Two weeks in and I am settling in nicely here at the Cosumnes River Preserve working at the Bureau of Land Management for the Chicago Botanic Garden.  The weather has been all sun thus far, the fresh produce is ripe and readily available, and the wildlife is abundant and diverse.  I have spent my first two weeks doing a variety of things, including many hours of certifications and training (ATV safety course, UTV safety course, defensive driving course, etc).  I have also been training on some of the heavy equipment operation here (tractors, backhoe, brush mowers, and the preserve’s boat).  This organization seems to have all the right equipment to accomplish the tasks faced by any conservation land manager which is a nice change for me after having worked for a small county conservation organization prior to attending graduate school.

I have greatly enjoyed networking with all of the other staff at the preserve.  This preserve works in connection with The Nature Conservancy, The US Fish and Wildlife Service,  private landowners, as well as many other organizations and partners.  Needless to say, there are always new people to meet.  Interestingly, by the end of June there will be three interns with the same name as myself, Patrick, so things may get a bit confusing.  I have been coordinating schedules with as many other people as possible to get out to other preserves, get involved with seed collections, and accompany other “plant nerds” like myself on surveys for rare plants.  A great deal of my time at this preserve will be spent monitoring and collecting seed from three species, Grindelia camporum, Agrostis exarata, and Eryngium articulatum.  This seed will then be used for restoration projects on the preserve.

In my free time  I have been viewing the wildlife of the preserve.  I am particularly interested in snakes and other herpetofauna, and have thoroughly enjoyed identifying as many California species as possible which are all new to me having moved here from Iowa.  Snakes are very common on the preserve.  Since arriving I have identified Pacific Gofer Snakes, Red-bellied Garter Snakes, and Western Yellow-bellied Racers.  Allegedly, there are Giant Garter Snakes present at this preserve as well which are endangered and as I’m told, very hard to find.  I may have an opportunity to view one if I can link up with researchers at a later date.  In general, I have really been enjoying this experience.  I am greatly anticipating the events that have been arranged over the next several months; what a great opportunity!!  I’m including some of the pictures of the snakes I have seen while out exploring and a picture I snapped while camping at Englebright Lake.

In between doing SOS collections and scouting this month, we have been going out and doing field monitoring. Monitoring is my favorite part of the CLM internship experience. I’m the only intern in the office, and I spend a lot of time on my own in the field doing seed collections or looking for rare plants. While I learn the plants that I’m looking for intimately, nothing compares with going out to monitor vegetation with my mentor. I find it the best way to learn some of those pesky forbs that are constantly dying, and so seemingly unidentifiable.
Plus there is nothing better than spending a day in the field with other people. And then all the number crunching…!

I keep telling everyone I meet that I am from the desert, so I won’t have a problem working in eastern Oregon. “I am used to the dry air, the heat, and the sagebrush,” I tell them optimistically. Who am I trying to fool? After working for three years in a rain-forest ecosystem in the high Cascade mountain range, I really do miss the trees. I miss the smell and the sound of the water outside my back door. I miss the shade of the trees and the feeling of comfort and concealment it brings.  I miss the early morning dew and the low hanging fog that gives the wildlife just enough confidence to spend their mornings browsing in visible open areas. All of these things are only small realizations and memories of fun summers past. This summer and living in Lakeview, Oregon, have already begun to present new and exciting opportunities for adventure and field experience. There are not many places left in the world where you can open your eyes and look as far as you can see without spying a single building, human, or car passing by. There are not many places where the horizon meets the landscape without fault and then seem to melt together in a real-life version of a cowboy movie sunset. I cannot compare the feeling of endless open space to any forest setting. I have an idea to open up a treatment center for people who suffer from claustrophobia…..not really.

As a rangeland technician, I have been learning how to complete range trend assessments that mainly look at the species and abundance of vegetation in different pastures. These studies have been completed in Lakeview for nearly 50 years! I know this not only by looking at the dates, but also by checking out the hairdos in the pictures. Hello, Farrah Fawcett. As a part of the trend assessments, I am completing “Line and Intercept” transects that assess the amount of shrub cover in the area. Tall sage, rabbit brush, bitter brush, and greasewood are the main types of shrub cover that I have found so far. This information will be used to determine critical sage grouse habitat and nesting sites. I had heard about the sage grouse countless times throughout college, and yesterday, I finally saw two. They do exist! I have yet to see a grouse on the lek, but that is definitely on my bucket list. Another project I am working on involves completing “Pasture Utilization” studies. These studies are completed after a herd of cattle is removed from the pasture and looks at the overall use of the allotment. We have also been updating range allotment health assessments that determine how well or how poorly a pasture is being managed. All of these things are giving me a great, in-depth look at how the BLM range conservationists manage the 3.2 million acres of land within the Lakeview resource area.

