The last few weeks have been a blur, consumed by our new favorite activity – sage grouse nest site monitoring.  Sage grouse is the big buzz word around here as the local subspecies may be put on the threatened or endangered list soon. So besides counting males this spring, the Bishop field office put radio collars on a few birds, and as been tracking them as they nest.  Now that the females have left their nests, team Botany gets to get off the bench and get into the thick of it – by monitoring the vegetation around the nests.

All I can tell you is that sage grouse like to nest  in some pretty remote areas. That we have to hike to. With all of our equipment.

An example of sage grouse nesting spots

Its a great way to see some of the most beautiful mountain views, away from everything 🙂

It’s been four weeks since I left Chicago for Buffalo. The experiences I have had in these first few weeks have been a bit overwhelming. Once I overcame the initial culture shock, I found that Buffalo wasn’t at all the boring small town I thought it would be. While definitely small, both the town and the field office are full of some of the most fun-loving and kind-hearted people I have ever met. The people of Buffalo know the value of the land that they live on and take full advantage of it. Hiking in the Big Horns, camping in Middle Fork Canyon, running on the creek-side trail that runs through town or fishing out of it are only a few joys found around Buffalo. I can’t forget to mention the bluegrass Thursdays and weekends at the local BBQ joint. I have the pleasure of living with enthusiastic, career oriented, young people like myself, from whom I have much to learn.

I had never really heard of the BLM before coming to Buffalo. Coming from the flat, enclosed, and busy environment of Chicago, I could not have understood the scope and value of the land and the kind of work that the BLM does. At work I am surrounded by people who truly dedicate themselves to serving and protecting public land. I has been amazing for me to see how all these disciplines (biology, geology, archaeology, natural resources, etc.) are involved in managing land.

My particular task is to assemble a Visual Resources Inventory (VRI) for the Newcastle field office. As a biologist, I never even thought about how difficult it would be to mitigate all the visual impacts of the developments that we employ on BLM lands, not just oil fields and transmission lines, but solar and wind farms as well. In order to mitigate visual impacts on the BLM lands, an inventory of the visual values of the lands is needed. A VRI is a method of quantifying the visual values of landscapes.  The Visual Resources Inventory is used to establish Visual Resource Management classes, which are then used in the writing of resources management plans. The biologist in me hopes that there is much more planning involved in developing projects to protect the landscape that only taking visuals into account, and there definitely is. However, after attending a week-long course of Visual Resource Management, I see the necessity for taking visuals into account.

That is about it for my first month. I have been training, working with kids, getting used to living in a big house with five other BLM-ers, and more training. I have at least four more months to learn, work, and enjoy; but I am sure they will pass very quickly. Here are a few pictures of what I have seen this first month. More to come next month!

Right before my situational awareness training

Just a casual drive through on our first weekend in Buffalo

I need batteries for my SLR

Hello,

This is my first blog ever- how exciting! I’ve been working for the BLM in Lakeview, Oregon for a few weeks now doing rangeland monitoring. Everything is new and exciting. New town, new friends, new environment, new job and new plants. I drive a sweet truck on rocky roads looking for a post in the middle of know where. We use four different maps and a picture to help us get there (not a GPS). Sometimes the stakes are fallen, buried or do not exist anymore. I find this to be a really fun scavenger hunt. At the sites we collect data and photos to continue monitoring the site. It has been a really neat experience and a unique way to get to know a new part of the country. I would say that it has strengthen my navigation skills and my grass identification skills the most so far.

I am currently in Chicago for the CLM workshop. It has been great fun meeting other folks who are enthusiastic about botany and field work. The BLM speakers have been very encouraging and interesting. I am so grateful to have been given this opportunity and am happy to be living in my element. Yay plants!

Last week here in Carson City we began our long but satisfying days of fire monitoring. It was fun to learn the protocol and take quantitative data. The extensive procedure helps in forming a complete picture of fire recovery success (or failure!). It will be interesting to see the recovery status of the many fires we will be monitoring this year and I hope to gain a better understanding of fire restoration in Nevada. I’m confident our team will become a well-oiled machine in monitoring fire transects; I take it as a sign I’ve been focusing well on my job that at the end of the day, when I close my eyes, I see little Poa secunda patches just waiting to be counted.

-Allison in Carson City

It may be getting hot (kinda like standing in front of 500 blow dryers), but I still would not trade this experience for anything. The amazing people I have had the privilege of working with, the opportunities I have received, and the friends I have made along the way have all be nothing short of spectacular.

Working with the Springs Preserve has been amazing I get to work with the public  in a beautiful garden, which I can now say I am a part of, is a wonderful way to spend my Sundays at work. I get to work with children and discusses different botany topics, it is really rewarding when you get to see them get really involved and interested in the lessons. Working in the plant propagation facility is a great way for Allison and I to work with volunteers and manage watering schedule, planting projects, and catalog the species in the facility.

