Cresting horizons
Powering the world over
Clockwork of nature
Ocean of Sagebrush
Long days spent searching for nests
Scour for ticks, sleep easy
Flying to Chitown
Humidity gone unmissed
New faces, fun times
Teaching youth science
Maps and orienteering
Sick a day later
ArcGIS work
One monitor, slow progress
Plenty of work left.
We have moved on from revisiting rare plant sites to check on rare plant populations to revisiting rare plant sites to collect data on woody tree and shrub cover! This is part of the project that will help me earn my M.S. from the internship-based Master’s program at Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden. My project is looking at the tree and shrub cover at Fritillaria gentneri (FRGE) sites and what plant associations make for the best FRGE habitats. It will also compare data collected in the field for tree and shrub cover to cover data collected using remote sensing.
This project also means that we are going back to many FRGE sites that we had previously visited during the internship. This seems like a silly concept at first, but it is definitely necessary. While we no longer can see the beautiful Gentner’s lillies, the trees and shrubs are still around to collect data on.
While working on this project, Lillie and I have enjoyed getting the chance to work a lot more with ArcGIS for gathering and analyzing data. We have also had to search through large cabinets filled with files for rare plant site forms with some of the necessary cover data, which we have enjoyed slightly less. The cover data is starting to come together from several sources, and it is exciting to see the progress that we have made.
In the field, the changes from the beginning of my internship to now are very noticeable. The air is hot and dry. Many plants have passed and the environment in many places appears a dead shade of brown. But there is still much beauty to be found.
The rare Calochortus greenei in a sea of Medusahead grass
Cirsium occidentale
Chocolate tube slime mold! Stemonitis sp.
Monardella villosa var. villosa (Coyote mint)
Lillie and I have gone on more adventures on our time off, and most recently we hiked up to and camped at the Devil’s Punchbowl in Northern California. The hike was very challenging with our heavy packs, but the views at the Punchbowl and along the way made it more than worth it! Definitely one of the most beautiful places I’ve been able to swim at. And of course we played many games of Scrabble.
The Devil’s Punchbowl
Lillie powering up the slope by the Punchbowl’s little brother
It’s a sad inevitability that this internship is coming to an end much sooner than I’d like it to. I’m happy that I still have a few more weeks to enjoy living in Oregon.
Kiki, Grants Pass Interagency Office
Elkhart Park Trailhead is easily accessed off the top of Skyline Drive, a completely paved road leading to a multitude of hikes into the Wind River Range.
This one is an out – and – back hike — about 10 miles roundtrip. On the way there is a steady yet relaxed incline, making the way back feel like a nice stroll through the woods.
If you’re in the mood for a good dose of wilderness and solitude that is more than doable in one day, with fantastic views and unique flora and fauna, then I would highly recommend this hike.
I came to the trailhead a bit later than usual, around 1 PM, with no expectations other than to find a nice place to camp out for the night. I was pleasantly surprised.
Park at the Elkhart Park Trailhead lot. There will be a sign directing you to the “Poles Creek Trail” — take that one.
The first few miles is heavily trafficked; be prepared to come across other humans, dogs and horses for the first 2-3 miles.
You will pass through a series of mature spruce-pine forests and open meadows, blanketed with lush green vegetation and beautiful wildflowers. Keep an ear out for American Three-toed Woodpeckers and warblers in the forests.
Follow signs for Pole’s Creek Lakes, Photographer’s Point and/or Eklund Lake.
4.5 miles in, you will reach what is called “Photographer’s Point” (for good reason). You can’t miss it — there will be a steeper incline up to the rock outcrops where you will approach expansive views of the Wind River Range. I recommend staying here for a while, a great place to enjoy that apple or granola bar you brought along for a snack.
From here, the trail will continue on down a bit through a mix of forested swampy areas. I think it is only fair to mention that the mosquitos could be bothersome depending on when you go — I recommend wearing long pants and a breathable long-sleeve shirt.
About a quarter of a mile past Photographer’s Point, you will come to a large open field with two small lakes on either side of the trail. Continue straight. (There is also another lake further to your right that you can overlook just a few hundred steps away).
