We enjoyed a few snow showers in March, but by noon the following day it all had melted to make way for springtime growth. Our mountaintop flowers have been popping up all over the place, nurtured by abundant moisture and sunshine. I’ve discovered a previously unfamiliar species almost every field day over the past few weeks. This recognition has been important as I finish out my restoration document, which recommends local native species for revegetation. Now that I can put a name to a face, so to speak, I can more accurately write about floral characteristics.

Of the plants described in my document, none are more unique than those comprising the Pebble Plain vegetation community. Pebble Plain is made up of miniature, low-growing species often with highly reflective, succulent features–all special adaptations to harsh environmental conditions like high clay content soils, frequent frost heave, extreme soil temperature variation, and reduced soil moisture. Until very recently in the season, Pebble Plain, to me, resembled a wet, rocky, mud flat. But, since spring sprung, I’ve quickly come to appreciate this habitat for the exciting biological community it is. Pebble plain is found only on the SBNF and adjacent private lands, and while resident plant species are abundant within their specific habitat, these areas are very narrowly distributed on the Forest overall leading to the designation of a few characteristic plants under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

These plants were described by our district botanist at a Big Bear Sierra Club chapter event as “paleo-endemics,” meaning they persist only in select locations, surviving as relicts of earlier, further ranging populations. Closely related species are found in alpine zones of the Sierra Mountains and Baja California. Many, many years ago when the climate was colder we can infer that these populations were connected. Today they make their last disjointed stand at high elevations.

The archetypal example of Pebble Plain habitat is located just outside the city of Big Bear Lake near a residential neighborhood. It was here that I happily observed Douglas’ violet (Viola douglassi), Alkali draba, (Cusickiella douglasii), and Parish’s rockcress (Boechera parishii) in full bloom, and eagerly await the flowering of the endangered Southern mountain buckwheat (Eriogonum kennedyi var. austromonatum), and ash gray paintbrush (Castilleja cinerea).

This past week I took a break from botany for a training opportunity “down the hill” in San Diego, a much appreciated component of the CLM internship program. I chose to attend the Association of Environmental Professionals 2016 Conference. While most of my post-grad work experience has involved botany, ecology and restoration, my educational background centered on natural resources planning. Many of the lectures offered at this conference addressed the intersections between these disciplines via Conservation Planning.

The first talk, titled “Conservation Planning & Implementation in San Diego,” discussed the impressively organized and highly collaborative conservation efforts developed to serve the vulnerable flora and fauna of the sprawling metropolis that is greater San Diego. Speakers from the private and public sectors discussed their experiences formulating and implementing the regional Management and Monitoring Plan (SDMMP) and Management Strategic Plan (MSP) that falls beneath. The MSP categorizes and prioritizes species and vegetation communities, identifies geographic locations for management actions, provides specific timelines for implementation, and established a process for coordination. According to the speakers, while these plans are complicated and require long-term commitments, they are working to enhance habitat in an area under a great deal of pressure!

A forum later that day discussed “How Wind Energy Development is Navigating Complex Avian Regulatory Requirements with Technological Advances.” We were taught about the semi-ambiguous regulatory framework currently involved in permitting wind development in relation to birds, namely the Bald and Golden Eagle Protection Act (BGEPA) and the Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA). A representative from the consulting firm RES group presented on IdentiFlight, a promising new technology that can identify bird species from 1,000 meters away! If it turns out the be a large raptor, the computer will switch off the turbines quickly enough to avoid a collision.

April will probably be the last full month of my internship so I’m looking forward to successfully completing my projects and documents, learning more species of Forest vegetation in their greenest, liveliest, blooming forms, and exploring more of beautiful southern California. Thanks for reading!

