It’s just about the halfway point for me and I am starting to get a bit worried about making my seed collection target of 30 species (maybe we shouldn’t have been so ambitious, I am only one person after all and I’m only at about 10). Some days are much less fruitful than others; I just spent about an hour trying to ID a plant that turned out to be the noxious Russian Knapweed, Acroptilon repens (yuck! I wanted so badly for it to be a native!). I guess I still need to brush up on my weed ID skills. I haven’t had the chance to go out in the field with the weeds specialist yet, but I did get to go out on the river and that was spectacular.
So the river of which I speak is the Missouri River, which is about 2 hours north of Lewistown, where I am stationed. One of the largest rivers in the US, it flows for 2,341 miles from the mountains in western MT to the Mississippi River in Missouri. It is a sight for sore eyes seeing so much water after weeks of dry heat that has turned the ground into a solid brick. OK, I lied a bit; Lewistown has a beautiful spring running through town, which is actually the third largest freshwater spring in the world at 50,000 gallons per minute with some of the world’s purest water. I am pretty spoiled with excellent drinking water, but other than that it is pretty dry.
The 149 mile stretch of river on which I boated is part of the Upper Missouri River Breaks National Monument, meaning it is land that will be protected from development forever. The proclamation of the monument was actually made by President Bill Clinton right before he left office and much of it looks the same today as it would have when Lewis and Clark navigated the river in the early 1800s. There are some cattle grazing allotments (grandfathered in) along the river today and that was one of the reasons I went on the river, to help with fence repair. The BLM manages the monument and is responsible for the up-keep of some of the fence lines, especially near the river where the water level fluctuates, which constantly changes the end point of the fences. Lewis and Clark had predicted that the land surrounding the river would be almost impossible for settlement, but yet it happened when homesteaders came in the early 1900s and the remnants can be seen today in the grazing cattle and remaining standing structures. The land surrounding the river is known as the “breaks”, the term for the dramatic draws and cliffs that the river has created in the sandstone over time. We boated for 30 miles upriver while I scanned the breaks for big horn sheep, bald eagles and other wildlife. The 30 miles seemed like an endless journey through almost pure wilderness and I would have missed the sheep completely had Aurora, who manages this area, not pointed them out to me.
Some days when I am out scouting for plants alone I often have no luck in finding a large enough population or only find species whose seed have passed. Lately, what has made up for the lack of plant luck is my luck in coming across bird nesting areas, especially the all-important species of concern. I have been dive-bombed by goshawks, which was very frightening. They would fly straight at my head and I couldn’t help but duck even though they’d veer off at the last minute. I also thought I was going to be carried off by a golden eagle when less than 20ft away, I startled it and watched the massive creature rise out of the grass ready for it to turn back toward me and finish me off. Thankfully that didn’t happen, I just watched him soar and discovered his mother and their nest in a cottonwood. Maybe my mentors are turning me toward wildlife…
Big horn sheep!
Lamb!
Fritillary on Gaillardia aristata
Goshawk eyeing me suspiciously.
Goshawk on the defense