Autumn in the deserts and mountains of New Mexico is a strong contrast to the Midwest falls that I am accustomed to. Although I do miss the deciduous forests and the breathtaking array of colors, I am much more content with the weather here. The dark mornings and evenings are cool reminders that winter is coming soon, even if the days are still reaching the high 80’s. The gusty canyon winds up in the Organ Mountains where I reside haven’t blown us away yet and the cooler weather is making animal appearances more frequent. Just last week while driving to work we saw our first coyote in the area.

Seed collection is winding down and, with the exception of one more possible collection, we are in the final stages of the year. Shipping vouchers, updating the herbarium and data entry into the B-G Base are the only steps left to be completed. However we have been working in collaboration with CBG to collect samples of a clonal endangered species, Lepidospartum burgessi, so that the DNA can be compared across a large area near the Texas border. The plants are not producing seed so the purpose is to determine if they are all clones or if the DNA has some variation that may be further studied.

The Las Cruces area is in its festival season apparently, because every other weekend is some great community gathering. Some of the ones that were missed out on were Wine Fests, Oktoberfest, and the Hatch Green Chile Fest but we made to Salsa Fest and Enchilada Fest (where they construct an 8-foot enchilada!). It’s hard to believe October, month 4 for me, is already in full swing. November will undoubtedly fly by, and December will be a harsh change when I leave the desert haven for the coldest part of a Midwest winter. I’ll try not to think that far ahead…

Organ Mountain Moonrise

Burglar's Den near Guadalupe Mountains

Having a project to call one’s own is the most important part of an experience such as this Conservation and Land Management Internship. Courtney, my fellow CLM intern, and I were given the task of presenting to our field office on artificial water sources and wildlife escape structures. Artificial water sources are man-made troughs, reservoirs, guzzlers, etc. that have been introduced to arid environments to offset anthropogenic losses of natural waters. Wildlife escape structures allow animals to deal with poor water source designs. Bird ladders are common now due to the difficulty birds face in escaping from a water trough after falling in.

After reading up on the basic premise behind the water sources and escape structures, we made a list of features that we would take a note of as we started hunting down water sources within our field office boundaries (e.g. height of the sidewalls, length of the source, amount of water inside, whether or not a bird ladder was present and its condition, and any obstructions over or around the water). We got a record of the locations of 37 known artificial water sources and took off.

We found that only about one-third of those water sources (mostly round metal troughs or empty engine cases) had an adequate bird ladder. These are vital as escape routes for birds that fall in the water, giving them a chance to climb out before they tire and drown. We also saw that over half of the troughs that we visited had some sort of obstruction, whether wooden fencing, barbed wire, or thick vegetative growth in the water. Obstructions can be deadly barriers to birds and bats that drink while flying and require larger expanses of open water. Finally, troughs are supposed to be full to within 6 inches of the top, yet only one-third of those that we saw had adequate water content, and most were simply empty.

An unfortunate casualty of a trough with too little water and no bird ladder to aid in its escape

With these results, we gave a presentation to the BLM office that hopefully got people thinking about how we approach water development, maintain the developments, and keep these water sources from causing more harm than good. We still plan on visiting water sources among our other tasks, but as we both finish within a month of now, it’s likely that we won’t get a chance go much more in depth. I do, however, appreciate that we had the chance to investigate the issue freely and uncover the issues on our own!

The presentation!

This Mountain Plover seemed to enjoy the thick vegetation sitting in this large water trough

Some Utah Prairie Dogs stood at attention as we recorded data on a series of troughs near their colony

I am very excited that my internship has officially been extended for an extra 2 months! To “pay for” the extension, I have been working on seed collections of 6 species for the Seeds of Success (SOS) program. So far they include winterfat, showy milkweed, rabbitbrush, wild licorice, and shadscale saltbrush. The sixth species is to be a sagebrush, which the Cody Field Office will probably use for reseeding projects on prescribed burn areas.

Other work activities have included documenting aspen regeneration progress in a riparian project area, building buck and rail  fence around a historical structure to protect it from livestock, and painting wood stain on fences around open mine shafts to prevent rotting. It’s always nice to have a break in routine to try something different, and hopefully I will be able to assist more people around the office to get a taste of what they do.

Other than that, it’s the marvelous business of field work as usual and this intern is quite happy to keep on keeping on.

As everyone else is wrapping up their internships, mine is just beginning.  I’m working with the Bureau of Land Management in Portland, happy to be employed, and excited about the potential for new experiences.  First on the list: WINTER!  I’m a Floridian so I’m used to the wet.  The cold AND wet is a challenge that I welcome with open arms (and waterproof gloves, a jacket, and rain pants).

Douglas firs and other conifers - Near Elk Lake, Oregon

Yesterday was my first day in the wilds of Oregon.  We were checking up on some contractors who have been sampling for the fungus Bridgeoporus nobilissimus within Willamette National Forest.  Tagging along behind a BLM botanist, I was finally able to get someone to answer my unrelenting stream of questions (thanks, Kelli!) and was properly introduced to the numerous conifers of the Pacific northwest.  The forests were rather drippy as expected, but with the moisture comes thick blankets of mosses and lichens.

