In the past couple weeks we here at the BLM CO State Office have finished up several species monitoring for the year including the Astragalus osterhoutii, Penstemon penlandii,  Eutrema penlandii, Physaria congesta, Physaria obcordata, and Penstemon grahamii.  Traveling to the Kremmling, CO area then to the mountains near Fairplay to monitor the little arctic mustard, and finally out to Meeker, CO and almost to the Utah-Colorado border to Rangely, CO.  With all of the travel we came back to the state office to input the many pages of monitoring data to start the analysis and make any changes needed for next year (adding transects or if we are lucky get to remove a few and still get the same amount of certainty in the change of the populations or we can continue with the same number of transects which is just as good).  Along with the simple functions that we utilize in Microsoft Excel to show the necessary analysis of the monitoring data we are going to try and learn to use R and then hope to apply it to some of our monitoring data as well as the data we collected in the Modified Whittaker Plots in the alpine to create species area curves.  We will see what the learning curve is for R, I do have a little knowledge of C++ so if any of the programming I learned for C++ can be applied to R that would be great.  I have a feeling I am going to be learning a whole new syntax of programming and the crossover from C++ to R might be minimal at best but I will find out.  Since we are not specifically trying to create new programs, and just trying to call existing programs and functions to analyze our data that the learning curve will be acceptable to utilize the program.  Along with this new challenge we are continuing with our sensitive species monitoring with Phacelia formosula and Eriogonum pelinophilum coming up soon and then implementing the new monitoring protocol for Corispermum navicula sometime later.  While we are up in North Park for the Phacelia sp. monitoring we will assess the Corispermum sp site and the current stage of the species to better determine when the monitoring should take place to ensure that the best representation of the population is monitored.  In between all of this we might also be helping out Vail Botanic Gardens in a few seed collections.  Fun Stuff to come here in Colorado!!

Regards,

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM Colorado State Office

It’s been raining an unusual amount in Twin Falls, Idaho for the past couple weeks and I’ve been absolutely thrilled about it. Coming from the Midwest, I have been feeling more than a little dried out in the arid sagebrush with the very harsh sun. Yes there’s no humidity, but that’s only a trade off part of the time. We’ve finished doing the Habitat Assessment Framework for Sage Grouse a couple weeks ago. At the end of HAF surverys we were up in the South Hills of the Jarbidge field office and saw grouse almost every day or at least several times a week. After months of seeing nothing more than droppings and some feathers, the actual birds were a great gift. A crew flushed eighteen birds along a single stream one day. As elegant as they are when displaying, they are ridiculous, noisy, and panicked when they take off from the sage.

Since then it’s been wetland inventories, thermograph data retrieval, and a variety of other activities depending on what’s needed in the office. One of the unusual days was when we got to help one of the Wildlife Biologists out with Spotted Frog monitoring down in a set of beaver ponds. The Frogs are very rare and only found in this one section of the Field office. A group of us lined up and started up the stream through the beaver ponds. I gave up on being dry very quickly and ended up chest deep in some places looking for frogs on the emergent vegetation. At first we saw absolutely nothing but by the end we had a decent count despite a local rancher pushing cows through to get them out of the canyon and away from the river. Caught a snake or two as well as the frogs.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most lately is the opportunity to shadow or talk with other staff in the office. Myself and Maria Paula were able to go out with our Recreation Coordinator, and we all got the chance to hear the Jeff, our archeologist, speak about his work. I’ve been very impressed with the people we’ve worked with both personally and professionally. I am always surprised when they accord great consideration to our time and schedules, since as interns, our schedules are fairly flexible and less packed than theirs. Additionally I am struck by the knowledge of their work as well as an awareness of the areas’ management as a whole. Both staff were able to speak to management concerns outside of their fields very knowledgeably and with a sense nuance that stuck. As someone looking to go into the management field somewhere along the way, I was really interested to hear what people who had been in the field for a while, considered to be good and bad qualities in a manager. It has helped bring a sense of reality to what I’m working towards and filled out the challenges a little more.

On a lighter note Maria Paula and I took a road trip to Wyoming to Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Cheyenne Rodeo. On the way back we stopped for the night in Dinosaur National Monument, did a bit of hiking and saw Colorado and Utah on the way. It was a fantastic trip. The scenery was desolate and beautiful by turns. Cheyenne Frontier days was an absolute trip with a strange assortment of people and a great rodeo. Mostly it was great to get out and go someplace. I get more than a little myopic during field seasons, especially right in the middle, so getting out of town was amazing. Dinosaur National Monument is incredibly beautiful and definitely underrated. We were able to see a huge wall of dinosaur fossils, pictographs, one of the most beautiful canyons I’ve ever encountered, and swim in the Green River. Of course, we also became Junior Rangers.