Brandon Drucker
Mountaintop Ranger District
San Bernardino National Forest
Fawnskin, California

Brace Yourselves…Spring Is Coming
Hello everyone!! Wow, I have been incredibly busy with work lately! All of the GIS and remote sensing tasks have kept me on my toes this Winter. We have been receiving weather extremes this Spring. One day it would be sunny and 60°F, then the next day would be 25°F with horizontal, blowing snow! Hopefully, Spring will come any moment now…..any minute….. Anyways, the migrating birds are beginning to migrate through and establish their territories. The sandhill cranes (Grus canadensis) were flying through to find ideal marshland habitat for nesting. The red winged blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) were “breeing” near every body of water and fighting for prime real estate. Many of the flowers are on the verge of blooming. Different phlox, forsythia, and crocus are starting to appear, which is a welcoming sight. I know some of the interns in California and the southwest have probably seen over 50 species of blooming forbs already. Soon, Wyoming’s day will come…that should be in May or June.

First forb of the Spring for me!!! Phlox hoodii!!! ^_^

Updates on Work: The Mystery of the Lime Green Plant!!

My main task was using remote sensing techniques to detect cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) in the landscape. I am almost finished…with the first part! Some of the mosaic tiles were difficult to work with. Some of the orthophotographs (mosaic tiles) were taken at dawn, making cheatgrass really hard to detect. The sunrise made a large part of the landscape a reddish color. After some fine tuning with the samples, I was able to detect the cheatgrass easily. Another interesting thing I found were these unusual patches of lime green. I was baffled on what this plant could be. Some people were saying that it was leafy spurge (Euphorbia esula) and other people were suggesting that the patches of lime green were yellow sweet clover (Melilotus officinalis). After much research, I could say that these patches were most likely yellow sweet clover. All I have to do is ground truth the area and confirm that the lime green mass is the invasive forb. Another difficult task was to distinguish cheatgrass signatures from sagebrush shadows. When I ran the maximum likelihood tool, the process concludes that all of the shadows from sagebrush were also cheatgrass areas. I had to work with the program and sampling areas to finally get the results I was looking for. Eventually, I was able to tell the program to tell apart the shadows from the cheatgrass areas!!

Found a possible yellow sweet clover infestation??

Looking across various landscapes in the Powder River Basin, I saw some of the strangest sights. Cows (Bos taurus) were always up to something. They stand in circles, walk to places that were next to impossible to get to if you were human, and they love to take a dip in the local freshwater areas. Some of the cows were very large, which made me think that some of them were pregnant or have a calf right next to them. Beyond cows, some of the badland and scoria hills have been very beautiful to look at. The colors of some mosaic tiles were so vibrant that it made the landscape almost rainbow-like. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) were blue, scoria hills were orange, cheatgrass was red, grass and trees were green, yellow sweetclover was lime green, the badlands range from white to purple, some of the water sources and grasses were bright blue to muddy brown, and the shadows in the landscape range from grey to black. Overall, each mosaic tile was a work of art brought to you by nature.

I think I found a Mickey Mouse pattern in the landscape?

Side Tasks For Adventure Sake

When each of the mosaic tiles were being processed, I did a variety of other tasks to keep myself active! I have made a series of plant study guides, I have updated the Buffalo Field Office Plant List, I have made detailed guides for weeds and willows (Salicaceae) of our area, and I have organized all of the huge aerial photographs in cold storage! Cold storage had many interesting treasures such as ancient maps from the 1950s, aerial photographs, BLM signs, and random BLM items! The building reminds me of the museum or warehouse on Indiana Jones! Beyond organization of data and study guides, I helped install a computer system, worked with different GPS units, and helped solve GIS problems that some of the employees were having. There was always something to do at the Buffalo Field Office….but I can’t wait for field season. I really want to go into the field to ground truth, help interns, and take photographs of BLM land! I will keep you posted with any updates!!

The Ballad of Sage Grouse and Sandhill Cranes

Recently, I have had the great opportunity to go out into the field and help wildlife biologist, Don, with sage grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus) monitoring! We would go into the field and count all the male sage grouse at different leks to the east of Buffalo, Wyoming. Some of these leks had twelve to fifty males, which was an incredible number! The sounds of the males “thomping” and displaying could be heard over a mile away! Seeing all the males strutting their stuff was pretty amazing!  One lek site we visited had one very successful male surrounded by many hens. Unfortunately, the rest of the males were dancing and displaying their hearts out to no avail. Some of these leks sites had plenty of excrement from the wintering birds. I thought it was hilarious that the sage grouse ignored the pronghorns (Antilocapra americana) that were walking through the lek sites. Seems like the pronghorns deemed trustworthy in the eyes of sage grouse.