Hypogymnia, Platismatia, and other fungi

Cladonia spp. - Near Dunlap Lake, Oregon

One site we visited was located next to a small lake and partially overlapped a rock talus.  The talus has prevented conifers from taking over the area and has allowed deciduous species to proliferate instead.  We were there just in time to see the vine maples (Acer circinatum) with their fall foliage in full effect.

Vine Maple (Acer circinatum)

The talus also provided a home for so many newts (Taricha granulosa)! I’m told that they’re extremely common -too common to warrant a photograph- but I’ve yet to find evidence of that.  As an amateur photographer, I’ve always hated birds for two reasons.  First, they’re usually perched high in the trees behind leaves/branches/obstruction of some sort, and second, they always fly away before I’m able to focus on them.  Newts are the exact opposite… easily accessed, slow moving, and their bright orange bellies are ridiculously adorable to boot!

Rough-Skinned Newt - Near Dunlap Lake, Oregon

It’s unlikely that I’ll be offered very many opportunities to go out in the field during my time in this internship but I’m enjoying the everyday life here in Portland as well. I find it kind of hilarious that I have a job in which I commute to downtown everyday to work in an office building from 8-5:00 five days a week. It’s so normal and stress-free compared to my former schedule as a graduate student. The people that I am working with have been wonderful so far and incredibly welcoming and I look forward to the coming months. We’ll see how I feel about winter come December/January!

Lara Drizd, Forest Service Regional Office & BLM State Office, Portland, OR

Less than a month left of my internship here in New Mexico and oh the adventures I have had. Currently I am getting ready for a weekend trip to the Grand Canyon and I could not be more excited! I cannot wait to watch the sunrise and sunset over the canyon, and to roast marshmallows on the fire.

I have made a few more collections since last time. Now I am mostly waiting for the cool season grasses to go to seed, including Sporobolus cryptandrus, Bouteloua gracilis, and Sporobolus giganteus.

Other than seed collections, I have been involved in some volunteer days here at the Bureau of Land Management. One involved working in the community by painting fences, landscaping, and organizing records. Another day I went out and picked up trash at a local recreation area with over 100 community volunteers.

Wish I could keep typing, but I have to finish packing for the Grand Canyon!

Cheers!

Good golly it’s the last month of my internship already. The seasons have definitely changed, as evidenced by the fact that I spent today doing fieldwork in the snow. It seems like just last week that it was 80 degrees and sunny. Oh wait –  it was just last week. But despite being cold and wet and wishing it was 100 degrees again, the fall colors in western Colorado are absolutely beautiful.

I’ve been spending a lot of the last month in the office doing GIS work, but I’ve also had the opportunity to go out with different people from the office and get experience doing different types of work. Most recently I went out with a geologist and a bat specialist from the Colorado Division of Wildlife to determine whether bats were utilizing an abandoned uranium mine shaft. After determining the shaft was free of radon, I got to go in and look for guano. Yay guano! Afterwards, the geologist took me around to our office’s paleo sites to see fossilized dinosaur bones and tracks, which was extremely cool.

Fossilized prehistoric mammal tracks

Dinosaur bones!

An abandoned uranium mine shaft

Less than a month left. Sigh. I’ll miss you, Colorado.

In two previous entries (22 June 2011 & 30 Aug 2011), I shared about the “hits and misses of perceived desire,” or, in other words, the ways in which my pre-experience idea of and desire to work in a conservation and land management career matched and didn’t the reality of this career as well as how it fit and didn’t fit with my personality and the way I generally function in day to day life. One statement I made was “Perhaps the all-encompassing factor resulting in a match between my prior perception of land management and the reality of land management based on what I have been learning through first-hand observations and experiences has been the rich variety that accompanies this type of career.” And then I asked “So what kind of variety am I talking about? Sounds like a great topic for another blog entry…”

Here’s the 1^st of two entries sharing an area of variety in a conservation/land management career that I’ve discovered and have been enjoying…

Settings. I may be working inside or outside. Typically, indoor work involves the computer, but the tasks performed and the programs used are diverse. I have communicated with email, typed public meeting notes with Microsoft Word, established a record-keeping spreadsheet for our office’s SOS seed collections with Microsoft Excel, created presentations with Microsoft PowerPoint, designed brochures and a poster with Microsoft Publisher, uploaded photos and data from GPS units, and produce maps with ArcGIS; I have also coordinated volunteer work days.

“In the field” has encompassed a wide range of settings and conditions including but not limited to along trails through chaparral vegetation…and in the thick of it (accessed either by crawling or bushwhacking through the shrubs); oak woodlands, annual grasslands, and pine/cedar forest land; on a hilltop and in a valley…and the slopes in between; in the sun and in the shade; bearing with the heat or with the “cold” (these are definitely relative terms); mostly dry days but also some wet days; a backyard with a small group of concerned neighbors; a school gymnasium with eighty members of the public; and rafting down the South Fork of the American River.

