You can tell this pretty lizard is a female by the bright orange spots on her neck.

Holding a wild animal in your hand is not something most people get to experience. It can be anywhere from thrilling to kind of terrifying (I’ve met some fierce chipmunks in the past). This summer, I’ve been fortunate enough to get my hands on the rare Sand Dune Lizard (Sceloporus arenicolus).

With these little guys, we spend a lot more time chasing them around the sand dunes than actually holding them. They’re very elusive, and if you lose track of one you’ve sighted, it’s gone. These are the options for catching one: slip a tiny, tiny noose around its neck, snatch and grab, pounce, dig it out of a hole, or the more civilized pitfall trap. However it happens, it’s pretty exciting to catch one, and every lizard we catch helps protect the habitat from oil & gas drilling.

Not all of my time in Roswell is spent playing the lizard rodeo game, though. My fellow intern, Mary, and I have been lucky enough to have a great mentor who allows us a lot of flexibility with our projects. In addition to catching lizards, we’ve been involved in maintaining wildlife waters, monitoring vegetation after a big fire, checking out reclaimed oil pads, making recommendations for antelope passes along pasture fences, and more. Most recently, we’ve been in a three-office effort to reclaim an oil pad by planting a lot of sand bluestem in the desert. This involved some seriously hard labor, but it has been a lot of fun to get together with the interns from the Carlsbad and Las Cruces offices.

So, this is my favorite story from the summer so far. Mary and I had been learning about pronghorn antelope, and how they travel between pastures. Apparently, pronghorns like to duck under fences, not jump over, so to create antelope passes in long fence lines, a four-strand barbed wire fence with a smooth bottom strand is recommended. One day, Mary and I are driving along in the middle of nowhere and a pronghorn races across the road in front of us. I turn around to watch it and see it go flying up over a fence… and then come crashing down head over heels on the other side.

Help!

We do a quick turnaround, and sure enough, its front hoof is tangled in the top two strands of barbed wire. We approach it pretty carefully, but that hoof is really stuck between the tight wires. Obviously we couldn’t just leave it there, so we broke out the gloves and a piece of rebar and somehow managed to pry the wire apart just enough for our friend to slip his hoof out and run away. After a few steps, the pronghorn stopped and looked back. We’re pretty sure he was saying thank you.

Carolyn Livensperger, Roswell, NM

My name is Dan and I’m a culvert assessor.  To be more specific, I along with my partner Amber Masters assess and inventory culverts within the BLM Rawlins, WY Field Office to determine whether they present a barrier to native fish populations.  Before Amber and I arrived in Rawlins the GIS personnel out of the BLM Wyoming state office produced a map highlighting all points on public lands within the Rawlins Field Office where river, stream, and creek met road.  It’s the job of Amber and I to ground truth these points, as they are not all culverts, and to assess the culverts we come across.  I will not detail this procedure as Amber has already done so but I will say that though culvert inventory and assessment may seem dull its importance shouldn’t be trivialized as barriers (culvert, dam, etc.) present a great threat to many of North Americas fish species.

Purple Rain

I will now step away from passage assessment, as though it does make up the majority of what Amber and I do, it’s not all that we do as we dabble in other fishery related projects like population estimates and exotic species removal.  The former was performed using a multiple-pass depletion method which entails pulling a seine the length of representative segments of the stream or creek being surveyed.  This process can be a bit strenuous at times but is quite fun and interesting as you never know what your haul is going to contain; it also allows one to learn the native and exotic fish species quickly.  Removal of exotic fish populations from drainages within the field office is an interesting procedure as well.  The treatment method which Amber and I participated in involved the use of the piscicide rotenone.  Rotenone is a naturally derived chemical used by many fishery managers as a way to effectively remove undesirable fish populations.  Rotenone’s effectiveness comes from its ability to inhibit cellular respiration thereby starving a fish of oxygen.  It sounds cruel but in many cases it’s the only means for wholly removing exotic fish populations from systems and allowing the re-establishment of native fish species.  The Rawlins Field Office works in conjunction with the Wyoming Game and Fish on projects involving the treatment of systems within the field office.

Roads We Drive

Before a stretch of water is treated an effort is made to recover native fish species from this area.  Recovering native fish is done by donning electrofishing packs and trying to temporarily stun native fish so they can be caught.  After the initial recovery process the rotenone is applied in a coordinated process via multiple drips at a concentration, rate, and duration based on flow (CFS) as well other factors.  A second recovery begins at this time for native fish missed during the initial recovery.  Native fish under the influence of rotenone or those fleeing the rotenone will run into block nets placed within the treatment area.  Those fish that are native are pulled off the nets and placed in fresh water which can reverse the effects of the rotenone if the fish isn’t too far gone.

