Although my internship with the Burns, BLM is officially over, I thought I’d take a step back and talk about one of my favorite hashtags — #Fieldworkfails — since my last post was fairly reflective. The Burns District is located in the high desert, therefore it’s usually dry and crispy during the peak of summer, but every once in a while Mother Nature (or maybe climate change) decides to throw a curve ball. And so it was that Burns had a usually rainy July, which is likely the reason that Burns didn’t burn this summer. The district and town were spared from the roaring fires that claimed canyon city and almost consumed John Day. Besides keeping us inside, for the most part our fieldwork is not directly affected by rain. However, we did have a couple days like these:

Now, when you get a Ford F-250 stuck in the mud, getting it out isn’t an easy feat. These trucks are huge, nothing can stop me, run over all the things monsters!

See what I mean?

Immediately you may be tempted to rev the engine and push on through. DON’T DO IT. You’ll only make it worse and dig yourself hub cap deep. After taking a few deep breaths and a moment to lament, assess the situation. Depending on how deep you’re in the mud, primitive methods may yield results. Dig out under your wheels and stick pieces of sagebrush and rocks under them for traction. Then carefully work your way out of the rut.

This is maybe hour 3 of being stuck

If you’ve already dug yourself deep and the former doesn’t work, you’ll probably need more muscle and sometimes that doesn’t even work (atleast not initally). Pull baby pull.

After about 6 hours we finally rescued our truck from the cluthces of that soupy road and then got milkshakes as a reward. All in all the work of an intern is dirty job, but wouldn’t I have it any other way. With this post I bid you all adieu and much luck in future ecological endeavors.

-Jessica

After the threat of Hurricane Joaquin here in North Carolina, our seed collections were stunted for a bit as the rain started pouring down and flooding many of the sites we were hoping to visit. Luckily, for the past two weeks, we’ve still been able to find some beautiful ecosystems that were mostly undamaged by the Joaquin storms that rolled through a few weeks back.

This week, Jake and I did a short three-day-long outing around North Carolina and Virginia. We expected to not find much harvestable seed after the storm, but boy, were we mistaken! We were able to get 7 collections in 1 day at Belle Isle State Park in Virginia, for one thing!

All of our seed collections after just 3 days of being out in the field (notice the plastic bag full of cloth bags – a bag of bags!).

This past week, we spent a lot of time in marshes in particular. We first visited the beautiful marshy mud flat at New Point Comfort Preserve, where we found our first collections thus far of glasswort (Salicornia depressa) and Carolina sealavender (Limonium carolinianum).

We then went on to visit Belle Isle State Park (where we commenced the 7 seed collections in one day) to find beautiful marshes outlined by forests of Eastern red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) and American holly (Ilex opaca) trees.

Belle Isle State Park marsh

The beautiful, blue berries of Juniperus virginiana

A sunlit boardwalk next to the marsh

Finally, we visited Vandell Preserve, where a marsh full of wildflowers and cattails has taken over the site of an old dam. There, we got to catch of glimpse of some very loud, swarming Canadian geese up in the sky while we collected seeds of hazel alder (Alnus serrulata) and small maid Marian (Rhexia nashii).

Collecting Rhexia nashii at Vandell Preserve

It was another beautiful week for us, trudging through mud and the mucky waters of marshes in the crisp autumn air! In addition to our collection success, we also just got word from our coworkers, Emily and Lauren, who are currently out in the field in northern Virginia and Maryland, that they beat our collections by a landslide…31 collections in 5 days!

Until next time,

Maggie Heraty

I can not say enough about how great my experience in the CLM Internship Program has been.  I had previously finished my master’s degree before starting my internship and desperately needed experience in my new field.  The CLM internship was the perfect opportunity!  I worked as a Seeds of Success intern at the BLM in Vernal, Utah.  I spent five amazing months collecting seeds from the native plants, as well as helping the botanists with other exciting tasks like monitoring & surveying for T&E species and floating along the Green River applying herbicide treatments for weeds.

I made so many great connections, had the opportunity to work alongside extremely talented botanists, and experienced what it would be like working for the federal government.  I was also offered a permanent position with the Vernal BLM Field Office at the conclusion of my internship and I accepted….woohoo!!!