Sage grouse, sage grouse items, and leks found to the east of Buffalo, Wyoming.

Another interesting bird of note were sandhill cranes! The last two weeks they have been flying through the Great Plains on their way up North. A huge density of cranes could be found in central Nebraska. Along the Platte River, there could be thousands of cranes resting and feeding along the embankments. When I have been traveling to previous internships, I have always drove through Nebraska during the crane migration. By Buffalo, Wyoming there have been a few flocks that have been flying overhead or resting in the fields. Hearing the cranes have always been an amazing experience.

Sandhill cranes!!!

A western harlan’s  red tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis) and a golden eagle (Aquila chrysaetos) that I have seen in the field!

Animal Shelter Shuffle

On Saturday, I was able to volunteer at the local animal shelter! I got to clean the kennels, feed the animals, clean up the excrement, take the dogs for a walk, help out with laundry, and play with tiny mewmew kittens. I plan on doing this every Saturday, because it is really fun to do, especially when you get to play with all kinds of breeds of cats and dogs!!

Some of the local residents of the Animal Shelter.

Do You Have What It Takes To Become BLM Legend??

1.) You have to work for the Bureau of Land Management.
2.) You have to know how to use GIS and different navigational systems.
3.) You have to be able to navigate the back country and drive over rough terrain.
4.) You have to withstand the unusual weather systems and temperatures of the West.
5.) You have to at least identify thirty plant species or do eight work related projects.
6.) Taking FISSA+ is essential.
7.) You have to attend meetings at least once or twice a week.
8.) You have to travel to over fifteen to sixty trend sites determining on your line of work.
9.) You have to become a legend by doing a special individual task.
10.) Survive one field season.

If you do all of the ten main tasks, then you are a BLM Legend.

Moment of Zen

Bighorn Mountains during a snowy afternoon! ^_^

I didn’t mean to fall in love with plants.

My college plant taxonomy class was interesting, sure, but when city parks’ weedy spring bloomers were the extent of botanical exposure, other pursuits offered greater appeal.

Four years later I found myself in the verdant rolling landscape of the midwest driftless region, on assignment to monitor the delightfully-spiraled and highly-endangered Iowa Pleistocene Snail (Discus macclintocki). A botanically-minded co-worker introduced me to local flora along the winding hikes to field sites. I learned names and stories of plants gracing the algific talus slopes, sand prairies, oak savannas, and wet meadows.

I began to see communities of ecosystems and recognize species by their placement and by their neighbors. I gained a sense of habitat quality, noticing diversity and abundance relative to the unique contours of the landscape, imagining where water flows and pools, observing shade and age of trees. I began to see the abundance of nature with new eyes, realizing there is a lifetime stretching before me in which I will never run short of species to learn or wild places to observe. I was falling sincerely in love: the sort of love you re-prioritize for, you commit to, you cherish with gratitude. I was falling in love with plants.

Fast forward a few months, and I was cruising westward to start a CLM botany internship in Vale, Oregon: a tiny town on the eastern edge of the state, deep in sagebrush country. This is the job I never intended to have, but as the snail position was ending and my appreciation for plants growing, I perused websites for floralistic opportunities and stumbled upon this internship. Lucky in love.

On my journey to Vale, I explored Death Valley’s wildflower bloom, San Francisco, and Salt Point State Park along the California coast. I learned some of my first western birds, including the curious Stellar’s Jay and brilliantly blue Western Scrub Jay. I frolicked among the flowers of Death Valley like a four-limbed solitary bee, nose and cheeks dusted in pollen, brain captivated in woozy ecstasy by the floral fragrance of desert beauties in bloom. Like many romantics, I wrote a poem:

Golden yellow hue flows like rivers down

hillside crevices

to death’s valley floor

where a protesting display

of thousands

millions

of flowers, wild, alive

are blooming.

