Most of this month has been spent collecting seed, and also finishing up the spring plant monitoring. I am including some pictures of collecting Ephedra (Mormon Tea) seed, of Delphinium cardinale on Laguna Mountain, and of a Common Poorwill whose nest we accidentally found while collecting seed. Finding cool birds is another advantage of being out in the field!
When we are not out in the field, I have been working on seed processing, and also on trying to learn ArcMap in order to map the new populations of rare and endangered plants that we located this spring. This is completely new for me and is challenging but interesting. I also used ArcMap to assist with preparing reports for parcels of land that will be up for sale later this year. My task was to report vegetation types and soil types. To report soil types, I used the old Soil Survey maps which I found very enjoyable. Another project I assisted with was helping the implementation crew clean up a target shooting area…wow what a lot of trash! $40 worth of scrap metal plus half a trailer of just trash. It has been interesting to see the way the public regards BLM lands. Of course, it varies a lot with the individual, but there seems to be a trend of people wanting the government to provide both access and free services on the BLM lands, but not wanting to take responsibilty that shared public ownership of the land entails. Of course this is neither new, nor suprising, and I have to keep in mind that there are people out there that appreciate having access to public lands and act responsibly so that everyone can enjoy them.

Next month we will be continuing the seed collection and in addition have a tamarisk removal project in Panoche Creek which should be interesting as the herbicide will be applied by helicopter…I’ll take pictures.