Since finishing up our MAIM plots, myself and the other interns in the Shoshone Field Office have been bouncing around a few different projects. Sagebrush mapping, livestock utilization surveys, and plant clearances have taken us all over the map- I’ve gotten to see the diversity in landscapes that this field office contains.

I’ve learned to be careful what I wish for- a few days of livestock utilization surveys in the southern part of our field office had me wishing for beautiful landscapes, diverse plants and water- then my wish came true and this type of landscape presented me with its own unique challenges…

Today I went out to conduct plant clearances- this involves going to predetermined plots to check for sensitive plant species. These plots are located where a proposed recreation trail will go near Hailey, ID so our job is to make sure the trail doesn’t go through any critical habitat for the sensitive plants. Luckily for us (and future hikers) the proposed trail goes through some beautiful country!

But, like I said earlier, this turned out to be quite the task. Fun things we encountered included-

1. Swarms of thousands of grasshoppers flying into our face while tramping through sagebrush.
2. Freshly rained on vegetation soaking through our shoes and pants.
3. Streams hidden under vegetation (Note: Waterproof boots only stay waterproof for so long).
4. Repeatedly being startled and freaking out due to snakes underfoot, birds flying out from shrubs, and giant insects landing on our arms/neck/head.
5. A mini rainforest (well, it was raining at the time) in Idaho! We’re so used to being surrounded by sage that stumbling into a dense stand of trees was quite the surprise. We were loving it until we got ourselves surrounded on all sides by stinging nettle and thistle. At this point, you kind of have to pick your poison- do I walk through thistle which pokes through pants or nettle which may or may not sting through clothing?
6. More hiking up steep hills literally through and over sagebrush, a feat that is easier said than done.
7. Scotch thistles taller than us.

We definitely had some type 2 fun today. If you’re not familiar with the fun scale I’ll give you a quick rundown. Type 1 fun is pure, easy fun- think walking along an easy path and discovering a mountain meadow filled with a thousand beautiful wildflowers. Fun at the time and fun in retrospect. 10/10 would do again. Type 2 fun is the kind of fun that sometimes sucks at the time, think steep hiking with grass poking through your wet socks and treacherous plants at your heels. Type 2 fun has its challenging moments but is fun in retrospect and makes a good story, and you’d probably do it again.

In reality, even harder days become fun when you have another person to share it with and you can find the beauty in the little moments in the day. Our views at the top of hills were gorgeous, and we heard an elk calf bugling to its mother across the ridge. We saw a diverse array of plants as well as wildlife signs such as skeletons and tracks. Also, taking off my wet socks and boots at the end of the day was one of the more magical things I’ve experienced.

Where are we??

Deer skull

Mandatory flower photo

Crazy tall thistle!

Field site near Hailey, ID

Savanna

Shoshone Field Office-BLM

July has been littered with new fires every weekend. July 4th weekend was scary because of all the dangers that come with fireworks are enhanced by the type of fuels that are here in Idaho. I read so many statements, fliers and posters all around Shoshone Field Office about the fire hazards that would emerge this month, and boy, they weren’t kidding.

Our first full week back after the holiday, the Antelope fire roared just a half mile south of our field office. We were expecting an office day filled with data entry and low stress levels. Instead, what we interns came across, was a day full of mild panic and furious curiosity.

Working right next to the BLM fire yard, I got to see fire trucks and supply trucks being loaded, dozers being hauled out, and everyone was on their cell phones with permitees on one line and dispatch on the other line.

The fire was expected to fizzle out the night before, and resources were pulled due to another, larger fire southeast of town. Unfortunately, once the temperature outside got hotter and relative humidity went down, wind picked up and gave new life, fueling our curiosity as well.

The next week, I got the chance to see the plans for rehabilitation, plans that were drawn up from the rangeland management specialists with input from the ranchers. A new program called Rural Fire Protection Agency (RFPA) voiced their opinion on the rehab efforts as well. They make up some of the firefighting effort on BLM land, which is a huge help since BLM struggles, at times, to come up with resources, if they’re needed else where. RFPA’s  may have the dozers and other machinery needed to combat the fire while getting to experience the fight and get to see what BLM has to endure on the fires as well.

