Hello everyone, weather has started to become spring-like, with a 60 degree day yesterday. Almost all of the snow has melted; Robins and Blue Birds have made their return. It is only a matter of time until all the snow is gone in the lower elevations and the ice melts off the rivers and lakes that surround us. It has been a pretty fun month in the high desert of Wyoming. Sage grouse have started their mating rituals on their leks. For those of you that don’t know what a lek is, I will give a brief description. 

Signs of active leks include feathers, droppings, and tracks. A Lek is a traditional courtship display which is attended by male sage-grouse in or adjacent to sagebrush dominated habitat. These strutting males attract female sage-grouse by the brilliant feather colors and sounds made by the male sage-grouse. Leks are counted at 7-10 day intervals over a 3-4 week period after the peak of mating activity. Some leks in the KFO can have as many as 150 birds at any given time, others only contain 30 or less birds. The BLM is not able to count every lek in the Kemmerer Field Office, we receive help from the Wyoming Game and Fish and other volunteers. Even with all this help some leks will go uncounted.

I have spent much of my morning hours driving around doing lek counts, to give wildlife managers an educated idea of sage-grouse populations. It’s been great being able to get out into the field and take a break from writing NEPA papers. Until next time, I hope everyone has fun!

Jeremy Sykes

Bureau of Land Management

Kemmerer, Wyoming

2014 has been a busy year so far at the Safford BLM office. We have initiated several new projects as well as have continued to develop our existing work.

Non-native removal in Bonita Creek continues to be a regular task. Having four interns has greatly increased the number and frequency we can get out to set nets. And we have already had a contract crew out to conduct a week long intensive removal effort. With Andrew Johnson’s knowledge of Access, he has created a database to more effectively analyze our non-native removal data. This allows us to take a better look at which net types have the highest catch per unit effort, and which portions of Bonita Creek are still harboring the highest numbers of non-natives.

Several pollinator gardens have been planned and installation should begin this spring. Allegra Mount received a seed grant from Native Seed Search. These seeds have been germinated in the Discovery Park greenhouse, as well as at the Our Neighbor’s Farm greenhouse. Other seeds from our returned SOS collections will be germinated as well. A pollinator garden will be planted at the Discovery Park campus with educational signage about the importance of pollinators. We hope to have a high level of community involvement in the installation and up-keep of this garden. A pollinator hedgerow is planned for the Our Neighbor’s Farm garden. Our Neighbors Farm is an organization that grows produce to give to those in need in our community. We hope that raising awareness of the importance of pollinators can make a difference in this community.

Our work with Sky Island Alliance continues. They are such a wonderful partner organization. At the end of January, we had an amazing work weekend at Turkey Creek. SIA brought out a group of 30 volunteers and we planted around 250 Giant Sacaton in our restoration area. We camped at the TNC field house (which is a lovely spot) and enjoyed socializing with all of the interesting volunteers.  Van from Stream Dyanmics was out for the weekend with our group, and did some surveying of Turkey Creek to determine if building rock structures, such as gabbions, could be of benefit to the site.

I was able to participate in the Cumulative Effects NEPA training that was held at the Safford Field Office in February. Writing Environmental Assessments is a complicated process that I am learning, and I was glad to get some more exposure to the various elements of putting one together. We spent two days going over the Cumulative Effects of a particular EA that our field office is working on.

In early March our crew traveled to Ft. Huachucha in Sierra Vista to participate in a Springsnail identification and in a monitoring training put on by Arizona Game and Fish. While just a one day training, we were table to review a lot of relevant information about Springsnails in AZ and visit two nearby springs to practice our monitoring skills.

We have been doing some restoration work near the border in conjunction with a SCC crew. The SCC chainsaw crew came in and cleared a lowland area of mesquite. Then we came back through and seeded with native grass seed and covered the seeded areas with mesquite brush. The mesquite brush cover helps to keep the seeds from blowing away and provides some shade to help the grasses get established. This project will hopefully help to raise the water table in this area, and restore the native grassland that once thrived here.

Since my work began in the Safford field office, monitoring native fish has been a large component of my job. Throughout my time working in Bonita Creek, my boss Heidi had started to notice a high frequency of lumps on the native Gila Chub. As the frequency and severity of these lumps increased, Heidi decided that a proper evaluation of what was happening to these fish was needed. She got her permit revised to allow for capture of a small number of Gila Chub to then be transported to a laboratory in NM. We still have not heard from the lab what exactly is happening with the fish, but hope to know more soon.

