June has arrived in the Sierra foothills, and after a few periods of cooler temperatures and even a bit of rain in May, temperatures are rising. Its common knowledge that California’s Central Valley gets blazing hot, but this year seems to be exceptionally hot, with temperatures already starting to get into the 90’s and even over 100 degrees. Most of the grasses are completely dry and light brown, although some are stubbornly hanging on to a fringe of green color and herbaceous pliability. Most of the wildflowers are done, except for a few late bloomers, such as the harvest brodiaea (Brodiaea elegans), which are in full swing. Seeds are maturing and dispersing rapidly, and seed collection has occupied most of fellow intern, Julie’s and  my time. So far we have about 9 or 10 collections completed or soon to be completed.

A few weeks ago I was able to attend a grass ID class at CSU Chico. This class was extremely useful, especially since we are trying to concentrate on grass seed collections this season. The class was specifically devoted to springtime grasses of the central valley and sierra nevada foothills, which made it even more relevant. The class consisted of sitting for eight hours in a classroom, bent over a microscope and the Jepson manual, until my eyes couldn’t focus and my brain stopped functioning. The teacher systematically went through the Poaceae (grass family) key, and showed us many samples of local grasses. Since the class, my desk has been strewn with pieces of dissected grasses; lemmas, glumes, paleas, awns, ligules… and of course a hand lens and the Jepson manual open to the Poaceae key.  My confidence with grasses, a plant group I often ignore due to the difficulty to ID them, has increased.

Grass ID

As with learning about any layer of natural history, delving into grass ID has changed the lens through which I view the natural world during my excursions into the field. Most of the  formerly lush green grass at our Kanaka Valley parcel is the exotic annual barbed goat grass (Aegilops triuncialis), which seems to be creating a near monoculture of dense thatch. On the other hand, I am more attuned to patches of native perennial bunch grasses persisting in rocky outcrops or the shade of oak trees.

Elymus glauca, blue wild rye

I was also able to visit an interesting area of the Mother Lode Field Office, the Red Hills. This ACEC (Area of Critical Environmental Concern) is about a two hour drive south of our office. The botanist, former botanist, wildlife biologist, fellow CLM intern and I left highway 50 and all trace of Sacramento as we headed to Calaveras county.  After driving through many small foothill towns of 200, or even as few as 50 people, and then driving down a labyrinth of rough dirt roads, I felt reassured that I am working for the BLM. The Red Hills is a sparsely vegetated belt of serpentine soil that is reminiscent of a desert, although it gets the same precipitation as the surrounding oak woodland and chaparral, meaning the magnesium and iron rich soil must inhibit normal growth patterns. Ceanothus cunatus, which is almost the only shrub, is spaced widely with large gaps of soil filled with forbs. Thousands of white tarweeds, a late bloomer, waved in the breeze as we searched for yellow star thistle populations, that the former office botanist has spent years removing by hand. We didn’t find any, except at a site adjacent to a constant seed source, proving that persistence and early detection can stop aggressive weeds.

The Red Hills, with the snowcapped Sierra in the background

Joe Broberg

Mother Lode Field Office

El Dorado Hills, CA

Well, there’s no two ways about it — it’s June already. I would stop to wonder at this surprising fact, but there’s too much to do! Seed collection preparations continue, with collecting plant specimens, scouting for sites, and identifying plants once they acquire all the physiological characteristics that allow them to be keyed out, such as seeds or flowers. We’re more than halfway through golden eagle nest monitoring now, with the little chicks being approximately 40 days old. I only have one little guy in my assigned nest, and right now it’s still fluffy and white but showing dark lines and spots on its wings where feathers are growing in to their sheaths. The chick will probably fledge at about 60 days old, give or take a few days.

Another project has been planting native silver buffaloberry shrubs at a habitat improvement project site. I feel bad for the place, having suffered severe takeover from Russian olive and saltcedar (nasty invasive species), then a wildfire, and now an invasion of knapweed. The BLM has worked hard on invasive species control in this area, cutting and spraying the olive and saltcedar every year for several years now. I myself participated in the spraying during the winter of 2011. It’s disheartening to know the knapweed has created another relative monoculture there, but hopefully our little shrubs will be able to get a toehold and outcompete some of the nasties. On planting day, we also investigated a great blue heron rookery (collection of nests in a single tree) nearby, which was very interesting. Four babies were in one nest at the time, being monitored by a watchful adult.

