Midway through June it’s finally beginning to feel like summer is truly here, especially now that I’ve managed to have several full field days. Last month I put on my environmental educator hat and helped out with a few projects outside of the botany realm I normally work in – first by leading a group of Junior High students through a series of activities to monitor water quality, and then a few weeks later by helping to prepare a poster and presentation about sage-grouse for a Migratory Bird Day walk. It was fun to work on something different, and great to introduce some young(er) people to how much fun field work can be.

Greater Sage-grouse Tail. Photo by Dan Dzurisin, Licensed through Creative Commons 3.0

After these interesting non-botany projects, I also got to start in on the 2012 field season plant work. We put in a few new plots and read old plots to monitor Astragalus debequaeus, Penstemon grahamii, Physaria obcordata, and Physaria congesta. It’s been a dry year in Colorado, so the Astragalus debequaeus especially seems to be struggling, but we’re hopeful that they’ll bounce back next year. That monitoring was particularly interesting, because A. debequaeus is a new species for me. The others were fun, in familiar scenery and with some familiar faces that I met during the monitoring trips last year.

Finally, Darnisha, the new CLM intern in our office, arrived this week. This means that we have a great excuse to begin SOS, and have been out scouting. We’ve identified several nice looking populations, and are hopeful that this will be a good collection year.

Hooray summer!

Sama Winder
BLM CO State Office

The modoc sucker is a smaller member of the sucker family. It lives in montane streams in a veriety of habitat–from silty meadering marshes to steep canyon streams. These are two habitats that are very interesting to navigate at 2:00 in the morning–when we were doing our surveys. Jane Fonda’s workouts have nothing on walking up a  pine-needle-covered canyon wall in felt bottom boots and waders. If anybody out there is looking for a weight loss plan I’ve found it!

The good news, other than a great cardio session, is that we saw lots of suckers!  From now on I am going to do my fishing at midnight. You could almost pick up the fish, they were so still. We also saw many large tasty looking trout. To all the fishermen out there–do your stream recon at night and you will be sure to find some great fishing holes. As far as suckers go, this is kind of a Cinderella story. This is a species that may potentially be downlisted, so it is great to see their populations stabilize, occupying in many cases full reach of their available habitat…however inaccessible that habitat may be. 🙂

This past month has flown by in the Modoc. Already I cannot believe all of the incredible opportunities that have been afforded me. I am already growing very fond of the expansive skies and open spaces of this ruggedly beautiful area. Every day I am discovering something new and appreciating more about this place.

Last weekend I went camping a mere 14 miles up from where I live at Mill Creek Campground near Clear Lake. Several of the CLM interns from Lakeview, OR BLM joined us up there and we all enjoyed the quiet beauty surrounding us- and some campfires and smores as well! We went hiking around the lake while pausing to study various plant species and discuss similarities and differences between our field work.

Just this last week my partner Joe and I traveled to Lava Beds National Monument, where we stayed and worked for the entire week. The first day we attended a California Phenology Project workshop, which was fascinating. Phenology is the study of seasonal or bio-logical changes such as leafing out, flowering, pollination, seeding and animal migration. According to the California Phenology Project’s website,

“The phenological status of plants and animals across the seasons is very dynamic and is closely linked to climatic and ecological variables. Consequently, tracking the phenology of plants and animals is a compelling way in which to study how living systems are functioning in response to climate variability and, over the long-term, to climate change.

The CPP is initially focusing on plants in seven pilot parks,encompassing desert, coastal and mountain areas, and building upon existing monitoring protocols and programs of project collaborators. However, project products and infrastructure are being designed to support monitoring and educational activities for 18 California NPS units and parks in adjacent states.”

For more information on this awesome project or how to get involved go to http://www.usanpn.org/cpp/

Learning about this Phenology Project was great because it is something that we do everyday- looking at many different species of plants in their various stages. For instance, back at the BLM lands near Alturas Joe and I are finding many of the species of plants we plan on collecting seeds from are nearly ready. It is so exciting to see the grasses ripening and flowers giving way to fruit. When we get back from attending the CLM Workshop in Chicago we will have many ready to collect!