Shortly after you head back into the woods, another sign will point you to Pole’s Creek Lakes and you will veer to the right toward the lake. I decided to stop at this point as it gave me plenty of time to set up camp, collect wood for the night, and explore the surrounding area. You could make this a turn-around point, or, if you wanted to continue on, this trail will lead you to the popular destination, Seneca Lake.
There are many small campsites off the trail (between 200-500 feet) that already have stone pits set up for a warming campfire.
If you are planning on camping/hiking out here often, make sure to have a sleeping bag rated at 20 degrees, or a sleeping system that will keep you warm and toasty when it often drops to freezing (or slightly above) at night. For this outing, I brought my 40-degree sleeping bag, a sleeping pad and one-person bivy, as well as warm base layers. Next to a fire, I was not shivering, and plenty warm to make it through the chill of the night. However, I was quite restless most of the night and wished I had a warmer sleeping bag or an extra liner.
This was my first time using this bivy, and I have to say that I really enjoyed it. My favorite quality is the plastic window and screened ventilation. With just the screen over my head, I stayed up for hours watching the night sky — I have never seen so many stars in my entire life. Looking up, I forgot that I was cold at all (or paranoid of bears). It is a moment that empties you of any thoughts or worries and fills you with simple, beautiful awe.
I was fortunate to not encounter any rain or storms during my stay. Once the sun fell, I was a bit stunned by the near complete silence that surrounded me. You could hear a bundle of pine needles float to the forest floor. No chorus of insects or frogs, no wind — only the still of absence of sound.
Wake up with the birds, and head back over to Photographer’s Point for the sunrise. Enjoy the rest of your hike down in the tranquility of the morning.
Happy Trails!
I’m guessing since this internship is through the Chicago Botanical Gardens not many of you are avid OPB (Oregon Public Broadcasting, Oregon’s NPR station) listeners. If I’m correct this is very unfortunate for you 1. because OPB is great and 2. because you missed the recent segment on planting wocus – a segment that not only included bright orange sunglasses but also the carefully prepared and executed wocus dance.
The wocus, otherwise known as the Rocky Mountain Pond Lily, is a water plant that was once extremely prevalent in the Klamath Basin but is now much less common. ‘Wocus’ as the Native Americans called the plant has been used by the tribes in the area for many generations. A group of employees from US Fish and Wildlife, The Nature Conservancy, and the Klamath Tribes have been working to re-introduce wocus to a property owned by the Nature Conservancy that has recently been returned to its historical state as a marsh (another cool story that involves lots of explosives).
I have to admit that I was not part of this re-introduction effort nor was able to wear orange sunglasses or do the wocus dance, so you may wonder why I just told you all of this. After the wocus re-introduction project was complete there were still 9 plants remaining, so the other intern in the office and I took the opportunity to commandeer the seedlings and use them in one of our fish rearing projects. We are raising suckers in two ponds that are essentially like giant bath tubs – relatively shallow and extremely exposed with no vegetation.
While we could have used the method of stapling the wocus to the bottom of the pond, we decided to instead experiment with growing wocus in water that is too deep to plant them. In order to provide cover for the juvenile fish to escape predation and also as an experiment in transplanting wocus, we designed a system to hang wocus from buoys anchored in the middle of the ponds. The idea of growing wocus in coconut fiber baskets came from work on wocus by Dr. Jherime Kellermann, a professor at Oregon Institute of Technology.
We moved the wocus seedlings from their pots to 10 inch coconut fiber baskets and used hemp twine to tie the bundles like small packages. 
These wocus bundles were then suspended by hemp twine from the chain just below each buoy. Each plant hangs between 1 and 2 feet under water and there are three plants per buoy. Another intern in our office, Shilah, bravely donned a dry suit and entered the ponds teaming with algae and zoo plankton to place the anchored buoys and wocus.
In the coming weeks we hope to start seeing wocus leaves reaching the surface and growing larger.
A few side notes:
I will skip the week of training due to the unspoken excitement that I felt when learning about government computer protocol, how to drive for a second time, and what to do around used needles and chemicals that are prohibited to consume. Nonetheless, it was great meeting my coworkers for the next 5 months in the Shoshone field office. So far everyone is friendly and gets along with everyone else.
