Hello All,

For my first post, I thought I would talk about my first week out in the field. I am working in  Northeastern California.

One of our field sites with lots of Eriogonum spp.

My fellow intern and I have spent the week out and about, getting familiar with the lay of the land. We have monitored various special plant populations – some Ivesia spp.. and a lot of Astragalus pulsiferae – and despite the drought in our area, we did manage to find some healthy-looking populations.

This week was also exciting because we completed our first Seeds of Success collection. Our mentor showed us a large population of buckwheat. With a closer look, we discovered we had three different species present (Eriogonum umbellatum, E. caespitosum, and E. sphaerocephalum). There was a lot of interesting local variety in flower color – the majority were yellow, but some were orange and others had hints of red or pink. We returned to the site later in the week to collect seed from one of the species, and will come back next week to get some seed from the other species.

So far, it has been a really fun experience! I am slowly becoming familiar with the flora of the Great Basin area. By participating in Seeds of Success and monitoring special status plant populations, I feel like our work is important for current and future conservation efforts and helps us protect this interesting ecosystem. I look forward to getting to spend more time out in the field and encountering other populations of plants!

Recently we as a team were collecting seeds within a dune system and I saw this beautiful amazing plant. This plant’s name is Oenothera deltoides (birdcage evening primrose). O. deltoides has a central stem that has decumbent basal branches, each of which hold elegant flowers on the upper half of the plant. The petals of the flowers hold a magnificent ability, the petals are a radiant white but age to a pink/violet color.

A beautiful representation of O. deltoides within a dune system.

The beautiful flowers O. deltoides presents to its pollinators.

It holds the name birdcage evening primrose because when its season of life is over it dries out, forming what appears to be a small birdcage, naturally.

The desiccated remains of O. deltoides.

This plant captured my attention right away and nestled its way into a special place within my heart. I am mesmerized by the beauty this plant provides. I thought that I would share with you all the plant that brightened my day.  O. deltoides seems to hold a beauty of its own while in bloom and when it desiccates.

Hello from the Surprise Valley Field Office!

I arrived in Cedarville, CA on Tuesday June 3rd after two days of travel from my home in New York. I flew across the country on Monday to LA, then got another flight on Tuesday morning from LA to Reno, and then drove north 3 hours up to Cedarville. By the time I arrived, I was exhausted. Cedarville is very remote, so it was definitely an adjustment waking up in LA and going to bed in Cedarville. On the drive up from Reno, I was amazed at the landscape. Most of my ecology experience comes from the neotropics and the Midwest, which are both heavily forested. “Where are all the trees?” I thought.  As I approached Cedarville from Alturas, I drove through a beautiful swath of Modoc National Forest. It made me realize how diverse this area truly is.

My first full day in Cedarville was a training day. My mentor was in the process of training some of the BLM Fire people about vegetation monitoring, so I got a refresher. We saw some wild horses, and talked a bit about the Surprise Valley Office’s range management program. The next two days were dedicated to monitoring sites and Seeds of Success collection. My co-CLM intern, Amy, and I went out with a botanist from the Alturas field office and learned a bunch of new plants. Since it was only my third day, I had a lot of catching up to do. It was exciting to walk alongside with a professional botanist who knows almost every plant species around here.

I spent my second week as a CLM intern at the Chicago Botanic Garden for the CLM Training Workshop. I met a lot of great, motivated people who are interested in similar career paths. We shared experiences, stories, and advice. I got a lot out of the workshop, as it provided some context to the techniques I had been learning in my first three days in Cedarville. The Seeds of Success session taught my why what we’re doing is important. It provided the big picture, which can sometimes be forgotten in the field. It’s good not to be a fieldwork robot all the time. I also thought the conservation genetics lecture was particularly interesting.

I still have a lot to learn about the natural history and ecology of this region, and I’m just now feeling comfortable identifying a few of the common plants in the area. It’s very different from any ecosystem I’ve been in or studied before, so sometimes it feels like I’m starting from scratch. It’s a really cool experience, though, to learn something all over again in a different place. The people in the office have been great teachers so far, and I already know so much more than when I first got here. I’m excited to get a chance to explore the surrounding area a bit this weekend.

Best,

Matt Phillips

BLM Surprise Valley Field Office

Cedarville, CA

This is what a lot of the landscape where we work looks like.

CLM interns from Alturas, Cedarville, and a botanist.

