After a nice, relaxing weekend, we were ready for our breezy and busy Monday. We split up into teams this morning to accomplish things like phenology, Stipa harvesting, using the GPS and finding more q2 seedlings. Lea and I took one of the routes to some of the prairie remnant sites to assess phenology of Echinacea. Lea helped me become so much more confident identifying the flowering day and style persistence of each plant, so she gets a special shout-out for answering (and re-answering) all of my questions.
An “Instagram-worthy” view taken during our drive to remnant sites
We all convened for lunch to hear Kevin Kotts speak about his job as Wildlife Manager with the Minnesota DNR. The team learned that he has many different jobs, including work in wetland, grassland, and wildlife management. It was really interesting to learn about all of the ongoing conservation and restoration projects in the five-county area.
After lunch, it was back to work to finish what we had started before lunch. However, we mixed up groups, so I was able to go out to Landfill with Amy, Will, and Alex to learn how to use the GPS and jam out to a bit of Taylor Swift.
Finally, at the end of the day, we all met back up to chat about our progress and get a little insight into tomorrow’s adventure. Jennifer and Stuart taught us how to identify the pollinators we should expect to see during pollinator observations. Also, I got my mustard in the mail today, so hopefully I will be able to go to the bog soon to take the rest of my initial measurements for my I.S.
Leave a Reply