I’ve been in Carson City for four months now.  This past week I have been doing weed monitoring at sites where there has been fires in previous years.  This involves a lot of hiking. It was a pleasant surprise that most of the fire sites we observed were weed free and the native vegetation seemed to coming back in full force.  I really enjoyed hiking amongst the wild tobacco and perennial grasses. Due to the vastness of the various fires, it was more effective to camp. My team and had a pleasant evening camping amongst the large pines near the Indian Creek Reservoir.  Overall, it has been good work.

Monocline Ridge

September was my last full month in Hollister work for the BLM in Central California.   Mostly this month I have been continuing my work assisting with a seedbank study.  We are hoping to determine the size of the seed bank in the soil for 2 endangered plants that we are tasked with recovering: San Joaquin Woolly Threads  (Monolopia congdonii) and San Benito Evening Primrose (Camissonia benitensis).  During the summer we collected soil from the population areas and are now sifting the soil and (in the case of the Woolly Threads) extracting and couting seeds.  Later in the fall, the soil of both species will be used to grow out seedlings which then will be counted.  By knowing the size of the collection area and the amount of soil collected and used, an estimate of existing seed bank may be established.

For  my last post I wanted to include some of my favorite pictures from this field season that I haven’t had an excuse to put up yet:

Calochortus venustus

Echinoderm fossil

Ryan blazing a “trail” on Laguna Mtn. in search of T&E plant habitat

Chimney near the San Benito River

Clarkia unguiculata

boat on the San Benito River

Pestle found on Monocline Ridge sand dunes

Ravens

Penstemon azureus

Good luck to everyone!  Rachel, BLM Hollister, CA

Time is passing quickly this field season in Lakeview. October is upon us, meaning that autumn is officially here and that many of our field botany projects are winding down.  It is interesting being in the high desert at this time of year for me. The past several years I have lived in an area with many deciduous trees, making fall a spectacular transition of color. In the desert, the season appears in more subtle ways: sagebrush in flower, quaking aspen turning from verdant to yellow, and the temperature at night dropping down to almost freezing. While visually, the change in season here contains more shades of brown than red and orange, the feeling of autumn is pervasive.

In the field, we have returned to working on special status species surveys that can still be completed at this time of year. While we don’t have the same bright flower colors to see from afar, surveying and identifying is still possible. It feels good to be able to spend so much time outside right now, hiking and taking in the seasonal changes.

Fall colors

Perhaps my favorite part of my internship thus far has been the reclamation portion. I have had the joy and frustration of surveying reclaimed well pads for surface compliance. In other words, I get to tell huge oil companies, like XTO (formerly Exxon), that they need to do more for the Earth! The most frustrating part of this is seeing the reality of how little these companies actually do.
In the reclamation process, I learned that it is more important to return the land to its natural contour than to have thriving vegetation. Of course the thriving vegetation is necessary, but it comes after the original contour is intact. The contour is the ‘permanent’ part of the landscape, while vegetation waxes and wanes, the contour remains consistent. In addition to that, the soils must be free of weeds and returned in the layers in which they were extracted. I have visited a few locations that looked great from afar with tall flowering grasses, forb diversity, and desirable shrubs; and then, I walked the perimeter to find that the vegetation had concealed a huge pile of rocks or soil that had not been incorporated into the shape of the contour. This created a steep slope that almost looked like the area was on a pedestal or something similar. At first it was rather hard to fail a reclamation effort like these, knowing that they would have to destroy all of the vegetation in order to fix the problem. But I know I am part of the learning process for these companies. The standards of the BLM are rightfully high!
After learning of all the work it takes to return the Earth to her natural state, I wonder if the destruction, in the first place, is necessary. Yet, I do enjoy the luxury of hot showers, lights at night, and road trips… so I conclude that less is best. And thankfully, I know I am not alone.

Another month gone by and another blog post typed.  The months are flying by and my time is growing shorter here in Wyoming.  September was an exceptionally quick month for me which included a small vacation home to see my friend on leave from Afghanistan.