I have not participated in field research before and it sure was a surprise upon first encounters. I am in the Seeds of Success program, however I was put into the vegetation monitoring unit so I could take a back seat and observe. I was not ready for the front lines of the battle field to be cannon fodder.
We went out onto the BLM land. No BLM land in PA, where I’m from (don’t quote me). Anyhow, BLM land is a real deal. But, BLM land is just there; it exists. There are no signs welcoming a visitor to a scenic overlook, no information centers, just signs of land marks in sparse locations to help with navigation. Luckily, BLM land is public land, which means free camping sites.
Idaho has much more than potatoes, but the potato farms are massive regardless. Instead of corn, there are green fields with little white flowers for each plant. Surrounding the plots is high dessert climate which is sage brush and tan grasses, especially invasive grasses that are all dried up due to the 90 plus weather every day. Southern Idaho is called the ‘Magic Valley’. Sadly there are few magicians or wizards roaming the streets or even children with lightning bolts on their head, but the magic is the irrigation from the snake river into the desert. What a let down.
We drove through some tiny towns in Idaho, probably around a 1000 each. Just a highway as the main road with a gas station and a small restaurant as the only buildings visible. On either side of the highway there are several interest signs sprawled: signs for state parks, caves, and fossil beds along the drive. I need to check those out.
Once we passed the towns we took a right onto a unassuming road. Just a paved country road. We soon left civilization! Houses were no longer in existence, sedans did not exist, and it was rare if we saw any other species in the genus Homo. The farms were the last to disappear and we headed into BLM territory. The road took a turn and the asphalt disappeared, transforming into dirt. We took a gradual incline up the road and soon a rim appeared as we reached the top of the plateau. This was a picture worthy formation as the black rock face jutted out from the tan grassy surface. The road continued forward into the now visible rolling hills. The dirt road became choppy and we trudged along at a slower pace, but our route soon led us to a road, but was it actually a road. 
At the intersection, the driver, another CLM intern, held out his/her arm to locate our position with our yellow GPS. The devise is not too quick with its calculations, however we were in the correct position somehow. I felt unsure of where I was and I had no information of where I was supposed to be, luckily I was the only intern in the truck on day 1 out in the field. The truck shifted itself into 4 wheel drive and the blue vehicle grew another foot. The extension rose, the tires increased in size, the tread became more defined, and the truck purred as the driver stroked his/her fingers across the now velvet steering wheel. The truck let loose a somber meow as we turned onto a two track covered in cheat-grass and rocks. We drove at a whopping 5 mph with high caution. I rocked from side to side and back and forth, getting airborne and bumping into the sides. I was indeed wearing my seat belt, since I am a safe and reliable employee, nevertheless the ride was bumpy. I had trouble just keeping my head still and could not tell the direction of the path. Some rocks were covered in grass so I could not prepare for a large jolt of jump. I could hear some grinding as the truck’s cabins grazed over rocks and exclamations flew out of the drivers mouth. “Always hit rocks with the tires dead on.”
We finally reached our destination. The GPS was taken out of the car with the rest of the supplies. I had no idea what our goal intended. I put a few binders in my bag, massaged some sunscreen on my cheeks, secured my Phillies hat, and followed the leader. We walked across the assortment of grasses, sage brush, and flowers/forbs. The GPS did not have a constant directional path as we changed our alignment every couple minutes. Sadly, I had left my boots back at home and decided the best alternative was mesh running shoes. The seed heads from the cheat-grass jammed into the opening, stabbing my soft skin. It hurt. A mistake made only once. We continued walking across the terrain until a pink flag was visible fluttering in the stinky hot breeze. We pulled out the 50 meter measuring tape, found north, and I unrolled the tape. I was directed to go left because I kept on wondering to the right when unrolling the tape. I got to the end of the line and realized I forgot a stake, so I put a rock on top to secure the line.
I recorded the pin drop data for the first 15 meters, writing down codes for species I had not heard of, and measurements for the height, checking to make each column was accurate, but also precise. I started to pin drop every 0.5 meters (5 cm, 50 mm, 500000 um). We carried the meter pin in a protective PVC pipe. 
