Buffalo, Wyoming: The Final Frontier… These are the voyages of a CLM Intern. His five-month mission: to explore strange new ecosites, to seek out new plant life and new allotments, to boldly go where no CLM Intern has gone before…

The Lost World

This week I spent my time in the Fortification Creek WSA. This area was located near Gillette, Wyoming and would be considered very isolated from the outside world. The landscape looked very similar to the Badlands in South Dakota. The steep topography would be a real challenge, especially for many advance hikers. There were many juniper (Juniperus scopulorum) stands, grasslands, prairie dog (Cynomys ludovicianus) villages, and many creeks that made this landscape very heterogeneous, making this area ideal for a variety of many unusual plants and animals. There were elk (Cervus canadensis) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) all over the place and they all looked very healthy. Probably due to the abundance of winterfat (Krascheninnikovia lanata). I went with a BLM employee and four wildlife biologist from the University of Wyoming: Laramie Natural Diversity Database Research Division. Our goal was to record, observe, and identify as many mammals, invertebrates, reptiles, amphibians, flora, and birds as possible. This was a five day mission of backpacking, doing transects, and collecting plant and insect pollinator samples! I was beyond excited. I will only include a couple stories…^_^;

Bug Net Training and Animal Crossing!
One of my jobs on this trip was to collect as many different pollinators as possible. Lusha was a wildlife biologist who wanted to look for many different pollinators such as bees, moths, and butterflies. She would set up different insect traps to capture a plethora of different insect species. She gave me a net, a jar of ethanol, and a few wax paper envelopes. I would quickly run into the field with the net and look for all the pollinators. Now you may think catching insects would be easy. It is not! D: They were very quick, agile, and sneaky! Catching these insects was a challenge, but I learned all of their tricks. Handling the bug net was like an art. You had to be methodical, swift like the breeze, and as keen as a ninja. Most of my bug net training came from experience and the game known as Animal Crossing.

We were by a place near Bull Creek and everyone was surveying the area. Lusha was putting out many different traps and she would point out to me a pollinator she wanted. Bumblebees (Bombus spp.) were in abundance followed by different species of butterflies/moths (Lepidoptera Family). I caught almost all of them, but it was difficult putting them in the jar or envelope on a windy day. I also caught different Coleoptera beetles such as the dung beetle, darkling beetle, and tiger beetle to name a few. The tiger beetles were green metallic insects that ran fast and had large jaws. They were very interesting to catch, because they liked to hop around like they were throwing a tantrum before they flew away. Another beetle that was interesting was the dung beetle. I had never seen them before in the wild. They were in abundance in the WSA. They were rolling dung balls everywhere!

One of the most challenging insects to catch was the hawk moth of the Sphingidae Family. I had three opportunities, but they were so darn fast and I missed each one. I found a fourth moth on a white beardtongue (Penstemon albidus). I performed a left to right false swipe with my net near the moth to make it fly away from the flower. Immediately, I did a sky uppercut false swipe to make the insect fly upwards and I followed with net hammer down move. Three hit combo! ^_^ The moth was not injured at all and was in great health! Catching all of these insects was extremely fun and provided a good workout. I collected some nice specimens for the University of Wyoming: Laramie!

The Nature Hike and The Rabid Bat

Ian, Wendy, Bonnie, Lusha, and I were traveling up Bull Creek to find different flora and fauna. Bonnie was looking for as many flora specimens as possible to put in the herbarium. Wendy was in charge of looking for many different reptiles and amphibians in the area. Ian looked for as many birds and mammal species as possible (concentrating on bats). Lusha looked for all of the invertebrates. We hiked up the creek and came across many ephemeral ponds full of tadpoles and aquatic insects. I never seen so many different species of amphibian in one small pond. The experience was awesome! We encountered a pair of red tailed hawks (Buteo jamaicensis) who had a nest in the area. They would screech and fly close to us as we observed them. They had different morphs, which made them look like a different species! As we hiked further up the creek, we saw an elk herd standing on the hill. They were all staring at us making bizarre noises. I never thought an elk could sound like a whining shiba inu… With all of these great experiences, we always had to be on the lookout for ticks of the Ixodidae Family. Ticks were all over the place!! I must have collected over fifteen ticks a day by traveling on elk trails. Wherever we see signs of elk, we had to totally make sure to check ourselves for ticks after.