To prevent effects outside the treatment area the rotenone is neutralized through the application potassium permanganate.  This is a strange site as the potassium permanganate turns the entire treatment stretch purple.  Also, within the treatment area and outside the treatment area baskets of native fish (canaries) are placed and monitored to check the treatment progress and to make sure the rotenone is not reaching outside the treatment area.  After the treatment is complete the effected fish are enumerated and identified.  Before restoration can begin the treatment will be performed a number of times to make sure all non-native fish species have been removed.  Semi-permanent barriers within the treatment area prevent non-native fish from repopulating the treatment area.

Dan Rapp-BLM-Rawlins, WY

Hardly a day goes by that I am not impressed with the scenery in the Rawlins, Wyoming Field Office. I am fortunate to have a project that allows my partner, Dan Rapp, and me to traverse all over this extensive field office. We have sunk waist deep in mucky wetlands, climbed steep, rocky mountains, slid down sand dunes, waded into cool, clear streams, and hiked through sweet-smelling pine and aspen forests. Truly Wyoming is a beautiful and diverse place. It is a far cry from home (Michigan) and I have loved tumbling around this new, exciting landscape.
Not to mention all the bizarre things we have been finding along the way.

Tony Stark

Bicycle on a tree?

Our job is rather droll in comparison to some other projects allotted to CLM interns, but it is very important. Dan and I are conducting aquatic organism passage assessments on stream-road crossings. The passage of fish and other aquatic organisms is critical to their survival and dispersal throughout a watershed. The information we collect will be used to replace, remove or repair barriers to movement. The work we do will have a profound effect on the ecosystems with which we are working.

This is a problem

We spend most of the day driving around to various stream-road crossing sites. We document bridges and fords as passable, for the most part, and typically only are required to evaluate culverts. When we find a culvert the first thing we do is take a look at the structure shape and size as well as some minor details that can affect the ability of a fish to swim. Small things like the depth of the corrugations can make a huge difference to a little sculpin trying to make its way upstream. Other important characteristics such as the amount and depth of the sediment, whether it is accumulating in the culvert or if there is a large amount of debris collecting at the inlet and whether there is a drop at the outlet are also noted. A significant drop disallows upstream passage for many species. The size of the culvert is very important, we have found that most of the culverts are much too small based on the bankfull stream measurements we have taken. Basic physics will allow you to reason that this can cause an incredible increase in velocity through the structure and can make it impossible for a fish to power through that flow without exhausting its energy and ending up back downstream. We use engineering equipment to create a longitudinal profile of the stream. The length of the profile varies from stream to stream. The most crucial information gathered from this are the slope of the culvert, any sort of sediment accumulation at the inlet and the existence of a pool at the outlet. A pool basically provides a “running start” for a fish to jump up into a structure. We take all this information and first run it through a coarse filter to determine passability for Cyprinids (minnows), Salmonids (salmon and trout), Percidae (perch) and Cottidae (sculpins). If the coarse filter is unable to determine passability, we run the data through FishXing software- so far we have not had to use this as all of our locations have been clearly passable or impassable; most have proven to be barriers for at least one of the families with which we are concerned. In the upcoming years there is going to be plenty of work replacing fish barriers based on the information collected by me and Dan.

Dan in a culvert (measuring, I swear!)

Additionally, we have been able to work with other seasonal employees on other projects. I am glad to have been able to do a variety of different thing while I have been here. I have learned everything from engineering-based survey work, limnology assessment techniques, fish and amphibian sampling methods, stream treatments, electrofishing, GIS everything and a slew of menial yet necessary office tasks. We have worked with other departments within our office and also with the Wyoming Game and Fish Department.

Amber Masters

Rawlins Field Offfice, Rawlins ,Wyoming

An early pic of an aster with the camera strap showing!

A later picture of a pea-family plant, note there is no strap in the picture!

This week I’m actually leaving my internship in Rawlins WY and heading home to Natick Massachusetts.  I’m excited to go home and see trees and fall colors, but I’m going to miss the open spaces and the glut of wildflowers (in the spring/early summer).  I spent a lot of time taking pictures of flowers, and I think I got better as the summer went on.  At first, I kept taking pictures with my finger over the lens or the camera strap in the shot, but I improved.

