Hola,

Living on the small town in Alturas, California has been a life changing experience. From the first day I got here until today, I have been constantly learning. At first, my plant taxonomy knowledge wasn’t that helpful (I come from a tropical island) but with time and field experience I have felt more comfortable with the plants that surround me. Even though my work has been focused mostly on seed collecting my mentor has given us the opportunity to work with a variety of different tasks. For example: Nate and I had the opportunity to help survey an archaeological site. We got to see rocks that were used for grinding seeds, lots of flakes and arrowheads. Pretty cool!

Arrowhead at the Ryegrass Swale allotment

Another task we have been working on is monitoring the degree of grazing on different allotments. Some areas needs to be rested for a year or more after grazing, we make sure there are no cows in the area and take notes on the level of grazing. This task by itself has greatly improved my identification of grasses. Also it has made me realize the big impact of over grazing.

Cow posing for the camera

Mike (my mentor) has also taking us to amazing sites with the interns from Cedarville to identify rare plants habitats. When rare plant population are found, we flag around the area to make sure no one parks their cars in it, and we create a polygon point on our GPS. Recently while working on the habitats, we had the opportunity to see a lot of the rare flora of the area. Here is one of my favorites.

Doublet

Last week we did an inventory flora on the Fitzhugh creek. We have been spending most of our time identifying the 3 bags of specimens we collected from this area. In my opinion, it has been an excellent plant taxonomy exercise.

We still have a lot of grazing monitoring and seed collecting to do. I am really excited for the upcoming Pika Blitz we are going to participate in. Other than the days at work, I’ve had the opportunity to spend time with other interns and explore some really cool areas around.

Lillie (intern at the Eagle Lake office) and I at the top of Brokeoff Mountain in Lassen Volcanic National Park

Marian (from the Cedarville office) and I entering a cave at the Lava Beds National Monument

Hope you’re all having as good of a time as I am,

Jaileen Merced

BLM Alturas Field Office