Later in the afternoon, Ian was setting up a bat microphone near one of the ephemeral ponds and then he saw a bat flying around. The tiny mammal was hunting for insects in broad daylight! The movements and behavior were odd for this kind of species of bat. Ian mentioned that this bat had rabies. O_O We were all shocked and kept an eye out for it. The tiny bat was following us as we hiked on. It came very close a couple of times making us nervous. Sometimes the bat would disappear and reappear unexpectedly! Ian and I tried to get the bat with the net, but the tiny little guy would dodge and fly into something and fly away. This kept on happening for a good twenty minutes. The creature eventually left, but seeing that tiny bat was funny and horrible at the same time! <_<

Bird Transects

We would get up at 4:30am in the morning and do bird transects for the week. Our goal was to go to twelve different transects and record the bird species we would find in that area. The landscape was very hard to navigate in, especially if you were carrying a daypack through very cold and hot temperatures extremes. Some days the grass would be so wet that your pants and shoes would be constantly dripping of water for hours. Some of the transects were located near steep inclines of topography, so I had to take a couple of breaks when hiking up the slopes. Good thing I carried a lot of water and food with me just in case. 😉 Many of the transect places I visited had a huge amount of petrified wood. I called them leaverites, because I had to leave them there due to the fact that we were in a WSA.

Most of my time I was following different elk trails to my next destination. I love the elk! They could always find the easiest path up the slope! \(^_^/) When I was bird watching I would hear many hidden birds, so I would have to listen to them by ear and identify them that way.

These are the birds we heard or saw. (Sorry, will not include the latin names. :/ )

Brewer’s Sparrow                   Vesper’s Sparrow                    Chipping Sparrow

Blue Gray Gnatcatcher           Red Winged Blackbird           Common Grackle

House Wren                            Rock Wren                              American Robin

American Goldfinch               Black Billed Magpie               Grasshopper Sparrow

Red Tailed Hawk                    Ruby Crown Kinglet              Mountain Bluebird

Lazuli Bunting                        Yellow Rumped Warbler        Yellow Warbler

Turkey Vulture                        American Robin                      Western Wood Pewee

Eastern Kingbird                     Western Kingbird                   Yellow Breasted Chat

Black Headed Grosbeak         Lark Sparrow                          Western Meadowlark

Spotted Towhee                      Mourning Dove                       Brown Headed Cowbird

Short Earred Owl                    Cedar Waxwing                      Violet Green Swallow

Bullock’s Oriole                      Black Capped Chickadee       Horned Lark

Unfortunately, we were expecting to see more bird species, but we did manage to see many unique birds! The overall bird watching experience was amazing, but trying to hike between transects was very exhausting. ^_^;;

Misadventures:

Dear Diary: Jackpot!!

On one of the weekends, I traveled with my parents to the Black Hills for a tiny vacation. I love to rock hound around the Black Hills and I would find all sorts of cool treasures. There was this one area I hiked up to that had a massive outcrop of pegmatite (very coarse grained granite). I hit the jackpot!!! There were massive pieces of milky and rose quartz everywhere!! ^_^ I grabbed a couple of specimens and took a picture before moving onwards.

Teaching The Next Generation

A couple of weeks ago, our boss offered Jill and I an experience to help out with an outreach project for the schools led by Allison and Dusty. We were supposed to go teach an elementary school class of 5^th graders (I think they were fifth graders ^_^;;) the difference between flora. We had to explain to them about forbs, shrubs, trees, grasses, and grass look a likes. The children were all excited about learning and doing the plant scavenger hunt. The BLM employees and the interns would go out and help identify each of the plants for the kids. The kids constantly took specimens to show us. I was in my element! I was explaining to them the history of the plant and how to identify each of the species. They loved to talk about all of their experiences which included nature hikes, camping, Jesus, and Pokemon. By the end of the program, many kids were taking grasses and other plant specimens back to their rooms. Overall, the nature class was a success!!

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Thank you everyone for reading the entry for this week!! Have a great day!

Justin Chappelle

CLM Intern

Buffalo, Wyoming

I will leave you with a picture of some dung beetles. Enjoy!