It’s a good thing that I got better at taking pictures because I saw some awesome plants. Here is a picture of me with Penstemon haydenii which is an endangered species and in Wyoming it’s only found in this one locality. We spent the day trudging back and forth across the sand dunes counting each plant. It was tiring, but well worth it to see and monitor such a pretty and interesting plant.

I’m going to miss seeing all these wildflowers, but I won’t miss riding around in a truck for up to six hours a day so I can see them!  The flora is so different in Wyoming and Massachusetts, but I like them both.  Wyoming may be wide open spaces, but if you focus in on the little things around you  it’s easy to appreciate the flora.

Another thing I enjoyed was collecting Limber pine cones for genetic research.  One person would take the pole trimmer and cut out some cones and another person (usually me) scampers around and finds where the pinecones fall, counts them, and then puts them in a burlap bag.  It was messy, because limber pine cones are extremely sappy (kind of like this post).  I wish I had a picture of these cones to show you, but I was too sticky to take out my camera.

– Elizabeth O’Leary

Rawlins, WY

BLM

Once upon a time, on this planet we call Earth, there existed simpler and much less conscious plants and animals that  that lived in an atmosphere which contained much less oxygen than in our present.  As with all living things these organisms died.  Then, over time, and throughout many other unique and novel creatures and eras, microscopic bacteria enzymatically worked upon these prehistoric organisms and successfully broke them down into something that would end up being more valuable to humans than gold or diamonds.  Coupled with the action of  geologic pressure and the correct evolutionary course of modern man, and countless international wars and economic dilemmas, the discovery of fluid minerals came into its short lived existance as man’s undercarriage of a progressive global supply chain and non-renewable combustible, and highly pollutant, natural resource.  Hydrocarbons persist inbetween rock formations deep underground, beneath our beloved hot springs and other precious wildlife refuges, patiently waiting for the  right investors, as in whoever has the most capital, to rip up the surface environment in a pell-mell of machinery to obtain our beloved expendable addiction.

Its important to note that oil and natural gas production does not seem so bad, morally and environmentally, when you drive home from work in the middle of January with full heat blasting on your rose frosted face while driving in your Chevy pick-up, then getting home to a 78 degree house while the outside temperature drops below freezing for the tenth day in a row.  But then you put on the news channel to hear about how you are completely against opposed to new exploration for offshore oil and gas production off the Atlantic coast because you suddenly are worried about the game fish population, although you ate a tuna sandwich for lunch in which the meat came from a diminishing fish population. It is at this point that we, as in all of us who have the luxury of life in America or any first world country, should realize what Newton has passed along to anyone who completed 10th grade physics and may be able to recall his infamous 3rd Law.

My work, as part of this internship, and as possibly best example of combining ‘conservation’ and ‘land management’  together is being part of  Oil and Gas Reclamation.  I am part of the select few, as in only one other person works with me, to inspect oil and gas production wells across northern Montana to determine if energy companies have performed the designated reclamation and environmental protection actions that have been set forth upon them from BLM.  Reclamation services can includes anything from planting the correct seeds, spreading and conserving topsoil, production water disposal and re-injection, reducing road erosion and traffic, and protecting wildlife habitat and nesting grounds.  Personally, I do not do any of the reclamation work itself, but have the grand course of writing letters and calling up any number of energy and production companies to tell them that if they do not conform to written orders and reclamation standards we get to issue them a hefty fine. The most difficult part of my internship, besides having to constantly convince myself that I am doing the environment a favor by driving around a truck hundreds of miles a day to take a few pictures and look at soil quality, is mapping out hundreds of different well locations between as many as 5 counties across northern Montana and driving to them solo. I have covered more ground throughout this summer than I have throughout my entire life before this internship.  So, my conclusion as of now is that it is impossible to have energy production with zero impact on the natural world, but reclamation is in place to ameliorate the negative short and long term economic and environmental effects produced by human desire energy. If we want to enjoy our cars and our heat and anything of the like we must also put back time, money, and energy to conserve the land we are changing.

Spencer Rubin, BLM, Great Falls, MT.

My time here in Pinedale, Wyoming is rapidly approaching it’s end. Summer here is fleeting but beautiful. The snow on the mountains barely had time to melt away before it started accumulating again.

