This blog post is a little late in the making. It always takes me a little while to reflect on a job or experience. When I originally moved out to Idaho I really struggled with a culture that I felt was much more conservative and closed-minded. I have always viewed myself as being well suited to deal with conservative rural communities despite being a very liberal leaning person from a large suburb of the Twin cities. I had never lived in an area with so much religious influence and the farms and ranching operations were quite a bit bigger than I was used to in the Midwest. Additionally, and perhaps most importantly, it was my first time living out by myself and not at a bio-station or other living arrangement that often comes with technician work. These factors challenged me throughout the season although I got used to them quickly. Like a lot of challenges, they turned out to be excellent living experiences. While I don’t miss the general mindset of the state, I did become accustomed to it, and feel that a prevailing culture is not a reason to avoid an area, but it does make things harder.

Looking back there were many challenges and learning experiences. Some of the obvious ones were learning new skills and sampling techniques, becoming familiar with the area and culture, and learning how to manage a crew, even a small one. The not so obvious ones included living in a new place, finding the energy outside of work to explore, exploring the surrounding Idaho, and personal and professional challenges with coworkers. A lot of these were really difficult and often left me drained or unhappy. But in retrospect, the best place to be looking at them from, these challenges are the most important things I’ll take out of this internship. The places, events, and people that challenged me will be the teachers I have to learn from.

I enjoyed a lot about my time in Idaho. As I drive around my home town I realize that often I’m not seeing the streets in front of me, but a mental map of Twin Falls, with all the landmarks I’d come to know, is projected on top of what’s actually in front of me. I look at old pictures and miss the beauty and smell of sagebrush, the shape of buttes and foothills, and the giant canyons that gave the landscape its surprise and drama. I can’t imagine that Twin Falls would ever become a permanent home, the landscape is settled into my heart and I would dearly like to spend more time there. I had a lot of fun and came away with several wonderful friends and one of the most important friends I’ve ever had. I was able to take trips in nearby states and see some amazing things I didn’t know existed. If the chance ever arises, go to Dinosaur National Monument.

My internship expanded my skillset and gave me the opportunities to build confidence in many different ways, particularly in trusting my own judgment and knowing that I don’t know as much as I think I do, but that’s ok. I have a wider range of tools at my disposal both internally and externally. The opportunity to work with other people in my office and in other offices such as the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, allowed me the chance to ask many questions and see the topic of management through many different lenses. The internship also helped define what I’m interested in doing in the future. It reaffirmed that I wish to go into management, but helped me better understand in what possible capacities and what areas definitely aren’t of interest. This has been a fantastic experience that I am so lucky to have had.

It’s been raining an unusual amount in Twin Falls, Idaho for the past couple weeks and I’ve been absolutely thrilled about it. Coming from the Midwest, I have been feeling more than a little dried out in the arid sagebrush with the very harsh sun. Yes there’s no humidity, but that’s only a trade off part of the time. We’ve finished doing the Habitat Assessment Framework for Sage Grouse a couple weeks ago. At the end of HAF surverys we were up in the South Hills of the Jarbidge field office and saw grouse almost every day or at least several times a week. After months of seeing nothing more than droppings and some feathers, the actual birds were a great gift. A crew flushed eighteen birds along a single stream one day. As elegant as they are when displaying, they are ridiculous, noisy, and panicked when they take off from the sage.

Since then it’s been wetland inventories, thermograph data retrieval, and a variety of other activities depending on what’s needed in the office. One of the unusual days was when we got to help one of the Wildlife Biologists out with Spotted Frog monitoring down in a set of beaver ponds. The Frogs are very rare and only found in this one section of the Field office. A group of us lined up and started up the stream through the beaver ponds. I gave up on being dry very quickly and ended up chest deep in some places looking for frogs on the emergent vegetation. At first we saw absolutely nothing but by the end we had a decent count despite a local rancher pushing cows through to get them out of the canyon and away from the river. Caught a snake or two as well as the frogs.

One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most lately is the opportunity to shadow or talk with other staff in the office. Myself and Maria Paula were able to go out with our Recreation Coordinator, and we all got the chance to hear the Jeff, our archeologist, speak about his work. I’ve been very impressed with the people we’ve worked with both personally and professionally. I am always surprised when they accord great consideration to our time and schedules, since as interns, our schedules are fairly flexible and less packed than theirs. Additionally I am struck by the knowledge of their work as well as an awareness of the areas’ management as a whole. Both staff were able to speak to management concerns outside of their fields very knowledgeably and with a sense nuance that stuck. As someone looking to go into the management field somewhere along the way, I was really interested to hear what people who had been in the field for a while, considered to be good and bad qualities in a manager. It has helped bring a sense of reality to what I’m working towards and filled out the challenges a little more.

On a lighter note Maria Paula and I took a road trip to Wyoming to Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Cheyenne Rodeo. On the way back we stopped for the night in Dinosaur National Monument, did a bit of hiking and saw Colorado and Utah on the way. It was a fantastic trip. The scenery was desolate and beautiful by turns. Cheyenne Frontier days was an absolute trip with a strange assortment of people and a great rodeo. Mostly it was great to get out and go someplace. I get more than a little myopic during field seasons, especially right in the middle, so getting out of town was amazing. Dinosaur National Monument is incredibly beautiful and definitely underrated. We were able to see a huge wall of dinosaur fossils, pictographs, one of the most beautiful canyons I’ve ever encountered, and swim in the Green River. Of course, we also became Junior Rangers.

