As the second to last month winds down to a closure, I almost feel as if the month that remains were slipping away alongside too. I think of how many things I have yet to do, so many places to fall in love with, and definitely not enough time. I’ve even began planning how I can come back next year. This last month has been a mixture of working with vouchers, working with different divisions learning their skill set (or some of it anyway) and field work. But most its activities have proven to make it a month of personal reflection. It is of my belief that humans can have almost anything they want, but it’s finding the wanting that is difficult. I have learned so much about life through this job: How to push my boundaries so far they get lost in the distance; how to be grateful for life in every situation, just for simply being alive; how to wake up every morning and decide to have a marvelous day…
For example, just a few days ago I went camping to this beautiful and remote area of the park. I chose to go here because it had never been surveyed. I knew this because of map I made using GIS; I plotted all the points that have been entered in the Herbarium Database, of both the Working and Historical Collection. These points give me a good idea as to which areas of the park should still be surveyed and using the points of the Historical Collection, I can find out where the plants that the Working Herbarium is missing actually are. As I was hiking in, I saw a beautiful gigantic butte. It was basically impossible to get to it, but I knew I wanted to, and that no one else would go there. So the next morning I climbed up the steep mountain for several hours, finding different interesting Haplopapus (Asteraceae) on the way. When I got to the butte I felt I had taken myself further than I would normally have, and I succeeded. Thus, now I know that the furthest point I think I can reach, still falls short of what I can actually do. As it is with everyone, I think. Among the Manzanita and Quercus gambelii slithered out the biggest rattle snake I have seen in my life. It was going toward me, so I moved to let it know I was there. It stopped dead in its tracks and when I left to get the camera, it disappeared. I left soon after that, just finished making Chysothamnus and Eriogonum vouchers and bolted down the mountain. When I got to the trail I saw that the way I had come down was probably the only way that was remotely possible to ascend. I had not noticed, but there were small cliffs to either side of the path I took. And that leads me to the idea that gratefulness is really key in life, because anything can happen, yet we are still here with the possibility of loving life. I went on another long hike and found many other plants but by the time I got back to my car and the trailhead leading to my campsite, it was already dark. I left the excess gear and started down Lee Pass. About mid way I saw probably the only other sight that would have shot my adrenalin more than a rattle snake… The glow of two bright green orbs 50 m ahead of me. Mountain lions are common in this area, but if I was to see one, I had always hoped it would be at least in the day time… Alas it was not this way, so I did what I was taught and got ready to fight, just in case it came to that. After waiting some time, hopefully giving the cat time to mind its business, I continued onward to my tent where I laid awake feeling wonderfully alive, albeit in a tad of peril (just the way life usually is).

After savoring my last couple field days in Rocky Mountain NP, it has been back to the office to continue work on the Great Lakes Invasives project. I am now essentially complete with all the data input, which has thus far taken me through just over half of my internship. While much of this has been tedious, it is certainly nice to look through all the spreadsheets, species profiles, and data interfaces and confidently explain the system and how it will work to my supervisors. I can certainly appreciate the importance of this work for the future management of the parks and it has allowed me to consider natural resource and ecological management far more in depth than I have previously. I can also tell you that I will miss my days trotting through the beauty of the Rockies and calling it “work”. One day…

So I am now to continue the presentation side of my project through website design and publicizing. I’ve attach some of my favorite pictures from my time in Rocky.

The mornings feel like fall now. It’s harder to get up because the pitch black sky is telling me that I should still be asleep, and the chill in the air makes me want to curl up in my cozy bed. The days are still warm, however, and I’m taking advantage of all the available sunlight and warmth before winter sets in. Although many plants have been done seeding for a while, there are still many that are waiting for their moment. Yellow rabbitbrush turns entire valleys into golden seas and the flowers of the sagebrush discreetly beckon pollinators to help them reproduce. It has been great to be out in the field nearly every day, as I explore new areas and rediscover others, drive through amazing canyons with nearly sheer rock walls, all while looking for plants and collecting seed. I’ve also been able to continue working at the National Wildlife Refuge just out of town, and have helped Forest Service crews with monitoring. Getting to talk to these crews and to discuss differences in monitoring techniques, and to hear about their past experiences and amazing stories has reminded me why field biology is so appealing to me. I am not ready to settle in one spot yet, and seasonal jobs offer me the opportunity to discover parts of the country that I would otherwise never visit. I have been able to explore some amazing areas of California and Nevada that I would never have known existed, while hiking and collecting seeds as part of the job.

