As Lin-Manuel Miranda famously sang in Hamilton, “What is a legacy? It’s planting seeds in a garden you’ll never get to see.” Well, here’s the garden I helped plant, but won’t ever see. Using the findings of my research, the resources crew and I collected...
I know that I’ve talked about the volcano before, but I don’t believe I adequately described what it’s like, physically. It’s basically a mound of cinders and loose rocks. It’s not nearly as solid as, say, the Rocky Mountains. That means it erodes very quickly...
Today I spent a good deal of time catching hummingbirds. Unfortunately, our bander isn’t coming back until the end of the month. However, we can still capture them and take various measurements because it is good practice. Until this point, we had only caught...
Where does your wastewater go? It’s not a question everyone thinks to ask (I certainly never cared to), but it’s an absolutely critical question. Why am I asking you this? Well, as an environmental science student, I’ve taken a planning class or two, which was really the first...
A common issue all over the world is invasive species. Capulin Volcano is no exception. The natural resource crew is currently working on a project to restore the native grassland to a more pristine state. As it is, much of the grassland is dominated...
This post is for future MIS interns or, really, anyone trying to get a job in the federal government. Because anyone in the federal government will tell you that trying to get a job there is very different from trying to get a job anywhere...
The moment you’ve all been waiting for has arrived! As I write this blog, I’ve completed my first day of hummingbird banding training! It’s a lot of fun to capture hummingbirds, and easier than you might think. Handling them is another story. In order to...
The staff at Capulin Volcano is thrilled as our acting superintendent, Fermin Salas, has arrived on-site. Fermin has a lot of great ideas for the park and has been a very warm addition to the group so far. I conducted an interview with him about...
With my first week at Capulin in the books, I have a pretty good idea of how I’m going to be spending the summer. For the past few years, people in my position have worked hard to create a pollen identification guide for the local...