I dropped the pin vertically and watched what it hit. “This grass and dirt. What is this grass?” “15.5 meter. Rock.” “16 meters. A bush, a flower, and dirt with Herbaceous Litter.” I was soon told what plant I hit and the correct code to write down on the sheet. I also measured each plant’s drooping height. I got the hang of the shtick, but I was bending too much at the waist, instead of the knees. I got a little dizzy, and drank my warm refreshing tap water to recover my balance. Afterwards my partner for the drop took measurements for sage brush cover and the third member of our group finished up the forb diversity check.
It was lunch time. I reached into my bag, but no lunch bag was present. I had to run back to the truck. I ran, then walked. I still was not use to the dry heat nor the elevation. I grabbed my lunch and an extra water bottle and rolled back down to where I came. I actually forgot what the true direction I came from since there are not too many outstanding landmarks. I walked in a direction, looking at a tall sage brush for guidance. I was wrong. I walked over some rocks I had not seen before and knew I had misinterpreted my surroundings. I did a 360 spin and a backflip and noticed my coworkers waving their hands and lunch boxes at me from about 2 football fields away. I hustled on over and enjoyed my delicious gourmet peanut butter and jelly sandwich on multi-grain bread. What a day.
Don’t worry. I made it back to the field office. We hiked a mile and a quarter to another pin drop site. Saw some yellow bellied marmots. Traversed some small gorges with small streams. I had no expectation of seeing water in the high desert. We got lost on the way back. We should have marked the truck with a GPS dot but found the truck after wandering. We drove back and called it an 11 hour day. Enough was enough for one day. Slept like a babe that night. A fun day, and a day that I had not imagined.
Hey world, greetings from Southern Idaho. I’ve been up to far too much to fit into the blog, but let’s take a stab at a recap anyways (I’m no J. Chappelle-loved the drones bud). My highlights have been: spending a day botanising with the BLM (super hero-legend) Roger Rosentreter, he was state head botanist for 35 years, is an exceptional lichenologist (and has written many books on the subject) and from that couple generations of crazy mountaineer, super fun, cool as courduroy botanists-folks like Dr. Ken Robertson who inspired me to do field work. I always love learning from people like this, so many pieces of information they take for granted and have never bothered to write down that may otherwise be lost. Another social highlight was seeing the lovely Kendl Winters and extraordinary Palmer T. Lee play a show as the The Lowest Pair near Boise; after my banjo fix, I got to drive far into the Owyhee desert listening to someone play Dead on the community radio as the stars danced in a moonless night.
My trainings were really incredible and I’m very grateful for the opportunities. My first training was the Idaho Native Plant Society meeting, where I was able to explore the high precipitation refuge populations in central Idaho. These communities are very similar to the plant life of Western Washington and Oregon. The second training was the Idaho Botanical Foray. The premise of these are that folks from each of Idaho’s four university herbaria show up to an underrepresented area in their collections and collect everything in sight. This was very fun and allowed me to study the local flora with a ton of incredible botanists. What I really loved about this is that I was able to meet a ton of botanists whose vouchers I have been staring at in Digital Herbaria for the last few years. Highlights were botanisng riparian zones with Mike Mancuso, collecting at a breakneck pace on mountain wind-swept slopes with Prof. Jim Smith. As well as talking the Owyhee flora, Onagrads, and Lomatium’s with Prof. D. Mansfield. It was fun to see everyone’s collection methods and philosophies, especially as I have been collecting largely from three groups here, the Onagrads, the Apioids, and the Boraginaceae for various projects.
pressing with co-worker Sam West, Scott Montgomery and Prof. J Smith in the background working on those waist high hay-bales. Idaho Botanical Foray 2016, Pahsimeroi Valley
Our field district was ravaged by several fires over the last decade and has been struggling to re-vegetate. I have been spending a lot of time thinking about restoration protocols for re-seeding and what physiological parameters of taxa may allow for quick re-colonization and prevent cheatgrass invasion.
Another project I have been working on aside form LEPA searching is adding content to a photo field guide of the plants of our district office. I have been working on writing dichotomous keys for Erigeron, Castilleja, Eriogonum, Crepis, Penstemon, Lupinus, and a couple others. Writing keys and making line-drawings has been a highly educational and challenging task. Part of my ambitions are for the keys to be usable by folks without formal botany training, as well as making them aesthetically interesting to the forthcoming generation of millennial botanists-they are both tough curve balls to try and address, but I’m on the homestretch. At the same time I have been working on reviewing the advance copy of Flora of the Pacific Northwest- I have dozens of notes in my old version about errors, but none in the new one! Giblin and all his associates are doing incredible work on this one (and inspiring me to step it up on my own keys!).
