This month we had the pleasure of helping several different agencies on wildlife projects. One of the most unique experiences I had was with the National Parks Service. We were able to band hummingbird at Bryce National Park. Feeders with netting bunched around the top were hung and observed for 5 hours. When a hummingbird landed on the feeder, a line was pulled that released the netting so it would fall around the feeder and hummingbird. My most exciting moment of the day came when I pulled the line and captured a rufous hummingbird. Next I loosely close my hand around the hummingbird and placed it in a netted bag. The bag carrying the bird was then brought to the processing table where measurements were taken and the bird was banded (with the smallest band ever seen).

We were also lucky enough to help the Utah Division of Wildlife run a M.A.P.S (Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship) station in Santa Clara, UT. Using mist nets we were able to capture birds along a riparian area. After removing the birds from mist nets, the birds were banded, aged, sexed and several measurements were taken.

Next month, I will be aiding the Forest Service with a fish survey. This will include electroshocking the fish (they are stunned, not killed), scooping the stunned fish up with nets and taking length and weight measurements. More is to come on this topic in my next blog 🙂
Besides assisting other agencies, my fellow intern Brittany and I continue to monitor sage grouse habitat. Today, we flushed up three greater sage grouse while enroot to one of our sites. At another site, we identified greater sage grouse sign.

Our future endeavors with the BLM include the Wild Horse and Burro Adoption, riparian assessments, mule deer monitoring, digitizing sage grouse sighting and raptor nests and more. Until next time, I hope everyone is enjoying their internship!

Michelle Downey
Cedar City, UT
BLM

It’s going on my fourth month now in Rawlins, Wyoming as an amphibian intern. Since my last post, there have been many more frogs/toads and many more interesting experiences. The weather has finally gotten better. The snow eventually stopped and the sun has finally come out to stay.

My daily work schedule has involved driving around the Rawlins Field Office searching for amphibians. I have had the privilege of seeing many different types of frogs/toads including spadefoots, chorus frogs, northern leopard frog tadpoles, and even the occasional salamander. Aside from these awesome amphibians, it’s been common to see baby antelope, wild horses, and even a young badger on our surveys.

As for the landscape out here, there has been mud, giant playas, and rocky/cobble roads. I even managed to get stuck in a muddy playa. I managed to get out, but lost my wader boots in the process. The bugs have also been an obstacle this year; bug spray kind of does the trick, but constant swatting is the only way to guarantee a limited number of bites. However, these obstacles are a small aspect of the exciting work I get to take part in here.

I look forward to witnessing more of Wyoming’s wildlife as I finish out my internship position these next couple months.

Talk to you later,

Jackie Taylor

Rawlins, Wyoming

I couldn’t help but make an Owl pun at a time like this! We have begun our Mexican Spotted Owl habitat surveys here at the field office in St. George, UT. This entails leaving the office at 6:00 or 7:00 in the morning in order to attempt to beat the heat, which doesn’t ever happen no matter how early we start. Maybe if we left the office at 3:00 AM it would stay below 100 during our nine hours in the field. Maybe. Needless to say, it’s HOT. But the weather is predictably beautiful, something that I really appreciate coming from the notoriously unpredictable Pacific Northwest.

What are we doing out there? We’re really looking for “cool microsites” — spots in canyon caves and crevices or ponderosa pine forests that would provide the owls with a spot to nest and forage where it stays shady throughout the day. I can relate to the owls in this desire for consistent shade, that’s for sure. Although we haven’t spied any owls yet (they’re not exactly common), I’m confident that by the end of my five months we will. Or at least hear a shy hoot. However, our trips have not been devoid of wildlife. We’ve come across a pair of Red-Tailed Hawks soaring along canyon walls, a lone Northern Harrier crying out in the distance, plentiful riparian songbirds catching bugs around a canyon spring, and some really cute Red-Spotted Toads.

It’s been tricky work, and I’ve had my share of complications, including heat exhaustion and a sprained ankle. But despite the difficulties, the remote locations we have had the chance to see have been pretty spectacular. These are spots that are not easily accessed on foot, let alone convenient for driving. They require a lot of washboarding and use of 4-wheel drive, then clambering up steep sandy hills to get a decent view. It’s quite the adventure! One thing in particular that I have noticed about Arizona is its tendency for spiky plants. Literally everything growing here has spines, spikes, prickles, burrs, or something else sharp that will get stuck to your socks and stick you when you’re least expecting it. It makes sense to me, though. A harsh environment calls for equally harsh methods of dealing. I’m always quietly panicking that I will trip and fall on a Joshua tree, though. I have a theory that those branches (leaves? What are they?) would impale me if I fell at just the right angle. Luckily, that’s a pretty ridiculous theory.