This is the story of how I arrived. I have much to share from my first month’s adventures as a CLM intern – stories I will save for a new post next week. 🙂

Myself with Desert Gold

Phacelia calthifolia blooming in Death Valley

Gravel Ghost (Atrichoseris platyphylla), Death Valley

Desert Gold (Gerea canescens) blooming en masse in Death Valley

Entering Oregon BLM lands. This spot along Lake Abert is where I saw and smelled Sagebrush for the very first time.

Lauren Bansbach

Bureau of Land Management

Vale, Oregon

I’m very happy to have started my internship last week with Fish and Wildlife Service in Klamath Falls. Having never visited Oregon, it’s been really special to have the opportunity to learn more about a new area. Klamath has a rich cultural history that has included some problematic land use. As a result, some of the animals here have been listed as endangered or threatened. Our office develops recovery plans for these species and my internship will be involved with these plans.

We are waiting for two fish species, Lost River Sucker and Shortnose Sucker, to begin spawning so that we can collect sperm and egg samples to help create a reservoir supply of fish to be raised in ponds on our refuge. I met my first suckers this week and they were incredible but not quite ripe. Next week we will be going out on a boat with staff from Bureau of Reclamation to net more suckers for relocation and will hopefully be able to start collecting samples.

Another animal I’ll be working with is the Oregon Spotted Frog. Another intern and I performed egg mass surveys this week in which we waded through wetland habitat to count the egg masses we saw. It was overwhelming at first but we were able to spot prime habitat easier after some guidance and practice.

I’m excited to learn more and get out into the field more throughout the internship. The staff we’ve worked with has been very friendly and helpful and I feel positive about joining the team.

Oregon Spotted Frog Egg Mass

I have lived my whole life up until this past month within the warm embrace of the sea. Actually, that is a poetic lie. The Salish Sea has less of a warm embrace and more of a swirling whirlpool of mysterious riptides, algal blooms, freezing water and strange denizens of the deep. My sea is not warm and peaceful but dark, mysterious and deadly.

If Seattle could be said to be in the warm embrace of anything it would be the clouds. Our constant grey blanket traps in heat, light, and moisture making our winter’s dreary and wet, but ultimately mild. Despite an academic understanding of the concept, I never fully understood how much this was a function of the water until I moved over the mountains and away from the ameliorating effects of the sea.

Central Oregon was a revelation. Leaving Seattle I filled my bags with tank tops and sandals, bragging to all my friends about the sunny days I was heading to. My first week of work it snowed twice.

I used to complain about the capricious nature of the weather in the Pacific Northwest, but I now realize I had no idea what I was talking about. Around here you scrape ice off your car before heading to work at seven and then slather yourself with sunscreen before going into the field at ten thirty. Prior to moving here I was warned extensively about the heat, no one mentioned the cold.

These conditions have had an interesting effect on our work environment as well. Our second week of work we headed to a rather remote site in the south of our district to look for a rumored population of Lomatium donnellii. I am no stranger to driving a pick up down potentially treacherous roads but this one was just bad. It was a classic rutted, narrow BLM two track. Even before the cattle guard off the highway we knew what we were in for, it was preceded by a small lake of a puddle which splashed muddy water clear up to our roof. The next thirty minutes were spent skating our half ton work truck across puddle after puddle, thoroughly baptizing it in thick clay mud.

The kiss of death for our trip came in the form of a particularly nasty bit of road. I stopped and looked at the turn, a solid forty five degree angle, completely covered with at least six inches of water over thoroughly saturated, slippery clay soil. I took a moment to consider the embarrassment of calling dispatch for a rescue my second week of work, then turned around. Not even fifty feet back up the road it started snowing.

Not just a light smattering either, a proper flurry of fat flakes which quickly coated the landscape with a picturesque layer of white. I felt a warm sense of vindication in my decision to head back. 

But don’t worry, this story has a happy ending. Last Wednesday after two weeks of warmer, drier weather we returned. This time we quickly made our way down a now dry road to find exactly what we were hoping for, a very healthy population of at least 60 thousand plants in full bloom. Lomatium donnellii is an important species for restoration in our area and this collection will be an important part of our summer’s work. The road to get there may have been bumpy but in the end we got a great outcome and a pretty good story.

