July 26, 2013

Las Cruces, NM

In my blog post last month, I talked about how people from the Northeast perceive the Southwest, but I forgot to include one important observation.  People on the east coast generally think that New Mexico and Arizona are interchangeable.  I can’t tell you how many times someone at school asked me when I was moving to Arizona after I had informed them a few weeks earlier that I was going to live in New Mexico after graduation.  Now that I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Arizona, I can tell you firsthand that Arizona and New Mexico are entirely different, both culturally and ecologically.  I won’t delve too much into the cultural differences (let’s just say golf courses are much more common in Arizona than in New Mexico…), but the ecologically differences are astounding.  To an outsider, the two states are superficially similar seeing as they are both covered in desert.  However, the Sonoran Desert  in southern Arizona and the Chihuahuan Desert surrounding Las Cruces host immensely different ecological communities.

The Chihuahuan Desert in southern New Mexico is located at a higher elevation, making it cooler than the Sonoran Desert and more prone to freezing temperatures in the winter.  The Chihuahuan Desert also has a single rainy season during the summer monsoon months, whereas the Sonoran has two distinct rainy seasons, enabling it to have the highest plant diversity of all the desert ecosystems in North America.  These environmental differences have left the Sonoran and Chihuahuan Deserts with strikingly different plant communities.  For instance, even an outsider would take note of the curious absence of Saguaro Cacti—the quintessential cactus portrayed in desert cartoons everywhere—in New Mexico.  Let me repeat that.  Despite the countless New Mexican postcards with the silhouettes of Saguaros set against a southwestern sunset, there are no Saguaros in New Mexico.  

Saguaro National Park located outside of Tucson, AZ

 In terms of fieldwork, we have successfully completed our first two Seeds of Success collections!  The monsoon season, which typically lasts from the beginning of July until the end of August, has begun, and patches of green and wildflowers are starting to speckle the formerly dry and dormant Chihuahuan landscape.  Because there are only two botanists in the state of New Mexico (the other is located in Farmington), our mentor, Mike Howard, is responsible for monitoring the vegetation of about 11 million acres of public land.  Needless to say, we have spent a large proportion of our time driving to distant field sites scattered around the state.  In addition to collecting the seeds of two different populations and varieties of Honey Mesquite (Prosopis glandulosa), we have also begun monitoring over a dozen other plant populations for potential future collections!  I anticipate that the coming months will hold many additional SOS collection opportunities.

Field site north of Lordsburg, NM where we completed our first SOS collection

Honey Mesquite or Prosopis glandulosa–the plant species we collected for our first two SOS collections.

Our mentor, Mike, is a very dedicated photographer.

 Like last month, I will end my blog post with some terminology I have picked up during my stay in southern New Mexico:

Virga: An apparent streak of precipitation that evaporates before it reaches the ground.  The word virga is derived from the Latin word for “twig” or “branch,” which is appropriate because like virga, the branches of a tree never touch the ground.

Plinking: Southern New Mexico/west Texas slang for target practice, which is a common recreation activity in many of the field sites we visit.

8-inch Rainfall:  In the desert, this term is not used when we have 8 inches of rainfall, but rather when the raindrops are falling 8-inches apart from one another (in other words, there is barely any rain).

Desert Pinstripes: A term that refers to the appearance of your vehicle after you have been driving off-road through thorny shrubs such as Acacia and Mesquite.

-Elisabeth Ward

Finishing a project never means you’re done with anything. It only means that you now have time to start something new. And for me, this is always a welcomed treat. This allows for a ever varying array of tasks and brings you to new locations. After finishing the last trend plot the other day we immediately headed of in search of Sagegrouse leks. This brought me to many locations that you would expect to be a lekking site but also brought me out to another that I still question. After parking the truck, my partner headed out approximately 0.35 miles out into the middle of a lava flow in the Craters of the Moon National Monument. Although the spot was a pretty wild one, surrounded by rock boiled up from the center of the earth, with deep crevices strewn about, holes down into the earth, and just a seemingly endless sea of lava, I found it humorous thinking of a lone sagegrouse in the midst of this extreme environment, dancing and strutting his stuff for the delight of the ladies, or more likely, lady, if any female Sagegrouse would be as crazy as this male to think this spot the best place to showcase his male prowess. It also made me think, for just a moment, if not just a passing thought, that if this was an actual lek, this Sagegrouse may just be the smartest of all the Sagegrouse. Picking a spot, where undoubtedly he would have no competition. But more often than not my mind wanders back to the picture of the lone male, dancing his heart out in an unforgiving landscape to an audience of none. But his will never waivers, and year after year, he will return to perform his show, knowing that from somewhere, there is always somebody watching.