One of the great things about focusing on a singular plant in a season is learning, and conjecturing about the ecology that allows the plant to survive in its niche. The inorganic chemistry of slickspots gives us a lot to think about, and really drives home many themes of soil science, nutrient and moisture relations, population genetics, as well as temperature and climate dynamics.
I’ve been able to explore the mountains and deserts of Idaho in my space time. No pictures can do justice to the areas I have been. I’ve been infatuated with the Owyhee desert and the high mountains of central Idaho, as well as the ranges of Northern Nevada
Group shot! notice Evan of CBG fame leaning low. :-). i’m that kid back right with a press.
“Desert Dawn, rise up early, lift your song….
Smell the scent of flowers dancing on the wind,
dancing on the wind!”
-Michael Kang of the string cheese incident
sorry loose, format and essentially devoid of original photos (both above photos taken by (Steve Martin, just as funny as the one your thinking of), but if you’re in the west you understand that pictures can’t do justice to anything you want to snap one of.
In Salmon Idaho, one endemic plant species is the Salmon twin bladderpod (Physaria didymocarpa). This unique plant is in the Brassicaceae family, and there are only 8 known populations of the species. Many of these populations have not been assessed since the early 2000s, as the office hasn’t had an official botanist since 2010. So it the job of me as a CLM intern to perform population monitoring and Seeds of Success collections for the field office. The first populations monitored have been the Salmon twin bladderpod because it is so identifiable. All of the populations are in small geographic areas, as the plant requires specific environmental conditions and minor disturbances. Some of the populations are in a very robust shape, containing many hundreds of individuals. However, unfortunately, two of the eight known populations contained zero observed individuals during the field assessment. One of those populations may have been taken out in a large rock slide on a steep mountain face. As genetic diversity is so important for conservation, it was disappointing to see that some of these populations no longer exist, as it greatly increases the chance of species extinction.
It has been incredibly fun to do population monitoring and SOS collecting, but I am still only really now beginning the adventure. I love hiking up mountain faces, jumping over creek beds, finding caves, stumbling across antlers, and gazing out at the mountains and valleys that surround my “office.” The internship so far has been amazing because I love spending time outside and exploring new areas, and many of the places I am going to have seen very little human activity. I can’t wait to see what the next four months have in store for me!
Signing off,
Austen, BLM, Salmon Field Office, Idaho
I’ve just wrapped up my first month working for the BLM at the Casper field office. It’s been an excellent experience learning a variety of land and wildlife management techniques! We were thrown straight into field work on our first day, where we learned the new AIM (Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring) protocols alongside the permanent staff members. The aim (ha ha) of implementing these new protocols is to standardize procedures across departments, so that data from different projects can be consolidated and used to inform future operations. It was a very unique experience because the permanent field staff were also learning the protocols for the first time, which allowed us all to get to know each other while we worked through each activity. The techniques learned included characterizing soil horizons, evaluating soil stability, determining vegetation cover and density, and estimating plant diversity.
A snapshot of typical sagebrush steppe ecosystem.
One of the primary management objectives of wildlife biologists in Wyoming is the preservation of the Greater Sage Grouse. The Sage Grouse is an indicator species for the deceptively diverse sagebrush steppe ecosystem, meaning that a regular abundance of Greater Sage Grouse indicates that the surrounding ecosystem is stable and healthy. Part of the work of the BLM is to monitor cattle grazing on public areas of sagebrush steppe. The wildlife biologists can then make recommendations on whether those areas are available for additional grazing, or if the cattle should be diverted elsewhere to allow the environment to recuperate. I was able to assist in completing these range-land health assessments.
The Casper Field Office manages over a million acres of public land.
Additionally, I have been aiding wildlife biologists in monitoring a number of nearby raptor nests. These include both natural nests as well as artificial nesting structures. Any active nests are protected by a buffer zone that prevent any kind of oil and gas development within those areas. We were able to observe a variety of different species including golden eagles, ferruginous hawks, and burrowing owls.