I am finally at the point of this internship where I feel extremely comfortable with all the tasks assigned to me.  You need a basal bark treatment on some Russian olive? Finished. You need some seed clipping and post treatment monitoring of houndstounge? No problem.  You want some surveying done in a canyon? Handled. Transects, outreach and education, and GIS mapping. Done, done, and done. With a month left in the internship I feel very capable of any task assigned to me and if I don’t know how to do it, I know how to educate myself about it (50% co-workers, 50% Google).  I am looking forward to the final month of my internship: Russian olive cutting, spring treatment monitoring, a two day conference in Yellowstone, and who knows what else.  At some point I’ll figure out how to load pictures up here and put up a ridiculous amount of photos but until then keep your eyes open for weeds!

I was hoping to get two seed collections last week. One was successful, the other was not. But even the successful collection had its problems.
1. I learned the hard way: collecting wind dispersed seed on a windy day is not the best idea. The goal for this collection was Liatris punctata (dotted blazingstar or spotted gayfeather). I think that this small Asteracea may be one of my favorite plants here in Montana. The actual collection, however, was tedious. Some individuals had already completely dispersed, while others were just finishing up flowering. Depending on how ready the seed was, when you touched the plant, half the seed went zooming downwind. The paper bag in which the seed was going also really wanted to go traveling downwind. The second day of the collection I got smarter. We have a bunch of plastic jugs that have the tops cut off for when we collect berries. I put the paper bag into the jug, which was much easier to carry and much less likely to fly downwind. In spite of windy conditions and long hours collecting, the seed was successfully collected.
2. Limber pine would be a LOT of work to get 10,000 seed. For one, the population of limber pine that is here is an anomaly. The elevation here is lower than where you usually find limber pine. For this reason, individuals were scattered here and there among the more numerous Ponderosa Pine. I went out with Robert from the NRCS. He wanted to get some seed for his organization and I figured I would get a collection for Seed of Success while we were at it. Needless to say, it did not happen. Between the two of us, who were out there a good 5 hours, we got (estimated) 700 seed. Getting a collection of 10,000 would have taken days. It was a really good day, however. I got to work with and aide someone from another agency. I  also learned how to tell a ponderosa pine from a limber pine. By the end of the day, I could look at a cone on the ground and tell you which species it belonged to. We should have gone out a couple of weeks earlier; the cones had already dispersed the majority of their seed. We were happy when we found a cone with one or two seeds and extatic for the few cones that we got 6+ off of. The only downside to the day was how sticky the sap was. My hands were instantly attracted to pieces of grass, pine needles, small rocks, and the pine seed itself.

Kimberly, Miles City MT

Time for another post already!? Well, you’re in luck, I finally put some pictures onto the computer! Here’s some of what we’ve been doing…

Inventory on prairie streams…

Avoiding rattlesnakes!

And catching catfish!!

Additionally, I just got back from a Wetland Restoration Course in Bozeman, MT. The course was great, not only did I learn a lot of theory, but I learned how professionals actually apply it out in the field. I networked a lot, and I really feel excited about different careers options that this internship has shown me.

Brandee Wills
Miles City, MT

In addition to the valuable career experience gained through the Chicago Botanic Garden’s Conservation and Land Management (CLM) Internship program, there are plenty of good times to be had as a CLM intern! Anyone who pursues a career in conservation and land management must be willing to get his or her hands dirty. One must also be okay with other discomforts and what some may consider “unpleasant” encounters with various wildlife ranging from insects that enjoy a good blood meal (on you!) to plants that enjoy lathering you with their potent chemicals. In this field (either way you look at it–career field or the outdoor office), there’s just no way around the dirty work.

TICKS. A day in the field–espeically during the spring but also on spring-like days during any other season–must end with a tick-check. Finding just one on me can incite the psychological game of thinking that I keep feeling one crawling on me…This spring, I saw one in our work vehicle after it had not been used for at least 3 days and I have also found one in my place of residence…So look carefully! You never know where their hitch-hiking journeys will take them and get them closer to you, their potential feast. Has anyone researched whether the color of clothing worn is correlated to tick attraction? I think they like brown pants…

Tricky ticks…tiny, camouflaged, stealthy…they could move and hide anywhere without me even knowing–yuck!