So we’ve been in Newcastle, Wyoming for almost a month now. It’s crazy how time flies when you’re having fun!

Doing forestry work for the BLM is fantastic and interesting in so many ways. While you usually don’t associate forests with this agency, they ended up with a lot of non-traditional forest land here in the Black Hills. Forests around here are typically even-aged ponderosa pine, with little variation. The BLM forests on the other hand are very dramatic, with cover types changing very rapidly. One area that we are working in is a great example of this. In less than 500 horizontal feet, you gain 300 vertical feet. This makes for an incredible hike (ow, my legs), but also transitions from grass, to mountain mahogany, to ponderosa cover types in that short distance.

While I know the rest of my time here will go quickly, I’m excited to come to work everyday, and know that feeling will not leave easily.

My internship is at an end. I was able to land an awesome job. I am going to miss Fort Ord more than I want to think about. I am already at my new position and I am loving it but it is still unfamiliar and a little scary. I am working on the campus of CsuFresno as their Biology Greenhouse manager/instructional tech support. I am surrounded by plants and people who like learning from them. I used to work in a greenhouse and I am very excited to be working in one again.

My 7 years in Monterey County seems to have come and gone in the blink of an eye. It feels like only yesterday I moved away from home and started my life there. I graduated from CSUMB, made friends, got my first real job in my field and had an internship at the place I loved to explore. I am hoping this place starts to feel like home again (I am from Fresno) because I feel like I need to be getting back to the bay everyday. (even though I am working here haha).

I am excited to be here and to have a job that I love and that is providing me security but I would have given a whole lot to stay on Fort Ord.

Thanks for the Memories,

Wendy E. Cooper

I just got back to Twin Falls from being in Chicago for the CLM workshop at the Chicago Botanic Garden. The week was well timed as a break from the regular field season and as a chance to meet the other interns, Krissa, Rebecca, and several other great professionals. It was a good chance to hear about how CLM started, the relationship with the BLM, and to get a lot of insights on fieldwork and working for a federal agency.

The seminars covered a lot of information, some of it very basic, but all of it incredibly useful. Often it was good to go over basic concepts particularly in monitoring. Personally, the last time I covered a lot of these topics was in early college or early field jobs. Going over ideas such as what kind of quadrat or transect to use and how to set up a spreadsheet in order to give you the most data manipulation options, was a really good thing to revisit. As someone with a wildlife background working in a plant-oriented position, one of the most helpful courses was the overview on plant families and identification. There were definitely people proficient with the topic but I think that the majority of people found the class helpful in some way. We’ve all had experience keying and identifying plants, but having a clear set of characteristics to fall back on was very useful. It was also a good crash course reminder after not having used dichotomous keys for a few years.

As someone planning to go into management with a focus on wildlife, it was interesting to see the line being drawn so clearly between wildlife people, represented by Fish and Wildlife Service, and botanists. I was a little frustrated by how often the wildlife people were characterized as being unable to look at the system holistically or from an ecological standpoint rather than from a species standpoint. Although I have no doubt as to that being true in many cases, I think that the reverse is also applicable. Characterizing the two groups like this at a workshop could only perpetuate the divide and be off-putting to wildlife-oriented people. It is incredibly important to develop the ability to look at systems from both perspectives and for current and future managers to approach their stewardships through a multi-level view, no matter what their original preference. In a more positive light, hearing from underfunded and underrepresented botanists did highlight things in the current systems that need to be changed in order to better manage the land and resources. Being aware of this can only be a positive thing.

Altogether the conference was very useful and extremely well timed. I always get a little myopic a few months into a field season and being reminded that the rest of the world exists is extremely welcome. It was also great to get connected to other interns in the area and to meet people interested in many of the same things. I especially got a kick out of discussing rope-making with Dean Tonenna. He gave an excellent ethnobotany lecture about the Numa people. It was fascinating to see that their method of rope making is essentially the same as the Ojibwe and the Aboriginal language groups from Australia. I’m planning to collect some sagebrush bark and give it a shot soon.

Growing up in New England has made me appreciate the vast landscapes of the high desert. Deciduous forests, humidity, fall foliage, and an hour’s drive to you’re vacation spot creates an image of home. My parents ask me if I miss living back east, which I do, but nothing compares to the views of the Sawtooth Mountains while kayaking down the Salmon river. If you have not been to Stanley, Idaho then on your next day off…go! Grab hiking boots, a kayak (you know, just throw it in your back seat?) and a bathing suit for an end of the day hot spring soak. Stanley is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to and may have New England beat.

