Well here I am entering my last few weeks as a CLM Intern in Washington. Since my last blog, I’m mainly filled up my time with more rare plant monitoring (Silene Spaldingii), lynx habitat assessments and fire area mapping for severity.

Going out into the shrub-steppe at this time of year can be excruciatingly uncomfortable as I’m sure many of you are aware. Luckily, my field partner, Rosemary, and I have often found ourselves in a number of lush oases, trying to cling onto canyon wall corridors between data collection sites. Wildlife has the same brilliant idea and we’ve noticed these canyons are teaming with all sorts of creatures. In a span of only a few days, we were stopped in our tracks by a badger, porcupine, coyote and great horned owl. I’ve now seen firsthand the importance such corridors between natural ecosystems, particularly in an area so devastated by agriculture and human presence.

One of my recent highlights was trekking up to north-east WA, and exploring some cedar and Douglas-fir forests, searching for Lynx habitat. What a relief from the scorching shrub-steppe!

The Wenatchee field office has been in chaos since the start of the fire season, causing most of our original field plans to be turned upside down. However, it’s been very exciting to adapt to the current situation. Last week I helped map over 6,000 acres of BLM land scorched by the Carlton Complex fire. The best and most exciting part was to actually go out to assess the landscape afterwards for potential restoration measures and fire severity records.

It’s amazing how quickly some of the plants can regenerate, even in high severity areas. Here’s a shot of Asclepias spp., in an estimated population size of 10,000 – Yay for Monarchs!

Good wishes and happy adventuring to you all!