S Bower, BLM – Prineville District Office

Sunset after a rain in Weldon, CA

It’s been a month since I arrived in Ridgecrest, California. The Mojave holds a lot of beauty. Everyone tells me spring is the best time to be here and I’m glad to arrive at such a fortuitous time. However as things begin to warm up I’m noticing the faint green shading in the hill sides turning browner and browner.

Last week I participated in some rare plant monitoring in The Kelso Canyon that lies within the Bright Star Wilderness area which is in the Southern Sierras and the northeastern edge of our field office. This is truly a gorgeous area. To drive up out of the desert and see a creek heavily lined with cottonwoods and tufts of grass and nettles is a rare and refreshing sight. Unfortunately, my camera was dead for most of this trip.

But I included some photos of other cool things! I especially enjoy the Beavertail blossoms. This week was also exciting because we got to see our first Desert Tortoise! Such cute little creatures.

Beaver tail cactus bloom

A lone raven over the rademancher hills above ridge crest

Linanthus dichotomous

A close up of the Kelso Creek Monkey Flower

A size comparison of the Monkey flower

The Kelso Creek monkey flower a rare species endemic to this region with only 9 known populations

Wild donkeys

1st Desert Tortoise sighting!!

An accidental selfie taken while trying to photograph a flower

Hope everyone else’s internship is going as well as I feel mine is. I love the desert. Or wherever one might be.

We also made our first seed collection this week. We collected Plantago ovata . This little annual is widespread but has such small little seeds and is often under 6″ tall. This meant lots of stooping to collect nearly microscopic seeds.

Then we collected wildflowers for this weekends upcoming Wildflower festival which is here in Ridgecrest! A great chance to learn the local areas flora. So much variety. I saw at least a 100 different flowers all in the same room! What a information overload but truly worth it.

I think that’s everything!

Robbie Wood

BLM Ridgecrest Field Office

Hello Readers!

I have just started my CLM internship in Rawlins, WY. My internship is different from most other CLM internships as mine is Recreation focused, instead of botany focused. This is my second CLM internship, so I am excited to see how the work differs as my previous internship was botany based. Most of the projects that we will be working on this summer are related to general maintenance/upgrades of recreation sites as well as Wilderness Study Area (WSA) monitoring. Our office is about 3.5 millions acres, so there is lots of space for recreating. There also are 5 WSAs in the field office that we will be working in.

I have been working for about 2.5 weeks now and most of the time has been spend in training. I have been getting myself familiar with the BLM’s recreation management procedures as well as a few other required trainings. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it could snow here until June, I have not been able to do much field work. I did make it out to a few of the recreation sites and see some of the projects that are being planned for the summer.

Coming up in the next few weeks I do have the opportunity to attend a Recreation Workshop that is a week long. I feel like this would be a great learning experience as well as an unofficial kick off to field season in my mind.

Having done a CLM internship before I was aware of how the environment would different from the environment I am used to back home in Michigan. However, I did not anticipate that we could get snow until June! When I left Michigan to travel here spring had arrived. All of our snow had melted and the temperatures were warming up. That was not the case here and it took me a bit to get back into the “winter” mentality. Another thing that I did not anticipate is the wind…..it is always blowing here. However, the town and area does have many promising features that I look forward to exploring this summer. The area is a lot wetter than my previous internship location so I hoping to get to do a little aquatic recreating in my off time. More water also equals a different plant ecosystem and I look forward to seeing how those compare to my previous internship location. The town is also a bigger than the town my previous internship was in and I look forward to exploring it.

Overall, I am looking forward to the exciting new opportunities that my CLM is offering me this summer!

AZ

BLM Rawlins Field Office

Geranium molle – Native to the Mediterranean, now considered a noxious weed in the Pacific Northwest.