During March I got my first hands-on experience building fences. Andrew Johnson and I headed north to lead two crews of ACE in a restoration and fencing project. A riparian area along Silver Creek, near Woodruff AZ, had been very degraded from cattle coming down to the water. The stream bank was experiencing a lot of erosion due to lack of vegetation.   Our crew’s goal was to cut willow poles from the adjacent banks that were not degraded, plant them on the degraded banks, and fence the whole area off from grazing. We started by having several people cut 6 feet long willow poles and piling them on the degraded banks. We used a boat to shuttle from one side of Silver creek to the other. We used hammer drills with 2 feet long drill bits to drill holes into the degraded bank. The willow poles could then be inserted in the holes into moist soil, and the hole packed in. We made groups of 16-20 willows in clusters along the bank, with 5-8 feet of space between them. Hopefully, with cows being kept out from this area, the willow poles can put out roots and begin to stabilize the degraded bank of Silver Creek. With such a large amount of workers, we were also able to clean the surrounding area of trash, and remove some small tamarisk. It was a wonderful learning experience for my restoration, leadership, and fencing skills.

I continue to be involved in diverse stimulating projects. Having a group of four interns allows us all to focus on different projects. We work great as a team; learning from each other’s various specialties. Come May, I will have been at this office for 1 year, which is quite hard to believe. The time has flown by. And in August I will be attending the University of New Mexico to study for my masters in Biology. I doubt I would have had such a competitive application for this position without the experience I have gained from the CLM program.

It is funny how quickly I have adapted.  When I think about my first evening here it seems so long ago.  My third week on the job is coming to a close and I have settled in a healthy routine, learned everything I need to know to work successfully in the field, and made pals with some of my coworkers.  Now I don’t mean to sound cocky, there is so many things to learn here, and I have not even begun to scratch the surface of the plants around here.  This area is so vast and the maps are not 100% trustworthy, the value of local knowledge here is great and in no short supply.  It would take years of being in this area and talking to people to be totally comfortable to head off into the hills for the weekend.

On the other hand, I feel comfortable with the three main sagebrush species associated with the sage grouse.  This is fundamental to identifying good habitat and can also tell you much about other factors influencing a site.  I have learned the major invasive species impacting the habitat, Medusa head (Taeniatherum caput-medusae), cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), and north africa grass (Ventenata dubia), and I understand how and why they are impacting sage habitat so strongly.  Some of the major areas of our work I know like the back of my hand and drive them at 4 am in the dark on the way to conduct surveys without slowing down at every turn or side trail to recheck my map and compass, which is huge (and now allows me a little more sleep).  So when I say I know what I need to know to get in the field that is what I mean.

It seems as though most people in this area are preparing to some degree for the summer.  I am expecting some pretty intense wildfires this year and it seems that the whole county has that same expectation.  This is one reason that those grasses listed above are so bad.  They alone are not so bad, I see them everywhere blending into the communities, sagebrush is fine, forbs are in place, native grasses may be lacking, but they are there.  The problem is how they affect the behavior of the wildfires.  They spread the fire rapidly and increase the intensity of the burn.  These grasses live under and around the sagebrush so it can lead to the destruction of hundreds to thousands of sagebrush at a time.  Sagebrush takes anywhere from 35 to 100 years to return to its mature productive status.  But while it is rejuvenating, the grasses move back into the open spots and out compete and allow western junipers to move in.  The poor sage grouse…they need healthy sagebrush habitats to live and be happy!

I love it here.  I have always wanted to get to an area like this; one that still has a rugged and slightly wild feel.  But I can see how interns coming from a more city life setting or life style may arrive and not know what to do with it.  There isn’t a Walmart for 100 miles (awesome), there is no McDonald’s, everything is like 30 miles away at least, and even then it’s probably something outside involving exercise.  There is no internet connection unless you rent your own house and pay for it.  But I have found the time to pursue my many interests that, during school, I had little time to enjoy.  Thanks again CLM!

Greetings from lovely Carson City, Nevada! My 3^rd week here at the Bureau of Land Management is in full swing and a few paragraphs can’t possibly sum up the wondrous ride I’ve been on for the past 17 days. The highlights: I had a crash course in the flora of the sierras and the great basin; I completed online courses on ethics, blood borne pathogens, defensive driving, and much more; I worked with the other 4 interns to make a dichotomous key of the flora in a single allotment; I explored Carson City, wild horse ranges, Reno, and miles and miles of sagebrush steppe.

