It’s been raining an unusual amount in Twin Falls, Idaho for the past couple weeks and I’ve been absolutely thrilled about it. Coming from the Midwest, I have been feeling more than a little dried out in the arid sagebrush with the very harsh sun. Yes there’s no humidity, but that’s only a trade off part of the time. We’ve finished doing the Habitat Assessment Framework for Sage Grouse a couple weeks ago. At the end of HAF surverys we were up in the South Hills of the Jarbidge field office and saw grouse almost every day or at least several times a week. After months of seeing nothing more than droppings and some feathers, the actual birds were a great gift. A crew flushed eighteen birds along a single stream one day. As elegant as they are when displaying, they are ridiculous, noisy, and panicked when they take off from the sage.
Since then it’s been wetland inventories, thermograph data retrieval, and a variety of other activities depending on what’s needed in the office. One of the unusual days was when we got to help one of the Wildlife Biologists out with Spotted Frog monitoring down in a set of beaver ponds. The Frogs are very rare and only found in this one section of the Field office. A group of us lined up and started up the stream through the beaver ponds. I gave up on being dry very quickly and ended up chest deep in some places looking for frogs on the emergent vegetation. At first we saw absolutely nothing but by the end we had a decent count despite a local rancher pushing cows through to get them out of the canyon and away from the river. Caught a snake or two as well as the frogs.
One of the things I’ve enjoyed the most lately is the opportunity to shadow or talk with other staff in the office. Myself and Maria Paula were able to go out with our Recreation Coordinator, and we all got the chance to hear the Jeff, our archeologist, speak about his work. I’ve been very impressed with the people we’ve worked with both personally and professionally. I am always surprised when they accord great consideration to our time and schedules, since as interns, our schedules are fairly flexible and less packed than theirs. Additionally I am struck by the knowledge of their work as well as an awareness of the areas’ management as a whole. Both staff were able to speak to management concerns outside of their fields very knowledgeably and with a sense nuance that stuck. As someone looking to go into the management field somewhere along the way, I was really interested to hear what people who had been in the field for a while, considered to be good and bad qualities in a manager. It has helped bring a sense of reality to what I’m working towards and filled out the challenges a little more.
On a lighter note Maria Paula and I took a road trip to Wyoming to Cheyenne Frontier Days and the Cheyenne Rodeo. On the way back we stopped for the night in Dinosaur National Monument, did a bit of hiking and saw Colorado and Utah on the way. It was a fantastic trip. The scenery was desolate and beautiful by turns. Cheyenne Frontier days was an absolute trip with a strange assortment of people and a great rodeo. Mostly it was great to get out and go someplace. I get more than a little myopic during field seasons, especially right in the middle, so getting out of town was amazing. Dinosaur National Monument is incredibly beautiful and definitely underrated. We were able to see a huge wall of dinosaur fossils, pictographs, one of the most beautiful canyons I’ve ever encountered, and swim in the Green River. Of course, we also became Junior Rangers.
Spotted Frog looking a bit dazed
These Fine feathered fellows staring at the car