This is a very busy time of year for seed collecting in Southwest Oregon. We have been in the field every day, with little time to write. Fortunately, photo-documentation is an important component of our protocols, and I can share some of the plant images from the past few weeks.

Calochortus howellii 

Asclepias fascicularis

Castanopsis chrysophylla

Chimaphila umbellata

Hemizonia fitchii

Horkelia sericata

Orthilia secunda

Pyrola Picta

Hello everyone!! This last week was incredibly busy. We were assigned to a new project where we have to go to random plots generated by the GIS and monitor those sites. We have to go to seven different pastures and monitor five to twenty plots (depending on the size of the pasture). We were given ten extra plots in case we could not make it to some of them or if the site had barren ground. It was suggested that we would split up to cover more ground and plots, but we were sort of against that idea. Each site has to be on a less than 35 degree slope and away from any wet areas. We were given the maps and everything looked very straight forward and easy…we were dead wrong. O_O

I thought this was an interesting picture.

Previously…On Lost….
We decided to go to the Nevada pastures (located in northern Nevada <_<) and quickly monitor them, because there were five plots in each small pasture. After we have established our final ES&R plot, we went off-roading to the random plot locations. Thank goodness for four wheel drive, because I was driving over very rocky terrain. We were following the Trimble/JUNO GIS device to our next location. There were no roads, so we would have to wing it. When driving, I had to watch out for the grassy areas, because there would be large rocks hiding within.

The directions to our first site led us up a mountain, near the Red Mountain area. This pasture was called Long Canyon/ Upper Crow Creek and was located on the other side of the fence. I was starting to get very scared, because the slope was getting very steep. In order to get to Long Canyon/ Upper Crow Creek Pasture, we had to get to this gate, which was at the top of the mountain. (I was wondering, who in their right mind would put a gate at such a high elevation at such a steep angle…) We got there and I had to turn my vehicle to go through the gate. When I got to the other side, the steepness of the topography made it seem like I was tipping down the hill. When Dan said, “Oh crap, the wheel is off the ground.” I was shocked and Randy quickly shifted his weight to keep the vehicle from tumbling down the mountain. We all thought this was a bad idea and quickly moved down hill, noting to never go to that plot. We learned that the plot might be located on less than thirty five degree slope, but it could be surrounded by steep drop offs or rocky cliffs. If the terrain was too dangerous, we would move onto the next plot noting that we could not make it to the present plot we were trying to get to.

We went through another way into the Long Canyon/ Upper Crow Creek Pasture. This pasture was on steep terrain, but it did have a road! We managed to get two plots that day. One of the plots was located near a granitic intrusion, which was fascinating! The local cows were curious and approached us with the utmost secrecy. They would eventually moo notifying us that they were there. (I think they just wanted our lunch…)

The JUNO did help us find the plots, but due to the satellite signal, navigation was tedious. We were lost most of the time, so we used my GARMIN GPS to help pinpoint the plots. Luckily, we were successful in finding some of the plots, but we would have to return to this pasture another day.

Steep mountain slope I had to drive up.

“Pole Patch Pasture? Ha! That is an easy one to monitor”- Said no one ever.
The next day we went to Pole Patch Pasture, which was located in the top part of the Trout Creek Mountains. The previous established plots we monitored were on a smooth flat topography. We thought this would be easy! 😉 …….it was not V_V… At least we did have a lot of fun finding the random plots. It was like the ultimate geocaching adventure! The mountain mahogany (Cercocarpus spp.) in the area made the terrain seem like Africa. Half of the plots were easy to get to. We saw a variety of wildlife including the chukars. Man, those birds were bountiful in our area. They were crawling all over the rocky ridges. Many of the chukars were juveniles and had a tough time keeping up with their parents. Unfortunately, they did not waddle to their heart’s content like the sage grouse did.