Yesterday was by far my most exciting and interesting day thus far. The motley crew of botanical interns and our supervisor, Dean, spent all day in Canoe Hills, near Golden Eagle Regional Park. We were surveying for Medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae), an invasive grass that has just started to make inroads into the allotment. It’s a fierce competitor and terrible forage for all grazers so there is concern about its spread onto BLM land. Additionally, there’s a proposal to build a new set of bike trails in this area that may or may not aide in the spread of this plant that thrives in disturbed sites. To conduct the survey, I spent my day hiking on established and proposed trails all over these stunning hillsides, scanning the ground for Medusahead’s distinctive spikes. Lomatium austiniea, Viola beckwithii, and Phlox lomatifolium are in bloom in small patches, lending splashes of color to the dusty olive brown. When I finished my weed survey, Dean sent me to survey the cliff sides for Golden Eagle nests. So I climbed (gingerly and carefully, of course!) from hillside to hillside, in search of raptor hangouts. At this point, I could no longer contain my enthusiasm. My job was to hike, gather crucial conservation data, and record my findings on a map. Quite literally a dream come true!

Viola beckwithii

Adventure is out there!

Rebecca

Last month I began my CLM internship at the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Western Ecological Research Center in Henderson, Nevada! It’s hard to believe so much time has gone by already – we sure have been keeping busy! My fellow interns – Renee, Rachel, and Sam – have posted over the last few weeks and have given a great introduction to the work we’ve been doing out here in the Mojave desert.

Our first project is focused on researching ecotypic variation in Mojave desert plant species used for restoration. Getting to help out with this project has been very exciting because it is the first year of the study (it will continue for another ten years). The first task was to help establish “common gardens” across the Mojave desert. Three locations were selected this year, each in a different designated climate zone – one site is in southern Utah in the Red Cliffs Desert Reserve, one is in California within Fort Irwin National Training Center, and another is in Twentynine Palms, California, just outside of Joshua Tree National Park. All three sites are incredibly beautiful!

We first had to help out with constructing fences to go around our gardens so herbivores wouldn’t eat our plants. After this was accomplished, we began planting at each site. As Rachel mentioned, we planted three different plant species: Ambrosia dumosa (White bursage), Larrea tridentata (Creosote bush), and Sphaeralcea ambigua (Desert Globemallow). These plants were propagated from seeds that were collected from a variety of source populations spanning the various climate zones present in the Mojave.

This past week we finished up planting at the “Joshua Tree” common garden site, which was our final site! Each common garden site now has about 600-700 plants that we hand-planted with love and care.

the “Joshua Tree” common garden site after we finished planting!

relaxing after a long day of planting

sunset as we were driving to our campsite in Joshua Tree National Park

Also, on our drive home from the site this week we stopped a few times along the way to collect annuals that we saw! Here is a photo of Rachel with her Jepson Desert Manual in the backseat of the truck as she guides us through the key:

we were able to ID this one in the backseat – desert chicory (Rafinesquia neomexicana)!!

Happy Vernal Equinox, everyone!! Thanks for reading!

— Meaghan

Las Vegas Field Office, USGS

The first day of spring was yesterday and it was actually a nice spring day with a high of 66, but it didn’t last long as a cold front came in and the weekend will end up being in the high 30s.  I have a feeling this will be the weather pattern for springtime here in Colorado.

I have completed the Phacelia formosula monitoring scheme and am now tweaking it slightly to present it to Fish and Wildlife Service.  I will soon start on a complete status report for P. formosula as well.  I finished up the GIS mapping for the possible monitoring of Corispermum navicula that will hopefully be started this field season.  I still have to work out all of the issues of that monitoring scheme to make it easy enough to be follow by all field personnel.  Soon enough I will be implementing the monitoring that I have been working on over the winter.  It is always a joy to see the office work being applied to the field, improving the management of the natural resources that were entrusted to the Bureau of Land Management by the public.

I talked with Carol and Phil and we are getting ready for field season by scheduling dates for future monitoring trips, as well as possible seed collections.  I am also trying to determine the best times during the next 6 months to go and check the Phacelia formosula populations in order to get the best understanding of its germination cycle.  Soon enough the field season will start and I will not be in the office as much, but will be out enjoying the beautiful Colorado backcountry once again.