Without a doubt, the CLM internship program prepared me for this permanent position by providing critical training working with experienced botanists, giving me the opportunity to learn different aspects of plant conservation, and allowed me to experience working at the BLM.

I am so incredibly grateful for the opportunity that was given to me to be a part of the CLM Internship Program.  It was so fun but yet challenging.  It opened up so many doors for me and I would do it all over again in a heartbeat.  Thank you CLM Internship Program Staff for this unforgettable experience!

Katie and Mike perfectly express the joys and despairs of Spartina alterniflora collection. That’s S. alterniflora  and S. cynosuroides growing along the Leipsic River in the background.

If you are familiar with salt marshes, then you are familiar with Spartina alterniflora. It is the dominant grass (in fact, the dominant plant) of the low marsh, or the portion of the marsh that is regularly inundated with water at high tide. It grows 4-7 feet tall, with a slender, arching inflorescence that dries to a light tan color when its worm-like seeds are ripe. When you look out across a salt marsh, it is fields of Spartina alterniflora that you see stretching endlessly into the distance, as well as the high marsh grasses Spartina patens and Distichilis spicata. It is beautiful in the late afternoon light, and very smelly when stuffed into a garbage bag. The scent is sickly sweet.

My seed collection partner Paige and I usually spend our trips to Delaware collecting a variety of species in a variety of locations. The first couple weeks of October, however, was a marathon of Spartina alterniflora collection for a massive salt marsh restoration project at Prime Hook National Wildlife Refuge. Hurricane Joaquin and the nor’easter that preceded him did a number on the seed that was available– quite a lot of the seed heads were shattered by the time we got to them, especially at Prime Hook. Luckily, enough of the population hadn’t dropped its seed yet, and we were still able to make meaningful collections. With the help of three of our fellow MARSB interns and our mentor Clara Holmes (as well as the national Seeds of Success collection coordinator for a couple days – thank you Megan Haidet!), we managed to stuff 21 garbage bags with extremely malodorous S. alterniflora seed heads.

How many garbage bags of Spartina seed heads will fit in the trunk of a four door sedan? Apparently, not quite 14.

That may sound like a lot, but it will likely just scratch the surface of what the folks at Prime Hook are going to need for their restoration project. Even before Hurricane Sandy, more frequent storms and sea level rise caused increased flooding at Prime Hook, with multiple storms breaking through the dune line since 2006. In 2012, Hurricane Sandy widened gaps in parts of the dune system, leading to more severe flooding on the refuge and in surrounding communities. The result has been the flooding with seawater of more than 4,000 acres of freshwater marsh that was managed for waterfowl and seabirds. Prime Hook is now taking this as an opportunity to rebuild the dunes and return the managed freshwater marshes to historically occurring salt marsh, which should serve to buffer against future storms and expand critical salt marsh habitat. According to the US Fish and Wildlife profile of the project on their website, it is the largest coastal marsh restoration on the Atlantic coast. More information,as well as maps and some really cool videos showing the breaches and restoration activities, is available at http://www.fws.gov/hurricane/sandy/projects/PrimeHook.html.

Restoring 4,000 acres of salt marsh means planting an ungodly amount of Spartina alterniflora and other salt marsh species, which the restoration managers at Prime Hook would prefer, for the good of the ecosystem, to be local, ecotypically appropriate and genetically diverse. That’s why we found ourselves donning waders and saddlebags to repeatedly and very carefully trek out into the salt marshes at both Prime Hook and Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuges these last two trips. Armed with clippers and waterbottles, we fanned out across the segments of marsh that were accessible by foot, stepping from Spartina hummock to Spartina hummock. Walking through Spartina can be a strenuous, and at times treacherous, business, especially if the tide isn’t at its lowest. A misstep can lead to getting stuck up to your knee in vice-like mud, or worse, swamping your waders.

Not a great picture, but this is one of the areas where we collected on foot at Prime Hook the first week. In the foreground, the shrubby stuff is Iva frutescens, a common salt marsh shrub in the Aster family. In the background low marsh grasses Spartina patens and Distichilis spicata give way to Spartina alterniflora. There’s also a couple incongruous Phragmites (common reed) individuals in there, and some juniper trees in the background.

