I had so much fun this week! Estany and I got to go to Starkey Experimental Forest for a couple of days to help out Sam and Sandy with Sandy’s project. It was a great experience, and we got to tour the facilities there too!
After a day in the lab on Monday, Estany and I left early Tuesday morning to drive to Starkey. It was about a two hour drive, and we only made one wrong turn trying to get there. We met Sam and Sandy up there; both of them had already been at Starkey since Friday morning. Once we got there, Estany and I got settled in the bunk house, and then the four of us got started on our field work. In her project, Sandy is looking at the effects of different types of grazing on bee communities. There are three pastures that she surveys at Starkey: Pasture 2, Pasture 3, and Pasture 5. Within each pasture, there are four different sites where different types of grazing occur: Deer/Elk, Livestock, All, and None. We worked at two out of the three pastures on Tuesday. Sam and Sandy had already set up and collected pan traps at all three pastures, so all that we did while Estany and I were there was hand-netting.
After we finished our work for the day, one of the graduate students living in the bunk house, Danielle, took us to see the captive elk that live at Starkey. These elk have been hand raised and are used in different studies including ones on elk grazing patterns. Danielle works primarily with mule deer for her research for her Masters; however, she told us that she also helps out with the elk and at the handling facility at Starkey. It was so much fun to go hang out with the elk and see them up so close!
On Wednesday, we went out to Pasture 5 and hand-netted at each site. It is a much longer drive to get to Pasture 5 than it is to get to Pastures 2 and 3, so Sandy usually surveys at Pasture 5 on a different day.
I had so much fun working and hiking around at Starkey! It is an absolutely beautiful area, and I got to work on my hand-netting skills which will help with field work at Lauren’s sites as well.
On Thursday and Friday, we were back in the lab, pinning and packing up vehicles for the field work that we are going to do next week!