We were on a monitoring safari!
We even found the elusive Balsamorhiza sagittata in one of our random plots…Today was a good day.

The whole landscape was covered with basalt flows and rocks, making off roading a bumpy experience. You could even sing Ode to Joy in quarter notes, because each note was a bump from a rock. Some sites were located next to cliffs, and sometimes we would have to climb downwards from rock ridges to get to some of the plots. This trip gave us plenty of good off roading/ driving experience. Dan and I were joking that we could make a BLM off roading video.

The last few sites were located on steep terrain or near cliffs, so we would have to do a lot of walking. We loved the exercise and scenery, but we thought that the GIS algorithm for establishing these random plots was going crazy. Pole Patch had many moments of seriousness (especially driving down the ridges), but we survived and had an outgoing view on this pasture. We managed to survey all of the plots, including two extra ones!

Mr. Rattles Version 2.0

Our next pasture we had to go to was called the Mahogany Pasture. As usual, we would leave 4:45am in the morning to get to our random plots. We traveled about an hour to this pasture. When we arrived, we found out that the gate had a padlock on it…  Who puts a padlock on public land!? o_O

We changed our plan. We were now heading towards the biggest pasture, the pasture with no name….. No joke! The pasture was called No Name Pasture. This pasture had a huge number of plots. There were valleys, mountains, the occasional happy cattle dog, and rocky terrain. This pasture had it all! Our first plot was located in a flat basin area near water. (GIS…I thought you calculated the water factor out of this…<_<) I mentioned to my fellow intern, Dan, that this was ideal rattlesnake territory. There were rocks all over with a nice source of water. We monitored our first random site and then we heard a yell from Randy, who was located on the top of the hill. We quickly gathered our things and started to head up the slope to see what was going on. Randy yelled that there was a rattlesnake by him. We cautiously ran up the hill towards Randy. He mentioned that he almost stepped on it when it started to rattle. This rattlesnake was bigger than the one I saw at the Miller Homestead Fire. It was coiled and rattled at us. The snake especially hated Randy. It was always looking towards him. (I thought they had poor eyesight…) We took a couple of pictures and left it alone. I named the rattlesnake Mr.Rattles Version 2.0, but the snake could’ve been female…I did not want to check.

Mr. Rattles Version 2.0 is not amused…

Later in the day, we went on rocky slopes to some of the random plots. We could not bring the vehicle, because of the steepness of the mountain. Dan and I were in dry rocky areas where Zigadenus paniculatus  (foothill death camas) was present. I love all plants that I encountered on this internship…. except the foothill death camas. This plant would scare the bajeezus out of me. Their seed pods rattle like a rattlesnake rattle. Whenever I would step into one and I would hear it rattle, I would jump up in the air and run up the hill. When I would turn around I would see the death camas and I would be like, “ ZIPA2! What the heck!” (Yes, I sometimes yell at plants.) I was still cautious each time I would be around rattlesnake territory. Dan, Randy, and I would call rattlesnakes, snaddlerakes, to make light of the situation.

How I view the landscape in the No Name Pasture…

The Bad Idea

We were still monitoring in the No Name Pasture. There were many sites to monitor and we would have limited time to get to all of them within a two week period. We decided to split up to cover more ground. This idea was suggested to us by the person (not our mentor) who was in charge of the project. Dan and I went to a couple of sites located up this hill. Randy was with a vehicle, while we monitored as many sites as possible.

(Flashback)
The firefighters were down at our field station awaiting the results of the weather coming through our area. It was supposed to storm and produce lightning to cause fires. The same storm system caused a fire down in Nevada. They were on patrol and I was talking to them about the weather. The morning was overcast with the southern horizon covered with rain clouds.

