Things have been interesting at the Shoshone BLM. With our AIM duties ending pretty early, we are left to help out on several different projects. These include fun things like monarch tagging, cave monitoring, and recently PFC (Proper Functioning Condition) for riparian areas. The plant identification has been slim lately, but I am excited to ramp things up by learning all of these new riparian species for PFC.

Monarch tagging was such a blast, even though we didn’t actually catch any monarchs! We saw quite a few but they are surprisingly quick and hard to catch. However, as a person who worked with native bees for two years, having a bug net back in my hand felt great.  We did however catch a few viceroy butterflies AND a half black bumble bee (Bombus vagans). Ross Winton, our liaison from Idaho Fish and Game, is very knowledgeable with western bumble bees and has taught me so much about the species here in Idaho.

The following week, we were fortunate enough to help out with some bat mist netting. I wasn’t able to handle any bats due to the fact that I am not vaccinated for rabies, but getting to see bats up close was quite the experience! Doing field work at night is definitely an adjustment though (I was so tired by the end of the night).

Anyways, I am looking forward to seeing what the next two months bring. I am definitely happy to begin keying and learning new riparian species.

Signing off from Shoshone, ID

Barbara

Half black bumble bee (Bombus vagans)

Silver-haired bat we caught – such a cutie

Juevenile Yellow-bellied Racer found in a riparian area!

Mimulus guttatus (a fun riparian species!!)

I am writing this blog post in the final two days of my internship, and I’m still in shock! As much as I told myself to savor my time here, it still feels as if my life has been on 1.5x speed.

Being stationed in New York City, my internship has been a little different than other CLM interns. There are many things I will miss about living in this city – street parking will NOT be one of them (seriously, alternate street parking has been the bane of my existence the last six months). That being said, New York has so many cool opportunities that I will miss! The last few months I have seen numerous Broadway shows, laughed at comedy clubs, gone to concerts, and eaten at world class restaurants. I’m definitely ready for a new adventure, but I am very pleased about my six months here.

Although I was stationed in New York, most of my fieldwork was actually in Delaware. Delaware had its pros and cons, but I definitely found appreciation for certain areas of the state. My position was strictly Seeds of Success, which has really given me a greater appreciation of plants. I really loved working on dune habitats, both in the hot and cool weather! In the hot weather, my partner and I found ourselves taking midday swims in the ocean. In the cool weather, well, it’s just beautiful. Being from Florida, there’s something about the sound of waves that feels comforting!

One of the coolest things about my position was how I was in the same areas day in and day out, so I was constantly seeing how plants change throughout the season. Phenology has never been so conspicuous to me! After this position, I don’t think I will ever be able to turn off the “identify plant” button in my head. This is a habit I really don’t want to lose, anyways.

My final days are filled with tying up lose ends and I feel pretty satisfied with my work. For the state of Delaware, our goal was 75 collections. In the early months, my partner and I were in a constant state of anxiety wondering how we were ever going to achieve this goal! The month of October was absolutely insane, full of 12 hour days and constant collecting. We had a lot of hard collections (Spartina alterniflora, I’m looking at you!), but also enough “easy” collections to balance it out. We finished up our field season with 80 collections, and wow, did it feel good! It was such an amazing experience to be doing on-the-ground conservation and knowing that my hard work will be used for restoration!

I will certainly miss this position and all of the memories that came with it. This is my final post, so I will leave you with some photos of my time here.

Signing off from the Staten Island MARSB office,

Barbara Garrow

Lovely dune habitat, featuring Solidago sempervirens (seaside goldenrod) and Ammophila breviligulata (American beachgrass)

Prospect Park. Brooklyn can be pretty sometimes!

Mantid on some Scirpus cypernius (Woolgrass). We ran into a surprising amount of bugs during the internship!

I can’t believe my internship is nearly halfway over! Time is truly flying by and the ebb and flow of field work is starting to feel normal. After a rather slow June and July, collection season is speeding up, and I welcome it.

In July, I was assigned to my state to work in, which is Delaware, and I definitely have a love/hate relationship with this state. It’s the furthest state from the office (I’m in the New York office), so I spend about eight hours a week just traveling to and from Delaware, which can be tough. We have visited a lot of sites that are fragmented, covered in trash, and just not managed very well, which can be incredibly frustrating. But in contrast, we have visited gorgeous sites that have many of the plants on our list. We have visited pristine dune habitats, beautiful (albeit smelly at times) marshes, and stunning lakes and ponds. I spend a lot of time camping, and my hammock has become a second bed. It’s incredibly rewarding to have a job that allows me to be outside as much as I am.

As the oncoming months arrive, I expect for time to speed up even more. We have spent the last two months working hard to scout out sites for future collections and soon all of that planning will come to use, which is exciting! It feels great to collect seeds, knowing they will be going to restoration projects. It’s a good feeling to know that I am giving back to the ecosystems which I love so much.

Signing off from the Staten Island MARSB office

Barbara Garrow

Tree frog on some cattail (Typha latifolia)

Black racer (Coluber constrictor) just hanging out.

My partner, Gio, trying not to fall into the wetland – a common occurrence while on the job.

Hi all!

Moving to New York City was not what I expected when I applied for an internship with the CLM program, but I have totally embraced my life as a new New Yorker. I packed everything in my tiny car and prepared to move into a cozy apartment in Brooklyn. Being a new New Yorker, I have also embraced a new diet of primarily pizza, bagels, and donuts…kidding…kind of. I have only spent about 2 weeks here, but I am really enjoying all of the great food and the never ending things to do. As for the internship, we received our plant list on the first day, and I have been steadily trying to learn the list of over 200 species. This has been overwhelming, but I appreciate the challenge. I find it really great that my job consists of learning and getting familiar with these plants before our field season gets into full swing.

Last week, we did our training in North Carolina with the other Seeds of Success east coast interns. I was saddened to learn we wouldn’t be going to the Chicago workshop, but North Carolina was beautiful, so I can’t complain. We spent three days learning about the history of SOS and the protocols. On our third day, we got to go out into the field, which was a great hands on learning experience. We spent the first half of our day identifying common plants in the area and looking for possible plants to take seed collections from. We focused on grasses, sedges, and rushes, three groups of plants I am not as familiar with.  The second half of our day was spent doing a seed collection as a collective group. We collected seed from the plant, Glyceria striata, and it was a pretty easy seed to collect. So easy, that we apparently collected about ~500,000 seeds, which is a bit over our 15,000-30,000 seed goal, haha. That being said, it was a great experience to finally apply what we had learned the past two days (and be in the field, of course).

My internship has just begun, and it has already been great. I’m looking forward to the rest of this six months full of plant identifyin’, seed collectin’, and NYC livin’.

Dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) seed

Identifying Poaceae! This is Dichanthelium scoparium.

Signing off,

Barbara Garrow

Seeds of Success Intern

Greenbelt Native Plant Center in Staten Island, NYC.