My first two weeks working for the Vale District BLM have been pretty atypical. The first three days of my internship were filled with some GIS based workshops; ArcPad and GeoBOB. During these workshops, I got to brush up on my GIS skills and learn the basics of GeoBOB, a biological database used by the Washington/Oregon BLM. I also got to meet my co-intern, Amanda, and two other CLM interns from the Wenatchee field office, Jenny and Justin. I apologize for not taking a picture of all of us using our GPS units to make point data of garbage cans in the parking lot (the closest we could get to recreating real field observations).

This week, my mentor, Susan Fritts, was away at a seed conference in Sante Fe, so Amanda and I didn’t get a chance to go out into the field for botany. We did, however, get to spend a day rearranging our herbarium (it was previously being digitized out of office), and practicing our skills keying dried specimen!

Our beautifully arranged herbarium!

We made the mistake of trying to key out a species of  Astragalus for practice. They are notoriously tricky to key out in this area because there are so many species here.

The rest of this week was spent in the field with other technicians in the office. On Wednesday, I went into the field with a range technician, Bob, to check on the quality of a nearby road. I learned a lot! Bob grew up in rangeland on a ranch. He was able to provide me with a lot of perspective on grazing and ranching, things I am not very familiar with since I grew up in the suburbs of Minnesota and went to college on the west side of the Cascades. I realized that not only in this area is there a lot of conflict in belief between conservation and land utilization (be it grazing, hunting, or mining), but even in this agency, particularly this office, there is quite a spectrum of beliefs. Bob and I continued to discuss the history of this rangeland while we lunched on the banks of the Owyhee River.

A typical view of the range around Vale.

The Owyhee River. Not a bad lunchroom!

On Thursday, Amanda and I went out with two wildlife technicians. Our day started at 4 am, when we left the office in the hopes of spotting a sage grouse lek. Unfortunately, after driving for an hour and standing in the cold for another two hours (a brisk 20 degrees, with wind), we didn’t see a single sage grouse. We drove to a different location to check another lek site, but still no sage grouse. By this time in April, the mating season is coming to an end, so it is not unusual that we didn’t spot any sage grouse, but I was still pretty bummed since I’ve never seen one before.

At 9 am, it was time to start our Columbia spotted frog (soon to be listed) and egg mass count at Dry Creek. Trying to find egg masses along the edges of the creek turned out to be pretty hard. With so much algae growing in the creek, almost everything looked like an egg mass.

An actual egg mass!

Once it started to warm up, we spotted more and more frogs (no pun intended). At some points it became difficult to count because there were so many frogs out in the sun!

A female Columbia spotted frog. In this species, adult females are often much larger than adult males. This lady was pretty little at only about 4 inches long from nose to tail.

Amanda and I finished our week by learning to change the wheels on our giant 4×4. Again, I apologize for the lack of pictures. If any photo documentation of this event existed, it likely would have involved two very sweaty CLM interns each with a grimace that rivals that of Grumpy Cat. After spending a lot of time practicing tire changing, we ended our day with a drive with the district’s range specialist, Bill, learning about Vale’s ecological and cultural history.

Over all, it was a pretty fun two weeks! After spending many hours in a truck, my biggest takeaway lesson is that people use the term “road” very generously here. A freshly graded gravel road is practically a highway!

I am looking forward to getting out in the field to learn more about the local flora, start surveying sensitive species, and collect seed!