After a month and a half of being here in Central Oregon I feel more settled but still excited about the challenge to cover a large land area to find suitable plant populations for seed collection.

Our Lomatium species are going to be ready to collect after some steady temperature in the seventies for a couple of weeks. The plants’ phenology were slowed down by wind, rain, and cold weather but not our cheery & fun crew spirit. Most of our collections are in beautiful rocky areas near pine trees nestled in the bottom of watersheds. Even so, work in Eastern Oregon is not all a field of daisies. A population of buttercup (Ranunculus glabberimmus) was heavily foraged, so we can’t sustainably collect from that site. I hope we’ll be able to find another population before they are crinkly brown and almost invisible.
Other projects I’ve been working on are making sure our sensitive Calochortus species has fencing around it so that cows cannot graze. It’s a good challenge in using ArcMap and GPS that will be handy for future projects, including Seeds of Success. We’ve also been working with other seasonals on monitoring sage grouse habitat. Unfortunately a lot of sites do not seem suitable for sage grouse, but the mood keeps positive as we work on mimicking the calls they give.

Last week we went out in the field with a wildlife biologist to see his vision for playa restoration. Many playas have been dug out to create watering holes, which have been trampled by cattle. The future vision is to put in wells and to even out the soil in the watering holes. Hopefully we’ll get to seed collect this summer for some of these sites. The least impacted playas have a good diversity of forbs and grasses that would be wonderful to collect from.

Overall I couldn’t have asked for a better place to work and a better focus in botanical work.

Allium, Onion Flower

Balsamorhiza sagittata

View from Forest Hill

Best,
Debbie
BLM Prineville

I started my first week in Colorado on May 13th. It was a hectic week before work, as I had to finish up my final semester at school and drive across country from NY to Colorado in 2 days. Two thirteen hour days of driving got me to Denver a few days before work. I was greeted with an odd May snowstorm which delayed my start date a day due to road closings in the mountains. As I was settled into the bunkhouse in Kremmling, CO I got to know my coworkers. The first week was great. We drove around the BLM land and I started to learn some of the Invasive plant species I will be eradicating this summer. The area is beautiful-surrounded by mountains.

The first day of field work consisted of spraying Thistle (Carduus spp.), and Cheat Grass (Bromus tectorum)  with the herbicide boom sprayer off of our UTV/ATV. In patches that had previously been sprayed and killed, we laid native seeds down and raked in the patches.

The next day we went to Yarmony Mountain and sprayed Mullein, and Thistle that had taken over an old burn site. The whole burn area was covered in invasives.

The next day we went to an old grazing pasture that the BLM had been spraying for years to see how it was doing. It had very few invasives and we sprayed the little that we did find. Today we went up Wolford mountain and surveyed for invasive species. We covered quite a bit of land in our 10 hour day.

The wildlife is great out here. I have already seen Prairie Dogs, a Jack-Rabbit, Big-Horned Sheep, Mule Deer, a herd of Elk, and many Falcons. Looking forward to more adventures in the mountains of Colorado.

Week five is now over. I can’t believe it’s already been that long. Thursday and Friday of week four Susan and I went down to the McDermitt area to monitor two sensitive plant species there: Artemisia papposa (Fuzzy sagebrush) and Collomia renacta (Barren Valley Collomia). We were able to locate one of two populations of Artemisia papposa, and had some trouble with the Collomia renacta. The Collomia is newer and we were unsure if the species we were seeing was in fact the renacta. Overall, it was good to get some eyes out in the area and see what’s going on. We got an estimated count at each site, and took note of their habitat and general condition.

Artemisia papposa

Morning sky in McDermitt

Earlier that week I got to take an ArcPad class through the BLM, which taught us how to use the Trimble GPS. I feel extremely confident in my ability to use the Trimble for a variety of tasks now, and am looking forward to using my new skills in the field. I’m glad I was able to take part in the class.

This week we went back to a collection site of Viola trinervata, and collected another 800 seed heads or so. That will put us over the 10,000 seed minimum for the Seeds of Success program, but Susan will return to the site one more time next week so that we collect all throughout the seeding period. The more seed, the better! It was my first collection this year, and it was very successful.

Viola trinervata field site

We also just finished with the Seeds of Success training course. It was in Boise, ID this year, so we made the hour and a half journey each morning for three days. This made for long days, but was worth it. We learned more about the program, the protocol, proper seed care, seed biology, and plant taxonomy. It was organized well, and I feel better able to collect native seed according to the protocol now. Wednesday we were in the field and did an actual collection together, which put everything we learned on Tuesday into context. There was such a wealth of information there, among all the mentors and instructors, I’m thankful they opened the course up to interns this year. Thursday, as an extra part of the training, we went to the Oregon State University Malheur Experiment Station right here in Vale, OR, to see what can be done with the seed we help collect. It was great to see the kind of research that is being done in an effort to increase the use of native seed on the landscape, and for restoration purposes.

Experimental field of native species

I feel more at home here now. I’ve become familiar with the town, and the neighboring towns, and have more of a routine at work now too. Despite this fact, I definitely miss my friends and family back in Illinois, and am looking forward to heading back in June for the Chicago Botanic Garden training week.

Now that it’s really starting to warm up here I’m off exploring more of Eastern Oregon. This weekend I’m off to Leslie Gulch! I’m looking forward to seeing, and attempting to paint, the beautiful geology down there. It’ll be the first time I’ve camped out alone, so it should be interesting.

Here are some more photos I’ve taken for fun:

Cute caterpillar we saw while seed collecting

Flowers while looking for sage grouse

Penstemon sp.

Hope you’ve enjoyed!

Colleen

Vale District BLM

In the few weeks since my last post, my fellow interns and I at the USGS office here in Henderson have been busy working all across the Mojave Desert in Arizona, California, Utah, and Nevada. Our most recent project is the annual monitoring of perennial plants at the site of the 2011 Hidden Fire in Arizona. This field site is on BLM land in a region called the “Arizona Strip” – a strip of land in Arizona between the border and the Colorado River. This particular site has burned multiple times, converting the Joshua Tree woodland into an area densely covered by invasive annual grasses (Bromus madritensis in particular) that leaves the native annual and perennial species struggling to recover. We were there to monitor the effects of different restoration treatments, such as seeding with and without rodent protection, herbiciding, and seeding density, on the cover and frequency of perennial plant species.

Working in a new part of the Mojave gave us a chance to learn some new plant species and more about this relatively fragile ecosystem. The majestic backdrop of Grand Canyon-Parashant National Monument made for some beautiful sunsets and moonrises, and we were able to spot some exciting wildlife. We saw a few horned lizards, a lark nest with three eggs, black widow spiders, and a gopher snake. We head back out next week to finish up the plant monitoring before the busy month of May comes to a close.

The moon rises over a bluff near our field site in the foreground, where few perennial species remain after the fire in 2011.

A black widow catches an unfortunate grasshopper in its web.

The black widow returns to its hole after subduing its prey.

Until next time!

Las Vegas Field Office, USGS