Spotted Frog looking a bit dazed

These Fine feathered fellows staring at the car

(“The Buffalo, Wyoming CLM Interns! Determined to monitor and collect seeds!” ^_^)      (Artwork by Jo Smith)

Monitoring and Seed Collecting in the Wild West

We were getting to the end of the line in terms of field monitoring! The grasses were drying out and the majority of the forbs would be dispersing their seed. Sara and I have been concentrating our monitoring efforts in two places. The Bighorn Mountains and the Cabin Canyon area near Gillette, Wyoming. There were many sites to monitor around Cabin Canyon, so we would be leaving early in the morning and camping over night to try to monitor all of the sites. Cabin Canyon was difficult to travel through. Due to the heavy rains we had recently, many of the roads and small bridges have been wiped out! Sometimes it would take us three times longer to get to a site, because the road had been washed away.  Some of the road locations that were digitally inputted into the GIS program in the past were really cow trails! We would be driving down a two track road only to find out that it was really a cow trail. Hahaha!! Despite all of our challenges we were encountering, we had a great time identifying forbs and grasses. Thanks to the rain, the plants held on a little longer, so we could properly identify most of the plants.

The bridge is out! O_O
A common sight to see around canyon sites after a rainstorm.

We have been seeing many cool birds out in the field. We would typically see all kinds of sparrows, kingbirds, grouse, and lark buntings. One of my favorites birds would be the sage grouse. They were not the smartest bird alive, but they were very interesting to watch in the field. They would typically stare at us while walking slowly in front of our truck. We were always cautious around them and made a note of where we saw them.

A sage grouse decided to stop in front of our truck and stare at us for a brief period of time.

One of our side missions was to help Jill and Heather with seed collections for S.O.S. A large amount of seed collections had been completed so far! Sara and I would take a break on some of our work days to help with Jill’s S.O.S. seed collection. We have been collecting seed from needle and thread (Hesperostipa comata), bluebunch wheatgrass (Pseudoroegneria spicata), Hood’s phlox (Phlox hoodii), and Indian rice grass (Oryzopsis hymenoides/ Achnatherum hymenoides) to name a few. Some of the seeds were difficult to collect from, but we eventually made the goal that Jill set up. The S.O.S. collections were successful! Jill still has a couple of plant species she needs to collect from, so she might need our help in the future.

Time to collect needle and thread seeds!!…After we were done picking these seeds, we would find a large amount of them sticking to our socks and shoes. <_<

The Shadows that Roam

Sara and I would usually leave to monitor different sites around 4:00am. We could take advantage of the cooler temperatures and complete our projects before the intense afternoon sun would be overhead. Recently, we have been monitoring up in the Bighorn Mountains. The huge forests of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), limber pine (Pinus flexilis), and quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides) could hide a lot of animals and make the trip difficult if we were to hike over a mile through forested, uneven rocky terrain to a site. We would always monitor during daylight, but we would leave early so we could start monitoring immediately when the sun rises.

Everything was very quiet in the morning and we could begin to see signs of dawn approaching. We headed down the main county road known as Hazelton Road. We had to drive slowly due to the roaming shadows. You might be wondering, “What is a roaming shadow?” A roaming shadow was basically a very large animal walking through the darkness. All you could make out was a large shadow. With the intense full moon we have had lately, we would see a lot of shadows on the trip up the mountains. Sometimes you could tell what the creature would be and other times the large creature would appear briefly in your line of sight before heading into the dense forests on either side of the road and you would be asking yourself, “What was that!?” The truck does a good job at illuminating the area in front of us. We mostly see glowing eyes or fast moving shadows. When dawn approaches we could see what the shadows really are. Most of the time these shadows would be large mule deer, cows, elk, and even moose!  We would slow down and watch the elk herds cross in front of us or see a lonely moose forage for grasses. Before dawn, these shadows with glowing eyes look pretty intimidating, but when dawn comes, these shadowy creatures become majestic, furry animals.

Roaming shadows looking at our vehicle.

As the sun rises, most of the deer, elk, and moose disappear. The lamb herds usually become active and we get to see fluffy Great Pyrenees guarding the sheep herds. Marmots would run across the road or sit on a rock, chirping at every passing truck. During the day time, the Bighorn Mountains would look totally different compared with the early morning. Monitoring in the mountains was awesome, especially when traveling in the early morning when we get to see the roaming shadows!