(Flashforward to the Afternoon)
Both Dan and I climbed up this rocky ridge and monitored two sites. The JUNO was being jumpy, so it took us longer to get to our destination. We knew the general direction of where Randy was, but we did not know exactly where he was. The Southern Pueblo Mountains were covered with rain and we were at our last site. We did not see any lightning, but it was starting to rain and become very windy. We monitored the plot in two minutes flat and we quickly headed towards the direction of Randy. The rain was sparse, but the wind was very bad. Usually when it is windy, the dust from the surrounding area blows right at you. We were a dust magnet! We quickly ran down the mountain, while stopping occasionally for insect pictures. Dan would yell in the valley hoping that Randy would hear us. At one point we got a communication signal and was able to call Randy. We found his location before the rain got very bad. We quickly drove north and out of the rain storm. We learned that we would always stay together and not separate from our group. Safety first 😉

It is time….to monitor….
Before the rainstorm, we quickly used the two rulers to monitor a 3ftX3ft area.
To make light of the situation, I did a small pose at the site.

Sidenote: The rainstorm did not cause any fires.

Misadventures

BLM Legends
“Let us take a moment to recognize all of the BLM Legends.” said Dan as we were walking to our office space within the BLM building. Everyday when we were in office, we would take a moment to look at the wall of the Burns/Hines BLM Legends. These people dedicated their lives to the BLM and served their country proud. Unfortunately, Dan and I don’t know any of their backgrounds, so we would make up a story to go with their legendary status…similar to the Dos Equis commercials.

Burns/Hines Manager #3 1967-1973: Became a BLM Legend by establishing a whooping 35 trend sites in one day and established the resource boundaries of our mighty district.

Burns/ Hines Manager #8 1985-1989: Had ten years’ experience with working for the BLM within a five year period. Managed to protect the wild horses single handily, while establishing a document to meet both the needs of the cattle ranchers and horses. Achieved his BLM Legend Status by creating paved roads for the Steen Mountains.

President Obama: BLM Legend…He is our President, which automatically makes him a BLM Legend.

Deer
One of the most common animals we see in the field and in town were the deer. They were all over the place! Sometimes I would see up to six deer in my backyard. Right now as I am typing this I see four fawns, a doe, and a buck. When we were monitoring we would see them on the ridges staring at us before moving on. If they cannot see us they would make a large snorting sound to make us move, so they could detect us. Some bucks we see in the field were very big and we were usually questioned by the hunters in our area about the bucks on top of the Trout Creek Mountains. We would just say they are present.

So cute….man I really need to clean my windows…

Let me begin by apologizing as I missed my most recent blog, I decided due to the proximity to my last day of work I would dedicate my energy to one grand final blog entry.

As I meander down my career path I seem to find riffles that carry me to tranquil pools of understanding. My time spent here with the Bureau of Land Management has more or less been a series of riffles with small intermittent pools that ultimately led me to pure satisfaction with my internship. In this case the turbulent flow was not water flowing through a channel, but rather thoughts and ideas racing through the thalweg of my mind as I developed critical personal skills at the workspace.

I was hired by the wildlife biologist to work as a geographic information systems intern. I came with a series of expectations that were highlighted in my interview as the primary and secondary duties of the position, when I arrived many of these expectations were flooded away. I struggled with the mental aspect of disappointment as rills formed in my mind about showing up to work to complete some menial tasks, including installing signs, mapping fences, and digitizing data. Rather than allowing these rills to progress into gullies that would have washed away tons of satisfaction from my acceptance of such a powerful internship opportunity, I found I was able to diversify myself and complete outlined work priorities while still gaining valuable experience.

Initially I was caught up in the fact that my mentor seemed to push me to work for the office GIS specialist, rather than for the wildlife biologist. The GIS specialist had minimal work for me to do and expected me to complete office work as it arose. When things around the office were slow, I set out on my own to find work to complete. Approaching my mentor was difficult at times due to her busy schedule. It started to become clear that this was the ultimate learning opportunity. As the season progressed I did my best to use my skills to deliver high quality product in a timely manner, while reaching out to learn as much as possible.

