I am in the last week of my FWS fellowship and I’m sad to see this experience coming to a close. These last few weeks have been my busiest. Since my last post, I’ve had to create solid drafts of my deliverable documents which took up a lot of my work days. I also prepared a powerpoint presentation about the work I’ve done this summer and presented it to other fellows, biologists, higher management, and some members of the executive team. Leading up to the presentation I was very nervous but when the day came to it I was excited. My supervisor has been so supportive throughout my fellowship and was especially so during this period of nervousness before my presentation. She helped me edit my slides, figure out what I should share and say, and let me practice with her more times than I can remember and I’m so grateful for her. She also organized a small group in the office to practice with which was incredibly helpful since everyone gave me such good feedback. Something I have truly enjoyed about the Service is how collaborative the environment is. If you find yourself in an internship with the FWS, I highly recommend reaching out to other people for help, guidance, advice, ideas, or just for fun. In my experience, people were more than happy to help in every stage of the process.

After my big presentation, I was invited to join the Service’s pollinator conservation community of practice. Joining this group gave me and a few other “pollinator fellows” the opportunity to present a high level briefing to members of the National Pollinator Team.. I got to hear about all of the other cool pollinator projects that other fellows are working on and meet people in the Service that are doing great work to help pollinators.

In the last two weeks, I was able to escape my desk and get a few more field opportunities. I was invited to a Ridgway's Rail release at the Sweetwater Marsh. This opportunity was so much fun. The refuge manager led us on a tour of the marsh and let us see where they keep the birds before they’re released. I also got to see how they prep the birds for transport and put trackers on their backs. This was also an awesome day because I got to meet some other DFPs in person and hang out with a couple of biologists which added an element to my fellowship experience that I didn’t have before.

This morning I got to spend time in the field again. I met up with a few folks from USGS doing bird banding at the Tijuana River National Estuary which was so cool. I hadn’t interacted with USGS biologists before so it was really neat to learn about their current jobs and career paths. Even though I was there as an observer they let me do some hands-on stuff. I got to see their net setup and they walked me through their data collection process which was very organized and systematic. They also showed me some of their bird handling methods and taught me two different types of grips before letting me handle and release a few birds. Even though they said it was a slow day we saw and caught a lot of really interesting birds. These people were a truly impressive group of scientists and I’m grateful to have been able to learn from them today.

The feeling of gratitude has been a frequent one in the past weeks of my fellowship. This has been the best intern experience of my life and I feel truly lucky to have been a part of it. I’ve met amazing people along the way and I’m excited to be able to join this great community of conservationists when I graduate.

Agency: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Program: US Fish & Wildlife Service - DFP

Location: Sacramento Fish and Wildlife Office