Friday marked the completion of my first full week as an intern with the BLM in Twin Falls, Idaho. Although the city of Twin Falls only has a population of roughly 46,000 it is bustling with activity and, in my opinion, has the atmosphere of a larger city. As soon as you get a mile or two out of the city limits the landscape is mainly made up of farm fields, cattle, and horses. The BLM’s Jarbidge Field Office, which includes the expanse of land that we will be conducting our field work on over the course of the internship, is desert dominated by Artemisia tridentata (Basin Big Sagebrush) with an under story of mixed grasses and forbs.

My view of the Jarbidge Mountains in Nevada while working out in the field.

The very first day on the job, my fellow interns and I were shown how to use the handheld GPS systems and spent time outside getting familiar with the types of plants that we will be working with. The next few days involved learning how to set up transects for the upland trend sites and how to calculate nested frequency.

The other main project that we will be working on will be monitoring Lepidium papilliferum (Slickspot Peppergrass), which is a rare forb that only occurs in a type of microhabitat called a slickspot. A slickspot is a small area containing silty clay soil that is flat, dry and cracked. On Thursday, we went to a spot that contains Lepidium papilliferum and were able to take pictures.

Mature Lepidium papilliferum

Lepidium papilliferum florets

Overall, I am amazed with how much I have learned already in the first week of my internship with the BLM and I am extremely excited to see what the next five months have in store for me here in Twin Falls, Idaho.