Finally, I was able to participate in Environmental Education day, a public outreach event with a local boys and girls club. We spent some time planting trees and discussing ecosystem health before I gave a brief presentation on the wildlife of the sagebrush steppe. I exhibited a stuffed sage grouse and a number of different game animal horns/antlers, which the kids were very excited to interact with.
Bighorn National Forest is only a couple of hours away, perfect for a weekend trip!
The city of Casper is located in central Wyoming, very close to a number of amazing natural places. On the weekends I’ve enjoyed hiking and exploring these areas, which include Medicine Bow National Forest, Bighorn National Forest, and Grand Teton National Park. Overall, the first month of the internship has been a very positive experience and I look forward to learning a great deal more!
Getting to Wyoming was an incredible experience in itself but once I got here I got to learn so many new things. We started out by learning the new Assessment, Inventory, and Monitoring (AIM) strategy to collect quantitative information on Sagebrush habitat. During that time I got to meet a few other interns that work with our Range and Hydrology staff from the Casper Field Office, where I report for work everyday. We all worked together to learn the new protocol within the Stagebrush Steppe Ecosystem.
For most of my internship I get to work with wildlife, which is a great experience. I have done a lot of nested frequency surveys to check Greater Sage Grouse habitat. I have also been doing raptor nest and artificial nesting structures surveys during which I got to see many red-tailed hawks, golden eagles, and ferruginous hawks with their young in nests.
I also got to participate in an Environmental Education Day, where I taught children about ecosystems and food webs. This whole month has been a wonderful experience so far and I look forward to the remainder of this internship!
I’m getting over the “what should I be doing” phase. For the benefit of future interns or those that are still figuring it out, this how I got organized.
Like many others, my internship is focused on the Seeds of Success program; collecting “workhorse” species for research and restoration. Like many others I relocated for my internship and was/am unfamiliar with the native flora. Before deciding what to collect there are a few necessary resources:
I am organizing our previous SOS records and herbarium vouchers at our office for next year’s intern. Maps and books should be relatively available at the office but if interns wanted to get one ahead of time as an intro, I’d recommend Sagebrush Country, by Ronald Taylor as a great introduction to and resource for common plants and communities.
The other main challenge that I’ve come across is deciding what to spend my time trying to collect. Initially my “plan” was to collect anything native and abundant, assuming that it was a workhorse species that would potentially be useful. The problem with this is that without prioritization and past records for reference, the same few dominant species risk being collected each year. I suggest that early in the season interns talk to both their local mentor as well as their state botanist. By doing this I came up with the following set of priorities for my office:
1. Whatever my office wants to collect for local purposes (fire restoration, sage grouse feed, etc).
2. POSE for USFWS project. This is a great basin wide effort where we will be collecting POSE across ecoregions and seed zones. Goal is 5-10 population collections per ecoregion and per seed zone. Each of these will get processed as SOS and the extra will be available for this project.
3. Statewide priorities species for restoration. Again the goal is 5-10 per ecoregion per seed zone. Process for SOS and collect extra seed: POSE, bluebunch wheatgrass, great basin wildrye, idaho fescue, indian rice grass.
and
-Pollinator forbs: Three nesting and three nectar plants per season (spring, summer, fall). Some plants will be nesting and nectar plants.
4. Finally, target species that are on the long “target” list that have never been collected in our area before.
Obviously priorities will change from office to office, and may change by next year, but in each specific context, priorities allow the collector to focus their efforts on what will be most productive. Instead of choosing native plants randomly or even randomly off the “target” list of 150 species I now know to focus on certain species that will go towards existing projects. I am also organizing maps of seed zones and ecoregions for the following intern, as well as putting together a list of pollinator species to use alongside the more comprehensive target list.
I hope this, in conjunction with the indispensable SOS training in Chicago, will serve to cut down on the confusion/learning curve before getting out to start collecting next time around. There’s a lot to catch up on for a new person and because of the time sensitivity of seed collection this can mean missing out on some species or wasting resources more generally. There’s only so much time in the season so I’m hoping to use it well.
Good luck,
-Alejandro Brambila