The whole crew from Ruidoso was still on the run during the start of July, down in district 3 meeting many other people and what they do as part of the forest but in a completely different life zone. I wish the circumstances were better but I’ve really been enjoying the ability to travel and see more areas in the state and understand the landscape a little bit more. Traveling through different cities, seeing different mountain ranges, different watersheds and how to get between them all has been really exciting. It’s been a bit of a transition moving to NM and learning a whole new ecosystem but it’s fun to be able to pull similarities from other places I’ve been to help with the process.

Another important way to learn about the area is to work with people who have been here and worked on the land for a long time and are willing to share that information with me. So, before we headed back to our home district we stopped for a week in Cloudcroft to help the Institute of Applied Ecology do butterfly vegetation monitoring for the Sacramento Mountains Checkerspot Butterfly. It was amazing meeting people who are there to help us learn some new methods and tactics.

I finally feel like we are our own unit at the office now that we’ve returned. We are able to go out on our own and do our own thing while the rest of the wildlife crew does their own thing. They always report back to us about plants they found for us to go and check out and it feels like we are all part of a great team. I’m excited for our first collection (which we plan for today) and for the rest of the season after we have a bit more practice and get to try out some unique seed collecting methods.