Volunteer Spotlight: Our Orchid Wardens
While the Ute ladies’-tresses depend on fungi, cattle and bees to bloom, they rely on a very special pair of humans to keep track of them all. For 15 years, Mark and Cheryl Brunson have served as Mendon Meadows official (and self proclaimed) “Orchid Wardens."
What began as a quiet commitment has grown into an annual tradition. Every year, Mark and Cheryl kick off their monitoring season on Pioneer Day. Every single week from then until Labor Day, you can find them leading volunteers out into the wet meadow to execute a scientific monitoring protocol established back in 2012 to closely track this federally listed threatened species.
The process is methodical: volunteers walk grid lines spaced 5 meters apart across the entirety of the meadow. Each discovered bloom is marked with a bamboo stake. Once marked via GPS, the stake is wrapped in blue painter’s tape so new spires can easily be distinguished from those that have been previously found and recorded.
Being an Orchid Warden is part science, part logistics and part fine craftsmanship. Mark and Cheryl maintain all of the field equipment, including crafting awesome upcycled quivers to carry bamboo stakes through the tall grass. They carefully train every volunteer who steps into the meadow, making sure that each person plants the stake in the right place and leaves no sticky tape exposed to accidentally trap passing dragonflies. At the end of the season, they painstakingly strip all the tape from the stakes, pack up the gear, analyze the data and present the findings for scientific consideration. While Mark is often in the spotlight, Cheryl is an integral driving force who prefers to work her magic behind the scenes, ensuring every detail of the operation runs smoothly.
More than just a scientific census, monitoring is an event that brings people together. Searching for the first tiny spire of the season feels like a grand botanical scavenger hunt (though Mark gently reminds everyone that finding them is not a contest and we are all winners). Along the way volunteers get an immersive education in wet meadow ecology. Eyes focused on the grass quickly start spotting the rest of the meadow's residents: frogs, garter snakes, orb-weaver spiders, butterflies moths, Sandhill Cranes and the resident Swainson's Hawks nesting nearby. New friends are made out in the grass - human and otherwise.
Cheryl and Mark certainly are not alone out in the Meadow. This year 18 different volunteers spent at least one morning hunting for orchids, including eager plant enthusiasts from the Cache Valley Chapter of the Utah Native Plant Society and the Summer Citizens who flock here to enjoy Utah State University. Together, volunteers logged 84 hours at Mendon Meadows. This number would be vastly higher if we factored in Mark and Cheryl’s countless hours of preparation, equipment tuning, post season data crunching and outreach.
To Mark, Cheryl, and every volunteer that waded through the meadow with us: Thank you for being a part of our Village!