Great pyrenees resting near a herd of sheep. IT’S SO FLUFFY! \(O_O\)

CLM Interns vs. Convolvulus arvensis: Field Bindweed All Out Attacks

A month ago, the BLM office had a field day where we would all go out to Welch Ranch Recreation Area and plant native seeds for future harvesting. We planted mostly green needlegrass (Nassella viridula) and bluebunch wheatgrass. One of our bosses wanted Jill, Heather, and I to go out to the site and do a routine maintenance check. We were told to check the water levels and weed all of the field bindweed (Convolvulus arvensis) and Russian thistle (Kali tragus/ Salsola kali?). When we got to the site, we were shocked!! There were weeds growing all over the place! One particular nasty weed was the field bindweed. The weed thought it was kudzu (Pueraria lobata)! D: Field bindweed was growing in the beds, strangling some of the native grasses. The weed was also growing along the beds creating dense mats of foliage covering the ground. Jill, Heather, and I began our attack.

Field bindweed growing around green needlegrass.

The field bindweed was difficult to clear and took a lot of effort to remove without hurting the native grasses. I never seen field bindweed be this destructive. I usually saw it growing at the side of the road in a small patch. The field bindweed here tried to take over the north half of the field! After many hours in the intense sun, we cleared most of the field bindweed and created piles at the end of the rows. The Russian thistle to the south was our next destination. Luckily, the Russian thistle was still soft and not prickly when we removed it. Towards the end of the day, we cleaned up the field and were proud of our hard work. The field bindweed would probably return, but at least we cleared a lot of the bigger plants that were choking out the native grasses.

Weeding for field bindweed.

Misadventures

Sturgis Rally

On one of the weekends the Buffalo CLM interns traveled to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally in Sturgis, South Dakota. There were a huge amount of motorcycles around and everyone was very active in the town. Mostly we took pictures, went shopping, visited different exhibits and went to different motorcycle rally attractions. There were so many interesting people that had some of the coolest motorcycles! We had a fun and exhausting day!!

Sturgis Motorcycle Rally!

When we were heading back to Wyoming, we encountered a thunderstorm! At the state border we got out of our vehicle to take pictures of the Wyoming State sign and the double rainbow that was behind us!

Wyoming Border!!

 And Now….. Your Moment of Zen….

OH WOW! O_O A double rainbow!! So intense.

Two DSL in one trap

I can’t keep track of time anymore because it seems that I wrote my last blog only a couple days ago. Even though all the other interns from the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have left, the wildlife biology department is still keeping me busy with multiple different projects.

Last week I finished pitfall trapping for the New Mexico State endangered Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.  I had originally set a goal to set traps at 30 different pitfall arrays, but because of help from other hires, I was able to set 34 pitfall arrays. I was very happy that we were able to catch 16 different Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, all in areas where they had never previously been captured before. All of the new capture locations will be downloaded onto the BLM Carlsbad GIS and no development will be allowed within 200 meters of a DSL capture location. I feel great accomplishment knowing that because of my work, the BLM will be able to better protect this endangered species and its vanishing habitat

I am now going to be shifting my focus from pitfall trapping to a number of different projects including Yellow-Billed Cuckoo surveys, aquatic macro-Invertebrate surveys, and funnel trapping in known heronry locations. I have started the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo surveys. Specifically, we are trying to see the presence or absence of another state endangered animal (Yellow-Billed Cuckoo) along the Delaware and Black river. We survey along both rivers in areas where there is good tree cover and write down all the birds seen in a 20minute window. We then move another 100 meters down the river, or to the next available dense tree area, and survey again. A recording of the Yellow-Billed Cuckoo call is used, in an effort to attract any nearby individuals. Although we have not seen any Yellow-Billed Cuckoos, we have seen some other riparian obligates including summer tanagers, blue gross beaks, belted kingfishers, and Vermillion Flycathers.  In a effort to arrive at our location as the sun is rising and maximize our chances of spotting a Yellow-Billed Cuckoo I have had to wake up at 4 am the last week, and my sleep schedule has been a little out of whack.

I am still enjoying myself hear in Carlsbad and the job never seems to slow down. This week I participated in a local radio show explaining what the BLM and I were doing trapping the DSL and to help raise awareness of the lizard and other BLM projects occurring in the area. I am keeping active on the weekends and trying to see as many places as I can in the Chihuahuan desert. I have attached a few images of me doing bird surveys and pictures of the last couple of Dune Sagebrush Lizards I caught and me talking on the local radio station.

