CLIP Week 10: It was a busy week!
Monday we spent the first part of the morning doing data collection for our research project on woody invasive management and species diversity. After about six
plots, we headed to the Environmental Defenders office to learn about green infrastructure from Dennis.
In the meantime, it rained quite hard outside which helped reduce the humidity. We had lunch in the gazebo on the Woodstock Square before returning to Ryders Woods to continue data collection. We finished our first site and collected all the data for our second site before taking a break.
Upon returning, we found a site to do our control (with a lot of buckthorn) and quickly gathered data for each site. As we returned to the car, I (Denver) spotted a bumblebee on some tall bellflower. On closer inspection, I discovered it was a Rusty Patched Bumblebee! It was the first one I’d ever seen and the first one seen at Ryders! This helped end a long, hot day end on a high note.
On Tuesday, we had the opportunity to visit the Chicago Botanic Garden. We met with one of Kathryn’s old friends, Brian, from her grad school days. He advised us on grad school and how to know what’s right for you. Then we had the chance to walk around and explore the beautiful and diverse areas of the botanic garden. None of the interns had visited before, so it was a delightful experience along with amazing weather.
Wednesday morning we went on a field trip to Algonquin, it was a great inside look on how different companies manage land, while seeing the different methods used to restore areas. Algonquin is a big town, so its focus was to restore areas that can be appreciated and used by the community in the area.
Later in the afternoon, we headed over to Boloria Meadows to orchestrate a growing-season burn. All three of us interns had heard about burns on countless sites, but we hadn’t gotten the chance to see the process of one yet. Daniel and Kevin went over a whole lot of safety rules and precautions we should take. Then, before we knew it, we were spreading the flames along a rather small patch of land.
It was slow at first, but out of nowhere the flames would get scarily large and we would control it by patting it down with this broom looking thing. When the flames got abnormally big, Daniel and Kevin would refer to them as “Spicy” which was funny to hear, especially in serious conversation. We were all given walkie talkies to communicate easier, so it sort of felt like we were in a spy movie. It was a really fun experience, though in the end we all smelled horribly of firewood!
Thursday morning started off on an aw-saw-m note! We went over chainsaw maintenance and then went over to Apple Creek to practice what we learned. We paired off with staff and each took on a different shrub/tree to take down. I (Jazzy) practiced with a mini chainsaw with Laura and we focused on taking down an overbearing shrub, while Anthony and Denver worked on bigger trees with regular-sized chainsaws.
Around lunchtime, Anthony and I branched off to do bumblebee monitoring. We started at Hennen and decided to venture off to different areas since Hennen has a very small population of bumblebees. They recently had a burn at Hennen, so we would joke that it killed off the entire bumblebee species before we got the chance to find a rusty-patched. It was funny until we actually found almost no insects at all. Not letting that bring down our spirits, we moved onto Boloria Meadowsand also found almost nothing that day! After, we collected some seeds off of Great Angelica. It was a nice, relaxing afternoon activity that you can do efficiently while also chatting away with others.
Final Friday or Jazzy’s final day alive?
At a Van Maren easement workday, I (Jazzy) got stung in the head by a yellowjacket wasp before I even got started on the workday. A simple day was ahead, too.
I was going to herbicide stumps of sawed-down shrubs, but the wasp had other plans for me. I wasn’t the only unfortunate one – Kathryn also got stung, so we treated ourselves by stopping at the Huntley Dairy Mart to eat lunch. It definitely lifted the group’s mood, despite the overly gloomy weather and heavy rain we got stuck with.
Limited by the weather, we made our way back to the office and transferred the data collected from Monday. It was a slow end to a fun Friday, but we made the most of it and went into our weekend with sore stings and full stomachs.