This “fire culture” is so intriguing to me and maybe something I will look into after my time here. I think the science behind it is fascinating and coming together as a team to fight fire out there, I bet is so rewarding.

-SG

Often spotted on the fringes of beaches and often disguised as an impassable puddle when the tide comes in, salt marshes may evade our attention more than we realize. The purpose of this blog post is to introduce you to some saltmarsh species that can help you identify a plot of land as a healthy salt marsh. Freshwater marshes occur too, and many species will grow in salty, brackish and freshwater marshes. The below pictures come from one particular saltmarsh in southeastern Connecticut at Bluff Point State Park.

Diversity is indicative of a healthy ecosystem and a greater number of species will often be present in a healthy saltmarsh. Grasses, rushes and sedges, which are all grass-like plants or graminoids, make up this basic level of diversity. Without these graminoids, like Spartina sp. and Juncus gerardii, the area would at best be considered a former salt marsh. From the graminoids, flowers, succulents and even some small shrubs may be added to the composition. Altogether, these species will form a patchwork of colors against the horizon, if you are lucky enough to see an expansive salt marsh.

Being able to recognize a species by its general outline in the distance is known as seeing the species’ “gestalt”. Many species you can identify simply by this color because salt marshes tend to have the same species; plants that are adapted to the site’s characteristic salinized and flooded conditions. Sometimes the colors are more apparent when a species is in bloom or when last year’s flowers dry up. Sometimes, the texture of the plant or the way it blows in the wind can be more telling.

The below pictures offer a quick example of this salt marsh’s species composition. Species will often grow in clumps or stripes along the water line or especially salty areas. Along the water’s edge, Spartina alterniflora (red oval) is most likely to be present, as shown below. This knowledge can help one avoid accidentally stepping too far into open water. It might be more advisable to walk along the areas containing plants that tend to grow in drier, more sturdy soil. For example, shrubs: Iva frutescens (pink oval) is one such shrub and redeems the Spartina alterniflora shown here. Limonium carolinianum or sea lavender (orange oval) has small, intricate flowers.

It also pays to know the edible plants. Salicornia depressa (yellow rectangle) offers a crunchy, salty bite that can be compared to a pickle.

Red Oval: Spartina alterniflora; Orange Circle: Limonium carolinianum; Yellow Rectangle: Salicornia depressa; Pink Circle: Iva frutescens

Patch of mostly Schoenoplectus americanus

P.S. As wonderful as salt marshes are, one should take caution when entering one because the vegetation may obscure large, sometimes human-sized, holes. Go in a group and tread carefully! Try to go at low tide.

As I consider where to adventure these crusted hiking boots off to, I realize how privileged I am to be in small town Vernal, UT. A bit conservative for a city girl, but the outdoors are vast and this isn’t my first rodeo in a small town, so I’m not too worried about it. After researching some of the gems in the area, I’m thrilled to be at a location where nature awaits adventure at a mere 40 minute drive in just about any direction.

I recently celebrated 1 year of knowing my partner in crime from last years’ CLM internship by going on a backpacking trip to Ashley National Forest. This was a great intro to summer trip because we only planned to average about 5 to 6 miles per day AND it made me realize I was unprepared and a little rustically rusty.