Local radio show trying to raise awareness on conservation efforts

Yellow Billed Cuckoo surveys

Hello!

Everything is still going well in the Missoula, MT field office. I am wrapping up my final month here and time has been flying by! Our field crew is continuing forest inventories, seed collection and sensitive plant surveys! This week we have done all of the above.

We have recently been collecting for bitterbrush and serviceberry seeds, which are ecologically and culturally important to Montana. I must admit we have had quite a few trials and errors! We began by picking bitterbrush seeds individually, and quickly realized there has to be a more effective way. So today, we went out and brought a huge bucket and hit the bitterbrush branches and let the seeds fall into the bucket! We collected 10 fold more seeds today than before. Not to mention way more bugs than before! I must admit it has been a fun change of pace from forest inventory!

Unitl next time,
Cara

Hello everyone,

It’s funny to read my last post from back at the end of June…along with my crewmates I was moving our camping site to a sheep pasture to continue HAF monitoring in the foothills. Since then we’ve been also monitoring wetlands, attending trainings and moving on to working with thermograph data!

First of all, although we finished after the first week of July, it wouldn’t be right to leave out our last week of camping and HAF monitoring from this blog entry. The sheep pasture turned out to be a spot fairly close to the main road so that it wasn’t as remote, but far enough that we could take a quiet walk through the grassland or climb the hill behind our trailer to see the stars and watch the sun sink into the horizon at the end of the day. Those two weeks that we spent finishing HAF and living in that pasture definitely presented a whole new set of challenges and new experiences. In a way, it was like going back to the beginning of the season: we worked in unfamiliar roads in more remote sites that took longer to navigate and hike to. Also the vegetation species richness (amount of different species) just about exploded in the foothills, I’d never seen such a high forb density and we were taking plenty of specimens back to identify, so we learned a lot of new species! The fields of lupine and penstemon created a beautiful landscape of red, purple and yellow, you could even smell the lupine!

On the weekends, I’ve been going on some trips to explore the west, including Dinosaur National Monument, Ritter Island, Shoshone Falls and even Cheyenne Frontier Days in Wyoming! On the way back, I caught a glimpse of northern alpine Colorado and I want to check it out more. But I am absolutely in love with Utah (so much like San Juan!), so I’m building up a list of places to hike and camp in on my way out at the end of the internship.

Living in a trailer, I realized how content I am living in small spaces. It’s cozy to be in a nook, taking up a small amount of space with a wild, empty expanse around you. Now that our fieldwork camping is at an end, we are driving from our field office daily to our work sites, often to collect data on wetland vegetation, attributes and map it on GIS. But now we are also downloading the thermograph data, which consists of using a GPS to find the thermograph apparatus, which is staked down in a stream pool collecting water temperature data and importing the data onto a field computer before re-launching the thermograph again to gather data for another year.

These thermograph streams are often in remote canyons, so we’ve been lucky to see a lot of cool landscapes, plants and rock formations. I love sitting back against an aspen and thinking about when the last human was last there.

Of course, in terms of some of the thermograph sites, someone visits them annually, but they probably don’t stop at the places we would stop or go further beyond the thermograph sites.  But leaning against this exact tree? Perhaps I am the first.

Working on wetland inventories takes us to more lush regions with access to water, so the vegetation tends to include riparian sedges and rushes.

Sometimes we’ll see birds, and we always are on the lookout for wildlife. I think we’ll also start Lepa monitoring (rare peppergrass species) pretty soon!

‘Till next time!

Maria Paula

Jarbidge Field Office

Twin Falls, Idaho

An interesting time was had this past week and I was able to see and enjoy many beautiful species. Fire monitoring was a large part of the week and we camped close to a monitoring plot in the TRE fire at about 6700′ in the Pinenut Mountains of Douglas County, NV. It was a breathtaking experience to see the sun set behind the Sierra Nevada Mtns and the fiery clouds looming over the high peaks. However, the greatest experience was sitting up and watching some of the Perseid Meteor shower. Never have I seen an event so magnificent as the fleeting flight and trail of a large meteor; it is an experience that cannot be summed up in words, only viewed in awe and wonder for such an opportunity. Another friend who decided to visit in the night (not necessarily a friend when trying to sleep), was a  North American Deermouse (Peromyscus maniculatus). He was scurrying under the tarp I was sleeping on and eventually I sat up and looked with my light and there he was about 4 feet away, twitching his nose in the air. Funny indeed for such a small animal to make so much noise. The morning brought the sounds of the Mtn. Bluebird, Bushtits, White-breasted Nuthatches and many other friends of the air. It was a pleasant experience to enjoy the wonders of the natural world on a fine morning.

