15 May Month 2 – Wildflower season
I can’t believe I’ve already been here for two months! Time has flown by. It’s mid-May now and wildflower season is in full gear at the gorge. So much balsamroot, lupin, camas, etc.! The hills are yellow and purple and it’s DREAMY! I’ve been taking full advantage of my time outside of work to go on wildflower hikes. And thanks to my proximity to Mount Hood, I’ve also had the chance to try out some snow-related hobbies such a cross-country skiing and snowshoeing.
One of the best parts about working in such a lovely place is that I can experience the beauty during work as well as my days off! Field season is upon us and there have been plenty of opportunities to get outside and help with management efforts. For example, a few of the folks on the natural resources team and I went out to one of our sites which is home to a population of the state listed northwestern pond turtles (Actinemys marmorata) to create more basking structures for the turtles. The little guys reside in several ponds throughout the site. But unfortunately, each pond only had one or two small logs for basking. This was probably due to human disturbance, as the site was previously a homestead. To make more basking structures for the turtles, our botanist felled several trees. For the past couple of weeks, we’ve been working on cleaning up the limbs of the tree, bucking it into smaller sections, and rolling those sections into the ponds. It was great to be a part of on-the-ground, applied conservation management such as that.
I participated in more bucking and piling (which is a fancy way of saying cutting a felled tree into smaller pieces and putting them into a pile) at a different site to manage for the invasive Mediterranean oak borer (Xylrborus monographus). These pesky critters tunnel into the native Oregon white oak (Quercus garryana) carrying fungi which eventually causes wilting disease and death in the effected trees. Alarmingly, a few infested trees were identified at Sandy River Delta, one of our sites closest to Portland. Our team acted immediately by felling, bucking, piling, and burning the trees to prevent further spread of the invasive beetles.
While I’ve done a variety of field work, much of which I won’t discuss here – I will highlight some of the bird work that we’ve been doing since it’s been some of my favorite! With the guidance of the wildlife biologist on the unit, we’ve conducted avian point count surveys. A point count is a tally of birds detected by sight and sound at a fixed point for a specified period of time. In our case, we had an array of random points laid over a map of several of our restoration sites. We would spend 10 minutes listening and looking for birds at each point before moving on to the next one. We’re hoping to use this data as a baseline to understand how our restoration efforts are actually affecting avian populations.
Lastly, this past month has been one chock-full of trainings! I participated in a weeklong NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act) training which taught us how to use clear writing practices and how to balance efficiency and effectiveness. I learned a lot about how to consider effects, how to determine the right level of NEPA, and how to use an issue-based approach rather than a resource-based approach. I also participated in a READ training (Resource Advisor). The READ advises fire personnel during wildland fires to minimize the impacts of fire and fire management activities (such as building a fire line with a bulldozer) to natural and cultural resources. I’m excited to work more with NEPA and with wildland firefighting in the future!
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