Day 1: DESTINATION FOX LAKE

Drove for about 2.5 hours from Vernal to Whiterocks trail head and started our hike at around noon “It’s so nice to have the whole trail by ourselves” I said to Cori. 3 hours later, during our snack/kirin building break we encounter the first humans. I’m not sure why, but we both felt as though we were caught doing something wrong when they stopped to say hello. Maybe it was just the shock of seeing a person when you think there’s nobody watching. They were an older pair, assuming they were a couple, she said they came from Colorado where she worked for the Forest Service and we told her about our summer positions and what we do. We shared our plan to do a loop around Fox and Cheppeta lake and they said they were doing something similar. He said nothing the whole time, it was a little strange, but in either case I like how it was her that took initiative to speak and spoke for him instead of the other way around. *Feminist trait pick up*  By 7pm we were tired and a little hangry, but we accomplished our goal of 6 miles to Fox Lake. We saw a pile of what looked like camping equipment and assumed it was the same couple, since we hadn’t seen anyone else on trail. Upon close examination we determined it was some drifter’s pile of things he had abandoned and hoped he wouldn’t come back in the middle of the night and kill us both. Dark, I know, but sometimes these types of things cross my mind as possibilities out in the middle of nowhere, you know?! We set up camp at an adorable inlet facing the lake where we indulged in the view made for all, but selfishly enjoyed the entire landscape. Took a deep breath in and pleasured in a fulfilling stretch and sigh. Home for the night. After eating dinner, I went to pump water and was extremely disappointed when I noticed that my pump wasn’t pumping very fast. Come to find out, it took a fall at some point and the ceramic casing around the filter had a crack. Uh ohh! We were relying on this one pump for the next couple of days and it took me over an hour to pump 2 Liters. Trouble, but nothing we couldn’t handle. We shared the 2L and called it a night.  We’ll deal with the troubles tomorrow.

Day 2: DESTINATION CHEPETA LAKE

We pumped water for a couple hours early in the morning and were ready for our hike by about 10 am. I was expecting to be long on our way by then when I didn’t know that my pump was broken. Oh well, forward and onward. Our pace was steady, not too fast not too slow when I suddenly feel a breeze pick up enough to stop by and put our sweaters on. Neither one of us wanted to admit to the fact that a thundercloud was building above us and we were at a very exposed cliff but we both realized the danger before even mentioning it. Our paced picked up simultaneously which confirmed our silent assumptions. Finally we felt it, hail! Not super rough down pour hail, no, it was soft and not threatening but shortly thereafter we heard it, thunder! Loud and clear although not very close. It was lingering one mountain over. We picked up our pace a little more and did a small amount of trail stomping to try and get to our destination a little quicker. When we heard the storm approach even closer we decided to take shelter under some baby Juniper growing along the tree line. Throughout this time we were both calm and collected but obviously a little scared. We shared the same reaction by making jokes and giggling about how an adrenaline rush forced us to forget how tired and sore we actually are. You should have seen us racing down this exposed pass. The human body and mind are so fascinating! After a little while the hail subsided and thunder stopped. We decided to call it a day at around 4 pm close to Taylor Lake and cut our trip down by 1 day due to the set back and lack of functioning water pump. We set up camp and built a fire, where we chilled and shared stories about our winter adventures and dating life (or lack there of due to the traveling seasonal life 😉

Day 3: DESTINATION WHITEROCKS TRAILHEAD.

Woke up early and followed the routine of pumping water for a couple of hours *eye roll!*. A meditation session helped me get by. The day before we had passed the trail to loop back to the Whiterocks trailhead because we weren’t sure if we were going to follow through with our initially planned loop, but we decided not to loop and instead head back. We back tracked about 1.5 miles to get to that trailhead but we were just grateful it was sunny out and rain was nowhere near our radar. I know what you’re thinking, “Didn’t you check the weather prior to starting your trip?!” Answer is: Yes, totally, but the Whiterocks trialhead was closer than the Chappeta trailhead and my low clearance car couldn’t take the beating so we decided to change the route last minute and risk being at the exposed portion of our trip on the rainy day. We knew the possibilities, careful assessed and risked it anyway. No regrets, just beautiful landscapes and one boot in front of the other. Our packs were much lighter because we feasted last night, this is always the upside of finishing up a backpacking trip. We ended up trailing a small portion of what we had already hiked on day 1, but I took advantage of that by remembering where I had seen some Penstemon that I wanted to pick to key out. It ended up being Penstemon watsonii, not the desired Penstemon on our list for Seeds of Success collection, which is Penstemon pachyphyllus,

Penstemon pachyphyllus in seed.

but I later found out that this could be a potential species to collect seeds from since it has been found roadside and seems to thrive very well. Hopefully we can add this cutie to our list of natives. We made it back to my car at around 4 pm with plenty of daylight and water for our drive back into civilization. I would call this trip a success despite our setbacks, there isn’t much I can’t handle in the great outdoors I call home.