I look forward to learning more and being able to appreciate this vast wilderness for all of the unique qualities it has. I just need to remember to wear my sunscreen!

Life continues in the Mojave Desert despite the skyrocketing temperatures. I have continued my internship here in Needles, CA with the BLM. I have spent most of my time since my last post monitoring mines. I check the bat-compatible gates and cupolas that were constructed to keep allowing bats access to the adits and shafts while keeping the public safely out. In the past, people have vandalized these structures. I am happy to note that none of the structures I have visited up to this point have been altered in any fashion.

Shaft with Cupola

Adit with Bat-Compatible Gate

I have also had the opportunity to conduct or assist on several bat surveys. I arrive about one hour before sunset and sit in the vicinity of these structures with night vision goggles and counters. I count the bats as they enter/exit the mine for about an hour after sunset.

Nighthawk Pallid bat

 

I have become quite busy the past couple of weeks on various projects. I recently just returned from a BLM training for Indicators of Rangeland Health. Although I am a Botany Intern, the rangeland health training really broadened my knowledge of the ecosystems present in the West. The training took place in beautiful St. George, Utah right on the edge of the Mojave Desert. I got to learn new plants and learn many new techniques to better analyze the status of a piece of land. I am excited to use some of the techniques I learned and share with the rest of my intern team. I think that protocol for analyzing the 17 indicators of rangeland health can be useful to anyone working in natural resources, not just the range specialists because it incorporates hydrology, geology, wildlife biology, and botany.

Once I returned from my training I have been kept busy preparing for a large outreach project at a local recreation hot spot, Sand Mountain near Fallon, NV. My fellow interns and I have been scrambling about trying to get all the info we want to share with the public to try to increase the appreciation for our surrounding nature and public lands. It has been quite a hectic process trying to organize all the gear and information, but I am confident everything will come together in the end to make for a successful outing.

Lastly, I have been working on an Microsoft Access database to use in the field on Toughbook tablets. I have little experience with Access, which is making things difficult at times, but I am learning a lot about the program and its usefulness. I am confident that in a month or two the field database will be working well enough to actually try to use it in the field to collect plant and general spatial data.

William Rutherford

CBG Intern-Carson City District Office

Phlox stansburyi

At 4798 feet, Lakeview, OR, calls itself the “tallest town in Oregon”, a claim that may or may not be true.  Either way, Lakeview is on the northern end of Goose Lake, in South Central Oregon, and is surrounded by plenty of high mountains and lots of sagebrush.  Since arriving here three weeks ago, I have had a chance to meet some great people, and experience some of the beautiful outdoors working with the BLM.

Bald Eagle and its Nest

We are currently working on a project up near Silver Lake, doing botany clearances before a juniper cut and burn.  We scour the ground for rare plants and invasive species, and make a list of all the plant species we see.  On our first day, my fellow CLMer Liz Thorley and I found a bald eagle and its nest in a big Ponderosa Pine.  We can’t see the chicks but we can hear them peeping!

We have seen some cool plants and gorgeous flowers, including sand lilies (Leucocrinum montanum), eyelash pappus (Blepharipappus scaber), cold desert phlox (Phlox stansburyi), golden currant (Ribes aureum) and death camas (Zigadenus venenosus).  Many more are on the verge of flowering, so I think it will be a great spring!

Emily

The landscape around Lakeview, Oregon is full of contrasts. Volcanic rims tower over rolling pastures and grazing cows. Electric green and orange lichens graffiti gray and brown cliffs. Golden eagles perch on telephone poles that dot the sides of the highway. It is a landscape that can seem at once both innocuous and magnificent.

My internship with the BLM here has allowed me to explore some of this amazing landscape. Fellow botany interns and I have spent much of our time thus far working on a botany clearance. This entails surveying a parcel of land for listed plant species, creating an overall plant species list of the area, and flagging large populations of invasive species. This particular parcel is about 1,000 acres, sliced into three sections by a diverging creek. We have hiked through (and sometimes over) a majority of it at this point, which varies from moss-encrusted soil to boulder piles spilling into the creeks. Grassy slopes lead to cliff walls that tower above the creeks. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), bitterbrush (Purshia tridentata), and rabbitbrush (Ericameria nauseosa) fill out the parcel, where juniper trees have not encroached yet. We feel fortunate to be able to spend so much time on this diverse piece of land.

While we have not found any listed species at this point, we have found flowers hiding among the sagebrush and junipers, surprising us with their vivid color among the washed out greens and browns of their surroundings. The bright white and red of the bitter root (Lewisia rediviva), mottled purple and green of the purple fritillary (Fritillaria atropurpurea), and deep purple of Anderson’s larkspur (Delphinium andersonii) are a few of my favorites to find. Their beauty enhances the high desert backdrops that they grow against. It often feels like we have stumbled upon an open flower at just the right moment, as if we are the lucky audience for their performance of color in this fleeting spring.