Other ongoing projects continue as well, including investigating unknown raptor nests for activity and species identification, acquiring GPS data about powerlines and fences, and checking stock tanks for wildlife escape ramps.

In summary: life is busy, but as usual, I can’t complain. Day by day I work toward crossing things off my ever-present to-do list, knowing one little intern can only do so much. At day’s end, you just have to realize that you did the best you could, you’ll try again tomorrow, and at least more is done today than was done yesterday.

I’m halfway through my fourth week as an intern with Thicket of Diversity(TOD) at Big Thicket National Preserve in southeastsern Texas. TOD organizes the Preserve’s All-Taxa Biodiversity Inventory(ATBI), an interdisciplinary scientific effort to catalogue all species in the park. So far, TOD and its associated scientists have logged 117,418 specimens representing 2,714 individual species, 12 of which are new to science! Most of my time has been spent mapping these species – it’s a bunch of data and we’re working on getting it into a presentable visual format. Here’s what I’ve come up with so far if you want to check out the web map: http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer.html?webmap=08ca0d874d534614bf1f29241f7a8ad8 I’ve also had chances to go out in the field to help with collections, trudging through the bayous and slashing through rainforest-like forest in the name of science. Last week, we discovered a previously unknown bog with 3 carnivorous plants (pitcher plants, sundew, and butterwort), longleaf pine (which is struggling in SE Tex), and 3 types of orchids! Lots to learn and do here. On my weekends, I’ve been making the 1 hr drive to the Gulf to relax and take a dip in the sea to escape the oppressive heat and humidity of the Deep South. All in all, not a bad start to my internship!

Pitcher plants:

Swamp tupelo off of Turkey Creek:

Last week, for the first time since I’ve been here (a month and a half), we unexpectedly had several days of rain.  This kept us inside, working on our sensitive plant species guide rather than doing restoration monitoring.  Dirt roads become very dangerous with even just a little bit of rain and we were getting a lot by Vale standards.  Despite our restlessness, we were all glad for the rain: the plants needed it.

Yesterday, we returned to the site of the Bonita Fire where we had previously identified several populations for potential seed collection.  The fact that we had gotten rain was very apparent here; the mountain-top flats were in full bloom in an astounding array of colors.  There were purple Alliums (wild onions), several different types of yellow Lomatiums (carrot family), lavender Erigerons (daisies), native thistles, red and yellow Eriogonum (wild buckwheat), and about four different Crepis species (hawksbeard).  Crepis modocensis had been our target species for collection and we decided that the seeds were able to be collected.  So now we have made our first collection of SOS seeds!  It seems as though all the plants are starting to seed at the same time so we have the possibility of several more collections this week.

Up until recently, I had not had a clear idea of what SOS seeds are used for except for the vague term “restoration.”  However, we got a clearer picture of that purpose several weeks ago when we visited the Oregon State University (OSU) Ag Research Station for their native seeds field day.  OSU is working with the Forest Service and BLM to try to come up with the best methods of growing native sagebrush flora to inform and encourage commercial farmers to grow these crops alongside their food stocks.  BLM and the Forest Service want to be able to buy these seeds to use to restore lands following fire or other disturbance.  This program is perhaps still in its infancy; BLM is not able to secure the quantity of seeds that it would like but perhaps, with more efficient methods of growing these plants, farmers will be more willing to consider planting them.  We learned that many Lomatium species can be grown in a field with 8 inches or less of irrigation in a summer.  Compare that with onions that need at least 40 inches!

I am looking forward to go to Chicago this weekend.  I do miss the east and although Chicago is the midwest, I like to think that its bringing me a little closer to home.  It also looks like we have a great schedule of workshops lined up for us during the week!

These will be my last few weeks as a CLM intern in Lakeview, Oregon, and I am so grateful for the opportunities I’ve been given through the CLM program.

Two years ago, the CLM internship program brought me from the chaos of Manhattan to the peaceful land of big sky in the northern great basin, to work in a BLM resource area the size of New Hampshire with the population 1/1000th of New York City. And I have loved every second of it. From my first cattle drive, and the first time I learned to identify a bunchgrass, I’ve been enamored with the high desert and with the public land management system in these wide open spaces. Being a CLM intern has widened both my interest in conservation and my career options in this field, and has given me a new home and a new sense of place in the Western United States.

Thanks!