Spotted Frog looking a bit dazed

These Fine feathered fellows staring at the car

I just got back to Twin Falls from being in Chicago for the CLM workshop at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The week was well timed as a break from the regular field season and as a chance to meet the other interns, Krissa, Rebecca, and several other great professionals. It was a good chance to hear about how CLM started, the relationship with the BLM, and to get a lot of insights on fieldwork and working for a federal agency.

The seminars covered a lot of information, some of it very basic, but all of it incredibly useful. Often it was good to go over basic concepts particularly in monitoring. Personally, the last time I covered a lot of these topics was in early college or early field jobs. Going over ideas such as what kind of quadrat or transect to use and how to set up a spreadsheet in order to give you the most data manipulation options, was a really good thing to revisit. As someone with a wildlife background working in a plant-oriented position, one of the most helpful courses was the overview on plant families and identification. There were definitely people proficient with the topic but I think that the majority of people found the class helpful in some way. We’ve all had experience keying and identifying plants, but having a clear set of characteristics to fall back on was very useful. It was also a good crash course reminder after not having used dichotomous keys for a few years.

As someone planning to go into management with a focus on wildlife, it was interesting to see the line being drawn so clearly between wildlife people, represented by Fish and Wildlife Service, and botanists. I was a little frustrated by how often the wildlife people were characterized as being unable to look at the system holistically or from an ecological standpoint rather than from a species standpoint. Although I have no doubt as to that being true in many cases, I think that the reverse is also applicable. Characterizing the two groups like this at a workshop could only perpetuate the divide and be off-putting to wildlife-oriented people. It is incredibly important to develop the ability to look at systems from both perspectives and for current and future managers to approach their stewardships through a multi-level view, no matter what their original preference. In a more positive light, hearing from underfunded and underrepresented botanists did highlight things in the current systems that need to be changed in order to better manage the land and resources. Being aware of this can only be a positive thing.

Altogether the conference was very useful and extremely well timed. I always get a little myopic a few months into a field season and being reminded that the rest of the world exists is extremely welcome. It was also great to get connected to other interns in the area and to meet people interested in many of the same things. I especially got a kick out of discussing rope-making with Dean Tonenna. He gave an excellent ethnobotany lecture about the Numa people. It was fascinating to see that their method of rope making is essentially the same as the Ojibwe and the Aboriginal language groups from Australia. I’m planning to collect some sagebrush bark and give it a shot soon.

It has been a month since moving out to Idaho and starting work and things are starting to take off.  The sagebrush and grazing pastures are starting to look familiar, and I no longer feel completely disoriented when we take a new route to a site.  Our work consists primarily of HAF (Habitat Assessment Framework) monitoring to collect data on the vegetation and habitat available to Greater Sage Grouse in Twin Falls’s field office.  I’m still struggling with many of the plants and some days feel that grasses are beyond my grasp, but it is incredibly rewarding to be able to walk through a pasture and name so many of the forbs we pass on the way to our transect sights.

The days are long and we are still working on establishing a routine in order to get more sites done in one day.  Despite the long days, the work is interesting.  We will never revisit any of our sites and I am intrigued by the idea of spending so much time and effort on 100 meters of an area only to uproot our transect lines and move on without much more thought.  The world shrinks down to one meter points for a few hours and then expands back out into the large skies of the sage brush.

We just got the third member of our five member crew.  The three of us are all CLM interns and it’s been incredibly enjoyable to help train him in and watch someone else experience the brush with such enthusiasm and pleasure.  Next week we’ll start doing 4 days camping out in the field in order to reach the further sights.  I’m thrilled at the idea.  Our trailer will be in a campground by a river.  To be near water again is going to be wonderful.

The desert here is beautiful, with the real beauty showing in the details and the intensity of the landscape.  From a car the scene looks homogenous, varying only in so much as whether areas are grassy or filled with sage and rabbit brush.  Once on the ground the area is quickly differentiated by many details and the land’s character shows through.  It is a harsh landscape in that there is no shelter whatsoever, from sun or the often intense wind.  But it is a wonderfully serene place and I am always thrilled to be able to see for miles and to watch the clouds move in.  These kinds of skies are some of my favorites.

I’ve had the opportunity to see some phenomenal birds while out here, including our main focus the sage grouse.  Horned larks, Brewer’s sparrows, sage larks and Swainson’s hawks are daily companions.  We lucked out to see what I think was a short-eared owl sitting on a fence post the other day and drive by a Ferruginous Hawk’s nest.  Horned toads are everywhere and even a bull snake was spotted today.  Earlier this week we were watched by four pronghorns, all strung out along the horizon line, and two days ago a group of young cows attempted to eat our transect tape.  The animals are ever present and often very subtle, a challenge and daily delight.

I’m looking forward to the next several months and the thought of becoming adept at the work.  I am also delighted by the idea of what we might see during this time and how we will begin to understand the area better.