So, as the summer presses on, we will continue with our surveys right into the monsoon season (yep, there’s a monsoon season!!!) and beyond. I can’t wait to see what else Arizona has to offer!

Laurel Mundy
BLM
Arizona Strip, AZ

Well I’m a little over halfway into my internship here in Cedar City, Utah, and it’s been quite a ride so far! Aside from performing habitat assessments and using radio telemetry to locate greater sage-grouse in the challenging desert environment, I’ve also been fortunate enough to help with prairie dog trappings for plague studies, conduct Mexican Spotted Owl and nightjar surveys in beautiful canyons, assist with avian mist-netting in Santa Clara, learn how to band hummingbirds in Bryce Canyon, become ATV-certified, and attend the amazing CLM Workshop at the Grand Canyon! The lessons I learned and the experiences I shared at the workshop are ones that I will always remember 🙂 A BIG THANKS needs to go out to everyone who helped organize that trip, especially to Krissa and Marian! It was great meeting some of my fellow interns and getting to see such beautiful places. I felt like I grew a lot during that week and am truly honored to have been a part of it.

During my time here at the BLM Cedar City Field Office I’ve really enjoyed the variety of tasks involved with this position. My co-worker, Michelle Downey, and I have helped other field groups with their project clearance evaluations, vegetation transects and prairie dog surveys. It’s great to see the other project areas and get a feel for the different aspects associated with this job. Having a broader understanding of the research that goes into saving our wildlife is one of the best things I could take away from this journey. I’ve always been a firm believer in preserving natural resources and working towards species survival, but now I’m learning the more productive ways of achieving those goals.
Coming up in the next couple months, Michelle and I will collaborate with other BLM employees and complete Riparian Proper Functioning Condition assessments [PFC] among other assignments. I really like doing PFC assessments since we get to spend our days admiring beautiful streams and monitoring their form and function. We’ll also get to work with rangeland health teams and check out soil trends and keep track of the wildlife use on such lands. Carrying out Little Creek Fisheries stream surveys, where we’ll be tracking perennial streams and fish populations, is also on our agenda. Later this week we’ll be volunteering with the Cedar City Wild Horse Adoption and I’m super excited about spending time with such gorgeous animals! I hope many become adopted and live amazing lives…I love that I could have something to do with making that happen. Eventually we could also be performing pygmy rabbit surveys which I think would be so much fun! As you can tell, I’m really embracing every opportunity that has come my way out here in the beautiful West!

Best,
Brittany Stanglewicz
Seasonal Wildlife Technician
BLM – Cedar City Field Office

The end of June finally brought some warm weather to Cody, Wy. Spring has been long, cool and wet this year. The range really shows the effects of the weather. The spring green-up was much delayed and now in July many areas are still very green, whereas in drier years, many plants would begin to brown in late June.

I have continued with the fence inventory I started when I first arrived in Cody. You wouldn’t believe the number of fences on public lands. Even though the Cody Field Office isn’t that large, compared to other Field Offices, 1.2 million acres, inventorying the fences is a daunting task. At this point, many of the crucial pronghorn areas have been inventoried and problem fences have been identified for future removal or modification. I feel very fortunate to be assigned the fence inventory. While it doesn’t take much skill, it gives me ample opportunity to become familiar with the entire field office, as well as the opportunity to observe wildlife and vegetation. Of particular interest is the geographic and topographic variation and variability of vegetation.

I have learned to identify most of the vegetation on the range and some of the more conspicuous plants at high elevation in the mountains. As the grass began to green in June, I began working with the range conservationists conducting vegetation monitoring for both grazing and wildlife purposes. Primarily the monitoring consists of permanent point intercept transects read yearly to assess trends in rangeland condition. Additionally, we have been collection data on sagebrush and residual grass canopy for sage grouse cover.

