Ravengrrrl

Meet The Neighbors: The Verdin

2011-01-01T12:24:00.000-08:00

One of the first birds I met in the yard was the verdin (Auriparus flaviceps). Verdins are permanent (non-migratory) residents of the lower southwest United States and northern Mexico. They are generally found in desert washes, where shrubby thorn trees such as acacias, mesquites and palo verdes create suitable nest sites. It seems that verdins are also adapting to living within our residential communities, as well.

Yards which provide enough forage often support a resident family group of verdins. For a verdin, forage would mostly consist of insects. Here's a picture I took of the male verdin hunting for insects off the desert willow flowers. Insectivorous birds such as verdins, flycathers and warblers can be encouraged to visit a yard by avoiding the use of chemical insecticides to kill insects. Don't worry if you see insects flying around your landscape plants. Leave it to Nature's Pest Removers - insect-eating birds - to take care of the situation! You'll have a less-toxic yard, plus you'll be rewarded with bright avian visitors who will add color to the trees and shrubs and will provide you with lyrical songs!

The photo to the left is the male verdin scolding me when I got too close to one of his nests. Verdins can be territorial. We even consider our resident verdin to be the "guard dog" of our yard! When predatory animals such as roadrunners, neighbors' cats, or the local Cooper's hawk enter our yard, we often hear the "alarm" or "scold" call from the verdin. Links to some sites where you can listen to verdin calls are here and here. Usually I can't get a clear sight of this active little bird, but he was so focused on me, he let me take this picture. The shot to the right is often what I end with after several attempts to photograph this active little guy.

The photo to the right is a desert willow with a verdin nest constructed within its branches. You can click on the photo to get a better impression of the architectural marvel these little birds create! The verdin couple in our yard are often busy making different nests. Verdins construct several conspicuous nests throughout our yard. Verdins are the only birds in the New World that are part of the pendulous tit Family, which construct bag-shaped nests that hang from trees. Although verdins don't create such complex nests, they do perform an impressive architectural feat - they weave together tightly enclosed globular nests perched among the branches of shrubby trees and cacti. The photo to the left shows the female participating in the nest building process. Here, she hangs upside-down from the nest as she weaves a twig into the structure.

Spring-time with the verdins is one of my favorite times of year because I get to watch them feed the babies. This is a photo of poppa verdin feeding his baby (perched on a palo verde tree).

Pollinator Pages: Landcaping for Pollinators

2010-06-15T17:11:00.000-07:00

When my brother and I were young, he used say that he didn’t want to mow the lawn because he would rather encourage the growth of a Tallgrass Prairie Ecosystem instead. At the time, I rejected his idea and considered it to be a disguise for laziness (and an ecological impossibility, given that we lived in New Jersey!!). I actively lobbied to my mom that he continue to mow the grass (which he did).

Decades later, I’ve changed my mind. In fact, I’m encouraged, because his own children are adopting his lawn-less attitude and helping him make his garden grow even bigger!

My brother and I, like many people around the world, are changing our attitudes about yards. When I grew up, I lived in a neighborhood that emphasized “neat”: large, evenly mowed grass lawns, trimmed hedges, and absolutely NO WEEDS. I believe, in part, it was because many residents didn’t think they had the time. We were all busy suburbanites, leaving our homes to run off to work, school, sports activities and other social fun.

However, my attitude has shifted. Now, I consider my yard to be an integral part of my activities. Its how I relax, how I exercise and how I enjoy my life (as you read my blog, I think you’ll get a sense for that!). I’m now even working to make it a place where I get some of my organic food! As I shift my lifestyle to adopt more environmentally-friendly practices, I’ve also come to understand how taking time to garden in my yard helps the planet to flourish. In honor of National Pollinator Week (June 21-27), I’ve decided to share some photos of ways that we’ve landscaped our yard to encourage pollinators.

First - Why?? Why do we want pollinators in our yard?

So many reasons!! In fact, it took me years to get around to writing this blog entry just because I’m overwhelmed with trying to summarize all the ways that pollinators help me and all the reasons why I want to take action to help them…

… I realized I’d just have to start trying to get it all down, bit by bit. My “Pollinator Pages” series will be an ongoing effort to share my answers to this question.

I will start with my most-urgent reason for helping the pollinators >> because the birds, bees, moths, flies, bats, beetles, and all other critters that help plants to get pollinated NEED OUR HELP!!! In part, this is because humans have covered a lot of ground with our buildings, roads, parking lots, and …

… lawns. Yes, lawns. Grass. That stuff I rolled around on as a kid and thought was so harmless.

Grass is nice! Don’t get me wrong. I love a nice spot of greenery to lay down and watch the clouds! An open space for a picnic or a fun sports game is a great thing. However - we humans are beginning to reconsider our level of responsibility to our pollinator friends, and deciding to start giving them back some much-needed space (and flowers). Of course, you don’t need a yard to help pollinators flourish. The Pollinator Partnership has created some recommendations to help protect pollinators.

What are the top elements for a good pollinator-friendly yard? I’ve been looking through a number of links (such as this, this and this), and I think I’ve captured the essential elements: forage, reproduction, shelter and water.