BARBED GOATGRASS. “Yikes! Is that a grasshopper in my pants!? Oh, no. It’s just barbed goatgrass.” This is probably the typical thought process of anyone who walks through a patch of this horrible albeit effective invasive annual grass for the first time. Make it a contest: how far up one’s pant leg can a barbed goatgrass seed head go before it gets too annoying that it has to be pulled out? I had one come up out of the top of my pants…does that mean I win? 🙂

Head of invasive barbed goatgrass

Sea of barbed goatgrass on a rare plant preserve

Never underestimate barded goatgrass…it can and does enter the bottom of your pantleg and can maneuver all the way up to the top of your pants

YELLOW STARTHISTLE. Multiple ways exist to combat this nasty and highly invasive species in California, but it’s incredibly ept at reproducing profusely, flowering throughout the summer and fall, supplying the seed bank with a large number of seeds every year, choking out natives and taking over the landscape. Because I have been working on a rare plant preserve, we do not use herbicide but instead have been attacking armies of yellow star thistle by hand removal and bagging. How satisfying to remove them one-by-one and see an area of the preserve void of YST…at least for the moment as we may have left behind seeds, which is why combating invasives is a constant battle.

Yellow starthistle (most invasive weed in California?!) in bloom, defenses ready…

Pulling yellow starthistle at Pine Hill Preserve

“Yellow starthistle–you’re goin’ down!”

POISON OAK. Whether we like it or not, poison oak is native in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California. And, of course, one of the federally endangered plants at Pine Hill Preserve–El Dorado bedstraw–likes to grow in the understory of live oak or black oak woodlands…where it is not uncommon for poison oak to flourish. To make it even more exciting, this plant species is small and dies back every winter so to see it or find it among the oak leaf litter during its growing season, one must get close to them as well as these toxic chemical-exuding plants which love to cause itching misery to any who dare touch them…or simply brush against them unaware. But the icing on the cake: El Dorado bedstraw is dioecious. To try to gain an iota of understanding about this species to begin working toward development of appropriate conservation strategies for it, we attempted to identify male and female plants within two separate populations. This required getting on our hands and knees, bending our faces to the ground and using our handlenses to determine if the minute, pale flowers were male or female. Avoiding poison oak was impossible. So El Dorado bedstraw: small, inconspicuous, federally-endangered plant species which commonly grows among poison oak. No wonder not much is known about this species!

Poison oak…”Leaves of three, let them be.”

Stand of poison oak in autumn

Attempting to identify male and female plants of the diecious El Dorado bedstraw (federally endangered)

FUEL BREAK CONSTRUCTION. Fuel break construction is a top priority for the Pine Hill Preserve because the chaparral plant community is composed of highly flammable shrub species. Not only so, but the Preserve consists of five main discontiguous units; thus, the edge to core ratio is significant. Furthermore, the Preserve exists approximately 30-35 miles east of Sacramento, California, where the population is growing and development is expanding; hence, a notable portion of the Preserve’s boundaries are considered Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). Because human health and public safety are a top concern and the potential for wildfires consistently exist (especially during the hot, dry summers and as fuel loads continue to increase), management of Pine Hill Preserve emphasizes a proactive, preventative approach by incorporating fuels management. Fuel breaks involve the removal of woody vegetation on BLM land which borders private property on which residences have been built; the typcial width of a fuel break is 100 feet. At the Pine Hill Preserve, shrubs are generally cut with chainsaws; the brush is masticated, chipped and deposited, or piled and burned. Because the majority of the rare plants at the Preserve either respond favorably to fire or require it for seed germination, prescribed burning is a preferred option to simultaneously promote public safety and rare plant conservation. Conducting a prescribed burn of brush piles in a densely developed area requires a lot of preparaton and specific environmental conditions; fortunately, this was achieved during April 2011 at Pine Hill Preserve.