Nathan Redecker

Lakewood, CO

BLM CO State Office

My time here in the great basin has been full of new experiences. One of these new experiences has been creating a simple dichotomous key focused on riparian areas. I have been working on these keys with some of my fellow interns. The dichotomous keys that we create will be used in a Native American youth camp that we will have the pleasure of assisting with in a few months. The youth camp is going to be with high school aged students which creates a scope of challenges. The key needs to entertain the kids as well as inform them. As we all know dichotomous keys can be complex and at times hard to follow.  We are trying to avoid that hardship, especially with grasses. The keys also need to be short because the students will be working on identifying these plants within a small block of time in a field setting. My team mate Andrii and I have come up with this preliminary key:

Grasses, Sedges and Junceae

1a Plants have a triangular stem with parallel veined leaves up to 1″ wide; stems are round to oval with leaves extending from the base; inflorescence is found on the stem

    2a Stem is roughly triangular with flat leaf blades. Inflorescence is at the tip of the plant extending from multiple branches that have fruit like seeds surrounded by scales; fruit length is approximately 0.7-1.6mm. Scirpus microcarpus

     2b Stem is oval to round with leaves extending from the base of the plant. Inflorescence is found on the stem.

          3a Leaf blades flat and broad, some have rolled edges. Inflorescence is cylindrical found at the top of the plant, appearing like a large speared hotdog.  Fruit is like a seed surrounded by hairs.  Typha latifolia

3b Leaves are basal, bladeless sheaths. Inflorescence is found on the side of the stem, not at the terminal end. Flowers are small, dark and brown. Juncaceae Juncus balticus (articus)

1b Plants differ in size and appearance  (never triangular). Usually  have hollow stems and swollen leaf nodes. Cauline (on the stem) leaf consists of a tubular sheath  on the lower portion and a free narrow leaf blade; basal leaves often form dense tufts, a combination of both types is very common.   Poaceae; true grasses

     4a Plants that are very tall – 7-14’, rhizomous. Leaves are alternate  along the stem; leaf blades are about 1’ long and up to 2″ wide.  Panicle is open, sometimes reddish in color. Plants tend to form very dense stands, occupying moist to wet areas of riparian zones. Phragmites australis (common reed)

     4b Plants that are much smaller.

5a Inflorescence is dense and compact; spikelets are sessile or sit on very short pedicels

6a Plants are annual, up to 8” tall. Awns are densely arranged, 5-9 mm long. Leaf blades are flat, glabrous; ligules are membranous 5-6.3 mm long. Can be found in riparian zones and disturbed areas. Polypodium mospeliensis (rabbitfoot beardgrass)

6b Plants that are perennial, usually taller.

7a Grass grows in tufts, with culms about 4-25” tall. Awns are loose, 1-4” long and are widely divergent in maturity. Leaves 1-6 mm wide, can be flat or involute; collars usually yellow with 0.4-0.6 mm membranous ligules. Plant can grow in a broad range of soils and is valuable forage for large animals. Elymus elymoides (bottlebrush squirreltail)

7b Awns are shorter or absent.

8a Glumes are narrow, needlelike. Ligules are always membranous, but well distinctive – 1-8 mm long. Leaf blades are flat, scaberulose and glabrous. Plants are common mainly along streams, or in dryer sites of riparian zones. Leymus cyneresus ( basin wildrye)

 8b Ligules are absent or very short.

9a Plants are perennial and tufted. Culms are up to 3’ tall,  spikes are no longer than 6”. Spikelets are awned. Leaves are long, involute and coarsely veined. Collars can be yellowish in color, usually with short 1 mm long ligules. Commonly grows on dry, rocky hill sides or plains. Pseudoroegneria spicata (bluebunch wheatgrass)

9b Perennial and tufted grass. Spikes are shorter –1-2.5” long. Leaves can vary from flat to involute, collars are often yellowish with 0.3-0.7 mm long ligules. Can be found on grazing areas, disturbed lands like roadsides and burned areas. Agropyron cristatum( crested wheatgrass)

5b Inflorescence is open, can be narrow but spikelets are on distinctive pedicels

10a Plants are annual. Culms are usually 2’ tall with relatively large, drooping and awned spikelets. Leaves are slightly haired. Plants can occupy a wide range of habitats, from uplands to riparian zones. Bromus tectorum(cheatgrass)

10b Plants are not alike. How are the plants not alike, not like the above plants or not like each other?

