of their buds at the BLM and SOS! Or something like that. (I’ve got a whole season to work on all the nuances.)

I’ve only been here for two weeks as of this post, so most of the work my fellow SOS intern and I have been doing with the Prineville BLM has revolved around training, learning about the plants we should try to collect this year, scouting some of the sites recommended to us from last year’s SOS intern, and miscellaneous opportunities like leading some kids in a native seed sowing day and checking out some sensitive species populations. It’s still early so many of the plants are still just popping out of the ground, but there’s some early flowers – like Ranunculus glaberrimus var. glaberrimus (sagebrush buttercup) and Lomatium spp. (biscuitroot).

Caught in a surprise burst of snow on a muddy drive.

Little tiny Draba verna!

Some Ranunculus glaberrimus var. glaberrimus leading the way for spring.

Hikin’ around beautiful Smith Rock.

Likin’ the lichen.

My first couple weeks in Ridgecrest, California have been a whirlwind of activities and new experiences. I had never spent much time in a desert ecosystem and thus had stereotypical expectations of cacti and very few other plants. I couldn’t have been more wrong! Already, I have encountered more species of vibrant wildflowers and pale green shrubs than I can count. When my fellow intern and I first arrived in the area, we were curious about the identity of the little green shrub that seemed to be everywhere. Little did we know there are actually at least twenty species of little green shrubs!

A view of Ridgecrest, CA from the nearby Rademacher Hills

A few of the “little green shrubs” found in the northern Mojave Desert

I kicked off the week with orientation and training in the office. The BLM office is filled with specialists in a host of areas including wildlife biology, archeology, wilderness, recreation, geology, botany, grazing, reality, and many others. On my second day, I had the chance to attend a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) meeting. These meetings create a space for the experts to come together and analyze how a new project will affect the land from each of these perspectives. The meeting was a great way to meet everyone in the office and learn about how they apply their unique knowledge to manage land.

My first day in the field, I shadowed an archeologist surveying potential restoration sites for artifacts. It turns out anything (especially “trash!”) is considered archeological evidence if it is over fifty years old. The day also provided an opportunity to learn the in’s and out’s of GPS operation.

I spent another day in the field helping with small mammal monitoring, specifically the threatened Mojave ground squirrel. We began the morning bright and early by opening and baiting the 225 traps set-up in a 15×15 grid formation. At mid-day we walked the transects and checked the traps for animals. Despite warnings not to get our hopes up, I was disappointed to find every trap empty.  We repeated the procedure at the end of the day and this time we were rewarded with an antelope ground squirrel! Although not our target species, it was still exciting to meet the furry creature and see the documentation process before letting it scurry off into the desert.

The captured antelope ground squirrel just before its return to freedom

Even my off time has been bursting with new experiences. On my first free day, we headed out to Death Valley. There, I was quite surprised to find water! In fact, we took a short hike to Darwin Falls where there were suddenly trees, cattails, and generally an expected lushness. I found I recognized several relatives of familiar Midwestern plant species that I would never have expected to find in the desert. The valley itself even boasted a few trickles of water beneath salts flats. At first glance the salt appeared to be snow, but the 96 degree weather quickly contradicted that observation.

Water and salt coated plants on the floor of Death Valley

I also had the chance to help out with a Student Conservation Association (SCA) crew performing desert restoration. I have some background in ecological restoration in Midwestern wetland and oak-savannah ecosystems and I found it fascinating to learn about restoration in a desert ecosystem. For example, while woodland restoration often focuses on invasive species removal to allow the growth and return of native species, desert restoration concentrates on erosion control and re-establishment in areas damaged by off-highway vehicles. Additionally, since the desert is so much drier, restoration requires even more patience for rejuvenation.

Overall, my time thus far has been one enormous learning curve, from basic office procedures to local geography to plant identification (and botany and more plant identification). My field notes are quickly evolving from “little yellow flower with fuzzy stem” to “Amsinckia tessellata “fiddleneck,” boraginaceae family, pubescent,” as I become familiar with the local flora and hone my botany vocabulary. I look forward to learning more and exploring the diverse environment around Ridgecrest in the coming months!

Eschscholzia californica, California poppy and other species

E. O’Connell

Ridgecrest BLM Office

Hello again from Washington, DC!

