With pictures of summer field work adorning my cubicle walls to guide the way, I hunker down in my office planning away for projects to come.

Since returning from Herbarium work in Anchorage, I have been mostly planning for the busy field season ahead.  On our plate we have:

• Continued surveys of invasive plant species
• Soil surveys to be conducted at the end of July
• Raptor surveys
• A newly funded Little Brown Bat (Myotis lucifugus) inventory and monitoring project

Much of my end of preparations for raptor surveys has been completed.  These surveys will involve my supervisor and the other office biologist flying along river corridors in the Fortymile region of the interior, in search of raptor nest sites and raptors themselves (hopefully I will be able to get in on a trip). Raptors in this area include: Peregrine Falcons (Falco peregrinus), Gyrfalcons (Falco rusticolus), Bald Eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and Golden Eagles (Aquila chrysaetos).  I spent some time this fall using ArcGIS to identify suitable cliff nesting raptor habitat.  This involved looking at lots of aerial imagery, and creating GIS layers that might be predictive of cliff areas when aerial imagery was poor or missing (ex. slope, extracting ‘bare’ portions of vegetation layers).  Our wildlife biologist is quite experienced at this and gave me some tips on spotting appropriate landmarks from aerial imagery.  The aerial imagery method is very effective but time consuming and requires experience and practice.  Although it is certainly less selective, I developed some GIS layers that can hopefully help when large areas need to be scanned or can be combined with aerial imagery to make better predictions.

Aerial imagery showing a portion of the Fortymile river. Red dots mark habitat of varying potential with that bright white curve in the upper middle being prime cliff habitat.

Layer showing land designated as ‘bare’ in vegetation surveys. Does a decent job at pulling out the barren cliff faces.

Layer showing slope (red is steeper). Identifies steep portions of the landscape which, in junction with the bare layer, can help pinpoint cliffs.

The main project, however, will be bat inventory and monitoring.  I’ll be handling most of the planning/logistics/equipment/study design/field work so although it’s not plant related, it should be a good experience in planning and executing a study.

Little brown bats are the most widespread in North America and one of the only bat species found in the Alaskan interior.  Very little is known about their habitats/distribution/behavior in this area, however, and with rising concerns about white-nose syndrome folks are eager to find out more.

Our first study area will be the Steese National Conservation Area about 70 miles NE of Fairbanks.  It is an interesting study area for bats because 1) it is northerly: bats are nocturnal and the latitude of this location means it gets VERY little darkness during the summer months—civil twilight persists for the majority of the summer with no true darkness and near the solstice there are only about 1-1.5 hours of darkness a night AND 2) it is cold: some research has predicted that 5 degrees Celsius might be the lower limit for some bat activity—nightly summer temperatures in this area could easily dip below this.  Scandinavian studies have found bats at latitudes up to 69N (above the Arctic Circle where the sun doesn’t set for some stretches of summer) with observations that bats will operate when ambient light levels are lowest (even though prey availability is lower at these hours).

For this first season of the study we are mainly testing field schedule/equipment/methodology and trying to see if we can even find bats in this area at all.  The plan is to procure 10 acoustic bat detectors and place them in strategic areas (likely bat habitat) in the SNCA, returning every 3 weeks or so to switch out batteries/download data and move detectors.  We are hoping to capture information on bat arrival and departure, seasonal changes in bat activity, nightly changes in bat activity and preferred bat habitat.  With smart placement of detectors we will hopefully be able to find some bats and pilot study designs that later down the road will provide more robust data on bat habitat preferences.

A typical acoustic monitoring set-up from a partner agency’s bat monitoring protocol. The detector itself is strapped to the tree in the foreground and the microphone can be seen mounted to a tall pole in the background.

Right now my computer screen is an explosion of tabs for 12V battery brands, PVC pipe, bat detector prices, occupancy modeling studies, battery physics tutorials etc.  Working out lots of logistics for deploying these expensive pieces of equipment in remote areas.

Katie

Fairbanks, AK

Hello All,

This post is coming at the end of an exciting and interesting first week of BLM office in Carson City, NV.  For starters, I think I may have set the record for fastest worker’s comp claim.  At the end of the first day I was cleaning out a Petri dish used to mix adhesive for the herbarium and managed to put a nice cut into my finger requiring a few stitches.  I have jokingly stated that I was just trying to make a splash on my first day.  Work in the herbarium is relaxing and enjoyable.  In the past I have done lots of collecting and pressing of plant samples in the field, so it was nice to learn the back end of the process and be able to produce a herbarium specimen from start to finish.

Of course, my passion is for work in the field.  Yesterday we visited a former mine site, the American Flat Mine, where my fellow interns and I will help to plan and implement a restoration project.  Ecological restoration was a specialization of my MS, and I am very excited about this project.  We spent the day mapping out the area and generating a species list from a reference area nearby.  Being from Colorado, it was nice to be able to pick out several species I was familiar with, while at the same time learning characteristics of many new ones.  I’ll continue to update this project as the summer continues.

Other tasks of the week have included assisting with a cleanup project as part of this office’s Adopt a Space outreach program, sitting in on stakeholder meetings and assisting with research and development of NEPA documents.  It’s only been a few days, but I can tell it’s going to be a great summer!

Wild horses on American Flat Mine

Bank stabilization using willows on TNC property

Cheers,  Aaron

Non-native Bermuda buttercup at Lytle Creek

Unauthorized OHV trails in the Deep Creek area

At the beginning of January, my internship at the San Bernardino National Forest shifted focus; I am now a part of our forest-wide restoration program.  I have been working in our greenhouse in Big Bear Lake and at our lower-elevation nursery at Lytle Creek, and I also have the opportunity to be more involved in the planning process.     

We are continuing work in the Deep Creek area, which involves restoring areas damaged by unauthorized OHV use.  As we encounter them, we are also mapping new sites and unauthorized trails that need to be restored.  The area is predominantly high-desert scrub; common species include Mojave buckwheat, holly-leaved cherry, chaparral yucca, Great Basin sagebrush, antelope bitterbrush, brittlebush (Encelia sp.), yerba santa, and cup leaf ceanothus.  Palmer’s oak is occasional and is always an interesting find.  Wildflower-wise, it looks like it will be a better spring than last year; lots of annuals are starting to pop up, including chia (Salvia colombiare), Phacelia species, Oenothera californica, Calochortus kennedyi kennedyi, and Leptosyne bigelovii.  Beaver Dam breadroot (Pediomelum castoreum), which I mentioned in a previous post as an exciting possibility in the area, is another one to be on the lookout for.

Mountaintop Ranger District

San Bernardino National Forest