With a flashlight-shaped bird caller in hand, a group of teenage interns from Lincoln set out into the Meriwether burn Wednesday morning, searching for a rare black woodpecker among the blackened trees.

The elusive and uncommon black-backed woodpecker seeks out burnt forests to feed on wood-boring beetles.

The interns are helping Helena National Forest scientists learn whether the woodpecker is present and to collect baseline data on it, said Liz Burke, conservation education specialist for the Helena forest.

"They're not a common bird nationwide," she said. "They're a species of concern."

The Lincoln youths, as well as a team from Helena, are all members of the Helena National Forest's Youth Forest Monitoring Program, a unique paid internship program created in 1998.

The program "gets another set of eyes on the forest," Burke said. It also gives students a chance to check out a variety of careers in natural resources.

So far this summer, the Helena team has used the call boxes to successfully lure in the woodpeckers on two previous trips to the burn. This is the first venture on the Meriwether for the Lincoln team.

At the flip of a switch, the box emits the black-backed woodpecker's raucous call and characteristic drumming.

"Every day we've called them in," Burke said. The group waits quietly. Then the box calls out its shrieks again, in a new direction.

No response.

A bluebird flits in the distance. So, too, a swallowtail butterfly. No black-backed woodpeckers.

As the team moves on, Burke alerts them to watch the trees for signs that woodpeckers have been foraging for insects.

"Look for holes that look like Swiss cheese."

The next stop is in a stand of burnt trees above the rushing Meriwether Creek.

The trees are riddled with the promising tell-tale holes.

The silence is broken as the box squawks again.

An answer echoes back. Or is it the Helena team working across the drainage?

There's a flutter of wings way high in a burnt tree and a gentle drilling tap.

Several pairs of binoculars zoom in.

Two small woodpeckers flit from one tree to another.

Immature black-backs?

Word comes later, they are female downy woodpeckers.

At each site, the students record the GPS coordinates and their sightings. Most of the sites are in moderate to heavily charred areas of the forest.

The team's avian quest proves elusive this day, but the search brings its own rewards.

The students find that the Meriwether burn is vibrant with new plant life carpeting the forest floor in white flowers, as well as with wild roses, harebells and blanket flowers.

It's also brought Meriwether Creek back to life.

Last seen in 1981, the creek disappeared for 27 years, except for a dry creek bed.

It's now atumble with rushing water as the creek cuts across the forest floor and carves its way through the Meriwether Picnic Area.

By lunchtime, 15-year-old Zane Tams had found that he "liked learning about the woodpeckers."

The team also saw what comes in the wake of catastrophic fire.

Lightning strikes last July 21 quickly turned the forest into an inferno, eventually scorching 46,300 acres. Last August the Meriwether fire around the Gates of the Mountains Wilderness Area was the No. 1 priority fire in the nation and burned for more than two months.

"I think one important thing they see about the impact of fires is that it burned some of their favorite areas to recreate and that's hard," Burke said. "But there are a lot of things that depend on burns, like the black-backed woodpecker."

She hopes the students also see that the life of the forest is a lot more complicated than they might have thought.

"We don't have all the answers. We don't know what happens if you lose this species of bird.

"It's not important to have the answers," she added. "What is important is if I can get them to ask questions."

Since starting in early June, the youth interns have had lots of questions as they learned to use GPS units, read maps, measure dissolved oxygen and pH levels of streams, identify stream macroinvertebrates, map and identify weeds and study soil compaction and soil porosity.

Such knowledge has opened career doors for Youth Forest Monitoring Program alumni in the past.

Since the program's inception on the Helena National Forest 11 years ago, 61 percent of the students have pursued a career in a natural resources field, Burke said.

Crew member Jasper Eshelman, now in his third year in the program, envisions a future on a trail crew.

"I think that would be loads of fun."

The high point of his summer internship was a pack trip into the Bob Marshall Wilderness.

"We've been learning pretty cool stuff," he said of the program. "It's probably the greatest thing that I've done."

Final presentations: The youth monitoring students will do their final presentations of their research July 31 at 10:30 a.m. at the MACO Building, 2715 Skyway Drive

To learn more about the Youth Forest Monitoring Program, call Liz Burke, (406) 495-3713 or e-mail at lizburke@fs.fed.us or Click here.

Click here for more information about black-backed woodpeckers.

Reporter Marga Lincoln: 447-4074 or marga.lincoln@helenair.com