Today is my last day in the Shoshone, ID field office. It is sad to say good bye to such a small town filled with wonderful people who treated me like family. Walking home from work the other day, a man in his garden offered me fresh carrots, peppers, and cucumbers and our lovely neighbors gave us beautiful ceramic bowls that their parents made. In only five months I feel like we have become part of this small community and I am grateful to have met everyone. One thing I will miss in an odd way is, the Union Pacific Railroad, which ran right through the center of town about 30 times a day. Though highly annoying when trying to make a phone call or at 3 in the morning when you’re sleeping, the railroad is why Shoshone was established and is fascinating to watch speeding by.

I will also miss our neighbors; Justine, Shelby, their dogs Bessie and Shimmer, and the cutest kitten in the world, Tater. Always down to BBQ or just hang out and drink a beer they made Shoshone feel like home. And just so everyone knows, Shelby’s softball team won the league championship…Booyeah!!

Shoshone has been such a pleasant surprise; full of vast landscapes, great people, and a productive field office filled with professionals who truly know how to manage the land out here. There was never a dull moment this summer and I could not have asked for a better internship. Ranging from vegetation monitoring to bat surveys to collecting native seed I have learned much more than I hoped for. I have become more familiar with GIS, identifying riparian vegetation and a better over all understanding of what it is like to work for a federal agency. I hope everyone is taking advantage of their internship, learning as much as possible, and leaving a positive impact where ever you go.

Here are a few of my favorite images from the Shoshone field office, enjoy!

Very clever

Happy sheep dog

Rainbow over Shoshone

Avery with our rescue lambs.

Megan descending into Pot of Gold

Flat Top allotment

Pot of Gold Cave

Aragonite inside Pot of Gold Cave

My time here in Shoshone, ID is coming to a bitter end. In less than a month, I will be leaving Shoshone and moving to Boise for a new adventure. The past few weeks have been dedicated to bat surveying and acoustic monitoring. With most of my background in vegetation monitoring, this is an interesting change and I am happy to be learning something new. After a quick scan through the acoustic data, we recorded little brow bats, big brown bats, and Townsend’s big-eared bats. Acoustic monitoring requires the use of a lot of technology that I didn’t have a lot of experience with. We used a recording device called the Anabat which had a GPS, display screen, and a microphone attached to it. Around 8:30pm we headed out towards the Little Wood Reservoir, attached the microphone to the top of the truck and watched the screen to see sudden changes in frequency levels. Though the process of acoustic monitoring is very mild, you may not see many bats, and you are mostly staring at a screen.  It’s amazing when you know you are recording a bat! It gave me a new appreciation for the technology that is available to us to use while monitoring. We were supposed to attend the Eastern Idaho Bat Blitz this week to do more acoustic monitoring and mist netting, but due to weather it was cancelled. Hopefully it will be rescheduled for next week. Besides that, we are wrapping up the season and finalizing some of the nested frequency data from earlier in the season.

I hope everyone is enjoying the last few weeks of summer.

Alexi

Hi friends,

We just finished our last Nested Frequency Trend plot last week completing a total of 22 plots. There was a 23rd plot for us to monitor but the plot ended up in the middle of the Preacher Fire, a wildfire to the east of Shoshone burning about 34,000 acres, which is considered large for this field office. A few days after the fire was contained Avery and I went out to see what it looked like. I could not believe my eyes, it looked like we were on a different planet. The fire burnt every living plant out there, not leaving a single stump behind. I guess the conditions were just right, low moisture content in the shrubs root system and a very hot burning fire. Due to the wildfire, this allotment cannot be grazed for another 3 years. A new seeding plan will be created for the burned area and hopefully some of the seed we collected this season will be used.

Fire season is in full swing in southern Idaho. The conditions are perfect; temperatures in the high 90s, heavy winds, lightning strikes, and dry climate. There have been 5 wildfires in the last month burning a total of 44,000 acres. The fire crews have been busy and doing a great job containing the fires and minimizing losses.

Preach Fire, right off the highway.
Photo taken from Google

What is left after Preacher Fire.
Photo taken from Google.

Aside from conducting vegetation surveys, our latest task has been conducting bat surveys! I had no experience caving or identifying bats so I was excited and ready for a new challenge. There are 100s of lava tubes in the field office…A little background on Idaho geology:

Southern Idaho has a unique landscape covered with lava flows, cinder cones, and lava tubes. Crater’s of the Moon National Monument was created from lava that erupted from the Great Rift, a series of deep, open cracks, eruptive fissures, shield volcanoes, and cinder cones. This area is still erupting, in 1983 a 6.9 magnitude earthquake occurred rising the highest point in Idaho (Borah peak 12,667 FT) a foot. This earthquake, instead of creating mountain ranges has triggered volcanic activity. Southern Idaho is full of hot springs because the earth’s crust is stretched and thinner than normal in the Snake River Plane and the Great Basin, allowing heat from the earth to be concentrated near the surface.