With August just around the corner, the summer seems to have flown by; those cold early mornings of leking season are long gone. As I reflect on my summer the negative aspects that initially engulfed me are dwarfed by the positives. I was able to work in the field and office with the forester, the archeologist, the real estate specialist, the weed manager, the range specialists, the botanist, the recreation planner, the GIS specialist, and a few of the range and weed technicians. My  initial expectations of applying my skills to wildlife biology and learning about wildlife biology management were not met; however, the list of people I was able to work with wash away my expectations in unexpected learning experiences. Not only was I able to apply my skills in assisting these diverse specialists with diverse backgrounds while learning about topics I never would have otherwise been exposed to, but additionally I was able to train these specialists in some of the topics that I have a background in, GPS mapping and GIS. I feel that these aspects have combined into giving me an incredibly strong understanding of how these land managers interact together to develop and achieve management objectives.

The Conservation and Land Management program ultimately exposed me to exactly what I wanted, applied science and land management. While five months is far too short to grasp how these agencies function and how their decision making process ultimately influences several hundred thousand acres of our natural landscapes, I most definitely gained exposure to these concepts. Not only were my initial objectives of gaining federal land management experience met, but I feel I can comfortably say my personal skill set and personality grew an immeasurable amount. Since it has been barely over one year since my college commencement ceremony, this was only my second biology related job. Excited and passionate about conservation I dove into the opportunity with minimal questioning during the interview process, something I will not do again.

This experience has helped me develop a skill set in interviewing potential employers who have scheduled an interview with me. It can often be easy to lose sight of the idea that a job is a mutualistic relationship amongst individuals and their employer. The employer is seeking someone with a skill set and background appropriate to the tasks that need to be completed, while the employee is seeking respectable individuals with reasonable expectations to report to, if either becomes unsatisfied with the relationship, the situation becomes less than ideal. Using this concept as a framework, I know that any future interviews will involve a lot more than simply answering the potential employer’s questions. Additionally, I learned about what aspects of a mentor, or boss rather, do not appeal to me and more importantly how to cope with personality conflicts at the work space in a professional manner. As an individual who has been blessed with outstanding advising from previous employers and professors, I plan to advise students and hire seasonal workers to assist me with my future endeavors. Learning how to cope with a mentor I did not always get along with has taught me what I do not want to be for anyone that works for me or relies on me as a mentor. These personal developments came early in my career, and in a comfortable setting.  Doubtlessly I am convinced that most individuals will learn these same skills in a similar manner at some point in their career, but for me personally I am glad to say I am advancing my career with these skill set under my belt.

In just a few days I will be moving to Flagstaff, Arizona where the skills I have learned in this position will be applied to obtaining a Ph.D. in Forestry. My aim as a research scientist is to develop research projects that provide land managers with useful information that can  be applied at the landscape level. Working with the land managers in this office has given me the background needed to better relate to and conduct research that land managers will find useful.  I feel many scientists lack experience working in the field of land management, despite the fact that their research is often directly related to land management. Certainly, working for the BLM has helped me understand the concept of land management and the processes land managers have to go through when making decisions.

In addition to career and personal developments, this internship ultimately gave me one of the best adventure opportunities of my life. Being from Colorado, Northern California, or even Western Nevada, is a destination that only gets talked about. This summer I was able to backpack among giant redwoods in the fresh scent of ocean air, visit high mountain lakes in the massive granite batholiths of the Trinity Alps and Sierra Nevada, wander through old growth forests in the coast range of southern Oregon, visit the majestic volcanoes of the southern and central Cascade Mountains, navigate lava tubes in the vast lava plains of the Modoc Plateau, hike along the crest of a seldom discussed fault block mountain range of rhyolite in the Warner Mountains, and soak in hot springs in the vastly empty playas of the Great Basin in Nevada. These adventurous experiences only strengthen the wonderful time I have had as a Chicago Botanic Garden employee working for the Bureau of Land Management in the Northeastern California town known as Alturas. Seeing all of these delightful new places has broadened my world view by exposing me to new places rich with unique history, ecology, geology, and scenery. The number of plants I have learned while out exploring this region dwarfs the plants I knew before coming here, not to mention my photography gallery has expanded an otherwise un-achievable amount.