Forage, a.k.a. flowers, are how pollinators eat. Well, mostly! Creating a pollinator-friendly garden takes a little bit of self-education and planning (and here). We plant a variety of flower types: with different sizes, shapes and colors. We also try to landscape so that something will be flowering throughout the year.

I have so many pretty pictures of the different types of flowers and pollinators in our yard, I’m just interspersing them throughout the entire page. It’s the only way I can get them all in here!!

Here’s a photo of fly that looks like a bee, but if you look at its antennae, you will see that it has the short stalks of a fly. This is called a flower fly.

This photo of the sphinx moth was difficult to take because they come out at dusk, when my camera has trouble getting high resolution shots. This was the best I could get.

How do we landscape our yard to help pollinators shelter and reproduce? We landscape for this simply by planting a mixture of native trees, shrubs, perennials and annuals; and by keeping “rookery sites” open for our native bees. Native plants need fewer input from gardeners, including less water subsidies to keep them alive (which equals lower bills!). In addition, because native plants are adapted to their region, and aren’t as susceptible disease or pests in the area, we don’t need to spray them with unhealthy chemicals (another major no-no for creating a pollinator-friendly yard).

As many of you who follow this blog might know, watching our hummingbirds nest has been great fun! Here’s a photo of a Costa’s hummingbird on a palo verde tree, getting ready to feed her hungry chick.

We help our native bees reproduce by keeping patches of soil and sand bare, so they can develop their rookery sites. Once we notice an area in the yard that the bees use, we let each other know not to dig that section of soil or to cover it with any compost. Can you see the holes in the soil? I count 6 of them. This area has been used by bees every single spring that I’ve lived in this yard (which is now 7 years). Here’s a photo of a bee exiting one of the holes. They are VERY cautious when entering and exiting the holes (this is when predators like lizards can eat them!), so getting a photo had been extremely difficult. I’ve taken about 50 shots of an empty hole. Thank goodness for digital cameras!!!

Bees such as carpenter bees use pieces of dead wood for their nesting sites, so we leave a couple stumps laying around the yard for them. This photo is a male carpenter bee investigating a rookery hole.

We don’t even get upset when the leaf-cutter bees use leaves of the plants in our yard for their nests. Some people might consider that the bee makes their gardens less attractive, but, I feel exactly the opposite - knowing that the tree is there to help the bees raise their offspring…

To me, THAT is a beautiful thing!!

Providing water is another extremely important subsidy that benefits the pollinators in our yard. A bird-bath helps the birds, but we also provide a separate source for our insect friends - see, bees are actually very shy, because, as it turns out, lots of animals want to eat them. For example, many birds are ‘insectivores’, which means they eat bees. In the photo to the right, you can see two honey bees drinking water from our pond. Upon a bit of searching, I finally found where the honey bees drink water - they sneak down between the reedy vegetation, where few predators can see them. In fact, it was tough to get my point-and-shoot camera to focus on the bees, what with all the vegetation surrounding them!

Yes, people have fears of being stung, but, with a little awareness, we can easily live together peacefully!

Pickin' Peas, Southwest Style

2009-06-16T16:29:00.001-07:00

We've been enjoying some delicious yard-grown food - peas from the native blue palo verde trees (Parkinsonia floridum). 'Palo verde' means 'green stick' in Spanish, which refers to the fact that the young trunks and branches of palo verde trees are green with chlorophyll. This is a desert specialization amongst many plants to save water. In the desert, the theme is: If you can live without much water (and without losing water), you too, can have a go at it!

Many plants achieve this by downsizing and/or eliminating their leaves (leaves are the location of the most water loss - transpiration - in plants). The photo on the right is a Mexican palo verde (Parkinsonia aculeata), which has highly-reduced leaves. I can only see a couple in this picture. The long green parts are the leaf stalks, NOT leaves. This adaptation creates a problem - leaves are usually where the woody plants house their chlorophyll, the "energy factory" of plants (and why we eat them, too). To solve this energy issue, plants which minimize their leaves (like palo verdes) retain chlorophyll in their branches and trunks (like 'herbaceous' plants, which usually live only a year or two). Palo verdes do not create trunks with dark, corky bark as quickly as other trees. They do, eventually, form non-chlorophyllous bark; but after several years of growth.

In California, we can't grow as many palo verde species as our Arizona friends, and, as native endemics, they only occur in the Sonoran Desert, in the southeast corner of the state. The trees in our yard were nursery purchases and we water them (infrequently).

The palo verde has evolved in the lineage of the Legume family, a group of plants renowned for their edibility and nutritional content. A near relative of the palo verde, the mesquite, is famous for its many uses.

Although I found this listing of the uses of the blue palo verde by native tribes (fyi, the peas of the Mexican palo verde do NOT taste very good... too bitter), the common-knowledge of their edibility amongst naturalists is not widespread. I did find a nice blog entry about palo verde peas here. We believe this is because the seeds are mostly (easily) edible only during the very short time period when they are green on the tree, like the picture to the left. In my experience, this lasts a couple weeks during early/mid June. Pods that are getting to be too old are shown in the picture to the right. If you aren't poking around the desert during the specific weeks the peas are ripe - and its HOT at that time! - then you'll miss them...

... unless, like us, you've planted them in your yard (and water them)!