Spring is happening! All the color leafing out on the trees and the weedy flowers covering those patches between the sidewalk and road have my heart singing. I arrived in DC in December and I’d never spent any time on the east coast in winter. I knew the woods were dominated by deciduous trees and that they would be naked, but I did not realize just how different it would look compared to all the other places I’ve lived. Gray trunks and branches, brown leaves littering the ground and not much middle or understory to speak of – monochromatic, vertical lines intersecting the horizontal horizon. Beautiful, but a bit dreary and very Blair Witch Project.

Veronica persica – Native to Eurasia, its distribution now spans the continental U.S. (except North Dakota according to the PLANTS database).

Being in an urban environment during this time of year has me thinking about invasiveness, perspective and the definition of nature. Photographing all the cute little weedy flowers blooming along my city walks, I assume most have made it here from elsewhere thanks to human ingenuity and often with detrimental effects. I knew about a few of the most notorious species before I arrived, but not being from here I don’t have a very good idea of who is native and who is moving in and displacing others (plants in the woods and people in the neighborhoods).

One bad boy I’ve been hearing about lately is the Bradford Pear; a white blossomed, early flowering tree that’s rapidly spreading throughout eastern forests. I think it’s a pretty tree, but I haven’t witnessed all its badness. My mentor has lived much of her life on the east coast. She finds the tree hideous – not just because of its invasive qualities, she also finds its architecture and the tree as a whole ugly. In the Pacific Northwest, English holly is an invasive pest. I consider them a bit of an eyesore and couldn’t understand why anyone would want holly growing in their yard. My mentor has two growing in her yard and has mentioned she finds them beautiful, especially in winter. But they (American holly, Ilex opaca) are native here where she lives. It makes me wonder how knowledge of nativeness influences people’s opinion of plants. My knee jerk response of dislike every time I see a holly is fading. Would my mentor think the Bradford pear was beautiful if she saw it growing in its native habitat?

Viola papilionacea – Native! And cute. But still considered a weed. I’ve seen it holding it’s own in weedy lawns.

Vicia sativa – Common vetch is edible and cultivated in many countries, but native only to Southern Europe.

As land managers, we are trained to consider some plants good and others bad. We fight a seemingly endless battle trying to eradicate those bad, introduced species. But it’s not the plant that is bad or wrong or hideous. We are the responsible party.

Stellaria media – Goes by the common name of chickweed. This little guy reminded me of Claytonia. It is edible and has been used in herbal remedies.

Cerastium vulgatum – Also goes by the common name of chickweed. Not sure if you can eat it, but you’re likely to find it in every state you visit.

I have also been wondering how my perspective would change if my only exposure to nature was within an urban environment. I grew up in the Pacific Northwest with access to the Cascade Mountains and the wide open spaces of Eastern Washington from a young age. When I think of nature I generally think of areas beyond the city streets. Places far from shopping malls and subway lines. But nature is defined by the Oxford dictionary as “the phenomena of the physical world collectively, including plants, animals, the landscape, and other features and products of the earth, as opposed to humans or human creations”. By this definition the built environment of the city is not nature, but what about the oxalis sprouting in the crack of a concrete wall, the weedy plants flowering in an un-mowed lawn, all the squirrels and song birds I see daily on my walk to the Metro? Does our definition of nature discriminate against city parks because they are designed and maintained by humans? What about urban “natural areas”? They too have been weeded and planted by humans. Millions of acres of “natural” landscapes across the US have been seeded or treated for invasive species (on BLM Public Lands and elsewhere). By limiting our definition of the natural environment, we are limiting people’s access to nature. How can we expect those within urban environments to care about protecting or restoring a nature they cannot access?

Lamium amplexicaule – Native to Europe, Asia and northern Africa, henbit has spread across the continental U.S. (including North Dakota according to the PLANTS database)

While in Pittsburgh for the North American Wildlife and Natural Resources Conference, I attended a session on protecting and restoring wildlife habitat in urban and suburban areas. Sarah Aucoin from New York City Department of Parks argued that land managers and biologists should expand their view of nature. There are deer in Central Park, eagles in Inwood Hill Park, and endangered piping plovers in Rockaway Park.

Our natural world is changing. Instead of considering nature something I travel to, I intend to help cultivate a healthier version within the cities I live. I am excited to see what else pops up in Washington, DC over the coming weeks!