There is not a doubt that the riffles and sometimes turbulent flow of the last five months has built a meander in my career that adds outstanding beauty to the bigger picture of my life. There is no such thing as a negative experience, as exposure to anything is associated with a learning opportunity. As I continue forward in my career, the Conservation and Land Management Program is something that will stand high on my recommendation list to qualified individuals. The networking opportunities associated with this internship are fruitful, from the outstanding staff associated with the Chicago Botanic Garden to the land managers and professionals that work for and alongside the federal land management agencies, the possibilities are endless. Any experience is what you make of it, so make the best of all that you do even when the situation seems to be less than ideal.

Sincerely,

Michael Remke

Bureau of Land Management, Alturas Field Office

GIS Intern

Michael_remke@nau.edu

I’ve been on the job for just over a month now, and with field season in full swing, I have been busy travelling to collect seeds, monitor rare plants, and help out with other projects as needed. The other CLM interns at the BLM state office and I have taken a few breaks from Plant Business to help out Jay Thompson, a BLM fisheries biologist, with a couple of small projects. We traveled with Jay to an alpine wetland at Dyer’s Gulch to survey the site for boreal toads. We didn’t find any. But we did find massive amounts of Colorado blue columbine (Aquilegia coerulea) in bloom as well as marsh marigold (Caltha leptosepala), both of which we hope to collect in the near future. I was also excited to find snow willow (Salix nivalis), a dwarf willow only a couple inches tall, which serves as an adaptation to the harsh conditions above the timberline.

Just yesterday we also assisted Jay with some benthic macroinvertebrate sampling at Grizzly Creek near Kremmling, CO. This is an interesting technique that uses the community composition of macroinvertebrates in the stream bed to gauge water quality at a given site. The samples we took will be sent to a lab for thorough analysis and identification, but we were able to notice some apparent differences between sites. For instance, we only found water boatmen at our first site, which seemed, superficially at least, to be less impacted than the other stream sites we sampled. I found this trip to be fun and interesting, and a nice change of pace to look at things with legs.

But enough of this “legs” nonsense–back to plants! Our team has also been busy monitoring two federally listed plants, Astragalus osterhoutii and Penstemon penlandii, which are both endemic to the area near Kremmling in Middle Park. Astragalus osterhoutii, which our mentor Carol Dawson has been monitoring for years, is particularly interesting because when conditions are poor (such as during the drought of recent years), it can remain dormant for several years, waiting until conditions improve to produce aboveground stems. Carol has had each individual within several study plots tagged and numbered, and our monitoring consisted of locating tagged individuals and assessing the presence, number, and flowering/fruiting success of aboveground stems.

Meanwhile, we have continued to scout and make collections for Seeds of Success, most recently collecting Geum triflorum, a cute little rose with nodding pink blossoms, the common name of which is, adorably, old man’s whiskers, presumably referring to the fuzzy nature of the fruits as they mature.

Dyer’s Gulch near Leadville, CO

Sampling macroinvertebrates in Grizzly Creek

Astragalus osterhoutii

Geum triflorum (Photo by Darnisha Coverson)

Katherine Wenzell

BLM State Office

Lakewood, CO

I had a wonderful opportunity recently. I went on my first seed collecting trip! I know it doesn’t sound exciting but it was…I will tell you why.
·    First, I got to go on this seed collecting trip with two senior scientists. One of the individuals is from our USGS field office and the other is from a USDA field office in Utah. Not only did I have the opportunity to work with two fantastically smart people I was a part of an inter agency cooperation project.
·    Second, I learned how to collect black brush (Coleogyne ramosissima). For an individual who is easily amused, which I am one of them, this was a blast. The process of collecting C. ramosissima is rather simple, it goes like this:
Grab a large canvas net (hopper)
Grab a sturdy stake
Take both of these objects with you and walk up to a bush. Place the hopper under the massted bush and beat it! Yes, beat the bush with a stick. How great is that?…It is pretty fantastic!
·    Third, I visited many areas to asses black brush distribution and to collect seeds from massting individuals within various populations.
o    Lake Powell’s surrounding area
Lake Powell is a blue beauty that appears in the red rocks winding through the surrounding canyon.

o    Little Colorado
The Little Colorado River feeds into the Grand Canyon. The red and white striped walls of the canyon rise high and cast magnificent shadows across the landscape. The black brush likes to hang out on the benches/plateaus of the mesas. (Honestly, I thought the Little Colorado was more beautiful than the Grand Canyon)

o    Grand Canyon National Park
This is a vast Canyon, crazy deep with many extending benches and plateaus, much of which was covered in black brush. The canyon is full of colors… and very very large.

o    Zion National Park
Zion was perfect! I was privy to a private, one of a kind, tour given by the senior scientists I was traveling with. Zion is beautiful from the moment you enter the canyon area, even before you reach the park entrance. The beauty only increases as you travel into the park. It is green with plant life, the rock provide a color palate of red, white and yellow. It is a majestic place!

