Here in Oregon’s Willamette Valley, we’ve been experiencing some weird weather–sun. This is, for Oregon, an abundance of sun and a serious lack of rain. Eugene is over 12 inches behind in its usual rainfall.

This means a few changes in the monitoring routine. With the warm, dry weather, everything is blooming early. My monitoring lead and I will be wrapping up Bradshaw’s Lomatium (Lomatium bradshawii) monitoring in a couple of days, while this time last year we were just beginning it. The endangered Fender’s Blue Butterflies are also out earlier this year, and their flight season is moving fast! I helped do the first survey earlier this week and we were able to confirm that Fender’s were indeed out at one of our sites; Fender’s Blue Butterflies are nearly identical to Silvery Blue Butterflies, a common butterfly, so capture and release (with the aid of an awesome tool known as a butterfly net) is one of the only surefire ways to identify them. We’re expecting the flight season to peak soon, so there are definitely a few more butterfly surveys in my future.

I’ve had some good luck with viewing wildlife this year. I was lucky enough to see a coyote fairly closely a couple of weeks ago. It ran within 100 feet of the macroplot we were monitoring as if it didn’t have a care in the world, and it was a real treat to see. Coyotes have a way of bounding and hopping while they run that was very unexpected.

The other wildlife sighting that I was excited about was mining bees! My first thought when I saw these little pollen-covered bees crawling into a hole in the ground was “Bees? That aren’t in a hive?” I had never heard of them before. While monitoring lomatium at one of our sites, we stumbled upon a fair-sized community (I’ve read that they’re solitary bees and  instead of living in a colony will burrow their own holes, but will dig the holes near other mining bees). It was very interesting watching them work.

So much sun is unusual for a Willamette Valley spring!

A mining bee at the entrance of its home

My second field season with BLM’s West Eugene Wetlands (WEW) started off with a bang! Well, it actually began with hauling several hundred Kincaid’s Lupine plugs and rolls of shadecloth to the upland prairie of one of WEW’s several sites, but you get the idea. Excitement, glorious fresh air, and all that jazz.

Together with my monitoring lead, the Institute for Applied Ecology’s (IAE)–a non-profit organization dedicated to the conservation of native species and habitats–Native Plant Materials Coordinator, and two of IAE’s dedicated volunteers, we planted over 500 Kincaid’s Lupine over the course of two days.

For those who have never heard of Kincaid’s Lupine (Lupinus oreganus var. kincaidii), it is a federally listed threatened species and the host plant of the federally endangered Fender’s Blue Butterfly. Although I had monitored both Kincaid’s Lupine and Fender’s Blue Butterflies last year, this year I actually got to plant plants.

Between the five of us, we soon streamlined the planting process into an assembly line with three positions: Dibblers, Planters, and Waterers. The Dibblers used an interesting utensil called a dibble to drive holes into the soil–soon-to-be homes for the little Kincaid’s Lupine plants. The Planters were the ones that actually put the plants in the ground, and the Waterers followed along behind with a watering can to quench the thirst of the young plants. Of course, during this we all took turns at moving measuring tapes and placing pin-flags since we were also creating a macroplot that we will monitor later this season.

Planting was a new experience for me, and although the previous field season held a myriad of fantastic lessons, this will always be one of my favorites. There is something soothing  about the silence that accompanies field work such as this. We had some distance from the electronic and industrial cacophony of the city, and though the quiet was sometimes broken by the cry of a red-tail hawk or the light-hearted joking of our miniature planting crew, it was the perfect soundtrack to the camaraderie of people working towards a common goal–threatened and endangered species restoration.

For the time being I am back in the office until monitoring begins. I could not have asked for a better start to my field season.

While December was a slow month because of the holidays, things are really picking up now that it is January.

I’ve been assisting with a Plant Growth Monitoring project. Once a week, the monitoring lead and I go out into the field and monitor specific plants, measuring length of leaves, water depth (with the Willamette Valley’s on-and-off rainy weather, the depth of the vernal pools can really vary), and grazing/frost damage. Right after the  new year it was actually quite interesting: Eugene had a cold snap, and all of the vernal pools had a thin layer of ice covering them. We got to step through the ice (rubber boots are a definite must have) to find our plants, and most of them were frosted over.

After monitoring the T&E species during the summer field season, seeing the wetlands during the winter is quite the surprise–it’s such a drastic change! Where there were once green prairies, now there are huge swathes of water. Sometimes herds of Canada geese take refuge in the wetlands, easily located by their cacophony of honking; it’s very different from the silent butterflies and praying mantises that wended their way through the wetlands last summer.

Look! Hummocks! And possibly anthills.

November was a relatively quiet month at the office. A large rainstorm hit the Pacific Northwest late in the month, and Eugene became a bit flooded. This led to quite the change in the West Eugene Wetlands (WEW); our vernal pools have filled up, and ducks and other waterfowl can be seen gallivanting in their depths.

Two months ago, this was all dry!