People. I have had opportunities to work with a partner or team on a particular projects yet I have also been able to work independently on other assignments. The people I work with have included BLM-employees (preserve manager, biological science technician, botanist, wildlife biologist, directors of fuels management and fire, recreation planner, maintenance specialist), representatives of partnering organizations, volunteers (an undergrad student, members of the Shingle Springs TANF organization), and members of the public (neighbors to BLM land, users of BLM land, elementary students).

More to come in the near future…

Viewing an endangered plant species recently discovered in a new location (biological science technician, botanist, intern)

I’m into the fourth month of my CLM internship and have just sent out the last of our seed to the Bend processing facility. Apart from seed collection I’ve been working on various weed control projects within our management area.

 You might not consider weed control to be the most glamorous of our duties, but it is an important part of land management.  Nationwide, invasive weeds in pastures and farmland cost an estimated $33 billion per year (Cal-IPC 2011).  Noxious weeds have invaded 17 million acres of public rangelands in the West (Selected Noxious Weeds of Northeastern California 1998).  These invasive plants crowd out both native and economically important species and significantly degrade wildlife habitat.

Here is a list of a couple of the little nasties I’ve been helping to eradicate from our management area: Centaurea solstitialis (yellow star thistle), Ditrichia graveolens (stinkwort), and Tamarix ramosissima (tamarisk).

Noxious weeds are managed using a combination of three approaches: manual/mechanical removal, biological control, and the use of herbicides.  Usually the herbicide is applied using backpack sprayers but on rare occasions aerial spraying is implemented for large infestations.

Approximately 350 acres of public land (infested with tamarisk) was sprayed this September in the Panoche Hills of California’s Interior Coast Range.  “This marks the first time that aerial herbicide application has been conducted on BLM land in California” (Dianna Brink, BLM California State Office Range and Weed Program lead).  For more information check out the link below.

(http://www.blm.gov/ca/st/en/info/newsbytes/2011/500_extra-aerial_spraying.html)

 It was pretty neat to watch from the ground.  Hopefully this method will succeed where previous ground level treatments have failed.  

-Aaron Thom

Hollister, CA Field Office

When a co-worker bluntly told me, “Nobody loves the chaparral,” it stopped me in my tracks. If this was true, then what was she trying to protect, and why had I moved across the country to help!?  A few months in, I think I finally understand.

Is the chaparral full of unique and interesting plants that play a vital role in the landscape?

Definitely.

Should it be preserved and protected from development?

Of course, silly question

BUT

Is bushwhacking through dense chaparral a challenging and often disorienting task?

Absolutely.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Crawling through the maze can be great.  I pretend I’m a contestant on The Amazing Race or playing a life-size video game.   Other times though, it has a face only a mother could love and I crave a more welcoming habitat.  When my relationship with the chaparral was at its thorniest I wrote some poems to help work things out.

Field Days

Itchy, prickly burs

Goat grass in my underwear

Missing my gaiters

Star Thistle

Shiny yellow heads

Taunt me. Crouched. Weed wrench in hand.

Waiting for revenge.

A Mother’s Love

Dense leaves, sharp stems shield

Tiny gems in a loving

Embrace. Chaparral.

Over and out.

Sophia Weinmann, El Dorado Hills, CA

I have been in Safford, AZ with the Bureau of Land Management since May. The past 5 months have been challenging, thought provoking, and educational. Being in the southwest has opened my eyes to a whole new world. This ecosystem is fragile and needs extreme care to remain functioning. Grazing has had an enormous impact on the ecosystem and I feel people need to work on how to manage this more efficiently. Being here has made me question the ways things have been done in the past and what can be done to try and heal the landscape and stop degrading more land. I have realized the importance of water and have never been so grateful for a thunderstorm in my life!

I have grown professionally and learned a great deal about working with the federal government. Working with people that may not have the same views or habits can make for a very challenging work environment. I have learned how to work with these people and how to make suggestions without getting into an argument. I would not suggest living and working with the same person if it can be avoided.

I have gained a lot of skills in plant identification and knowledge on things to make days in the field a little easier. Staying organized and taking good field notes is extremely important! I have sharpened my grass identification skills and have really started to enjoy grasses. They are so unique and interesting! I suggest everyone take a closer look at grasses (under and microscope) I wasn’t a big fan of using a microscope until I started this internship. To be honest I kind of avoided them like the plague if at all possible. I was so amazed when I really started looking at flowering grasses under a dissecting scope! I will be getting one of my own sometime in the near future.

Despite the lack of rain and the very hot climate I have seen some gorgeous scenery and some very cool plants! I suggest that everyone participating in this internship spend some time on the weekends exploring! I did a lot of roadside botany and birding on the weekends! This really helped me learn my flora and fauna!