Working with the range staff has been a learning experience in itself, very different from working with wildlife biologist. It has given me the opportunity to barrage the range cons. With questions about grazing, overgrazing, trespass cows, fences, conservation, range improvement (water tanks, seeding, weed removal, and prescribed burning) and the grazing permit system. Additionally, I have worked with the Wild Horse Specialist and have begun to understand the many issues surrounding wild horses on public land.

I have also been working on finding and inventorying certain rare plants in the Field Office. I had the opportunity to work with the local botanical expert and well known botanist.

Jason Clark

Cody, WY

BLM

After a fun and educational week at the Grand Canyon, it was time again to return to seed collecting in the Mojave desert. The July heat is causing plants to crisp up, and my team has been scrambling to collect the remaining seed off of browned out plants before all of it falls to the ground.

As the field season progresses, I find myself working on a number of new projects in new places. I’ve had the pleasure of doing botany at high elevations in the San Bernardino National Forest, where I have been working with other botanists at the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden doing rare plant surveys and collecting vouchers for the herbarium. Not only have my forest adventures introduced me to a whole new flora, but I’ve also been enjoying summer temperatures in the mid 80’s, about 20 degrees cooler than the sweltering desert heat. Our field teams up in the San Bernardinos have been working in areas that were previously under collected or not surveyed at all, and we’ve been rewarded with sightings of a whole host of sensitive and endangered plants. This week my field team found a thousand plus population of the rare plant Oxytheca parisii var. parishii which, according to my mentor, was the largest population of the plant she had ever seen.

Besides all of the interesting botany I’ve been doing here, I’ve also been immersing myself in Southern California cuisine. The abundance of fresh fruit and vegetables has made cooking a fun and delicious enterprise. Avocado season is now upon us, and I’ve been perfecting my guacamole recipe. The key is to use plenty of cilantro and to cut out the stems to avoid a bitter taste. I’ve also been frequenting the Mexican food restaurants in the Claremont area and out in the desert and have had my fill of giant quesadillas and carne asada burritos. As my internship winds down, I’m starting to think about my future and would absolutely love to stay right here in California.

-Andrew Monks, Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden, Claremont, CA

Hello from Cedarville, CA! My Internship is focused on the Seeds of Success program and this is the first year for BLM Surprise. So far I have shipped three collections and as of this posting there will be 5 more to be shipped next Monday. So far my favorite is Idaho Fescue which was the easiest to collect and painless as well. I learned first hand about Needle & Thread! Balsamroot was okay and smelled great too but the bugs hanging out in the foliage were almost too much to bear. As of this writing we collected Indian Ricegrass and Thurber’s needlegrass bringing our collection total to 8! I also have been doing some Rangeland Monitoring and went out with the Archaeology Tech once as well. It was with the latter that I saw my first Wild Mustangs so I was thrilled about that. As beautiful as Northeastern California and Nortwestern Nevada are I will be glad to spend some time away next week in San Francisco and visiting friends in Humboldt County!

This internship is placed at the San Diego Zoological Institute for Conservation Research, our main goal is to collect SOS seeds for restoration. This location is nice since we have the opportunity to not only collect in the desert, but also chaparral, and coastal sage scrub.  We were also fortunate enough to help with various other research projects including, Herp Array monitoring for biodiversity and Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat Habitat Monitoring, which included a prescribed burn.

The Biodiversity study, located on the 900 acre preserve adjunct to the Wild Animal Park, is meant to monitor small mammals, reptiles and amphibians living in the preserve. A series of several herp arrays with buried buckets trap creatures at night and then are assessed by scientists and volunteers the next morning.

My fellow intern and I got to help with this assessment for two days and saw a few species of snake, pocket mice, kangaroo rats, and tons of lizards! It was very educational to be exposed to the different techniques of weighing the animals, marking the lizards, capture and rerelease.

The Stephen’s Kangaroo Rat Study takes place an hour and half North of the Institute near Temecula, CA. The Applied Plant Ecology Division is working on assessing the grassland vegetation in the area for release of Stephen’s Kangaroo Rats (SKR) that will be released later in the fall. The plots are actually hexagons with various treatments for invasive including herbicide, mowing, sheep grazing, and fire.  Monitoring these plots was actually really fun because we had great weather and got to learn about 5 invasive grass species in one day. Along with assisting in habitat enrichment, control of the invasive grasses should limit the amount of fuels available for wildfires.

Angelique Herman

San Diego Zoological Institute for Conservation Research

Escondido, CA