A rainbow after a desert storm collecting rabbitbrush seed with Liz in Nevada High Rock Canyon, NV

I have been collecting seeds from plants for a while now, and everything seems to be winding down for the last flush of seeds that will be collected late October/early November. Driving through a meadow after picking from a population of sideoats gramma (Bouteloua curtipendula) I am suddenly made aware of how everything has changed since I first drove this road in June. Everything was so new and green and full of promise back then. Now colors have changed, plants have died back and I am filled with a sense of calm anticipation. I can almost feel the silent activity as everything around me prepares for the coming winter. How beautiful this all is!

Oregon is a large state made up of a gradient starting with the huge pine forests on the west to sagebrush steppe on the east. I can tell from observing the reactions of visitors to the area and those who look at my photos from Lakeview that the bleakness of the high desert in fall is not attractive to everybody. The majestic beauty of pine stands impresses the average person, while the stark beauty of the high desert may be lost upon them. This time of year it is especially easy to dismiss the splendor of southeast Oregon, when everything but the shrubs and junipers have said their goodbyes and turned a hopeless shade of blonde. Maybe because I grew up on the prairie, making me partial to empty horizons, but the beauty of the high desert continues to amaze me everyday.

The sagebrush steppe may seem like an endless homogeneous ecosystem, but upon closer look there are numerous distinct micro-ecosystems. The extremely varied geology of this area creates semi-isolated pockets with their own specific soil types, and microclimates, allowing for an array of unique places to develop.

Among these unique places is a formation called Mahoghany Butte. At first glance there is nothing remarkable about this compared to the other buttes it is nestled between. It is a large, regular, butte-shaped, covered in grasses, rocks, and sagebrush. However, on closer inspection of the very top of this butte one sees a dark patch. This patch is a very old mountain mahoghany forest that crowns the butte at 6800 ft, and barely spills over the edges. This shrub has grown to 12 to 15 feet making it the tallest thing for miles. Looking out over the area, one can see nothing similar to it, and the recruitment for new mountain mahoghany seedlings lower on the butte seems to be quite low. The isolated forest is one of Mother Nature’s mysteries. I am sure that with a little soil and climate inspection the forest could be readily explained. But on top of the butte, surrounded by the twisted mountain mahoghany limbs and the feathery seeds, shimmering in the sun, the place feels almost magical.

Mahoghany Butte from a distance

A view from the top of Mahoghany Butte

In the "forest"

WoW….I can not believe that I am half way through the fourth month of five to complete with the SOS program. Recently I have been working with a family that contracts with the BLM and grows BLM SOS seed. The couple joined me in the field last week to complete Symphoricarpos rotundifolius (Mountain Snowberry) collection. The time I spent with them was valuable and interesting. They are exuberant about the SOS program and have many great research ideas, some of which include defining species group parameters. Cataloging which species are found in conjunction with one another so that restoration efforts can be maximized. It is refreshing to work with civilians that are passionate about improving the quality of public lands.
Recently I was speaking with another intern at our neighboring office and found myself saying that with every passing month I feel much more confident in my ability to complete the job successfully. I am able to identify seed ripeness much more easily and with confidence, I am able to collect more quickly efficiently and accurately, and my off-road driving skills have improved tremendously. The privilege of driving the government trucks is wonderful and has allowed me to see a lot more of the beautiful country out here then I would if I were traveling as a civilian. I am up to a total of 24 collections, when I package and send out the completed seed lots I feel a great sense of pride to see my completed work. The fall is just about in full swing here in Surprise Valley and many of the shrubs are nearing seed ripe. I should be busy with collections for a bit longer thankfully, and I hope that the weather does not turn too cold to fast.

It’s an amazing experience to work at the Safari Park here in San Diego. Last week we got to see the Cheetah Run which is a 150 yard stretch of lawn on which a cheetah chases a stuffed animal and can run up to 70 mph. The cheetahs are always accompanied by their dog partners who are raised with the cheetah cubs. The dogs go with the cheetah everywhere and provide them with a security blanket. It’s so much fun to be able to walk in the park after work and look at all of the animals. The Safari Park itself is 900 acres with an additional 900 acres of land preserved in back of it. The additional 900 acres is primarily coastal sage scrub where there are many ongoing experiments. These studies include Herp arrays which monitor the reptile biodiversity and restoration plots for the threatened cactus wren. We have been able to help out on both of these studies. While doing the Herp arrays I saw lizards, small mammals, scorpions, and even a tarantula. While monitoring the cactus wren plots I almost stepped on a red diamondback rattlesnake, which was very exciting. I enjoy the seed collections and exploring San Diego County, but I am also very grateful for all the other opportunities that the park provides. It’s always an adventure!