Legumes are also well know for being a popular host plant for bees. We have many different
natives, of varying sizes, who flock to our palo verdes during the several weeks (in May) that they are in bloom.

In the end, I'd say I harvested over 10 cups (~2500 ml) of peas from the 10 trees in our yard! That's post-shucking! The picture to the right is the post-picking, pre-shucking shot of many of the pods I gathered. The next step was removing the peas from the pods (the pods are bitter and fibrous. Not tasty at all). Most of the peas have been frozen. I'll add a few to different dishes - beans, eggs, soup, veggie steams, etc. We've got some that are fresh in the fridge, and I'm adding them to salads, or just snacking on them raw. Yum!!!

Quail Diaries: This Year, Its Super Dad!

2009-05-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Welcome back to our ongoing stories of the California Quail (Callipepla californica) who live in our neighborhood! Last year, we got to meet Super Mom. Well, there's a new Super in the yard, and that is: Super Dad! One of the first families to hatch-out this year was a huge group of (we think we counted) 20 chicks. A week or so after we first spotted them, I began to notice that I didn't see an adult female.

Our first question was, "Did a predator (such as a neighbor's cat or dog, a Cooper's hawk, or even a bobcat) get her?"

That seemed unlikely because the babies were still all present and unharmed (as far as we could count - its not easy to get an accurate count! The quail babies move en masse, with a sort of "flow" that makes it hard to discern one baby from the other). Usually, a predator would target the babies, which are easier prey. This did not make the "predator theory" very plausible.

We decided that she must have become gravid again, and went to lay more eggs (with another male). We have many male quail in the yard, fighting daily over the females, so this explanation made the most sense.

Overall, Super Dad has done a GREAT job! He keeps the babies moving through the yard, a behavior that most likely prevents predators from reliably finding where the vulnerable babies may be. The babies themselves have adapted well, and form a tight-knit group that follows Dad when on the move, and lays together in a cohesive unit when he's allowing them to rest. The picture on the right is Super Dad assembling the babies in a safe group near the edge of tree cover, but still in the warm sun. As you can see in the photo to the left, the babies are quite content to just lay down, preen themselves, and wait for the next command to move.

And I'll leave you with my final picture: here he is!! Super Dad!!!

With the babes content in the sun, Dad gets the good perch, calls out some territorial "chucks" and watches over his chicks. What a guy! To hear examples of his territorial call, click on this link, and scroll down to the "male aggressive call". This is also the sound the males make when the fight over the females during mating season.

Meet the Neighbors - The Black-throated Sparrow

2008-09-15T10:29:00.000-07:00

One of my favorite new additions to the yard is the black-throated sparrow (Amphispiza bilineata) (BTSP) (it has a lovely song, which you can hear through a link on the Cornell Bird site (linked above), or by clicking here and here. I prefer the second links because they capture more of the lyricism than the Cornell clips. These sparrows in particular are bold, curious, and vocal. They're a great addition to the yard, because they enjoy hanging out "where the action is", usually in a shrub nearby where I'm working in the yard, often making their high-pitched twinkling calls and songs.

Sounds like the sparrows' population is in decline, mostly linked to hotter-burning fires in the Great Basin region and habitat conversion, which is too bad. Here's a nice little essay about the loss of BTSP due to suburbanization.

The BTSP prefers habitats with mature cacti and enough vegetation to provide their seed-based diet (they also eat insects, esp during breeding and nestling season). It was a nice "compliment" to the yard to have the BTSP choose to call it his territory and decide to breed here.

Seems its not as easy as just showing up - in the three years that a BTSP has called the yard his territory (I assume its the same male, but we can never be sure unless we banded him), there have been only 2 years where a mate has shown up and they've bred. In fact, this year, I wasn't even sure if a female sparrow was in the yard (in this species, the male and female have the same plumage, which means that, unless you see two sparrows hanging out togther, you don't know you have more than one). Then, I was looking out the back door, and, lo - I saw it!! The baby black-throated sparrow!! The pic to the left is the first one I was able to snap of the chick. You can see that it still has that big-billed baby look. There is no black throat and the white eyebrow is just begining to form. The chick has the characteristic brown speckling that many baby birds have - great camo in the nest, in shrubs, and on the ground!

The pic on the right was taken just a couple days later. The chick has already developed the characteristic white eyebrows. The black throat won't appear until the winter molt. To the left is one of the babies (there ended up being 2 this year!) begging in a shrub. I heard the typical BTSP chirping; but this time it was particularly high pitched. Chasing down the sound, I found the baby perched within the safety of the many-branched creosote bush shrub, loudly begging for food. It would also flutter its wings rapidly. The pic isn't in focus - my cheap point-and-shoot camera couldn't focus very well with all the random branches. An example of why the baby uses the shrub for cover!

I sure hope this successfull nesting event means more black-throated sparrows in our yard many years into the future!

Quail Diaries: The Return of Lady Coop

2008-08-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

She's back!! Yes, making a sooner-than expected visit to our yard was a top predator of our resident California quail (Callipepla californica) covies, a female Coopers hawk (Accipiter cooperii). Usually the coops are found in our town only in the cooler months of late fall, winter, and early spring. Otherwise, they live up in the higher elevations, within deciduous and coniferous forests. We very recently had a rare monsoon rainstorm; which brought a number of the mountain birds down to forage in our yard, including a brightly colored western tanager.