Cheers,

V

Greetings from New Mexico! Life as an SOS intern has had its ups and downs these past few weeks. For our first collection, we managed to collect in a seeded area. Even though the mistake was frustrating, we learned a great deal about what seeded areas look like and resources we need to consult before collecting a site. Now we are suspicious of areas that are mostly a monoculture. The naturally occurring populations we have gathered seed from tend to show some diversity of plants in the area. Any potential collection sites are checked using a GIS layer and a map in the office with some information on seeded areas, and if there is no information on the area, we visually inspect for plow lines or anything else that might indicate the land was planted using Google Earth. Some example images of what we are looking at are below.

Google Earth images of two areas. The image on the left is seeded and the image on the right isn’t.

The monsoon season here in New Mexico also brings its own set of challenges for collecting seed. The monsoon season brings heavy rains, mostly in the afternoon from mid-June to late September. Generally, the areas we travel in to go collect seed have dirt, or if we are lucky, gravel roads. I am very grateful for the truck we use for our work! We were caught out in a down pour that nearly got our truck stuck in a gully. We barely got out of the area before the brunt of the storm hit. After we escaped, the mountain we were scouting by was barely visible for the rain. We’ve adapted to natures schedule by using rained-out afternoons for work that needs to be done in the office and it’s working out well.

Image of the mountain we were scouting near from the highway.

My fellow intern and I attended a pollinator training in Santa Fe at the Institute for Applied Ecology and a supplemental AIM training at Wild Rivers Visitor Center put on by the NRCS Soil Survey Division. The main topic at the pollinator meeting was on Hymenoptera. I had no idea that the diversity of bees in the U.S. was so high with around 30,000 species of bees. I was further surprised to find out that New Mexico is in the top 3 states for bee diversity, with around 1100 species inhabiting the state. We learned that bees and wasps are within the same clade and closely related to ants. I assumed that native bees behave in a similar way to honey bees, but this is not the case. I learned at the training that most native bees are solitary, have shorter lives than honey bees, and often nest in the ground, or wood cavities.  I also enjoyed trying to catch pollinators in Diablo Canyon. It was oddly satisfying to catch something in your net. The soil training we attended drove home the importance of understanding the geology of the area you are working in when soil typing.

– Bureau of Land Management (Taos Field Office)

This entry marks the 3 month of being in Lander as a rangeland intern. It is amazing how time is flying by. The upcoming weeks are filled with excitement and a plethora of events. One of which is the Solar Eclipse! I am stoked that I can witness this rare occurrence.

Much has transpired since the last time I posted. I got to experience the wonders of Yellowstone with old and new friends. I was quite surprised at the number of buffalo we saw while leaving the park and just at the diversity of organisms. Sadly, I did not get to see a bear but, there is always next time! I think my favorite part was at the end when we hiked up to the painted pots. They are quite interesting and I have enjoyed learning more about how they were formed.

Enjoying some ice cream during a hot afternoon in Yellowstone

The painted pots and their wonderful “plooping” noise.

As for work, my work partner and I were able to help recreate some monitoring that hasn’t been conducted since the 90s and early 2000s, which will be used for a NEPA document. This allowed us to learn some new plants within riparian areas, visit a new and exciting area, and to experience trying to find areas whose marking posts have been removed or knocked down. We still have to do some greenline monitoring that we were unable to complete due to high and fast running waters. Plus, we get to look forward to spending a day or two hiking an entire canyon for data collection in mid to late August.

Orchid found near a riparian area we are monitoring.

Beautiful group of butterflies an a thistle.

Besides work, I have taken the opportunity to explore Lander a bit more. The amount of events held is a bit overwhelming at times, but all of the events are fun to attend. The hiking in the area is top-notch. I was finally able to hike up Sinks Canyon and the views were spectacular. My partner had been in town and was quite impressed with the views we say. Plus, the flowers were beautiful in the area!