Thanks to the dedication and patience of refuge wildlife biologists Susan Guitieras and Dan Stotts, we also managed to get out into the marsh at Bombay Hook NWR by boat. On two separate days (Susan one day, Dan another) they took us to collect along Raymond’s Gut, which branches off the Leipsic River, and one of its associated channels. Our intrepid boat captains would pull the boat up into the Spartina, and we would furiously clip seed heads off anything within reach. We owe both Susan and Dan a huge debt of gratitude for their help and resourcefulness during this effort, not just for taking us out on the boats, but for generally making time to consult with us on our collection efforts and offering their help and advice at every juncture. Thank you so much, Dan and Susan!

Wildlife biologist and sage boat captain Dan Stotts at the helm. Behind him is a good mix of Spartina alterniflora and the taller Spartina cynosuroides (big cordgrass).

It important to note that not all of the Spartina that will be planted this spring will be from the seed we just collected – there is simply too much to plant too quickly, so they will be planting plugs of Spartina as well from another source. But hopefully what we have collected will provide a meaningful portion of the initial planting this spring, and the Mid-Atlantic Regional Seed Bank will continue to collect for seasons to come.

In the meantime, Paige and I return to business as usual – collecting all kinds of different species from a variety of parks in the state of Delaware. More on that in my next post!

All information on the marsh restoration at Prime Hook taken from http://www.fws.gov/hurricane/sandy/projects/PrimeHook.html

We spent a day assisting USGS with their efforts out on Clear Lake in California. For several years they have trapped and PIT tagged adult suckers in the lake. The lake is a natural freshwater lake, but was dammed at its outlet in 1914 to increase its capacity. Around the lake cattle graze and it was a historical site used by the native tribes of the area. USGS puts out trammel nets, which are long nets that layout and act similar to mist nets, that are used to trap birds. When a fish swims into the net it creates a pocket and gets trapped. We placed seven nets and set them for 2 hours. For the day our boat caught over 70 fish, another boat caught over 100. Most fish caught were adult Shortnose suckers, we only caught about 4 Lost River. Each fish was measured, scanned for a previous tag, and if one was not found, was then PIT tagged. It was my first time handling adult suckers, work all summer has only dealt with juveniles.

Measuring fish out on Clear Lake

Lost River Sucker

Threemile creek is about an hour north of Klamath Falls and a few years ago Bull trout was found in the stream. Bull trout are a listed threatened species and are a char in the Salmonidae family. Since its discovery in the stream, efforts to remove Brown trout, an introduced species from Europe, started. Brown trout compete with the threatened Bull trout for resources. They were manually removed from the stream at first. Then electroshocking was used, and finally a chemical treatment to ensure no fish remained. We assisted with one last effort of electroshocking before the placement of large woody debris. These downed tress would be helicoptered in to create fish habitat, such as pools, and eventually level out the stream. Barriers were placed downstream to prevent brown trout from traveling back upstream. Once the woody debris is placed the hope is bull trout will then recolonize from upstream.

Electrofishing Threemile Creek

We spent a few days in the Gerber reservoir area searching pools for juvenile suckers. We used electroshocking to catch the fish and collect genetic samples. A small clip of a pectoral fin was enough to test for DNA.

My internship is wrapping up shortly with only a little over a week left. But there’s plenty more fieldwork planned before I leave.

It is hard to believe that this is my last blog for my internship here in Buffalo, Wyoming. The time really has flown by, and I certainly have lots to reflect on- so here come’s a long post!….

Overall, I found seed collecting to be very challenging personally. From abundant rains early on in the season to insect damage, plants proved to be a very unpredictable realm for me! I would be lying if I said that it was completely enjoyable, but I did learn a lot about the type of work and the work environment I enjoy, and for that I am very grateful.

That being said, this internship has taught me a lot about my limits and the type of work I enjoy to do. I was exposed to a lot of new topics, work environments and culture. For example, coming from Chicago, experiencing the ranching and small-town culture of Wyoming was very foreign to me. This definitely made the experience challenging because I not only had to learn how to perform a seed collection on my own, but also get acquainted with the culture of my office and the small-town community that I was living in.  