I am now more than halfway done with my internship in Grand Junction, Colorado. I’ve spent the last two months doing rangeland health assessments in and around the Dolores River canyon, during which time I’ve spent 3 nights a week camped out in a BLM trailer. Our trailer was nicknamed “the Chateau” and was outfitted with a wine cellar, though some may refer to it as “a cooler full of non-alcoholic beer.” The men’s trailer was referred to as “the servants’ quarters.” Yes, trailer life was great fun. But, the fieldwork part of the land health project is now over. We collected data from almost 100 sites, which involved sampling vegetation and measuring canopy gaps along a 50-meter transect, doing soil stability tests, and assessing soil erosion, hydrologic function, plant functional group composition, and plant mortality at each site. It’s now my job to enter all this data into a GIS database and map the land health status of the entire area.
After spending nearly every day of my internship working in the field, working primarily in the office has been a major change of pace. After I’ve gotten used to hiking around all day, I get pretty restless staying inside and staring at a computer screen. But since I’ve spent the field season only working with a few other people, it’s nice to get to know other people in the office. It’s also very interesting to see all the field data coming together and see how it will be used.
As a side note, I got to spend a week taking a course in MIM (multiple indicator monitoring), which is used to monitor land use impacts on streams. MIM involves sampling riparian plant species composition, woody species height and age class, bank stability, bank alteration, gravel size distribution, and pool and riffle composition. After spending so much time hiking around in the desert uplands, spending a week wading around in a stream was a blast. Although after learning so many upland plants, I found I was almost completely clueless on riparian species.
Another side note: Bear sightings! Three of them! Unfortunately they ran away too quick for me to get a picture.
You stay classy, fellow CLMers.

I am now a tad over half way done with my adventures in Colorado for my internship in Denver. Life has passed by quickly while working in the beautiful scenery in this area. Summer has come and gone and fall is now here with talk of snow being around the corner? Being from Iowa, snow usually hits around the end of November or beginning of December with possible early surprises around Halloween from time to time. So talk of snow hitting in September is so foreign to me. Well, living in a new area provides fun new experiences. At least my supervisor told us that the first few snow falls don’t usually stick for long, but could end our seed collecting season early. My fingers are crossed for no early snow.

Phacelia formosula

With summer over, our rare plant monitoring is now winding down. Our last two day trip was a few weeks ago near Walden, CO for North Park Phacelia that is in the waterleaf family, Phacelia formosula. This was our only frequency monitoring that we performed this year. Frequency monitoring is performed along a transect and a quadrat is set at a determined measurement and it is recorded if the plant exists within that particular location, for this research a meter by meter quadrat was used. The quadrat is then placed along the same transect at equal distances apart (2 meters) with the first one set randomly at 0, 0.5, 1, or 1.5 meter mark a certain number of times, ten times for this plot, and is repeated for each transect.

Looking for P. formosula within a quadrat along a transect.

So, when we saw P. formosula in four of the ten quadrats along our first transect, our plant had a forty percent frequency, which is recorded and later statistically analyzed with data collected from past years. This research on P. formosulais also extended to frequency of flowering to extrapolate its reproductive potential this year and trends over time.

A gust of wind and thermal convection took a good portion of our data sheets... we luckily found one down the road though the rest were long gone.

On our way home from our monitoring extravaganza, we stopped by Kremmling, CO to check out two plants we had seen flowering earlier and luckily found that they were both fruiting and ready for harvest. We ate lunch, and first began with Castilleja flava, an Indian Paintbrush species (yellow) and finished a long day with Triglochin maritime, an arrowgrass species, and then finished our trek home. Since then, we have been collecting seed and have doubled our collections within two weeks. Part of the reason for this explosion of seed collecting is that earlier we were also monitoring rare plants, some of our collections were difficult and needed multiple trips to complete them, and many of the plants were not fruiting yet. Only so much can be done based on Mother Nature and how the plants react to the weather conditions. We had a boom this year with a really wet late spring and early summer, but then went into a drought that has hindered many plants.

Cool red rock formation at South Valley Park

As we keep ramping up our seed collections, finish our last two single day trips for monitoring, and fall takes over, I am looking forward to seeing all the beautiful fall colors I’ve only heard about in the mountains of Colorado.

Jeffrey Flory, BLM Colorado State Office

The last three months have flown by quickly. I’m having a great time down here. The perfect weather complements this learning experience nicely. The temperature is way milder than I counted on.
I finally ran into my first rattle snake in the field. I saw it on its “morning commute” to get some breakfast. It didn’t even notice me as it cruised through a patch of Xylococcus (ericaceae).
I have also been doing very interesting things aside from seed saving. This week involved habitat monitoring in the order of vegetation surveys in a reserve to which endangered kangaroo rats are relocated. This is one of the first vegetation surveys I have ever taken part of and am grateful for the experience.
Overall, I am having lots of fun learning new things in the pacific southwest.