This is a typical aspen stand (good for elk bad for snowshoe hares)

Working in a field office so immersed in mineral development has proved to be a challenge at times, and certainly an experience I will not soon forget. I have had many opportunities to work on various different projects around the field office, but was primarily involved in surveying the for snowshoe hare habitat (aka Canada Lynx foraging habitat) in areas where an aspen regeneration/conifer reduction project is proposed. To do this we measure horizontal cover, count and measure the tree species and count the rabbit pellets. I like to keep my bear spray readily accessible in case I startle a grizzly. I have yet to see a hare or a lynx, but I haven’t given up yet.

The view as I am heading into work for the day

I also spent a large portion of time surveying the landscape for pygmy rabbit habitat as well as for raptor nests and prairie dog towns. After my initial fears of contracting the plague subsided, I decided that they can be cute… from a distance.

Jack Rabbit, Cottontail, Pygmy Rabbit...

I hope everyone is having a good time and learning a lot.

~ Audrey

It is hard to believe September 09 has rolled around so quickly!  It seems like we were all together just weeks ago watching condors sore along the Grand Canyon’s south rim.  As I am certain those amazing birds continue to sore and flourish in that  place of grandeur, here in central Colorado, my experience with plants is soaring for me.  I truly am enjoying working and learning with one of the best botanists in the country, Carol Dawson.  I also have had the opportunity to work with Peter Gordon, who has worked with Carol now for 5 years.  Both of these folks are fantastic mentors and have shared their knowledge and skills with me throughout this internship experience.  We focus our time monitoring rare Colorado plants and collecting native seeds for SOS.

So I have a couple stories to share with you.  One is about a very rare Penstemon.  I had the opportunity to help monitor and obtain data regarding this plant a couple of weeks ago.  The other story involves collecting seeds for Seeds of Success.  Peter Gordon took all of these great pictures (well I took the one of him), so thanks Peter!

So beautifully rare and precious: It is hard not to think about Darwin and speciation when you work with rare endemic Penstemons.  I always do (think about Darwin when I work around Penstemon species).  And I have a special love for the genus Penstemon since I worked on a rare endemic Penstemon for three years in grad school.  Penstmon is the largest endemic genus in North America.  Scientists believe this is one of a few genera that is an example of continental radiation.  So rather then tons of species evolving quickly on an island setting (adaptive radiation), here tons of Penstemons evolved relatively quickly (5-10 million years) on a Continent, our continent.  Lots of these species are endemic and many are considered rare,  threatened, and globally imperiled.   This summer we have worked with and observed a few more here in Colorado including: Penstemon grahamii, P. penlandii, and P. debilis.

A couple weeks ago we took off toward Glenwood Springs, Colorado to monitor P. debilis, or Parachute Beardtongue. From I-70 looking north you can see the approach raod to get to the place these plants grow.

Sadly you can not see the road zig zagging in this photo, but the site is up in the far oil shale cliffs where they mined for oil shale rock in the 1980's and I think the 1990's.

It looks like a trail zig zagging back and forth switch-back style, a trail you would hike up maybe, but certainly not drive up!  Peter assured me our final destination was near the top of the plateau on an upper most zag.  He did suggest I sit on the left side of the car so as not to pass out while looking down out the window.

Looking down on the road to the site where we worked with Penstemon debilis.

We did zig-zag up, and true to Penstemon style, I was amazed at where these plants had decided, (I know there is no deciding in evolution), to evolve to selective pressures and become a species, absolutely unbelievable.

Here is a small population growing near the opening of one of the mine shafts. I think you can see flags indicating individual plants.

The plants literally live on steep rocky slopes with thin slabs of shale constantly falling on top of them.  Just like plants that have adapted to shifting sands in sand dune environments, these plants have adapted to thin pieces of shale rock constantly covering up their little plant bodies.

Shale rock cliffs above the plants. Rocks are constantly falling adding to the talus slope made of shale rock. Actually a rock fell near Peter as we were collecting data!

Their stems continue to grow outward beyond the rocks that land on them.  You begin to realize why this is one of the rarest Penstemons in North America!  We proceeded to stretch the measuring tapes across the monitoring site and began the process of counting stems.

This is the population of plants we monitored on the steep shale slope.

With this plant it is impossible to count plants.  Most of the plant is covered with rock which makes it difficult to distinguish separate plants.  Carol Dawson decided years ago, when they first began monitoring this little jewel, that the best way to determine the health of the population from year to year was to simply count stems.  So count the stems we did.

Peter Gordon counting stems of Penstemon debilis.

Here I am struggling to keep stable on the shifting shale as I count Penstemon debilis stems.