To the coming of Fall,

Ethan Hughes

CCDO BLM

It’s a rule of thumb that if we’re trying to collect seeds (or even count seeds per fruit), it’ll be windy. It doesn’t matter where we are or what the weather is like – it’ll be windy.

In late July, four of us went hunting for Spiranthes diluvialis (Ute lady’s tresses), a rarely seen endemic of the Basin. We scoped out Brush Creek and a little wetland on the edge of town. We didn’t find any that day, but Hector and I found two populations to collect seeds from and we even went back that same day to grab one them, Eleocharis quinqueflora (few flower spike rush). When we returned a few weeks later to collect seeds from tule (Schoenoplectus acutus occidentalis), we found three Ute lady’s tresses!

Finally! Ute lady’s tresses!

We’ve also collected Allium acuminatum (tapertip onion). At first, it was fun to pop off an inflorescence and get a nice, oniony smell, but it got old pretty quick and it took me two days to get the smell off my hands!

The view from Blue Mountain.

I love learning plants’ scientific names. I’ve realized that I can communicate more effectively with non-botanists if I can also throw down the common names, but I think scientific names are way more fun. While helping with rangeland health assessments one day, all my hard work of memorizing scientific names paid off! One of the range cons was naming off all the plants in the transect when he said, “Western salsify.” As the recorder, I paused briefly, confused, but when he clarified by saying “Tragopogon dubius” I knew exactly what he meant! I know T. dubius as goatsbeard and while I would’ve been able to reconcile the two names by observing the plant, it was a nice “Ah-Ha” moment to realize that scientific names are as important as my college botany professor claimed!

I’ve never before seen red spines on prickly pear!

On a Tuesday morning a couple weeks ago, my mentor called a powwow of myself, Hector, Lisa, and Jabus. She told us that she had just discovered that Uintah County was holding a special event the next day where members of the public could raft down the “C section” of the Green River. Our office was supplying three rafts and needed an extra person to row. Our boss had decided that this would be a prime opportunity for all of us to tag along and scout the “C section” for weeds and seeds.

Loading up for a day on the river.

We loaded up the next day and headed up to the John Jarvie Historic Ranch. We took a total of seven rafts and two duckies (a.k.a. inflatable kayaks) with around 30 members of the public, 10 of which were under the age of 16! Jabus and I each took a duckie while Hector volunteered his rowing abilities. We encountered quite a bit of Russian knapweed (Acroptilon repens), whitetop (Cardaria draba), Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), and American licorice (Glycyrrhiza lepidota). The highlight of the day was spotting a bald eagle sitting on a dead tree only 10 feet from the water’s edge!

I have no idea what this plant is, but I like it!

At the end of the day, everyone headed home, except for us. We drove back to Jarvie and spent the night in the bunkhouse. The next morning, we took our backpack sprayers out and went to work. The “C section” needed more TLC than we could provide in one day so we did what we could and drove back to the office. The next week, we did the same song and dance: spray during the day and sleep over in the bunkhouse.

The water wheel at Jarvie Ranch.

On the second day of the second trip, though, things got interesting. After lunch, we stopped at an infestation of Canada thistle, whitetop, and teasel (Dipsacus sylvestris). During lunch, I had noticed a small, dark cloud above us, but the rest of the sky was bright and sunny so I thought nothing of it. A little while later, though, it began sprinkling. It was still bright and sunny so again, none of us were terribly concerned. We finished the spot and got back onto the river. And then it started to downpour. The little raincloud above us at lunch had morphed into a huge, rumbling storm! We were soaked within minutes. And just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it started hailing.

The edge of our “little” raincloud.

We endured the weather for about 20 minutes before it let up. At one point, the sky cleared and the sun shone through. We were still getting rained on and when we looked up, we could see the rain falling through the sunlight. It was pretty cool. By the time we rafted down to the take-out and dried off, it was already time to head back to the office.

Me in the duckie. It’s hard to see, but I’m drenched after the rain and hail.

Since then, things have been rather laid back at the office. Hector and I are on the hunt for warm season grasses and trying to supplement any collections from this year that didn’t make the 10,000 seed mark. Bend told us that our collection of shortspine horsebrush (Tetradymia spinosa) was only about 15-20% filled which was a big disappointment for us. Seed collection is slowing down,though, so I’ll be spending more time on the Green River in my last weeks.