I have been living here in Monterey for about two months now and it is only getting better. I work on Fort Ord National Monument (the newest national monument in the United States. Recently we had a ceremony for the national monuments depute. At this event we had some great guests which included U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, U.S. Rep. Sam Farr, Garrison Commander Col. Joel J. Clark, Department of the Interior Deputy Secretary David Hayes, White House Council on Environmental Quality Chair Nancy Sutley, and Bureau of Land Management Director Bob Abby.
President Obama made Fort Ord a National monument on April 20, 2012, “Fort Ord’s dramatic landscape lives in the memories of thousands of veterans as their first taste of Army life, as a final stop before deploying to war, or as a home base during their military career,” Obama said.
Fort Ord was an old military base from World War 1 through Desert Storm and now is home to beautiful trails and wildlife neighboring the Monterey Peninsula. I am very fortunate to be working here and hope to stay here as long as possible.
On another note I have been collecting many species a week for Seeds of Success for example Tomcat Clover scientific name Trifolium wildenovii. It has been quite the scavenger hunt trying to find all the species on my list my mentor and I have created.
Another project I have been doing is keeping signs posted and up to date with the location of a sheep herd on the Fort Ord, so that people with dogs understand the dangers of having your dog off lease around these natural landscapers. This last Saturday at the public lands day site on Fort Ord we held the first annual “Sheep Appreciation Day”, where people could come out and watch the sheep dogs and herders doing demonstrations, some other herders sheering sheep, and people knitting a blanket from the sheep wool.
I am having a great time here and can’t wait for the next project to come about!

Working at both C&O Canal NHP and Catoctin Mountain NP in Maryland so far has been challenging, insightful and exciting. Since I only recently started, I am still going through lots of training and taking field trips to see various sites within the parks. But so far I have loved every minute of it and can’t wait to see what is in store for me this summer and fall.

My interests are in plant ecology and I will be focusing on rare, threatened and endangered plant species while here at the park. I will also be doing vegetation surveys with deer exclosures to determine the impact of white tailed deer on native vegetation. Deer populations in Maryland have skyrocketed and they have only recently started deer management plans to thin the herds. These plots should reflect smaller deer densities through increasing species richness and abundance, but only time will tell!

I will also be working on vulnerability assessments for climate change for both parks. This includes using climate change forecast models and applying them to habitats to predict how plants and animals will react to a changing world. I have read a lot about them and I am excited to attempt my first one. These results could be really useful in implementing long term management plans for parks and possibly save them money, resources, and time.

I have a few pictures that I will post later in the week. But so far I am loving my time here in Maryland, gaining some great experience, and meeting some amazing people!

I recently started my CLM internship with the San Bernardino National Forest (SBNF) in Big Bear, California on May 25^th. It was certainly a whirlwind getting here given that I graduated from college four days before my start date, but I am now comfortably settled in my new community and am having a great time getting to know my coworkers, mentor, and the surrounding forest. I feel so fortunate to have been plopped into such a spectacularly beautiful area with such generous, welcoming people.

Over the next five months, my position will mostly entail mapping sensitive and endangered plant species in the area, transferring data from the SBNF’s previous geodatabase to the online geodatabase the entire U.S. National Forest now uses, and probably making an interpretive guide to the forest’s wildflowers to be displayed at our visitor’s center so that guests can identify flowers that they see while out hiking.

My first few weeks on the job have been very informative and engaging. I have spent most of my time in the field mapping the mustard species Arabis parishii, or Parish’s rock cress, which is only found in the San Bernardino Mountains. Perhaps the most special attribute of this area is the occurrence of “pebble plain” ecosystems which are relict alpine meadows from the Pleistocene epoch 10,000 years ago. These pebble plains are covered with chunks of quartzite crystals and clay soils that are subject to intense freeze-thaw cycles (we’re at ~7,000 feet here!). Few plants can grow under these inhospitable conditions so the ones that do are very unique; A. parishii is one such plant. By mapping the current A. parishii population, we are able to compare our new data with previous data taken in the same area which has been informative in determining the effects the aftermath of a 2003 forest fire has had on the plant’s range. Preliminarily, we have found that A. parishii occurrence is lower than at the time the previous data was taken, probably due to a large Bromus tectorum, or cheat grass, influx that appeared after the fire.

I think the most valuable skills that I have learned thus far are related to field mapping. In previous field jobs the ArcPad GIS devices were extremely confusing, but thanks to my patient coworkers at this job, I’ve learned how to use the units efficiently and comfortably.

Well, this seems long enough but I’ll sign off by saying that if my job continues like this, I will certainly never be bored in the coming months! Thanks to everyone who has made this experience possible!!

Typical pebble plain. The pink hue is from buckwheat flowers (my new favorite plant!)

One of the two gopher snakes I saw on my first day in the field.

 

Arabis parishii, the plant I've been mapping.