Popo Agie River flowing up at Sinks Canyon

Until next time,

– James Noyama
Bureau of Land Management – Lander Field Office                                                 Lander, Wyoming

Buckle up, this post may be what my stats professor at Indiana would call “chewy.”

The wildlife surveys are still going strong—pronghorn fawns started showing up about a month ago, and I’ve collected quite a few data points on nesting and chick-rearing for some of the BLM and Wyoming Game and Fish’s birds of concern.

American avocet (Recurvirostra americana), trying to distract us from its chick farther down the road.

Although I haven’t actually run any numbers yet, the distribution patterns I’m noticing make me much more confident about the conservation prospects of some species than I am about others. Part of that seems to depend on basic habitat requirements—I am increasingly suspecting, for example, that the sage thrashers I mentioned a couple of months ago are more adaptable to habitat variations than has previously been recognized—but how different animal species respond to habitat changes in one location can also be very important.

Continue reading →

It is astonishing that I’ve been in Alaska for two months as of today! The beautiful Copper River Valley surrounding the cross-roads town of Glennallen is definitely beginning to feel like home. For the past two months at the BLM Glennallen Field Office, I’ve been exposed to an incredible diversity of projects. These include, but of course are not limited to, collecting woody and herbaceous specimens to be used for educational flip-cards, cruising timber and marking boundaries for future winter timber sales, floating down the Gulkana Wild River searching for invasives, and zooming down the Top of the World ATV trail helping out the recreation crew spread gravel. It’s been a wild ride so far in the 49th state- and I couldn’t be more satisfied with my internship thus far.

The magnificent Chugach Range touching the Prince William Sound. (Taken during a rare sunny day in Valdez, AK)

While the boreal forest is not known to be very diverse (I mainly deal with four different tree species- white & black spruce, quaking aspen, and balsam poplar), it is absolutely mind-blowing how vast the area is that this circumpolar forest blankets. Even though I drive long stretches of the surrounding highways to and from job sites nearly every day, I am always taken aback peering out into the wide, seemingly unbroken sea of spruce.

Keying out specimens on the beautiful Liberty Falls Trail near Kenny Lakes, AK

Coming from my forestry program at the University of Vermont, where most of my studies revolved around rich northern hardwood sites, I have to admit I was a little nervous about what kind of forestry work I would be doing as I passed a classic “Dr Suess”-esque black spruce bog off the highway. Because of the permafrost conditions and short growing seasons up here, trees don’t really have the luxury of growing to merchantable size for saw logs. Instead of marking living trees for timber sales, most of the forestry program’s focus is on dead standing timber for firewood and sometimes biomass. Timber sales usually take place in the winter to prevent any disruption to the soil and permafrost. I luckily still get to be involved in the preparation and marking of these sales. Most of these sales take place in an area south of Glennallen, known as the Tiekel Block, where a spruce beetle infestation killed huge bands of white spruce in the late 1990s. Salvage sales are extremely common in this area and are mainly what I focus on. This site also happens to be the home of an apparently very healthy grizzly and black bear population, so bear spray is always a must when working here!

From the Glennallen BLM Field Office, I can’t wait to see what August brings! Take a look at the photos below for more of my AK job adventures!

-CLM Intern Katlyn Williard

Preparing for a salvage timber sale. These white spruces though killed in the late 1990s by the spruce bark beetle are still valuable for firewood and biomass.

A wolf track spotted at a site in the Tiekel Block. No actual wolf sitings (yet).

I’m stumped. How is the pith or center of this recently cut white spruce is still in tact!?

Probably the cutest plant I’ve had the pleasure of seeing so far. Cypripedium passerinum, also known as the sparrow’s egg orchid :o) Seen alongside the McCarthy Road.

Preparing for our Gulkana Wild River three-day float.

I’m on Top of the World! (The ATV Trail that is!). This is probably the most beautiful work site I’ve been to. 360 degree views of Isabel Pass and the Alaska Range.

ATVs and UTVs used for trail maintenance, featuring the infamous AK pipeline