From high desert paradise,

Lisa

Since my last entry the field season has really picked up. We have started to camp and really started to pick up on plant id now that everything is starting to flower and seed out. I am really surprised at the amount of diversity there is in a desert. From a distance everything is sagebrush or PJ forest, but once you start to take a look the diversity it’s really incredible. It has really been challenging (and equally rewarding) to learn about these plants and really work on my botanical skills for ID’ing their characteristics. Each new plant is like a small mystery waiting to be solved; every characteristic is like a different clue and it’s great to have those light bulb moments where it all comes together and you know what the plant is (bonus points if you don’t have to use a key!).
Aside from normal field work, we attended a rangeland indicator health conference. It was really interesting to see what goes into evaluating rangeland health. There was some stuff I thought was subjective and it was difficult for me to understand and agree with everything, but overall it was a really good experience, and I came away with a better understanding of what goes into range work. The biggest take away was soil.  I know very little about soil science, but after the conference I was really inspired to learn more.
So far the only downside to this internship has been the sequester. The restrictions due to budgets isn’t anything new and I know in every job there will be limited funds, but it is grossly apparent with the sequester. It is still fairly early in the field season, but I am curious to see if we are able to meet deadlines and collect the necessary data with the current restrictions in place. The worst part is that if the data isn’t collected, agencies will essentially be flying blind when making decisions which could really adversely affect the land and the people that enjoy and depend on it. I suppose it’s too early in the season for doom and gloom, but I am not optimistic about it.

-Nate

For the past month, many of us in the Shoshone, ID field office have been busy and working hard to do Sage Grouse Habitat Assessments.  Yesterday, my partner and I finished the last one.  This inventory and analysis project has been not only a fantastic  learning experience in the technical aspect of the project, but has given me the opportunity to work in numerous areas that probably few people get to see up close.  Through all of this, I have been on mountain ridges overlooking huge lava flows that blanket the valley below to right down in the lava itself.  Working in such a vast area and in so many different little ecotypes has allowed me to see such a wide variety of plant life.  I am truly amazed at the amount of diversity that the high plains deserts have to offer.  I came from a place in Minnesota that was on the border of the tall grass prairie and the deciduous forests.  The plant life there is truly remarkable.  Coming to the desert I had the mindset that there was not going to be any diversity in the plant life, if any forbes at all.  I had a picture of sagebrush and dry earth blanketing the landscape, with a few stragglers clinging on to life in the slim hope of rain.  To my joyful surprise, there is an abundance of forb diversity and an entire new set of flora for me to learn and experience.  The desert has truly shown me some of the most stunning flowers that I have seen to date.  I look forward to the coming months, with new projects to do, new country to see and new wonders to be exposed to.  The summer just gets better and better.

                  Hello everybody!  We are nearly finished with our second week working on the Seeds of Success program in Farmington New Mexico and it has been a wild ride.  The first week consisted mostly of training and office days but we did get out in the field a couple of times where we were able to check out some of the plant species found here.  One highlight of last week was getting the opportunity to assist one of the range management teams monitoring pasture sites that will be seeded in the fall.  The canyons and rock formations we were able to see that day were absolutely amazing.  A highlight of the second week, was playing plant CSI and investigating an area where someone had been stealing plants.  As it turns out our sleuthing skills are a little rusty and no culprits were ever determined.   

                We have scouted out a few places we hope to make collections of plants, but still have many more to investigate.  We are hoping to start collecting in a few weeks from some of the earlier succession plants but the lack of rain may not make it possible.  We are keeping our fingers crossed.

This area is full of interesting places to explore from Chaco Canyon to the South, the desert to the west, and the San Juan Mountains to the North.  There will be much to learn, see and explore in the short time we have the opportunity to live in this part of the world. 

 I apologize for the lack of pictures but there will be many more next post.  Until next time!

Our first potential collection
   Delphinium scaposum

As summer has finally arrived and flowers are in full bloom, I sit in my cube, updating the statewide Programmatic Biological Assessment for the threatened Colorado butterfly plant (Gaura neomexicana spp. Coloradensis) I was fortunate enough to go out with some US Fish and Wildlife Service employees to survey some riparian areas for the butterfly plant. Surveys are important for the plant, since it is only found in the southeast corner of Wyoming. As summer continues and areas dry up, riparian areas become very important to land uses such as grazing. Riparian areas often support many plants, wildlife, and livestock, which may have an impact on the species. Identifying these habitats and areas for conservation can help preserve the species.