Salmon river and the Sawtooth mountains.

Though livestock grazing is happening back east, I’ve never had to rescue week old lambs on my drive to work. Just like any day Avery and I are driving to a plot listening to NPR, when we spotted a lone lamb outside of a grazing fence. Naturally, I slam on the breaks, we get out of the car and obsess over how cute this baby is. While I continue to stare, Avery is chasing the very clumsy lamb until she catches him. After taking a few pictures, we feed him water and try to figure out what to do with the lamb in our truck. We thought it would be nice to have a pet at the house, maybe give our neighbor’s 17 cats a new friend. After serious contemplation, we drove past a sheep herder and returned the lamb. Avery and I felt relieved that we did not just have to leave the lamb on the side of the road. After that we continued with our day, finished a plot and returned home, only to find two more lambs. We went through the same process as before, took more photos, and laughed at the phrase “No Sheep Left Behind”.

Friends

A lot of interesting things happen when you’re in the field, that’s one of the reasons why I love seasonal work. One day I will return back east and have a different gratitude for home. Until then, I will continue to explore the hidden gems of the west coast!

Happy trails,
Alexi

Bureau of Land Managment Shoshone, ID Field Office

Larva in Tetradymia canescens shrub.

Horny toad hanging out

Gilia aggregata

Hi Fellow Interns!

I have now spent almost a month here in the little town of Newcastle Wyoming where I have been working under the BLM State Forester.  Newcastle is a small, industrial town up against the beautiful ponderosa pine forests of the black hills (they offer a much better view than the oil refinery!) with a BLM field office, a ‘pizza barn’ and not much else.  It is easy to escape civilization entirely and I have been able to explore the Bighorn mountains, the black hills and I am planning my first trip to yellowstone in the near future.

I have been laying out and marking timber sale boundaries for forest restoration and habitat improvement projects in the scattered BLM forest parcels.  It’s nice that these areas are small, so each silvicultural treatment can be personalized to that area.  Most of our treatments focus on meadow restoration for raptor and ungulate habitat.  Meadow habitat has been replaced by pine forest in many areas since wildland fire suppression began, so removing this timber allows grasses and forbs to thrive.  We’ve come across several forest friends that I’m sure will love our new meadows like bobcats, owls, deer (and fawns!) and hawks.

I’m very happy to be able to implement my academic knowledge on the ground here in the black hills, and I’m lucky enough to be doing a variety of tasks such as marking boundaries and designing a management plan independently.

I feel very fortunate to be here in Montana. Even on days like today, where we went out to do some monitoring in a place called ‘Big Sheep Creek’ and there was an all-out blizzard. Strange to feel that winter feeling in the middle of June, especially when the previous weeks have been gorgeous. All this precipitation is wonderful for our area, but we sure are itching to get back in the field!

The Dillon Field Office where I work is really collaborative.  The photos above are from ‘Bear Trap Spray Day’, a joint effort to spray noxious weeds from the first designated wilderness area of the BLM along the Madison River.  Since it is designated ‘wilderness’,  no vehicles are aloud on the lands so we carried backpacks of weed spray into the forest.

I also recently helped the BLM foresters re-plant white bark pine, Pinus albicaulis in an area that was burned in 2012.  Several factors are threatening the pine including blister rust, japanese beetle, habitat loss and climate change.  Its seeds have a high fat content making it valuable food for birds and mammals such as grizzly bears.  Foresters and horticulturists have been growing out plugs of the pine and plant them in the burned area near Pony, Montana.

Here is a photo of a sensitive plant known as Alkali Primrose, Primula alkalina.  It’s a regional endemic growing only in east-central Idaho and south-west Montana.  It is found on salty, wet soil that is actively grazed, so we have been monitoring it very closely to measure the effects grazing has on the primrose.

For the next few weeks I will be monitoring riparian areas on cattle allotments to assess stream health.  The photos above are from our training week where we went out and learned the ins and outs of all the different methods we will use to assess stream health. This helps the BLM decide which cattle allotments can safely be grazed.  Earlier this week we monitored a stream called Alkali stream, salt covering the ground so densely it looked like snow and then the next day it really did snow!

Best,

Leah Murray
Dillon, Montana
Summer 2014

*All photos from the Dillon, Montana BLM Field Office