Hawks have what is know as reverse sexual dimorphism, where the female of the species is larger than the male. It is hypothesized that this has been an adaptation associated with diversification of feeding and prey-capturing. Females hunt for larger birds (such as mourning doves and quail) and males hunt for smaller prey (such as sparrows and larger songbirds). This means that it is usually the female coop who is a threat to the quail.

Coops are amazing hunters and are known for their comfort with running on the ground to pursue their prey. Here's another lady, last winter, who had chased some quail into the bushes (to the right). As you can see, she's looking into the bush, ready to chase. Don't worry, our little quail friends were safe!! (This time... actually, in the winter, the coopers hawk will hunt our yard up to 4 times a day!! I suspect its that often when her hunts are unsuccessful...) After I snapped the shot, the hubby (who was waiting for my Go) ran out and chased her away.
The presence of the Lady Coop strongly affects the covey behavior of the quail. Just before her arrival each fall, the quail have massed into one huge covey that wanders the neighborhood, relaxes in the shade, and call to one another across the acres. After a couple days of her incesent chasing, they break down into small, quiet groups that hug the shade, cautiously skurrying from shelter to shelter.
This was the first time that the juvenile quail who were born this season have met their most-feared predator... and they were definitely scared. I knew she was in the yard because I heard the adults make their alarm call for 30 minutes! See, I feel guilty now because I'm trying to learn the quail calls. There are many of them and some sound alike. The alarm call sounds oddly similar to the "lets eat" call... Took me a long time until I realized that something was up in teh yard. I look out the back door, and there she is, Lady Coop, just 20 feet from my face, waiting in a low branch for an unsuspecting victim to come eat the bird seed!!
Luckily, she was only present for a couple days this time. Then the summertime temps returned and Lady Coop must have high-tailed it back to the mountain! I wonder if she is one of our regular winter residents and knew exactly to come to our ash tree? I mean, she was perched 5 feet above the exact spot where we *always* throw out bird seed. How did she know that?
And, as a final parting shot, here's a picture of the super-family I mentioned before... As part of their daily wandering and circling through the yard, they regularly cross our "stream" (we dug the drainage, flood it with a hose, and planted native wetland vegetation). The quail moms especially love to take their chicks through the stream because the tall bunch grasses provide both cover and forage for her babies. Cute!

Out Standing in Their Field(s)

2008-07-29T10:15:00.000-07:00

Field work, as glorious as it may sound....

Does it sound glorious? (I've always wondered that!)

... isn't always a walk in the park. In fact, that's usually what field work is NOT. I thought I'd share with you a few fun photos taken over the years and over different terrain. One theme I'd like to express - always make the best of everything. And be prepared for the worst!

One of the favorite pastimes of field biologists is the pursuit of a good locality for writing field notes. A well-formed rock outcrop can make my day!! (If you note the wind-swept look of the trees above and the bandanna covering my face, you'll have to pretend to understand what the photo can not show - its really windy there. One of the benefits of laying low is being out of the wind... so a nice seat, low to the ground, is a great find!).

The desert presents its own set of challenges - paramount is the grabbing of any shade to be had. To ignore such an opportunity is to be lazy. And who wants to be lazy when it comes to comfort seeking?

And... lest you think we professionals never slip up... I've got the proof!
Not to worry, we always carry a little shovel (and squares of wood AND metal plates called "Tow In A Box" AND tow straps. Yes, and we have used them all through the years!). This road was just graded, so when we pulled off on the side to check out some stuff... the car didn't have much luck with the soft, moist berm. We got outta that one fast.

Because I get paid to hike doesn't mean I'm always very graceful about it! Sometimes the best way to get down a steep, talus-ey outcrop is to use yer head. Which means using yer @ss!

By the way, the rock-hugging green and red plant behind me is the urn-flowered alum root (Heuchera elegans), a California rare plant. In part, it is because the plant grows in a very limited geographic location. In part - it doesn't get reported often since it grows on steep, talusey slopes - places were most people don't find themselves sliding around on their @sses...

Getting that perfect shot is not a glamorous job at all; but we gotta do what it takes!

(yes, I do realize this pic actually displays my @ss even more prominently than the previous...)

And never miss a photo opportunity with an old, rusted out car!

Well... maybe not EVERY opportunity...

(thanks to my cousin, M, for the photo!)

Bye y'all!

Christian the Lion

2008-07-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

I recommend you watch with the sound on. The sappy music absolutely does the image justice!

Well, there's a first time for everything, and here is my first post of an image that is not mine. Of course, I would say that it is very fitting for this honor. Its a wonderful story that has been resurrected through the medium of the internet, YouTube, facebook, blogs, and everything else. I'm happy to have it here too...
This brought tears to my eyes!! If you want to read more about the story of Christian the lion, here's the link that my hubby found. Its a great story: Christian the Lion.