I flagged rare plants while AmeriCorps crew members cut woody chaparral vegetation with chainsaws to construct a fuel break

TRASH REMOVAL.  Public lands are just that: land managed to be 1) used by the public for purposes appropriate to the nature of the land and its resources and 2) enjoyed by members of the public. Individual citizens (taxpayers) each have a stake in public land; along with this right comes the responsibility to respect and care for the land. Unfortunately, some assume that their right as a stakeholder permits them to utilize public lands as dumping grounds (for whatever reason…I assume it’s to save money and perhaps the time it requires to take it to a landfill or pay monthly garbage fees…but then it puts the cost of one individual’s trash removal on all taxpayers and takes away time that civil servants could otherwise be dedicating to valuable management activities). Preventative measures such as installing posts and signs work to prevent such illegal dumping on public lands…some of the time.

Household trash dumped at the Preserve

An old appliance dumped and lumber added to one of our brush piles–this can be dangerous and adds extra work for fuel reduction/fire crews who are already working hard

Illegal disposal of a sofa and mattress at Pine Hill Preserve (public land for the conservation of 8 rare plant species and the unique soil in which they grow) near a major highway; we loaded it and took it to a landfill

FACILITIES MAINTENANCE. Most folks who enjoy using public land for outdoor recreation activities (whether it be hiking, biking, equestrian use, birding, photography, rafting, fishing, hunting, etc.) appreciate the land, its natural resources, the opportunity to use the land, and the facilities constructed on the land for enhancing their recreational experience (i.e., parking lots, restrooms). Hence, they typically respect these aspects of public property by keeping it clean and restricting activity to what is allowed. However, there are always a handful of people who do not use public lands and facilities for the intended recreational uses; instead, vandalism becomes their “recreation activity” of choice. As satisfying as it is to clean up a vandalized site, I much prefer proper care and respect of public lands and facilities by all inidividuals. Civil servants whose job it is to maintain public facilities have a big (sometimes kinda nasty) job, but they also get to contribute to enjoyable projects such as staining a bridge to improve the aesthetics of a walking trail through a lovely natural area.

A vandalized restroom painted and repaired

Staining a bridge at Dave Moore Nature Area as part of a volunteer work day

Hey everyone,

I hope everyone is enjoying their internship as much as I am. We have rocked the Special K Ranch native plant materials program this year. We have now planted around 50,000 Wyoming Big Sage seedlings. We have worked hard and have managed to fill all the orders. We have hit all of our goals and are now in the black on our inventory for next years planting season. I had some help from a few fire crews from the USFS in Nevada and the BLM fire crew in Billings with

transplanting them into their new pots.  It was a nice break for them from all the fires we have had and it was incredibly awesome for the residents of the ranch to be able to mingle with the people they admire so much.

When we were done for the day the crew let the residents tour the fire engines and play around with the lights and sirens. They had a great time with them!

Last Tuesday, I and three dozen of my Department of Interior coworkers from across New Mexico found ourselves back in the classroom. It could have been college. Except this was the office conference room, and our instructors were part of a cadre of retired BLMers and Forest Service folks sent to Carlsbad to give us a lesson in PFC. Proper Functioning Condition (PFC) is a tool for quickly assessing lentic and lotic, i.e. water-based, systems. While a lot of thought must go into completing the PFC, it’s actually a fairly straightforward list of 17 or 18 yes or no questions. What allows this simplicity is the team approach PFC takes. Each group must have at minimum a hydrologist, a vegetation expert, and a soils scientist. Discussion of each question is a must.

Wednesday continued the retro theme—field trip! Our interagency caravan went to apply our training at two sites along the Black and Delaware Rivers. My first thought was “goodness, I’m glad we have specialists with us.” Whether “floodplain above bankfull is inundated in ‘relatively frequent’ events” was beyond me. Our embedded instructor set the tone for a thorough discussion of each point, and though it was all I could do to follow the discussion at first, by the end of the second site I could advocate an opinion. And though I’m still no soil expert or hydrologist, I do have a feel for PFCs, a sense for the group dynamic and the considerations to bring to each question.

Since PFCs are conducted in the growing season and I have less than two months left in my internship, these assessments will not be the biggest takeaway from my CLM experience. Still, this training may prove valuable in the future. Riparian systems are a critical part of the landscape, and this assessment is not just BLM specific, but common to many resource management agencies. And as a final piece of good news, despite dire warnings about chiggers I came away from the training bite-free.