Craters of the Moon
Photo taken from Google

Lava flows!
Photo taken from Google

Back to bat surveys. I’ve only gone out once so far and went in around 10 caves. We saw Great Horned Owls, a rattle snake, and one maternity colony of Townsend’s Big Eared bats (Corynorhinus townsendii). This colony was found and recorded last week but I wanted to see a bat SO bad that we went back so I could take a photo.

Corynorhinus townsendii

Cheers!
Alexi

Growing up in New England has made me appreciate the vast landscapes of the high desert. Deciduous forests, humidity, fall foliage, and an hour’s drive to you’re vacation spot creates an image of home. My parents ask me if I miss living back east, which I do, but nothing compares to the views of the Sawtooth Mountains while kayaking down the Salmon river. If you have not been to Stanley, Idaho then on your next day off…go! Grab hiking boots, a kayak (you know, just throw it in your back seat?) and a bathing suit for an end of the day hot spring soak. Stanley is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to and may have New England beat.

Salmon river and the Sawtooth mountains.

Though livestock grazing is happening back east, I’ve never had to rescue week old lambs on my drive to work. Just like any day Avery and I are driving to a plot listening to NPR, when we spotted a lone lamb outside of a grazing fence. Naturally, I slam on the breaks, we get out of the car and obsess over how cute this baby is. While I continue to stare, Avery is chasing the very clumsy lamb until she catches him. After taking a few pictures, we feed him water and try to figure out what to do with the lamb in our truck. We thought it would be nice to have a pet at the house, maybe give our neighbor’s 17 cats a new friend. After serious contemplation, we drove past a sheep herder and returned the lamb. Avery and I felt relieved that we did not just have to leave the lamb on the side of the road. After that we continued with our day, finished a plot and returned home, only to find two more lambs. We went through the same process as before, took more photos, and laughed at the phrase “No Sheep Left Behind”.

Friends

A lot of interesting things happen when you’re in the field, that’s one of the reasons why I love seasonal work. One day I will return back east and have a different gratitude for home. Until then, I will continue to explore the hidden gems of the west coast!

Happy trails,
Alexi

Bureau of Land Managment Shoshone, ID Field Office

Larva in Tetradymia canescens shrub.

Horny toad hanging out

Gilia aggregata

Hi all,

It has been about a month since living/working in Shoshone, ID. I have finally blended into the neighborhood and held a successful BBQ a couple weekends ago.

We have been working on a few projects which keep us busy and in the field most days of the week. When we’re in the mood for a scavenger hunt, based off directions, maps, and pictures (sometimes dating back to the 40s) we look for old monitoring plots. This can be quite difficult…one person’s north is another person’s south. This process can take 20 minutes to 2 hours.  It’s like finding gold when you see the metal bars in the ground. We then GPS the monitoring plot to make navigation easy. When we’re feeling like botanists for the day, we conduct Nested Frequency Studies. Through this method, one can determine the occurrence and frequency of a species and ground cover in the plot. These are permanent monitoring plots which allows trend data to be collected from previous years.

Nested Frequency Studies plot

This past weekend was the Seeds of Success training in Boise, ID. It was wonderful to be surrounded by botanists who knew every detail of the plant and could answer any question you had on identifying. We were taught the S.O.S protocol, helped in a collection of Nothocalais troximoides seed, and went to the Oregon State University Malheur Experiment Station in Vale, OR. The Malheur Experiment Station is where some of the collected native seed goes to be grown. The students were growing native Eriognums, Astragalus, Balsamorhiza, Lomatium, etc. Each row of plants were under certain controls and seed was collected from certain plants. This place is going to bring native seed restoration practices to a new level, it’s amazing.

Penstemon in experimental rows

That’s all for now!

Hi all!

I have been in Shoshone, ID for six days now and just finished up my first work week. The BLM office is full of wonderful people who have taken Avery (fellow CLM intern) and I out in the field to explore the Shoshone field office district.

A little blurb about Shoshone: Avery and I are living together in the oldest house in Shoshone, built in 1886! Mary L Gooding Park and the Little Wood River are right in our backyard (literally). There are about 1402 people who live here and an old school movie theatre. We are one hour away from the Sawtooth Mountains and Sun Valley (Awesome!).

We have been in the field identifying plants and getting to know our sage brush! It seems like this season we will be getting to do a lot of tasks including; vegetation monitoring, updating previous monitoring sites, herbarium organization, and seed collecting.

Today, we explored Craters of the Moon National Monument in search for sage grouse leks! It was a six AM start with binoculars and cameras to see this so called amazing process. Unfortunately, we did not see any leks but did flush about eight grouse!

I am looking forward to my season here in Shoshone, this place is a hidden gem in Idaho!
Alexi