Photos of Wildflowers From Over 2 Months Ago

2008-07-21T14:46:00.000-07:00

My, how time flies! And we've been very busy. Lots and lots of work this year. This is good, since its been a pretty decent rain-year, and therefore many native plants have sprouted and flowered. Here are more photos of wildflowers from one of our work sites on the north end of the Antelope Valley (that's the same valley where the famous Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve is located). I took these photos over 2 months ago, and I'm finally finding the time to post them for you. And, rest assured, I have been snapping many more great shots in the mean-time!

We were working in an area that was composed of soils with lots of clays. Many of the California Floristic Region flowers love these soils, such as California Goldfields (Lasthenia californica), the little yellow flowers in the photos here.

Another amazing clay-loving flower that we found was the Mariposa lily (Calochortus kennedyi). Brilliant! Being a bulb, this plant appears to prefer tough-to-dig clay soils so that digging mammals like gophers cannot eat their succulent underground flesh. I tried to take a photo that could impress upon everyone the awesome display that these lilies form. There's a flowering lily about every 10 feet in some areas. Unfortunately, cheap digital cameras just can't capture the subtlety and drama of this flower.

And another clay lover - a little onion, Allium denticulatum. This little onion absolutely covers the ground in some areas. These photos only partially capture the magic of being amongst a field of blooming onions. Oh, and they bloom for a couple weeks, and are gone. Like the goldfields, the mariposa lily, and all other desert annuals. They are but brief visitors to our world!

Turtle Time !!

2008-07-10T13:56:00.000-07:00

A tortoise is a turtle, but a turtle is not always a tortoise... Okay. Now that we got that one over with!!!

[See, they're all turtles, but a tortoise is a turtle that is terrestrial. Turtles can be further defined as tortoise, "aquatic turtle" or "semi-aquatic turtle".] I always call them turtles because I prefer the sound of that word. It just rolls off the tongue better!

I've been amassing photos and movies of the tortoises, but in an effort to not take too too many photos (they are so cute in their odd way!), I don't have a lot of recent pix. Its never difficult, though, to get nice shots of turtles eating. They love eating! This spring, with all the nice native annual plants we saw this year, we were able to gather up a tasty buffet for our pet desert tortoises. Desert tortoises have been found to selectively prefer legume plants like the ones in these photos. Above, Megagodzilla is eating an Astragalus didymocarpus. To the right, Godzilla (left) is joined by Gamara. They're eating Astragalus and Lupinus bicolor. These leguminous plants are known for their nitrogen-fixing capabilities. This also benefits desert tortoises... when tortoises eat legumes, their bodies do not require as much water to metabolize the food. This is a great benefit for Mojave Desert tortoises, which experience rain only for very short times in the early spring.

And here we have Bruiser, one of our young African spur-thighed tortoises, looking very tortoisey... wouldn't you agree? Our four spur-thighs are now 5 years old, and just about to hit their growth-spurt age. They are a little larger than a grapefruit, but will grow to be over 100 pounds as adults!! (that'll be another couple decades, since they live to over 100 years old.) Next to Bruiser on the photo below is our runt, little Monster X. He even behaves like a runt - he's picky with his food, easily scared by the larger tortoises, and very very easily distracted. Usually I feed him separately from the others. Oh, by the way, these turtles are too young to know their gender, so I'm referring to them in the universal Him. In this photo, you can see the "spurs" on the thighs of Bruiser's back leg (the little horns). They protected the tortoise from predators when they lived amongst the mega fauna of Africa - lions and hyenas.

I'll leave you with a video I've called, "Tortoise Feeding Frenzy" As you can see in the movie, these tortoises live up to their names - Merciless Eating Machines. They nearly inhale their food! Spike, the final of the four to enter the movie, displays a funny turtle quality - linear movement. These tortoises seem to insist on moving forward in a strait line. If that means climbing over something... so be it... Seems like maladaptive behavior for something so clunky; but they've survived with this behavior (we believe) for hundreds of thousands of years, so it must benefit them somehow!! The video also shows little Monster X (aka Runtlinger) and his picky eating style and easy distract ability. He barely eats anything while the other tortoises inhale their greens.

Check out those melons!

2008-05-30T17:10:00.000-07:00

This is a coyote melon (Cucurbita palmata). It can be found in the desert, usually growing on a bank alongside a seasonal drainage. Coyote melons develop later into the year, flowering and fruiting after every other plant has dried out. Its always strange to walk in the dried-out desert vegetation and come upon a green melon plant with its HUGE yellow fruits. They're a real handfull, ya know what I'm sayin' ?!?

Happenings In the Yard

2008-05-20T18:28:00.000-07:00

We had a couple of warm days here - it got up to 106 F in the shade!! Came on pretty suddenly, and some of the critters were breathing hard (esp. some warblers, like the Townsend's warbler, which travel through our valley on their migrations, but live up in cooler temps in the summer). The cacti are in full bloom (some already past bloom), and I thought I'd share a couple of the ones with spectacular magenta blooms.

Got a nice shot of Super Mom with her chicks (her myth is explained in my last entry). If you look carefully, you can see how some are larger than others (story below). I've been watching her, to try and understand her "super" style... and I see that she's a real leader and a herder... she keeps the babes in line and moving along, as this photo is evidence. I can count 13 chicks in this photo, and I know more were hanging out to the side with pop.