I’m here in Lakeview, Oregon, interning with the BLM with a handful of other interns. We’re all working on different types of plant projects, and so the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of getting to know everything we’re seeing out here.  Being from Northeast Ohio, I’m used to identifying forest wildflowers and deciduous trees, but in Lakeview I’m becoming a pro at getting to know grasses,  shrubs, and little scrubland flowers.  As a rangeland monitoring intern, I help to check long-term plots within BLM lands that ranchers periodically use for grazing.  Some of the plots we check have been established in the 1970s, and so the photos and data we take are used to compare the health of the land to what it used to be.  We record what species are in certain areas and try to assess the health of the rangeland. We also have been measuring shrub cover, mainly of sagebrush, to help collect more information for the infamous sage-grouse.
The transects that we run to get all of our data can get a bit repetitive, but the BLM has a ton of land here and we drive out to lots of different sites and see a lot of landscape.  The driving itself has proved to be a bit of an adventure, with lots of old bumpy roads that take some practicing to get a handle on. We’re near an Air Force base and so we often see low flying jets and hear roaring sonic booms out in the middle of the scrub desert. A little eerie, but being out so far from big roads and any towns has also been really refreshing. It seems that every day I find a new plant that I haven’t learned yet to take back to the office and identify.  I’m excited for more flowers to start blooming and the grasses to get greener and fuller as the season continues.  We see lots of pronghorn out in the field, as well as hawks, eagles, rabbits, and lizards. No snakes or mountain lions so far, but we’ll see how the summer goes!

Typical views from work

The past four weeks have been a huge jump for me, moving from the now seemingly tiny and temperate country of New Zealand and being plonked down in the middle of a gigantic, dry continent. I’m having fun getting my head around the way “things work” in this country…banking, insurance, driving on the right hand side of the road [Insert long and ever expanding list here]…you know, all those things you take for granted when you’ve grown up with them and your parents showed you how to do them?? It seems many of my instincts are nul and void over here.

Despite necessary evils of getting my life organised, I’m absolutely loving being here! I guess it helps that the first weeks of work involved driving up to Lander and into the Big Horn Basin area with Adrienne. I spent the past 2 weeks visiting beautiful places and learning about what plantey things people are doing in this state, especially with regards SOS, plant conservation and reclamation planning/studies. Its fascinating and I’m really excited!

Here are a few pictures taken on said adventures, I have many more if anyone is interested in seeing lots of pictures of landscapes, flowers, often with bugs in them… also small mammals (we don’t actually have native mammals in NZ, and I’m a fan, so this place is full of endless entertainment for me).

SOS Scouting the sagebrush near gashills with Lander interns botanizing in beautiful places

Looking for dieback in sensitive species endemic to Wyoming

Botanizing in Beautiful places

In the past month, I finally finished my taxonomic project on Florida lichens. It took over five months to manage all the specimens and ship them to herbaria around the world, but it was time well spent.  I am now working on creating dichotomous keys to Florida lichens and hope to create a guide that will foster more research into these organisms.

The other day, I was filing specimens back into the herbarium and found a very old collection. It was an exsiccate from the 1890s. An exsiccate is a set of lichens curated and annotated by an expert and then sold to herbaria. It creates a standard, and serves as a useful identification tool. Although the envelope was fragile, the collection was stunning, and looked as if it had just been collected. It was nice to know that despite not being digitized or cared for, the specimen endured. As long as a physical collection remains, the specimen will remain.

I went deep into the Owyhee Mountains in Idaho, on a two day adventure with fellow BLM employees. It was stunning land, more wide and vast than I had ever seen. We went into a BLM wilderness area looking for sage grouse and slickspot peppergrass (a rare plant). Slickspot peppergrass grows on very dry and hard clay, that cracks. Its called desert pavement. There are lots of rare and endemic plants that grow on this surface.  Alas the rain made some roads impassable, so we weren’t able to reach the most remote areas. But it was great to get out and see the land.

Barry Kaminsky

BLM- Idaho State Office

Rorippa columbiae

After a couple of weeks of cold weather (including snow!) up here in Lakeview, it is finally summer! Flowers are blooming, lizards are sunning, and interns are hunting for rare plants.  Jessy, Liz and I have travelled all around the Lakeview district for the BLM, looking for populations of sensitive species, including Rorippa columbiae (Columbian yellowcress), Cymopterus nivalis (snowline spingparsley), and Pogogyne floribunda (profuseflower mesa mint).

Cymopterus nivalis

Some of the populations were last surveyed in the early 1980s, so finding and mapping them can be both exciting and sometimes frustrating.  We spent some time up at Table Rock, which was gorgeous and fun to hike, as well as the Black Hills and various rims and dry lakes.

Paeonia brownii

In addition to the target species, we have had a chance to see some of the most beautiful flowers of the Pacific Northwest, including Paeonia brownii (Brown’s Peony), Sphaeralcea coccinea (scarlet globemallow), and many species of Castilleja (Indian Paintbrush).  Looking forward to finding more interesting plants and exploring Southern Oregon!

Emily