Earlier in November, I assisted the Willamette Resources and Education Network (WREN) with one of its student fieldtrips. Although earlier in October, I had aided WREN with a student ethnobotany/seed-after-burn project, this was trial by fire: leading my own group of second graders through the trails that surround the WEW Partnership office. The students were excited to be out of the classroom and full of energy; I was terrified. However, it turned out to be tons of fun! The kids learned about Queen Anne’s Lace and Pennyroyal (which, although a non-native species, is a good indicator of vernal pools), and enjoyed seeing ducks and other animals in the wetlands.

In addition to my short adventure outside, I also started training in GeoBOB (Geographic Biotic Observations). The GeoBOB database works in conjunction with ArcGIS, so I’m getting to brush up on the new GIS skills I acquired during the summer.

Anyway, November was a rather quiet month. I”m looking forward to things to come!

‘Til next time!

After a peculiarly hot and dry summer, rain has finally made an appearance in the Willamette Valley. And coinciding with the rain is an opportunity for a little bit of field work. For me, field season was officially over in August with the end of monitoring, and I have since then settled into the office working on reports. However, it’s restoration time in the wetlands, and prime time to reseed the bare ground left by ecological burns.

Seeding has been an entirely different creature than monitoring; there is quite a bit of preparation involved before actually spreading the seed. First, we picked up the seed from the City of Eugene, one of BLM’s partners in preserving and restoring the West Eugene Wetlands. The City of Eugene sorts and packages the native seed by site for us so that it’s almost all ready to go. We store the seed in our seed cooler until we are ready to begin, at which time we have to mix the different species of seed together. Finally, we are ready to start spreading the seed.

In addition to seeding, I also had the opportunity to attend a grantwriting training workshop at the Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge. The workshop ran for three jam-packed days full of valuable information. It was completely awesome. The refuge itself was also beautiful. Our “classroom” had a huge window in the back that looked out over the refuge, through which we could view the local wildlife (mainly egrets, great blue herons, and even a few eagles).

Tualatin River National Wildlife Refuge–it poured the entire time I was there!

Signing off for now,

Mackenzie Cowan

It’s hard to believe it’s already been a month since my last post; September has gone by surprisingly fast.

In mid-September, I drove down to Ashland, OR to tour the National Fish & Wildlife Forensic Laboratory with a group of my fellow CLM interns. This was definitely a highlight of my month; this tour was a once in a lifetime opportunity, and I learned so much that had not even been on the radar of my knowledge base. Perhaps that was one reason I found the tour so fascinating: everything I learned was completely new to me, and I love to learn.

Back in the Wetlands Office, my coworker and I are knee-deep in monitoring data that we are wrangling into reports. We have a system down: my coworker, who has much more monitoring experience than me, writes the meat of the report, such as data analysis and management recommendations, and I proofread and edit all of the reports, happily putting my English degree to work.

Just this last week, we’ve also had the opportunity to work in conjunction with the Willamette Resources and Educational Network (WREN). WREN was leading a lessons where students participated in a seeding activity, spreading Rumex salicifolia, Epilobium densiflorum, Madia elegans, and Plagiobothrys figuratus seeds. We helped facilitate the seeding portion of the lesson, and it was nice to see students so enthusiastic about science and restoration.

I am starting my fifth month with the West Eugene Wetlands, and with the start of September comes the end of field season. The past four months have taught me more than I ever thought imaginable, especially since I studied Literature in college.  Before this internship, I could not identify a single plant. Now, after working with the monitoring team all summer, I feel like I have made leaps and bounds in my knowledge. In addition to the sensitive species we’ve been monitoring, I can now identify several grasses and forbs found in the wetlands (though I still find sedges and rushes a bit tricky).

Now it’s back in the office for me. It has taken a bit of time to adjust, going from tromping through the prairie all day to sitting at a desk. It’s time to prepare monitoring reports for each site.  This has been interesting, as I get to review the history for each site. I’ve also gotten to complete some training on ArcGIS, which I have found to be quite entertaining. In between managing the reports and training, I’ve once again had time to work on my summer-side project: compiling an identification book of grasses, sedges, and rushes. This has been both interesting and confusing, since right now the vocabulary in regards to grasses, sedges, and rushes is quite a challenge. Needless to say, my ID book will have a glossary.

Although field season has ended for the monitoring crew and me, restoration treatments are starting to be implemented in the wetlands. I returned from Labor Day weekend to discover that the fire crew had worked through the weekend and burned one of our office’s neighboring sites. Viewing the aftermath, I must say, I was a bit surprised: I expected that all vegetation would be burned, when in reality it was only the grasses and forbs, getting them ready to flush next spring. Even though field season has ended, I learn something new about the wetlands every day.

Coming back from the CLM Workshop in Chicago, it was as if I’d never left the office. Eugene    decided to welcome me back to the Pacific Northwest with a lovely rainstorm, and I jumped right into monitoring the Erigeron decumbens var. decumbens, also called the Willamette Daisy.