We also determined how many stems had flowers or fruit and how many for simply vegetative.  I was amazed and the amount of seeds these plants were producing.  And with my interest and love for pollination biology, I wondered which bees were hard at work pollinating this plant.  Most Penstemons are pollinated by Osmia bees, so I suspect these were insects hard at work weeks before the seeds developed.

Penstemon debilis flowering. Notice all the seeds below the plant indicating a bee was hard at work weeks before!

Another lovely shot of this extrordinary plant, Penstemon debilis.

And then you have to wonder, where do those seeds go with all of this rock, and just how do the seedlings get started??  It really is all so amazing that species can survive in such seemingly adverse environments.  I think this is one of the most incredible plants I have seen and had the honor to work with, and this is by far one of my favorite experiences this summer.

A day in the life of a CLM Intern…. Hmm, I would rather say five months in the life of a CLM Intern. Granted I won’t discuss all five months and keep you captivated for pages upon pages of experiences and happenings that have made my life so incredibly amazing since the beginning of my internship. Rather, I just want to stress how important and connected each and every one of those days that would make up my time here in Vernal, Utah. Most of what I do is connected to what each and every one of you is doing as well. Hence: Conservation and Land Management. I came into this position with the hopes of expanding my knowledge of plant morphology and taxonomy. I’ve gained so much more than just that; I still have a month or so left!

The Bureau of Land Management’s Vernal Field Office is an Oil & Gas Pilot office for the entire northeast portion of Utah, which covers a HUGE amount of land with an incredibly diverse landscape and ecology across all the areas that make up our portion of the Uintah Basin. It’s absolutely fantastic to be able to go out into the dry high desert two hours south of Vernal and survey and monitor for two rare species of Penstemon one day and then venture up into the green areas northeast of the Ashley National Forest to monitor other bureau sensitive and/or federally listed species. All the while ventures around the entire area between monitoring stints to collect native seeds for Seeds of Success. I can honestly say that my bloody phalanges are entirely worth it since it means experiencing such diverse and astonishing beautiful landscapes in the process. And since Vernal is big with oil and gas, those seed collections that I collect go to something so important: reclamation and restoration of oil pads and wells that have been shut down or abandoned. And those rare plants I mentioned just a while ago…well, they are being directly impacted by industrial-type actions like drilling and similar money-making ventures that don’t typically take place in the traditional American backyard. Mind you, this isn’t a rant against the oil and gas industries. In fact, I understand just how incredibly important they are in our current society’s workings and going-ons. Do I wish there were stricter reforms in place to regulate exactly what they can and cannot do? Of course! If not for the betterment and advancement of our national culture, at least for the sake of the PLANTS!

With a fantastic mentor guiding me along the way and an amazing co-intern keeping me from zoning out in the desert sun…not to mention the countless other amazing people I’ve met out west (I’m from NYC, fyi), the people I’ve met and the relationships I’ve created thanks to this internship have made it all more than worth it. Three words: Net-work-ing! Ok, I know, one word. But let me stress just how amazing this entire program has been in terms of…you know…”meeting people.” People that are incredibly beneficial to have in your little black book. After all, this field we’re all entering, trying to enter, hoping to enter, or just experimenting with, is an incredibly difficult thing to break into. Some might even say it’s all about the people you know…. We’ll see if that’s true….

Coming from the city that never sleeps to a place where most people carry the motto “I HEART DRILLING” can be quite devastating and demoralizing. In fact, it’s the opposite! It’s inspiring to become a part of an environmental movement at the national level where conservationists like me are working hard to save that which we love: those amazing landscapes I experience each and every day. At the same time, it strengthens my morals as I’m constantly tested and put in check by big-business and forced to question the goods and the bads, the rights and the wrongs and the choices each and every one of us have to make every single day we’re breathing on this wonderful continent (both the good air and the bad air, of course!).

I leave you now with a quote from one of my heroes:

“Leave it as it is. The ages have been at work on it and man can only mar it.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Truly,

Daniel Winkler, CLM Intern, Vernal, UT

Saving the world...one little cactus at a time!

