The vegetation team at Fort Baker has been out in the rain getting over 700 plants in the ground! We worked with the Conservation Corps North Bay for a whole week and their help was extremely needed to get all 700+ plants up a steep slippery hill and into the ground. We also weeded by hand and tool lots of French broom and echium plants all week long. By the end of the week, we were tired but proud of all the work we had accomplished. One of my favorite things about fieldwork is the feeling you get after putting everything into a site to help improve and restore the area. The native grasses we planted will help restore this area into a healthy grassland habitat. 

Working in the rain is no easy task but the views were amazing every day. From one of the planting sites, you can see the city, Bay Bridge, and Angels Island.

While planting we ran into organisms like mushrooms, salamanders, and deer.

We also planted lupinus albifrons at one of my favorite sites and Angie from the Presidio Veg team came to join us! We also direct seeded lupin seeds, pulled old flags from last year and hand-weeded anything we saw along the way. It was our last field day of the year for 2023 and it is great to see how much the site has improved compared to when I first was introduced to it. Wishing all the lupines we planted the best of luck! 

Jeremiah and I have been setting up some experimental plots to test out the best way to remove invasive grasses. We set up 5 plots all around Fort Baker and are looking forward to seeing the results of the experiment. 

A fun side quest I got to participate in was a bird count on Alcatraz Island! Living in the Bay Area for most of my life I have only seen Alcatraz from afar. It was exciting to do my first bird count on the island. We mostly saw western seagulls, cormorants, and white-crowned sparrows. We even saw Banana slugs that were brought to the island when the soil was transported there. We were able to join in on a tour that explained the history and background of the island, prison, and Native occupation.