WoW….I can not believe that I am half way through the fourth month of five to complete with the SOS program. Recently I have been working with a family that contracts with the BLM and grows BLM SOS seed. The couple joined me in the field last week to complete Symphoricarpos rotundifolius (Mountain Snowberry) collection. The time I spent with them was valuable and interesting. They are exuberant about the SOS program and have many great research ideas, some of which include defining species group parameters. Cataloging which species are found in conjunction with one another so that restoration efforts can be maximized. It is refreshing to work with civilians that are passionate about improving the quality of public lands.
Recently I was speaking with another intern at our neighboring office and found myself saying that with every passing month I feel much more confident in my ability to complete the job successfully. I am able to identify seed ripeness much more easily and with confidence, I am able to collect more quickly efficiently and accurately, and my off-road driving skills have improved tremendously. The privilege of driving the government trucks is wonderful and has allowed me to see a lot more of the beautiful country out here then I would if I were traveling as a civilian. I am up to a total of 24 collections, when I package and send out the completed seed lots I feel a great sense of pride to see my completed work. The fall is just about in full swing here in Surprise Valley and many of the shrubs are nearing seed ripe. I should be busy with collections for a bit longer thankfully, and I hope that the weather does not turn too cold to fast.

It’s an amazing experience to work at the Safari Park here in San Diego. Last week we got to see the Cheetah Run which is a 150 yard stretch of lawn on which a cheetah chases a stuffed animal and can run up to 70 mph. The cheetahs are always accompanied by their dog partners who are raised with the cheetah cubs. The dogs go with the cheetah everywhere and provide them with a security blanket. It’s so much fun to be able to walk in the park after work and look at all of the animals. The Safari Park itself is 900 acres with an additional 900 acres of land preserved in back of it. The additional 900 acres is primarily coastal sage scrub where there are many ongoing experiments. These studies include Herp arrays which monitor the reptile biodiversity and restoration plots for the threatened cactus wren. We have been able to help out on both of these studies. While doing the Herp arrays I saw lizards, small mammals, scorpions, and even a tarantula. While monitoring the cactus wren plots I almost stepped on a red diamondback rattlesnake, which was very exciting. I enjoy the seed collections and exploring San Diego County, but I am also very grateful for all the other opportunities that the park provides. It’s always an adventure!

I am now more than halfway done with my internship in Grand Junction, Colorado. I’ve spent the last two months doing rangeland health assessments in and around the Dolores River canyon, during which time I’ve spent 3 nights a week camped out in a BLM trailer. Our trailer was nicknamed “the Chateau” and was outfitted with a wine cellar, though some may refer to it as “a cooler full of non-alcoholic beer.” The men’s trailer was referred to as “the servants’ quarters.” Yes, trailer life was great fun. But, the fieldwork part of the land health project is now over. We collected data from almost 100 sites, which involved sampling vegetation and measuring canopy gaps along a 50-meter transect, doing soil stability tests, and assessing soil erosion, hydrologic function, plant functional group composition, and plant mortality at each site. It’s now my job to enter all this data into a GIS database and map the land health status of the entire area.
After spending nearly every day of my internship working in the field, working primarily in the office has been a major change of pace. After I’ve gotten used to hiking around all day, I get pretty restless staying inside and staring at a computer screen. But since I’ve spent the field season only working with a few other people, it’s nice to get to know other people in the office. It’s also very interesting to see all the field data coming together and see how it will be used.
As a side note, I got to spend a week taking a course in MIM (multiple indicator monitoring), which is used to monitor land use impacts on streams. MIM involves sampling riparian plant species composition, woody species height and age class, bank stability, bank alteration, gravel size distribution, and pool and riffle composition. After spending so much time hiking around in the desert uplands, spending a week wading around in a stream was a blast. Although after learning so many upland plants, I found I was almost completely clueless on riparian species.
Another side note: Bear sightings! Three of them! Unfortunately they ran away too quick for me to get a picture.
You stay classy, fellow CLMers.

I am now a tad over half way done with my adventures in Colorado for my internship in Denver. Life has passed by quickly while working in the beautiful scenery in this area. Summer has come and gone and fall is now here with talk of snow being around the corner? Being from Iowa, snow usually hits around the end of November or beginning of December with possible early surprises around Halloween from time to time. So talk of snow hitting in September is so foreign to me. Well, living in a new area provides fun new experiences. At least my supervisor told us that the first few snow falls don’t usually stick for long, but could end our seed collecting season early. My fingers are crossed for no early snow.

Phacelia formosula

With summer over, our rare plant monitoring is now winding down. Our last two day trip was a few weeks ago near Walden, CO for North Park Phacelia that is in the waterleaf family, Phacelia formosula. This was our only frequency monitoring that we performed this year. Frequency monitoring is performed along a transect and a quadrat is set at a determined measurement and it is recorded if the plant exists within that particular location, for this research a meter by meter quadrat was used. The quadrat is then placed along the same transect at equal distances apart (2 meters) with the first one set randomly at 0, 0.5, 1, or 1.5 meter mark a certain number of times, ten times for this plot, and is repeated for each transect.

Looking for P. formosula within a quadrat along a transect.

So, when we saw P. formosula in four of the ten quadrats along our first transect, our plant had a forty percent frequency, which is recorded and later statistically analyzed with data collected from past years. This research on P. formosulais also extended to frequency of flowering to extrapolate its reproductive potential this year and trends over time.

A gust of wind and thermal convection took a good portion of our data sheets... we luckily found one down the road though the rest were long gone.

On our way home from our monitoring extravaganza, we stopped by Kremmling, CO to check out two plants we had seen flowering earlier and luckily found that they were both fruiting and ready for harvest. We ate lunch, and first began with Castilleja flava, an Indian Paintbrush species (yellow) and finished a long day with Triglochin maritime, an arrowgrass species, and then finished our trek home. Since then, we have been collecting seed and have doubled our collections within two weeks. Part of the reason for this explosion of seed collecting is that earlier we were also monitoring rare plants, some of our collections were difficult and needed multiple trips to complete them, and many of the plants were not fruiting yet. Only so much can be done based on Mother Nature and how the plants react to the weather conditions. We had a boom this year with a really wet late spring and early summer, but then went into a drought that has hindered many plants.

Cool red rock formation at South Valley Park

As we keep ramping up our seed collections, finish our last two single day trips for monitoring, and fall takes over, I am looking forward to seeing all the beautiful fall colors I’ve only heard about in the mountains of Colorado.

Jeffrey Flory, BLM Colorado State Office

The last three months have flown by quickly. I’m having a great time down here. The perfect weather complements this learning experience nicely. The temperature is way milder than I counted on.
I finally ran into my first rattle snake in the field. I saw it on its “morning commute” to get some breakfast. It didn’t even notice me as it cruised through a patch of Xylococcus (ericaceae).
I have also been doing very interesting things aside from seed saving. This week involved habitat monitoring in the order of vegetation surveys in a reserve to which endangered kangaroo rats are relocated. This is one of the first vegetation surveys I have ever taken part of and am grateful for the experience.
Overall, I am having lots of fun learning new things in the pacific southwest.