Aside from all of this, I also feel that I benefitted a lot from this experience. I tend to be attracted to challenges, because they give me a lot of insight into my own interests, life outlooks and professional goals. Although I am not necessarily interested in pursuing the botany route further, I definitely gained a lot of valuable knowledge about conservation and land management through this opportunity, and insight into what it means to work within a federal agency. I am definitely interested in exploring work in other environmental agencies as a result of this experience.

There were also a lot of new skills that I can say I’ve gained through this internship. Everything from learning how to drive 4WD vehicles on dilapidated roads, learning how to identify western plants in the field, improving my communication skills with the public and professionals at my office, gaining familiarity with the policies and administrative work involved in range land health, and getting real-world experience with ArcGIS throughout the various office projects I performed.

I feel that the most rewarding experiences I had at this office  was getting the opportunity to interact with the public and see that side of a federal land management agency. I really enjoyed the field days where I ran into landowners, because I was able to speak with them about what I was doing and why I was collecting a species, while also learning about their insights of conservation strategies and land use. I found these conversations to be the most rewarding, and they definitely encouraged my own interests in the human dimensions of conservation and environmental management.

For the most part, I did not know what to expect for this internship. As I mentioned earlier, moving to Wyoming and organizing seed collections was definitely a change of pace for me and certainly challenging, which is one thing I did expect it to be. However, I assumed that I would learn what I would need to as soon as I got out here and began training, and that I would be able to rely on my office to help me with the process along the way. Unfortunately this is not exactly what happened, as for most of the summer interns were displaced from the main office due to flood damage, and we didn’t have as much guidance from our mentors as we had expected. Because of this though, I was able to really develop a team with my fellow interns, as we relied on each other for support in and outside of the office. That being said, at the end of the day I can’t say that I regret this experience, and I would certainly be interested in pursuing another internship with a federal agency in the future.

-Katie, BLM Buffalo Field Office

You’re beautiful Wyoming! Thanks for the memories.

This is my last blog post, my last day was yesterday. My experience in Klamath Falls and with the CLM internship has been great. I loved living in Oregon and being so close to nature. Klamath Falls is within an hour from two national parks and within five from a lot of cool places like the Oregon coast and the redwoods. I will definitely miss it here.

This internship has helped me develop a lot of new skills. I got a much larger variety of experiences than I thought I would. I got to help conduct plant surveys with private contractors, help with outplanting surveys on Milkvetch, and do a ton of fish work. I got a lot of different fish trapping experience. The boating experience I got was fun and really rewarding. Passing the training to operate the motor boat was more rewarding than I thought it would be.

The best part of my internship was the project down at Lower Klamath National Wildlife Refuge. I worked independently most of the summer. I did the data collection, management, and analysis.

Taking on a project like that was really rewarding because it gave me a sense of ownership over the process and this internship. I wasn’t expecting that when I started and it has been the best part. I never felt like a lackey, I felt like my input was wanted and valid. Working on my own made me feel more confident in my abilities and I learned to trust my own judgement. I have a tendency to defer to what the others on my team think is the best course of action, and while this can be good, it was really important for me to realize that I do know what I am doing. I think that lesson will be the most valuable one I will take with me, though trailer backing is a close second.

This internship has made me really excited about a future career in conservation. It has also reinforced my desire to go to graduate school. I am returning to Ohio for a winter seasonal job and hope that by next fall I will be in a master program moving toward an awesome career. I am saying see you soon to Oregon, I hope I will be back here soon. But no matter where I end up, I am excited to see where my career takes me.

Where to start? I’ve had an interesting year in 2015. I left for Poland in March and to my surprise, got accepted into the CLM program near the beginning of my stay. I returned to Chicago two months later, and two weeks later, I was driving across the West to the Central Valley of California to intern with the US Dept. of Agriculture. Now, agriculture was never an interest of mine. I consider myself an ecologist, not an agronomist; but I am interested in land management, which was a common thread of the two. I am also open-minded to different things so I decided to take PMC Manager Margaret Smither-Kopperl’s offer as a way to challenge myself and grow in my field. 

A PMC is a Plant Materials Center. They are part of the plant materials program of the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) and they work across agencies to address different public needs, whether producing seed for the BLM or NPS’s conservation programs, or conducting agricultural experiments to determine which cover crops best improve soil health. 