Still the field work is the most rewarding experience. The fact that I have seen more of the Mojave Desert in the four month I have been in Vegas, than most of the people whom have lived in the city for 20 years really makes me proud of the work I am doing. The opportunity to explore the different areas, from creosote to pinyons,  and brush up on my keying skills is wonderful. I would never trade this experience for anything, I am just amazed I am only doing this for another month.

And I got to backpack the Grand Canyon south rim to the Colorado River this week end, so thats cool too.

Dan Goldbacher

Modoc sucker (pic from OSU)

The general protocol was to walk streams at night with high powered flashlights and count said fish (they are fairly immobile at night, making them easier to count).  This also involved camping in the beautiful Modoc National Forest.  In fact, one of the greatest perks of this job (as I’m sure it is with many interns) is the locations we get to visit, both on the job and off.  We are surrounded by so many amazing adventuring opportunities. From snow-shoeing at Crater Lake to watching the eclipse at Lava Beds National Monument to mushroom hunting in the Cascades (we found morels!) it has been wonderful exploring Klamath Falls’ surroundings.  We look forward to new frontiers as we head to Gearhart Mountain Wilderness Area for several weeks of Bull trout surveys after the CLM training in Chicago.

Crater Lake

I just got back from a much-anticipated week-long plant monitoring training in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

The entire class was focused on measuring and monitoring plant populations, which is a topic I’m interested in personally, and is also a project I’ve been tasked with at my current field office. There are a host of “Unusual Plant Assemblages” in my field office, including Fouquieria splendens (Ocotillo), Cylindropuntia bigelovii (Teddy Bear Cholla), and Castela emoryi (Crucifixion Thorn). Until recently, I was a bit overwhelmed with the idea of setting up an effective long-term monitoring program for these plant populations, as their ranges within the field office are quite extensive. However, since the training I just got back from, I have a much better idea of what a good monitoring program entails, and how to establish successful monitoring protocols on my own. My next post will hopefully be about how I am fulfilling these objectives!

The rest of my time this month has been (and will be) spent finishing up seed collections for the season. Plants are mostly done flowering here in the desert, and lots of them are in seed, which will make the next few weeks hectic as I try to work in a few more collections. My most recent collections have included two Camissonia species and Chorizanthe brevipes, and I am also hoping to get in a collection of Chilopsis linearis.

That’s all for now, happy collecting!

Lara Kobelt

Needles, CA BLM

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recommends “2 hours and 30 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity every week and muscle-strengthening activities on 2 or more days a week that work all major muscle groups.” My co-worker and I hike briskly over rocky, uneven terrain for at least 6 hours per day while carrying our packs filled with food, water, and extra layers. We get about 10x the recommended amount of exercise each week to be “healthy.” It is pretty awesome getting paid to work out every day, and I definitely have no problem falling asleep every night. Plus I am going to have some gnarly calluses on my feet after all my blisters heal! We still haven’t found any weeds to map, but we do get to see a lot of scenery. And a LOT of sagebrush.

Sarah

BLM Lakeview, OR

Today marks my third week here in Buffalo,Wyoming as a range intern and I could not have imagined being placed in a more beautiful area. These last few weeks I have been busy training and learning all the plants of the region.  I have already seen an abundance of wildlife including pronghorns, burrowing owls, golden eagles, and moose! Just the other day while finishing up some vegetation monitoring we were approached by two baby pronghorns! We also had the opportunity to visit outlaw cave, which was one of the famous hideouts of outlaw Butch Cassidy and overlooks the equally famous Hole in the Wall.

We are lucky enough to live a mere 10 miles east of the Bighorn Mountains, which has allowed us to get out for some fantastic evening hikes after work. All the wildflowers in the lower foothills are really starting to take off and we were fortunate enough to stumble upon some fairyslipper (Calypso bulbosa) on one of our first hikes.  To say that I have been blown away by the beauty of the wilderness and wildlife surrounding Buffalo would be a severe understatement and I am beyond excited to be spending the next five months living, learning, and recreating out here!

Just finishing up may second week in Farmington, New Mexico and we are really getting into the swing of things here. Coming from a plant physiology background these first weeks have been a humbling and fulfilling experiencing of  botanizing, plant keying and navigating around the desert. Relearning families, remembering plant morphology, learning how to use GIS and GPS units has been really exciting! Everyone always told me that the real learning starts after you finish with college and if these few weeks are indicative of the next five months I have no doubts.

Today we were able to check out a new program that our office has implemented as a control for Russian Knapweed,  Acroptilon repens , an invasive herb in our region. This biological control involves a mite that infects the inflorescences of the knapweed and instead of them producing flowers they make galls for the mite larva to live in. This will hopefully slow down the reproduction of the knapweed and prevent it from spreading further! In the second year of implementation the mites seem to be spreading well and soon the project could be implemented on a larger scale.

Looking for mite infected plants.

Got one!