And, with the warm weather, out come the desert iguanas (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), who are endemic to our yard. One of my favorite residents is Stumpy Joe, who can be identified by the fact that his long back toes are no longer present. He either lost them through fighting with other males (or females?) or from getting away from predators (road runners, gopher snakes, red racer snakes, etc.). As you can see, he's also re-growing the tip of his tail. What a scrapper! Joe could have been living in our yard for years... but we have so many iguanas now, its difficult to truly tell them apart (some - the babies and the gravid females - are easier to identify than others). Its only through his lost toes that I can tell him for who he is. And what a character! Truly a ruler of the yard. These photos are from when I came upon him as he was hanging out on the tallest mound in our yard - a real territory treasure. And he's the one who commands it. Stumpy is fun to feed meal worms (got a photo of the hubby feeding Joe last year posted on the blog) and he's always willing to run up to us and see if we've got a treat for him. I ran out of meal worms and fed him some creosote flowers instead. He enjoyed them... but they certainly aren't as exciting as meal worms! Here's another shot of Joe. How can you NOT love that face?

And to close us out, I'll give ya another photo of another nice cactus flower. Its a beauty!! The yellow is so brilliant, our semi-cheap digital camera just can't deal with it - that's a common problem when photographing cacti flowers. Those pink petals just freak the camera out! Maybe its time to learn the Program Mode of the darned thing.

Quail Diaries - The Legend of Super-Mom

2008-05-18T07:25:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm a week late for the official "Mother's Day" holiday... but anyone who knows me is aware that I'm not very good with these dates... I wanted to write about our tortoises; but the quail have been so active, and I've gotten such great photos of them... we'll focus on Super Mom first. Yes, there she is to your left... Super Mom. As I had written in a previous entry, the California quail (Callipepla californica) that naturally occur in our yard are known for communal raising of their chicks - at times, a couple parents will join forces and raise their babies together. This greatly reduces predation, a big problem for both the babies and adults - quail are highly desired by the predators out there, and are constantly wary.
The quail in our yard seem to be "figuring out" this technique, and, for some reason, this mom has ended up with the babies from three (3!) families! She's got about 18 chicks following her (impossible to get a real count on 'em) and she and the dad have been leading these babies through our yard for the past couple weeks. I don't know how she ended up with all of them... somehow they imprinted on her and her chicks, not their own mom. If you look carefully at the photo here, you can see that some chicks are almost twice the size as others. Its a little tough to see; but its there... We hope momma can handle the responsibility... We hope some mommas start helping (there's a family that lost their babies to her, and are walking around with a single baby chick... why they don't pair up with Super Mom, I'm not sure...

Here's another fun photo of a different mom with her chicks (we've got about 3 or 4 families in the yard right now, never mind the counting mess that Super Mom has created). I opened up the back window-door shade at 6 this morn, and saw this very plumpy female resting in the yard. Look closely, and you'll see all her chicks scrunched in, trying to stay warm under her feathers. Cute!!! The quail used to be very difficult for me to photograph. They were scared of the camera lens (the Big Eye)... but each successive generation has adjusted and habituated, so that this mom allowed me to snap several shots.

And finally, lazy days and resting babies!! Here are 3 chicks from

Super Mom, resting in the sun. They love to lay down on their sides and stretch out their massively big feet.

Native Desert Plants

2008-05-14T09:52:00.001-07:00

I've got so many photos of so many pretty flowers, I don't know where to begin! There are certainly more than I want to add in a single post, so stay tuned for more...

Let's begin at the begining of the spring... with a monkeyflower, Mimulus bigelovii. This flower likes to grow in wetter spots. In the desert, that means along the edges of seasonal washes. Just that little extra bit of water that flows in the shallow channels adds enough moisture to support these beautiful flowers. This plant usually fades and disappears rather quickly in the spring (unless the wash is pretty big), so its a nice one to come upon when you can. Its flower color really sticks out amongst the greys and mellow greens of the desert.

The desert calico (Loeselliastrum matthewsii) is a great one to find. The intricately-colored flowers are a favorite amongst photographers.

The desert lily is a great flower that "appears" a little later in the spring. You find evidence that they'll be there much earlier, but it takes a little while for the lily to flower. And when it does... wow, what a sight!! The best part (and too difficult for me to capture in a photo) is the image they create when they flower across the landscape - bold blotches of white as far as the eye can see! Before they flower, ya think there really aren't that many of them... and then POW - they're everywhere!! (I mean, everywhere where they occur - it takes a certain type of soil to keep a lily - the bulbs are edible treats to digging critters like gophers, and the lilies generally survive best where the soil has clays to it - which makes digging much more difficult.)

And, to finish us off for this post, an attempt to show you just how amazing the desert dandelion (Malacothrix glabrata) can be across the landscape. These guys can be very common throughout the desert, and even grow along sidewalks and roads in our town. They prefer sandy zones, which the desert has quite a bit of... This was the view one day during a nice long walk we had. Its not easy to see, but the hill slopes in the background are all covered in yellow, much of it from these dandelions.

Happy Spring!!!

Scaley Skins

2008-05-02T23:16:00.001-07:00

We were working out in a valley in the Mojave Desert called Johnson Valley. Many people know of it because they ride motorcycles and other ORVs out there. We were there looking for rare plants. When walking, you see a whole other world. The slow side of the desert.