11a Inflorescence is diffuse with distinctive branchlets. Spikelets have one flower and dark seed when mature. They can commonly be found in sandy, clayey and well drained soils throughout the Great Basin.  Oryzopsis hymenoides (Indian Ricegrass)

11b Inflorescence is narrow to diffuse. Spikelets are awnless but bear many flowers. Poa; (bluegrass)

12a Plants are rhizomatous and usually don’t form dense tufts. Panicle is often pyramidal, about 2-6” long. Leaves are flat or folded with 0.4-0.6 mm long ligules. Commonly foundon moderately dry roadsides, meadows and open woods.  Poa pratensis; (Kentucky bluegrass)

12b Small, densely tufted perennials. Spikes are 1.5-3.5” long. Leaf blades are soft, folded or involute, often boatshaped at a tip. Ligules are membranous, about 1.7-5 mm long. Commonly grow in relatively dry habitats, sagebrush valleys, and wooded areas. Poa secunda (Sandberg bluegrass )

Hello from Provo, Utah. The presentation of my preliminary research results in Boise, Idaho at the Great Basin Native Plant Program (GBNPP) received good comments. The research community and managers were very interested in our results and application to ecological restoration. I received valuable feedback and new ideas. Additionally, last week I started field activities, and collected new samples. Our experiments are moving forward with more materials in different environments and new variables.  This week my mentor and another scientist are training me in chemical ecology techniques for the study of big sagebrush ecosystems. One of the most interesting things of my training was discussing new ideas and projects. I really appreciate the support of my mentor and all the things that he is teaching me.

I feel thankful for all the support of my companions at the Forest Service, Provo Shrub Science Lab. I am learning many interesting things. Thank you CLM for this opportunity.

Hector

Provo, UT

Forest Service, Provo Shrub Science Lab

It is in the 80’s and sunny in Redding and the planting season is coming to an end. There are numerous restoration sites on the district that are old mining sites or other disturbed areas. We are trying to get as many plants in the ground as we can before it dries up more so we don’t have to hold them in the greenhouse over summer. Today we had about 70 middle school kids help plant a gravely hillside. It was great!

I have done some seed collections, weed monitoring, and rare plant monitoring in the field as well.

In the greenhouse we’ve been sowing, transplanting, weeding, watering and straightening up.

At home I have been cleaning seeds and working on extra projects. I hope to leave the office with good reference material for the next seasonal technician. I have made maps of the restoration sites and what plants and seeds to use. I am also making a seed collection guide that includes photos and protocols for various aspects of native plant propagation. I find it hard to work on this at times because there are always plants to be cared for in some way.

This is an amazing job and my boss is super stellar. I have always been enthusiastic about botany and restoration work and I just keep getting more jazzed about it. Grateful to have such a soulful job.

Charter school helping with a planting site

Fritillaria

After nearly two years here, my time as an intern at the West Eugene Wetlands is coming to an end. I have accepted a permanent position at another organization, and while I am excited for the new experiences my future holds, I will definitely miss the wetlands and the team of people with whom I worked.

When I began this internship, not too far out of college (with a background in English, no less), if someone had pointed out a plant and asked, “What can you tell me about this?” my answer probably would have been a tentative “It’s green?” I have learned so much in the last two years, however, that now my answer would be more like “Oh, that’s Kincaid’s lupine. It’s a threatened species and the host plant of the Fender’s Blue Butterfly.” And that is an amazing feeling.

During my time here, I have had the opportunity to assist with monitoring, planting, seeding, leading educational groups, and much more. And while I’ve enjoyed the variety of experiences, some of my favorite memories are in the complications my partner and I have had in the field, like spending 3 hours attempting to find 12 rebar we’d stuck so far in the ground only an inch showed (after mowing, burning, or even animals digging burrows, the landscape can really change from year to year), or trying to square up a new macroplot without a compass. There is nothing more satisfying than putting our heads together and being able to formulate a solution to a problem that has plagued us (whoever knew pythagorean theorum would come in handy outside the classroom?).

Anyway, I am so happy to have had such an amazing opportunity and I would like to wish all current and future interns luck with their endeavors.

Good luck!