Stay dry, fellow interns.

-Dani

BLM

Vernal, UT

P.S. The last photos are from personal adventures, but I wanted to throw them in because they’re pretty neat.

Split Mountain, up close and personal.

The bottom of Flaming Gorge Dam and the diversion tunnel used to convert the flow of the Green River during construction.

Petroglyphs courtesy of the Fremont People in Dinosaur National Monument.

Hi there, stranger.  In my first blog post, I described an allotment called Little Island, where Taters and I proudly scrambled up and down canyon walls in the name of Sage-Grouse habitat assessment.  Well I returned there today with a BLM employee, Peter, to inspect some fences, and check for signs of livestock grazing along the riparian section of the allotment.  Returning to the area brought up good memories from the beginning of my term, and helped me realize how much I have learned since then.

In addition to assessing Sage-Grouse habitat and checking for signs of livestock grazing, the crew and I have been inventorying wetlands, downloading stream temperature data from thermographs, and searching for sensitive frog populations.  Soon we will conduct transect inventories for the proposed endangered Slickspot peppergrass (Lepidium papilliferum) and its critical habitat.

While I will continue to use the land management skills that I have learned during this internship for years to come, the experiences that I have had only happen once in a lifetime.  Please find a brief description and pictures below of two recent adventures I have had here in the stunning Jarbidge Field Office.

On August 4^th, we, the monitoring crew, went into the Bruneau Canyon to download some stream temperature data.  After wading through the river to access the thermographs, we made a quick stop to enjoy the Indian Hot Springs.

Indian Hot Springs

A very hot spring indeed

On August 2^nd, I climbed to the top of the Jarbdidge Mountains with a fellow CLM intern, Alexi, from the Shoshone Field Office, and thought, “Hey, I can see my field office from up here!”

View from the field office

View from the top!

Jonathan Kleinman

Jarbidge Field Office

Bureau of Land Management

This is it. I’ve officially reached the point where I see seeds every time I close my eyes. I have dreams about seeds. I dream about seed collection. I fear to sleep because I might have yet another dream of insects eating the seeds and then proceeding to eat me. When the sunlight hits my eye, the visions of Purshia tridentata I had pictured take on psychedelic hues behind my lids.

I may be going crazy, or maybe it’s just because it’s seed season. Maybe it’s exposure to what we call the ‘poison box.’ Maybe it’s Rawlins. Maybe I’m just tired. I just don’t know.

If I have to constantly see seeds everywhere, at least Purshia seeds are kinda cool looking.

Everything has been ripe all at once. We just keep moving from collection to collection. Never stopping. Always moving. Wishing we could camp to cut out travel time. Four days bent like gatherer women for one Purshia collection. We gathered in the heat, in the cold, in the middle of a thunderstorm. I maybe have taken to collecting from a comfortable seating place on the ground next to my shrub. I maybe almost fell asleep laying on little granite chunks during my lunch break. The jabbing rocks felt good.

We’ve finished 17 1/2 collections though. It’s been very… fruitful… I’m sorry. I began to write “productive.” I couldn’t help myself. One more week and we should finish another four. Or maybe not if Wyoming continues to get so much rain. We will definitely finish another two by next week. Then we finally hit our lull. A nice break before the sage brush. We only will have to check on our Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus populations in that time. We’re in excellent shape. Our goal of 25 collections will be no problem. It would be even less of a problem and we’d have hit 25 by now but sometimes, cattle graze too heavily and our species seem to be their favorite delicacy. Or, we miss one because we were out collecting something else. Which do you chose? We have two people, one vehicle. Then there was the HECO lost to fungus. What can you do? Move on. New vouchers. New locations. New species.

Capturing pollinators on film during a break from Pseudoroegneria spicata collection.

One of our collection sites: Prospect Creek Road. Collections of Purshia, Eriogonum, a                                               geranium, Idaho fescue, and squirreltail.

We still tromp around in oil and gas fields. We collect near uranium mines. We pass through H2S fields. We find ourselves dehydrated, further from the truck than expected, turned around, a tad dizzy, you name it. We have some fabulous stories. We’ve never been hurt or truly lost. I have also gotten to officially speak with a real cowboy. Like a legit, grizzled, working Wyoming cowboy. We’re learning the area very well, and we do officially spend some quality time in truly gorgeous locations.