Life in the capitol city is still excitingly busy. It’s the middle of March and the BLM’s Washington Office Plant Conservation team and I have already hosted two meetings this month: an interagency meeting to discuss implementation of the National Seed Strategy and a Plant Conservation Alliance meeting. We will be traveling to Pittsburgh for a conference next week (more on that to come).

I visited NYC on the coldest weekend of the year! Despite temperatures being well below freezing, I enjoyed Central Park and the High Line.

The Martin Luther King Jr Memorial. The scale of the memorials in DC is breathtaking and inspiring. I can’t help but point out that the memorials are overwhelmingly male and white, but they are awesome despite their lack of diversity.

The interagency meeting on implementing the National Seed Strategy was the first week of March. Planning and organizing for it began in November. It was a big deal. A couple words I heard used to describe this interagency meeting included monumental and historical. Although I haven’t been in DC long, I quickly learned that an event in which leadership from many different Federal agencies are at one table at one time to discuss working together on a common goal is not something that happens every day. While Plant Conservation Alliance meetings often have representatives from 8 or more federal agencies, the interagency meeting on implementing the National Seed Strategy had a higher level of government leadership in attendance.

Helping to organize and attending the interagency meeting was an eye opening experience. I felt both discouraged and inspired. Together these federal agencies manage huge amounts of land. But, each agency has its own mission it must follow, its own programs and policies. Additionally, many of these agencies are underfunded, especially when it comes to plant conservation. These barriers aside, the opportunity to work together in a coordinated effort and restore the health of the plant communities and the functioning of ecosystems across our country has presented itself in a real way that could be hugely successful. This is what inspires me.

Barbra Kruger’s exhibition “Belief and Doubt” at the Hirshhorn Museum. I have been taking full advantage of free access to art, history, and science at the museums in DC this winter.

Working in Washington DC has exposed me to high level land management policy and introduced me to many people in charge of land management programs. More importantly though, it has shown me my voice. Working in an office, I spend the bulk of my time communicating. Avoiding phone conversations is no longer an option (email is far less effective with flooded inboxes and buried messages). It might seem silly to say that talking on the phone has increased my confidence, but it is true. The more I use my voice, the more confident I become. Everything becomes easier with practice, and talking on the phone is a daily exercise in being heard.

My posts are lacking in pretty flower pictures, I know. Spring is on its way and I hope to photograph the cherry blossoms like a good flower-loving tourist in the coming weeks.

Till next time,

Lindsey

Reporting from the Bureau of Land Management’s Washington Office in DC.

I’ve just ended my first week as a Seeds of Success botany intern with the Needles, CA field office of the BLM. It’s been very busy and feels like I’ve been here for far more than 5 days! Getting to know my fellow interns, our mentor, and the other staff at this small office has been great, and I’m looking forward to my five months here in the “Heart of the Mojave”.

So far I’ve completed various training courses that will help my team and myself stay safe while doing field work out in the 3.2 million acres of land that the Needles office encompasses. The range of wilderness and other land that we’ll be working in is impressive, including desert, mountains, and even a volcanic crater! I’ve also begun to learn some of the many plants in the area, and some of the plants I’ll be scouting for and collecting seed from. Some favorites so far include ocotillo (Fouquieria splendens), a desert giant that can reach heights of up to 10 feet, and the beavertail cactus (Opuntia basilaris) which some of us refer to, affectionately, as “basilisk” because of its species name.

Fouquieria splendens towering over other desert species.

A “basilisk” in bloom!

This week I have had the chance to see some of the interesting desert wildlife out in the field. Various lizard species were running around the rocks alongside us earlier in the week as we collected seeds at a site. I also spotted my first group of wild burros while out driving, which was exciting! One of the wildlife cameras our biologist set up captured some fun pictures of a packrat running around a borough as well.

A chuckwalla sunning itself on the rocks.

A packrat caught by one of our wildlife cameras.

I think one of the highlights of the week, though, was attending a cultural presentation given by a Chemehuevi elder about the history of their tribe, traditional uses for native plants, and their people’s connection to the land, which is adjacent to our field office. We were shown a couple of petroglyph sites and then were also invited to the Chemehuevi cultural center for some more in-depth education. I feel it is important for myself and my fellow interns to learn about the cultural history of the area we will be working in, as well as meet the indigenous people of the area who the BLM work with, so it was a very enriching experience.

Chemehuevi petroglyphs.

Bureau of Land Management

Needles, CA