The Lockeford PMC in California has over 100 acres of land and is lightly staffed, so my role there wasn’t well defined – which I am grateful for because it allowed me to wear many hats. A typical work day would look something like this: Wake up at 5:30, drive from Sacramento at 6:20 to get to Lockeford by 7:00. I would check my emails, get the key for the pickup and go do field work (which varied greatly day-to-day). Many times myself and two other coworkers would move irrigation pipes to prep the fields for fall plantings.  Other times I would collected bloom count, percent cover, pollinator visitation, soil sample, biomass, etc. data, usually with Jeff, our biological science technician. When it got hot out, I’d head to the office and do computer work. One of my big projects was making sense of the cover crop data for the previous 4 years. It was very tedious work, but valuable for future plantings. Otherwise I would work on other projects, including planning, research, and writing USDA Plant Guides (which I loved to do). I would also clean seed (rarely, maybe 5 times, there wasn’t a lot this year), or work the greenhouse and propagate plugs. 

Some large projects I was responsible for were:

1. That cover crop data management project

2. Preparing the 2015 Adaptation trial planting which included: determining seeding rates, weighing out and preparing seed, coming up with an order for planting, flagging out the field and making signs

3. Creating seed mixes for critical area plantings, which included combating the erosion of the PMC levee by seeding bank-stabilizing native vegetation

4. My favorite: the restoration of the riparian corridor on the PMC property. The goal was to enhance the natural and cultural resources that the tract of land by the river provides by removing the invasive blackberries and weedy trees and planting native sedges and grasses. I did a lot of research on this, ordered a brush cutter and blade for the job and, following the schedule that Jeff and I came up with in June, we prepped the site and seeded it in the fall. It was a LOT of work. If anyone is interested, take a look at the pictures from my post from July and you will see the difference is dramatic. It’s a shame that I couldn’t stay longer to see what it looks like a year – two years from now, but I’m sure Margaret will update me and let me know!

The people:

Let’s start with Margaret. She is AMAZING. If any prospective interns are reading this, you will be very, very happy with her. She is a very realistic, yet positive person. She really gave me a lot of independence and freedom to engage in projects I was interested in (such as the riparian restoration), and was really trusting and supportive all the way through. She was a truly amazing mentor and I have nothing but great things to say about her. Jeff was my other favorite person at work. We collaborated on a lot of things and really got along. We seemed to value each other’s ideas and if we ever disagreed, we could always see the other’s point of view and got the job done. Other co-workers were fine; there was an individual that was difficult to work with, but for the most part we were able to work amicably. 

Social life:

I’m a pretty social person but during the 5 months it was pretty stagnant. Mia (another CLM intern) said she moved in with a friend and was able to make mutual friends that way, so it depends on your situation. I sort of fell into a routine during the week. On the weekends I would travel to Tahoe, San Francisco, Big Sur, the Sierras and hike, which was super nice. You don’t get those kind of views in Illinois! I would also chill with Jeff occasionally and go out in Midtown, which was nice. This was just my situation, but it could be very different for you. 

So, what did I get from my internship? For one, the environment, climate, and drought of the Central Valley forced me to approach environmental problems differently. I was taken out of my familiar way of thinking, which was conducive to growth. I got to meet people of very different backgrounds and learn from them. I also gained an appreciation for agriculture and the realm of conservation within it. This particular internship afforded me a lot of freedom in making decisions and built my resume in a way that other positions would not have, so I’m sure it will help me as I move forward in my career. If you are a CLM candidate considering working in Lockeford, it would do you good to be well-rounded. You should be able to not only monitor vegetation, collect and analyze data, but also perform practical farm labor like operating irrigation systems and tractors. With that being said, for me, this was a very rewarding experience. 

On that note, I am signing off. I thank Krissa and Rebecca for all their patience and hard work and I wish all of you guys luck in your careers!

Michal Tutka

Conservation and Land Management Intern

USDA-NRCS Lockeford California 

Hello again from the Eastern Sierra!