Amongst some rocky outcrops, we saw the rocky-outcrop-dweller, the common chuckwalla (Sauromalus obesus). This one is a male because it lacks dark cross bands on its back. Chuckwallas are a fun lizard. They're big, bold, and curious. Makes for easy viewing.

Next, we found this desert horned lizard (Phrynosoma platyrhinos). Doesn't it look prehistoric?!? In this first photo, we posed the lizard. That way you can get a good look at its head and flat body. The flat, round (pancake-like) body is why they're also called horney toads... but they are reptiles, not amphibians.

The desert horney toads come in a variety of colors, which generally seem to camouflage with their backgrounds. This fellow had a strong red and black coloring to it, which perfectly matched the red and black lava rocks in its immediate locality. Pretty cool! Do you see the lizard in the photo to the right? Yup, right there in the center. This way, predators like roadrunners can't find them as easily.

And finally... my favorite photo of the day - a Mojave green rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus)! And I took this particular photo! (Usually the hubby takes the close up photos of the rattlesnakes.) This is the very first Mojave green I've seen. I've wanted to see them ... I've seen the Pacific rattler, the Panamint rattler, and the sidewinder. Now the Mojave. By the way, this is the most-common rattlesnake to bite, and it has the worst bite of all of them. Seems the juveniles aren't good at biting out the proper dosage and often overdose the victim on venom. Not good! Oh, and, by the way, this particular rattler was a youngster, told by the fact that it wasn't really very green (or so I've been told by those who know).

This leads to my farewell joke. Possibly my favorite within the Redneck genre: You know you're a redneck when your final living words are... ..."Hey guys, watch this!"

Spring Update

2008-04-25T19:23:00.000-07:00

Busy busy busy!! And we just can't avoid that wind. Guess that's life.

I've been seeing the baby Costa's hummingbirds and they are very entertaining. One (some?) of them sits on the hummer feeder attached to the edge of the kitchen window sill and stares at me (washing dishes) for several minutes at a time. Intense staring. For a hummer to stand still for 30 seconds is rare. Several minutes is unusual - this tells me it must be one of the babies of this year, and its learning its environment. I do believe that this hummer is one of the babies. Its difficult to see in the photo, but it *is* smaller than the other Costa's adults. Its also a little duller and fuzzier.

We've also seen some Anna's hummers, which are unusual here (they occur more towards the coast) they usually leave by the heat of the summer. I like them because their gorgets are red.

The desert iguanas are starting to emerge... which means the heat of the summer is arriving!

I also wanted to share this photo. It is looking south, across the Antelope Valley, to the California Poppy Preserve. See that orange?? Those are the California poppies!! We're so close, and yet so far... At least I can share several other poppies that I've seen this spring. To the right is the small-flowered poppy (Eschscholzia minutiflora). The flower is much much smaller (desert stuff is like that...).

And this is a prickly poppy (Argemone munita), which also occurs in the desert, but this one likes washes. You can see a rodent hole behind this poppy. Probably a desert kangaroo rat, one of the cutest rodents, ever! I've never seen one, only their huge burrow holes (I have seen the more-common Merriam's kangaroo rat (Dipodomys merriami), which even live in our yard). The desert k-rats must be big, because the holes are about 4 inches across. Kangaroo rats are not rats. In fact, they have cute tufted tails. They have large legs and hop around like kangaroos. Very cute.

Spring Critters in the Desert

2008-04-15T14:31:00.000-07:00

We're supposed to be outdoors, working today... but there's a front coming through, and the winds are up. Not only that, but the project/area that we're in is associated with windmill farms (read: that place will be even windier than anywhere else). Now, since we're supposed to be experienced field workers, we've learned a thing or two about working in the wind => it sucks (and the hubby often ends up with a sinus infection). If we have to work with others and can't change the schedule, we're now experienced enough to dress for the weather. Here we are last year, when we were working in the same area, just a different project. A friend took the photo and called it "Desert Bandits" because everyone thought we were so silly to wear those face coverings... well, by the end of a month of working in the wind, a couple folks sheepishly whispered that they wished they had those face coverings!!

For this day, we were just scheduled to work with ourselves, so we opted out of the outdoors for the day. I consider it operating costs. You see, the desert, esp the Mojave is known for its wind. We're on the cusp between the California coast and the Great Basin inland. The temperature difference between these regions creates a huge pressure differential which, in turn, creates some pretty big winds. Hence the wind farms. Its a fact of the region, and if you're going to live amongst it, you learn not to deny its reality and its power (hence the wind farms!).

Today I'll share with you a couple fun critters that we found nearly a month ago. The high levels of rain that some regions of the desert recieved were great for much of the wildlife and plants. We've been experiencing chronic shortages of rainfall, and its creating stress on everything. Usually when we think of desert reptiles, we think of hard-scaled creatures like the desert tortoise and lizards. But, when conditions aren't as difficult - at night - there are other reptiles that make their appearances - such as this fellow, the western banded gecko (Coleonyx variegatus). Yes! A gecko in the desert! On the ground behind our friend you can see a shiny metal object. That's the discarded muffler which the gecko was found underneath (actually, it has a nice, humid burrow under the muffler, which provides its delicate skin even greater moisture in the harsh desert habitat). My coworker found the gecko. Personnally, I didn't expect anything. We were on the edges of a desert town and this was one of the offroad dumping spots where people love to discard old car parts, sofa's, etc. I was just annoyed. My coworker kept working - and found life! See, the desert isn't all that deserted.

