Hi there,
After weeks and weeks of training, shadowing, and traveling we’re finally getting to the point where we can go out on our own and get some valuable work done. We’ve fledged and have wondered from our nest. We’re mostly working in areas that were burned in the last couple of years. How it works: most of these areas have been treated in some sort of way ranging from aerial seeding/mulching to weed treatments. Our job is to basically go in each area and check out the progress. How the natives are doing and what the weeds are doing. We bring some field topo maps created via ArcMap to sketch anything out or just figure out where we are in the burned area. ArcPad has also become one of our best friends though it seems to be easily offended if we load too much at once. I find myself occasionally trying to sweet talk this inanimate object in the field to do what I want. And I think it may actually work…
We’ve just about completed 2 burned areas so far. Monument Hill and the South Douglas Complex burn. It’s really neat to see how life has just sprung back into these areas that burned only a year ago. Life always finds a way it would seem. And with it, so do weeds. The first obvious one that anyone could guess would be cheatgrass. It’s easily the first species to pop up after a disturbance such as fire, so it’s kinda everywhere at first. Along with cheatgrass, bulbous bluegrass is another invasive that can sometimes be just as pervasive. In fact, sometimes it’s even more dense than cheat and other times it’s only in small scattered patches. I had never even heard of this poa before this internship and am curious to know why it isn’t being discussed more. Anyways, other more common weeds we find include tall tumble mustard, prickly lettuce, thistle, whitetop, and knapweed. It’s funny how I never really noticed these species before I knew what they were and looked like. But now I see them everywhere! A little gravel area we have behind the house we live in has a diverse community of only invasives, several of which I just mentioned. Despite being unwanted and hated by most environmentalists, ya gotta admire how tenacious these suckers are. Popping up in areas most natives turn their noses up to. And I suppose their presence is the reason I’m working in this position so small shout out to the exotics, just kidding.
On another positive note, a lot of these places require hiking on foot to reach and I can feel myself getting in better shape with each passing week. My coworker and I came up with the saying “a hill a day keeps the doctor away”. I think that’s even her blog title this week hehe. We came up with some other chants about keeping rattle snakes away too since hiking up rocky areas this time a year is prime rattle snake territory. In fact we had a close call the other day, a coworker just about stepped on one in some thick grass. But fortunately the little guy gave a quick warning rattle before slithering on his way under a trough.
In other news, between mapping we got to go help the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife do some Pygmy Rabbit trapping. Listed as critically endangered, these extremely adorable little fluff balls are kept in a breeding exclosure in sagebrush steppe. The goal is to release the younger ones in the wild each year in an attempt to establish colonies. In order to do this, the rabbits need to be captured in the exclosures and this is done by ‘rabbit herding’. As in standing in a line and herding rabbits to a corner where a cage is placed for them to flee into. The whole experience was rewarding and entertaining!
My coworker returning a rabbit to its container
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a pic of us ‘herding’ the rabbits. It was rather funny because we had an empty pillow case in each hand and had to wildly flap our arms as we walked forward in a line to scare rabbits from under the sagebrush. The sad part was that my arms were sore the next day….
Until next time,
Kat