Life has slowed down here lately, as has my field schedule, which means that my last several weeks here in Bishop will be a time for reflection, for ending well with purpose, and for drinking in deeply and slowly all that these mountains have to offer before I leave them. Fall is the perfect season for this process of looking back in appreciation. Its smells, colors, and sensations are unmatched in their richness, and lend themselves well to afternoons spent wandering thoughtfully through trees. However, this is not the space for me to share with you all that is running through my thoughts this autumn. Instead, I’ll try as best I can to give you some sort of a picture of just how beautiful this place is right now. And I’ll throw in a little botany just for fun.

We don’t have too many deciduous trees in the Eastern Sierra, but these willows are one of them. Their yellow leaves are pretty, but just wait til we get to their more spectacular cousins

We’re talking fall colors today, and in much of the western part of the country there is one unchallenged star of the show: the quaking aspen. But before I write about these splendid trees, there are some other players I should mention. Most of the areas in which I work are filled with vast expanses of shrubs and perennial grasses, with scarcely a tree to be seen. These habitats undergo changes in autumn that are less striking than the turning of leaves on the trees, but they are beautiful nonetheless. Their display employs a more subtle range of browns and yellows, but in the warm, soft light of fall, these colors give the landscape a wonderful tone.

Shrublands like this one are where I spend most of my time for work. A bit flat. A bit monotonous. But I like them.

The showiest of these shrubs are the rabbitbrushes, a group of plants that are viewed by many with mixed feelings. These waist-high shrubs are late-season bloomers, so they have been bursting with bold, bright, yellow flowers this fall after most plants have long since gone to seed. Rabbitbrush are really abundant in many places, so as they flower they create beautiful seas of color on the land. Unfortunately, these plants can become a great annoyance, at least for allergy-sensitive humans. Their release of pollen means a steady diet of itchy eyes and runny noses for people here in Bishop, so that blooming rabbitbrush are sometimes looked upon with disdain. But they still look good.

Here’s a yellow rabbitbrush (Chrysothamnus viscidiflorus). They’re very common, and not all that exciting to some people, but their bold, yellow, fall flowers are pretty great.

It might be a tough sell for me to convince you all of this, but tall, perennial grasses also add a wonderful touch of beauty to these landscapes. Now, I won’t try to deceive you with exaggerations about their colors. In the spring and summer, these grasses are green. And in the fall they dry out and turn brown. Nothing special about that. But where they shine is the way they take on a rich warmth in the long afternoon light of autumn. The light passing through their fading leaves produces varying hues of golden, and sometimes reddish, brown. It’s subtle, but it’s lovely. They are tall and abundant, so each grass’ small contribution of color adds to the charming richness of the landscape in fall, especially as they sway in unison to the afternoon breeze.

Here you go, a field full of pretty fall grass. This could almost be a prairie from my home back in Illinois, except that, you know, this place has hills.

Well, that’s my attempt at moving you with the subtle beauty of shrublands. But let’s face it, when people talk about the magic of fall colors, they don’t wax poetic about shrubs and grasses, they look to the trees. Well, in the Eastern Sierra, that means aspen. And what a show they put on!

Bam! Colorful aspens.

So let’s talk a little bit about quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). They are the most widely distributed tree in North America, growing all over Canada, down into Mexico, and everywhere in the US except for the southeast. They grow in groves mixed with conifers on the sides of mountains, in dense pockets occurring within otherwise unbroken oceans of sagebrush, and in wet areas along streams. So they are a flexible and highly successful species.

Few trees can match the extravagance of the show put on by quaking aspen in the fall. Their simple, nearly round leaves begin to die and transform as temperatures drop and the first frosts hit in autumn. The leaves break out into dazzling cascades of bright yellow, richer gold, orange, or fiery red. When sunlight reflects off the leaves, their brightness and vibrancy is bold and blinding. When you take in the trees from below, with light filtering through their leaves, they glow with a softer gold that fills and warms everything in their shade. As the leaves fall, the ground itself takes on their yellow hue. Earning the name “quaking aspen”, the leaves spin and twirl on long, thin stalks, so that the groves of stunning colors flutter and shimmer in the wind.

Most of the aspen that I’ve been around this fall have had golden yellow leaves, but fantastic reds and oranges are sprinkled in as well.

Here in the Sierra’s we get to take in these trees against the backdrop of rugged mountains, clear, blue lakes, and deep, green conifers. The air is clear and crisp, and the colors are bold. The beauty is astounding.