It was the best trip ever! I felt as thou I was a child who was taken to Disney World. I had never been to any of these places, so being able to experience them with people who knew the area was beyond amazing. Every question was answered and a lot of information was given and I tried to soak it all up. Now, we did work while going to all of these places and the presence and absence of black brush was documented through-out the whole trip, unfortunately we could not collect ion the National Parks.

 A key component to seed collection is having plants to collect seeds from.  A key component to having plants is rain.  The latter component has been very elusive in the Farmington district however.  It is as though the district is located in a desert or something. Needless to say the lack of rain has brought seed collection to a screeching halt.  The bright side of no rain is that it has afforded us the opportunity to help others in the office out on projects they are working on.  We have had the pleasure of working on a bird survey before a prescribed burn, running transects for a long term bird study, and checking wildlife cameras.  Our biggest accomplishment has been building two large native plant gardens in from of our office.  We planted over one hundred plants from over forty different species into the gardens.  It was a lot of work but the end result looks really amazing.  Hopefully I will be able to regale you internet people with stories of collecting seeds again but until then keep your fingers crossed for rain. Cheers!       

Partially Constructed Garden

Finished Garden

Leaving sucks…

It seems my internship is ending again, for real this time. I have recently accepted a job back home as an Environmental Health and Safety Technician at the University of Nebraska Lincoln. My emotions drift back and forth over this, between excitement for a new, “real” job and twinges of regret that I have to leave here to get there. That’s the price of moving on, unfortunately; you just can’t have it both ways. It’s also a difficult thing to fathom, that I will at last have “permanent” job security with insurance, a rigid schedule, and more responsibility. The question remains: can I handle the new responsibility?

It’s amazing how many loose ends accumulate over time. I suppose this happens everywhere as priorities change and little things get set aside. On my list of things to do are to clean up some Environmental Assessment work in progress, update our GIS system with rare plant observations and fence type inventory data, officially label and glue all herbarium voucher specimens I’ve been collecting, get the truck (trusty ol’ Bernie) an oil change, ship out herbarium specimens from my seed collections to the Smithsonian and the Rocky Mountain National Herbarium, link reservoir photos and data to mapped locations, and of course clean out my cubicle and work truck. But the hardest part of wrapping up my internship (again), is saying goodbye to everyone (again). I’ve driven away from here before when I thought my time was done, and it was a very sad day. I imagine it won’t be any easier this time, especially knowing it is official.

But these things happen, I suppose. I’ve had a great experience here, and I’ve learned more than than I could begin to conceptualize. But alas, the nature of temporary work is to eventually move on and hope that we’ve learned enough to be more dangerous than we were yesterday. So here I go, fingers crossed.

It’s great to have diversity at work. We started the season with sage grouse lek counts and Habitat Assessment Framework for sage grouse, then moved onto range trend which we finished up this week! Now we get to move onto a new project which is great, doing something new and expanding my knowledge is just what I signed up for when I accepted this internship with the BLM in Shoshone Idaho. Our new project is lek assessments, determining the suitability of a site as a sage grouse lek.

 
To determine the suitability of a lek, we get to drive and hike in beautifully remote areas in Craters of the Moon National Monument, seeing and exploring areas that not many people get to see. Once we arrive at a site we determine if there is enough cover around the lek and whether there are places for predators, such as raptors, to perch. We also listen and record any noises we hear while we are there, and record the dominate plant species. Not every lek is exceptional but we get to see them all!

 
So, What does a great lek site look like you ask? Here are some pictures, you can see for yourself.

Sage Grouse Lek

Sage Grouse Lek