We’ve been focusing on willow plantings and scouting for plant populations for the seeds of success program for the past few weeks. We’ve also been preparing for outreach events on Memorial Day weekend at Sand Mountain.
We planted a large amount of willow cuttings from previous interns at the site of the Red Rock Fire. This site has been part of a large rehabilitation effort for the past couple of years. We are trying to control erosion along a stream bank by planting these willows to stop the sediment from washing away. Since we finished this site in super speedy, due to the efficiency of our intern team, we ended up heading back towards Carson City to plant willows in a site known as Winter’s Ranch in Washoe Valley.
After this planting, we spent some time scouting for wildflower populations and different potential collections sites for the seeds of success program. This gave us an exciting time to independently explore and identify the plants growing in the Winter’s Ranch site. We found some interesting species including a healthy population of the native Penstemon rybergii, Ranunculus aquatilis, and a few types of paintbrushes. The botanist in me was itching to ID some of the beautiful plants we’ve seen blooming all over our sites. Although I spend a lot of my free town in the mountains and hills with keys or field guides, I was incredibly happy for a chance to key out plants on the job.
Right now we are preparing for an outreach event at the popular ATV and dirt bike riding spot known as Sand Mountain. This mountain has a fascinating geologic history. It is a giant, isolated, inland dune in Nevada. Sand Mountain is unique because it is one of seven dunes in the world that can “sing.” This singing dune produces a booming, whirring, or squeaking noise often compared to the noise of a propeller plane. This occurs when a large amount of sand sloughs off from an angle of repose. Sadly, this unique feature is hard to notice due to the use of off-highway vehicles (OHV) that have deteriorated this crucial angle of repose as well as the noise of the engines overpowering the song of the mountain. Sand Mountain is also home of the endemic sand mountain blue butterfly (Euphilotes pallescens arenamontana) which is specialized to a species of buckwheat that occurs in the area. The debate about listing this species as threatened was a very hot topic just a few years ago and still, there is much controversy surrounding Sand Mountain. Until now, most of the outreach we have done has been with environmentally friendly crowds at earth day events or with easily fascinated kids. It will be interesting to try to connect with a new audience and listen, first hand, to the thoughts of the public, even if they may oppose the actions of BLM. Plus, I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe, in the darkness of night when I’m curled up in my sleeping bag and all the OHV riders have worn themselves out and turned off their engines, I’ll be lucky enough to hear sand cascading off of the mountain and listen to the lullaby of the shifting earth.
P.S. I’ve included a link to an audio recording of Sand Mountain. Just scroll down and the first “Sound Recording” link on this page is of Sand Mountain.
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nori/booming_sand.html