Greetings!
I have spent the last 4.5 months working as the botanical intern with the National Park Service at two parks within Western Maryland, Catoctin Mountain Park and the C & O Canal. My main objective at both parks has been to monitor the RTE’s (fed speak for rare, threatened, and endangered species) and collect data that could contribute to the plants conservation, and in some instances reintroduction. My plant identification skills have been greatly challenged and subsequently expanded. I have had alot of training and experience with GPS (both Trimble and Garmin) and am currently taking advantage of the online GIS course Dean spoke of at our CBG orientation.
Some of the endangered plant species I have monitored are;
Platanthera grandiflora

Coeloglossum viride

Long bracted orchis

Ptilimnium nodosum

Harperella

In addition to RTE monitoring, I have been collecting data which is being used to monitor forest regeneration. Deer overpopulation in the Catoctin Mountain Park has decimated the understory layer of the forest. Not only has this resulted in lack of plant diversity, but also contributed to the spread of exotic invasive in the park. The deer will not eat the Berberis thunbergii and Microstegium vemineum that have quickly spread to take up the niches that the lack of herbaceous plants and shrubs has provided.

Japanese barberry                                           Japanese stilt grass

Veg Plot data collection

I am quite grateful for the learning opportunity that the CLM internship had afforded me. My favorite part has been when random park employees walk up to me with their top snatch, picture, or description and say “you’re the park botanist, what is this plant?” This happens a lot and I have usually been able to give them a correct identification. This test of my knowledge lets me notice how greatly my plant identification knowledge has grown in the short time that I have been here.

I hope you all are having similar successes!

Jena Race, NPS, Western Maryland

My blog week assignment came with good timing because I just finished my position in Lakeview, OR last week.  I was only there for a little short of three months because I’m headed off to other adventures (grad school), but even in such a relatively brief time I came away with valuable new skills and experience.

Hart Mountain Antelope Refuge

Lakeview sits in Oregon’s high desert, at the northwest extent of the Great Basin. I quickly discovered it does not have a lake view. At least not from the streets of the town. I had to hike to the top of Black Cap, a high point in the surrounding hills that houses radio and cell towers, to see Goose Lake a few miles to the south. I guess they can keep the name.

Goose Lake is that long whitish blob right below the horizon.

During my time in Lakeview my supervisor was Joe Wagner, a fire ecologist who has been with the BLM for almost 40 years, most of which is experience with fire and range management in the Great Basin. My main function in working with Joe was setting up and monitoring fire effects plots. Our work was concerned with vegetation on the sites: frequency of forbs and grasses, cover and density of shrubs and juniper. I learned the joys of driving two and a half hours to a field site, then laying out transect lines through a tangle of juniper limbs and 8 foot high bitterbrush in 95 degree heat (okay, that’s worst case scenario). Fire is a widely used land management tool in the Great Basin but its effects on specific sites are not always well understood since there is so much variability in the plant communities, soil type, slope, etc.  That’s where local case studies like ours come in. I felt like I was doing something that matters, which made the work very satisfying.

Especially for the first few weeks, but to some smaller degree for almost the entire duration of my internship, I missed the climate and scenery of home in the Seattle area. There were no blue, snow-flecked mountains, lush forests or great expanses of deep inviting water.  There were miles and miles of open country covered with sage, rabbitbrush, bitterbrush, greasewood and juniper, flanked by rolling mountain ridges, buttes, and rims.  Almost all the water was in alkali lakes and reservoirs for livestock. The soils were painted more in sandy grays and reds than dark, loamy brown. I thought it somewhat barren and monotonous, but that’s because I wasn’t familiar with it yet. Then I started to learn the identity of vegetation in the landscape by texture and color, make out interesting fire scar mosaics in the hillsides, and realize that at night the low horizon exposed more stars than I had ever seen before.  All the arid Great Basin species became part of my widening view as I learned their names.  Even in late summer when all the grasses and forbs dry up beyond recognition (which makes it really fun to ID them for transect work) their golden color is a beautiful contrast with the crisp blue of a clear sky.

I'm moving in.

Things live here, thrive even, but many remain hidden. Some of the most interesting plants are the smallest and easiest to miss, or vary wildly depending on seasonal precipitation. Many animals seek refuge during the heat of the day. But the more time I spent in the field and the closer I looked, the more variation I noticed, the more surprises I found. It grew on me.

I will miss the largely untouched openness of the Oregon outback. The smell of sage. Pronghorn antelope kicking up a trail of dust as they raced across our path and out of sight over a crest. The friendly waves from complete strangers as your vehicles pass on a remote and bumpy dirt road. Tiny Mimulus and Cryptantha dotting the ground like fragile confetti. Towns small and remote enough that an annual “Mosquito Festival” is the most exciting thing going on within about 100 miles.  All these things and more, in an utterly new and unfamiliar place that I thought I could never call home but is now an inextricable part of my life.

-Robbie Lee, Lakeview District BLM, Oregon