Of the three endangered plant species I’ve monitored so far this year, the Willamette Daisy is definitely my favorite. It tends to be a small plant, with thin, spindly leaves; the flower heads usually look like they’ve seen better days. And even though it can look a bit weathered, it just keeps surviving–it’s a scrappy plant! It’s got personality!

I also got the opportunity to see some of Eugene’s rare plant species, Cusick’s Checkermallow (Sidalcea cusickii) and Narrow-leaf Milkweed (Asclepias fascicularis). I think the Sidalcea may be another plant to add to my favorites list; I really love its vivid color.

Since everyone has been posting these awesome pictures of the landscape out in the wildnerness, I’d thought I’d post one of my own. This prairie is in Eugene city limits and is a habitat for two of our endangered plant species.

Well, I’m into my second month here at BLM’s West Eugene Wetland office, and things are really picking up! A few weeks ago the Willamette Resources & Educational Network (WREN) held an educational event called “Walkin’ and Rollin’ through the Wetlands” for families, and BLM had a booth. I created fact sheets on Fender’s Blue Butterflies (an endangered species found only in Oregon’s Willamette Valley) and Western Pond Turtles for it; we ended up with about 90 visitors over the course of four hours, which is pretty good considering it  was cold and cloudy.

Our Walkin' and Rollin Booth

Speaking of Fender’s Blue Butterflies, I’ve been assisting our monitoring lead, Christine, in, well, monitoring. We’ve been keeping track of the Fender’s populations over the last month using long distance sampling and then catching butterflies to determine the ratio of Silvery Blue Butterflies to Fender’s Blue Butterflies (the Silveries look very similar to the Fender’s, so to get a more accurate read from the long distance sampling, we actually have to ID them). Catching butterflies is one of my favorite tasks so far. It takes so much more skill than I ever imagined to net a butterfly: you have to catch the butterfly, avoid damaging their host plant (the Kincaid’s lupine), and avoid getting the net caught in blackberries (I seem to have a special talent for accidentally netting spiders, which is unfortunate because they frighten me quite a bit). That moment you catch a butterfly and successfully identify it as a Fender’s is really rewarding!

Female Fender's Blue Butterfly

Male Fender's Blue Butterfly

Christine and I have also just finished up the Lomatium bradshawii monitoring and have moved on to Kincaid’s lupine monitoring. I find it interesting to compare this year’s findings with last year’s data. As part of the restoration process, some of our prairies were burned last year, and it’s truly amazing how well our native plant species are growing in the aftermath!

Kincaid's lupine

I’m really enjoying seeing the wildlife in the wetlands. There’s a Great Blue Heron that hangs out next to a bridge we have to cross to get to one of our sites (I’ve seen it every time I’ve been to that site, and it’s always a treat). I’ve also seen a few Western Grebes out by our Fender’s population, and having never seen–or even heard of–one, I was absolutely fascinated. The real highlight, though, was seeing a river otter. They don’t show up around Eugene very often, and I’d never seen one in the wild–it completely made my week! (Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to get a picture of the otter. I saw it on the one day I didn’t have my camera with me.)

Great Blue Heron

Western Grebe

Til next time!

Hello, everyone! I am a recent graduate with a degree in English and have just began my internship at BLM’s West Eugene Wetlands (WEW) field office in Eugene, Oregon—known as the Red House by its inhabitants (aptly named, as it is a bright red, converted farm house). The Red House is a bit unusual in that BLM shares the Red House with two other organizations—the Long Tom Watershed Council and the Willamette Resources & Educational Network (WREN)—that, along with BLM, form a partnership focused on conserving the West Eugene Wetlands.

Now, you’re probably wondering how an English degree fits in with conservation and land management. My goal, in addition to grant writing, is to develop a public outreach program, creating literature aimed to educate the public and increase the overall awareness of the wetlands; after all, the West Eugene Wetlands are actually situated in and around Eugene city limits. Needless to say, I have learned more about the wetlands in the last week than the entire twenty-two years of my life—and I grew up in this area. Right now I’m gearing up for WREN’s Walkin’ and Rollin’ Through the Wetlands event, which is an opportunity for the public to take a stroll through the wetlands and learn about them. BLM is going to have a booth, and we’re hoping to teach people about Fender’s Blue Butterfly, WEW’s single federally listed endangered animal species, and its host plant Kincaid’s Lupine, a federally listed threatened plant species.

I’ve also gotten out in the field a bit, and last week I travelled up to the Baskett Slough National Wildlife Refuge to attend a workshop on long distance sampling of Fender’s Blue Butterfly populations. With typical Willamette Valley weather, we had a rain and wind storm, and the power went out halfway through the presentation; even so, we all slogged outside and practiced our long distance sampling skills on paper butterflies (which were a bit soggy, considering the rain, but still a very effective tool). Overall, I learned a lot and had fun, and am hoping to return to the second portion of the workshop next week!

Mackenzie Cowan

BLM West Eugene Wetlands Field Office