Oh, I’m sorry, did I let a little Latin slip? hee hee. One of the best parts about this experience for me is getting to hang out with an awesome plant ecologist and learn, learn, learn. Unfortunately, my brain doesn’t seem to really want to remember more than two new plants or Latin names a day, so I end up having to ask about the same plants several times. So far she doesn’t want to kill me… I don’t think. And since she’s also had some incredible life and work experiences, I’m getting to learn about lots of other stuff too. Today I learned about grizzly bears and butterflies, like this one. Lane thought this little guy was a hackberry butterfly, which she said was one of the more people-friendly butterflies. And as if to prove her point, it hung out on both of our fingers for quite awhile. Soooo cool.

The first day we went to sites that we could access from a dirt road. The sites that we’ve done since then, however, have been further in and required ATVs to access. I’ve always been pretty anti-ATV, because they wreak havoc on the environment and have negatively impacted more than a few of my outdoor recreation experiences. But this summer I have gained a new appreciation and understanding of them, having used them for work at AES and now here. And even though I still think recreational use should be kept out of parks, national forests, and pretty much any other natural place, I must admit that I have had a hell of a time tooling around on them out here. Like when we climb, climb, climb up a ridge, and suddenly you reach the top and amazing rolling prairie stretches out in every direction below you. It’s just breathtaking. 

Then yesterday at one of our sites there was a group of 3 big holes all probably leading to the same den. One of our quadrats was right by them, and as we were searching for the metal stakes that mark out the 4 corners, we heard a rattling. The cicadas here are deafening, so at first we didn’t realize it was a different sound and that it was coming from the hole. When we did, we both kind of just stopped and looked at each other. Then we waved the end of the metal detector near the mouth of the main hole a few times, and each time heard a definite rattle coming from inside. So needless to say, that quadrat did not get located or counted for leafy spurge. I’m still kind of bummed that I didn’t get to see it, but we didn’t want to agitate the poor endangered thing any more than we already had.