You have to love the way their leaves glow and light everything up with sunlight behind them.

Aspen have some unique, funky characteristics that sometimes produce spectacular results. They reproduce using flowers on catkins, and seeds carried on the wind by fluffy, white fruits like those belonging to cottonwoods. But in my part of the country, they don’t seem to go to seed very often. Instead, they typically reproduce by root sprouts. The roots of a tree will spread out, and then sprout out of the ground, producing a clone. Most stands of aspen are made up of numerous separate patches of clones, but some stands may contain just a single, clonal individual.

It’s impossible for me to say which aspens are unique individuals and which are part of a colony of clones. I don’t know what to look for.

One such aspen clone is just about the most extraordinary organism on the planet. In Utah, there is a clonal colony of one individual male aspen, that may be the oldest and the largest single living organism in the world. The clone is named Pando, a Latin word that means “I spread.” Spread it does. According to the Forest Service, the clone covers more than 106 acres, weighs close to 13 million pounds, and has more than 40,000 trunks, all connected by the same genetically identical root system. Figuring out the age of such a plant has to be difficult, and it’s hard to have much confidence in the estimates that different scientists come up with. But those age estimates are spectacular. Some suggest that the plant is 80,000 years old. Some propose an age of 1 million years. I sure don’t know how old it is, but clearly it is an amazing, exceptional plant.

After spending last year down in the Mojave Desert without much of a fall to speak of, seeing all the colors this year is sure doing a lot of good for my soul. I hope you’re enjoying the season and its colors wherever you may be!

This wild brown trout isn’t a plant. And they are colorful all year long. But I caught this one in the fall, and it’s too beautiful to exclude it from my color blog

Until Next Time,

Steve Tillman

Bishop BLM Office

For the last couple of months, our job has focused somewhat more on riparian monitoring as opposed to only post-fire rangeland monitoring. The word riparian describes the areas along the edge of a stream or river. Besides being a refreshing change of pace, riparian monitoring at this time of year is excellent because the trees that grow along stream banks are changing color dramatically.

Grass is Greener on the Other Side

We hiked up and down a couple of hills, looking for the stream on which we were supposed to do photo monitoring. The final descent was fairly steep and covered in brush, so we were relieved to reach the open area around the stream. We were taking our photos near a fence that ran across the stream- lining up all the angles just right so they would be comparable to photos from past years, when we noticed that everything was different on the other side of the fence. The side we were on had been grazed recently and all the grass was close cropped. The healthy sedge rush community had been replaced with a short grass and clover community. The other side of the fence had not been grazed, and the sedges and rushes looked robust. The problem with cows is that they cluster together in riparian areas and use them heavily, resulting in very high impact to these fragile areas, as opposed to the rest of the rangeland.

Our side of the fence                                                 The other side of the fence

Horses Come to Water

While hiking along a stream and taking photos for our photo monitoring plots, we were struck by the sight of a band of wild horses just across the stream. They seemed to pose there for us, a little curious, maybe. Usually, we only see wild horses from the truck. The BLM spends tens of millions of dollars on these wild horses from breeding them, to gathering them, to housing and feeding the gathered horses, and even hauling feed and water out to the ones remaining in the wild to make sure they do not starve. It makes sense that many BLM workers dislike the wild horses, especially since they are more accurately feral horses- escaped beasts from European settlers. Strangely though, several groups feel very strongly about preserving the wild horses, forcing the BLM to leave them wild, while also maintaining and feeding the herd so they stay healthy. Despite this animosity, I can’t help but enjoy watching them sometimes.                 

The wild (feral) horses

Rattler

We were on a mission to retrieve temperature probes from along a stream and we had several miles to hike that day. I was walking in front of the group of four interns, crossing a dense patch of cheat grass, when I heard the girl behind me yell and jump back. She had been a few steps behind me. “Snake!” Sure enough, as I turned around, a saw a young looking rattlesnake slithering out of the path. I had just walked right over it, and it hadn’t even rattled. It was the first rattlesnake I had seen on the job, and only the second since coming to Oregon. I never intended to come that close to a rattlesnake in the field, but fortunately the little guy was too cold and sleepy to bite!

My rattlesnake!