Here's a "Where's Waldo" exercise for you. Look into this photo. Do you see anything other than rocks? Look into the center. See the round "rock"? That's a baby tortoise!! Talk about good camo! This leads me to another discussion. My brother was just visiting a couple months ago and asked me, "Why does every single road have fences alongside it?"... Yup. Its a myth of the West that there are wide open places. I mean, there are, but you first have to get through that barbed wire fence to get at it. Why is this?? Well... first off, consider that its private land and the person is trying to exclude others from getting on there - either to dump garbage, hunt on it, mine it, drive an off-road-vehicle (ORV), or graze their livestock.

Otherwise, a heck of a lot of land out here is public land - U.S. Bureau of Land Management land (yours and mine, but leased out for "Multiple Use"). Its those multiple uses that require the fencing. Don't forget that a mere 50+ years ago, everything was heavily grazed for livestock (cattle and sheep). Those animals aren't like our impression of horses - grazing on grass. They also subsist on eating shrubs... and in the west, they have to, because that's what they're grazed on. Recent laws put into effect by Pres. Bill Clinton right before he left office addressed the issue of grazing on public lands in the southwest, decreasing the number of livestock that can be grazed per acre on BLM land. Still, however, the land is grazed. You might not ever see a live animal out there, but believe me, the land is being grazed. They now just usually ship the sheep herds from location to location throughout the deserts. And if the sheep aren't there - wild horses and burros still are. I seldom see them, just their tracks.

In addition, we've still got major amounts of ORV riders, and the numbers increase daily. These folks are usually supposed to stay on trails and generally are not supposed to cross highways... but nothing is perfect. I know the fences are also supposed to restrict ORV's from crossing the road just anywhere. I'm sure its also road safety, so yahoo's don't run off the highway to do donuts out in some playa by the side of the road either.

But, most importantly (to me), a new trend for these fences is to keep desert tortoises from wandering onto the highways. I mean, a tortoise looks like a tank, but put that little fellow next to even a Geo Metro, and, well, there's no contest. The one time a Geo is a big car!! As a mitigation measure on many highway and utility corridor projects, the company is also now required to install tortoise-fences on these road-side barbed wire fences. A tortoise fence is just an 18-inch tall length of hardware cloth that is attached to the fencing and slightly buried (no tunneling beneath!). Tortoises are notorious wanderers and have often been observed near roads (in addition, road surface run-off generates larger plants just alongside roads, which is called an "attractive nuisance" that entices tortoises to be near roadsides). It is suspected that these fences are saving the lives of hundreds of these critically endangered species. Little "Waldo" shown above was found just a mere 1/4 mile from Interstate-15, a 6-lane highway that I have NEVER seen empty. Although Waldo is most-likely too young to wander, here is Waldo's buddy, Wally... found nearby and just 1/2 mile from I-15. There is no doubt in my mind that Wally's life is much much safer thanks to the efforts of people to have these fences installed and maintained.

Costa's Hummingbird Chicks

2008-04-05T07:25:00.001-07:00

Welcome to our hummingbird world! We currently have 4 hummer feeders in our yard, and are looking to put in 2 more. We have also planted a lot of hummingbird-friendly vegetation (remeber my YouTube video, Costa's hummingbird on penstomens?) - more on that in the future... In the past couple years, the hummer population in the yard has exploded! We generally have Costa's hummingbirds (Calypte costae), but occassionally we've seen/heard a black-chinned hummer (Archilochus alexandri), although they usually occur farther east. Everywhere you step in the yard, you either hear hummingbirds, or you get "buzzed" by one as it whips past your ear. They're great fun to watch, and I'll write more about them in the future...

But this spring has had a great suprise: one of the hummers built her nest in clear view of our kitchen window!! She built the next in a mesquite tree, which doesn't leaf-out until late spring, so we had a clear view the entire time to observed the developement of the nest... and then the babies.

We first observed the female busy making her nest. She would even fly around the house and pick off cobwebs to use for her nest. Eventually, this is what we saw: two little beaks poking out of the edge of the nest.

While in house, I saw a couple great "family moments" that I took a photo of. The pictures were heavily zoomed, then cropped, so they aren't the greatest quality.

The entire chick development only occured for a couple weeks. The female built her nest in February (early!), we saw the first sign of babies around the 16th of March... and then, on the 2nd of April, we got home from a couple days in the field, and the babies had already fledged the nest!

This is the last photo I got of the chicks. I'm sure they're hanging

around the yard, waiting for handouts from mom, I just haven't

had the time to really look for them.

Springtime Wildflowers

2008-04-03T13:28:00.000-07:00

I'm baaack! After a long pause, I'm ready for posting again! This time I'm going to try to write less, and post more often. We'll see how that goes...

The desert and parts of SoCal have been great this spring! There were patchy rainstorms, and flowers are depending upon that. The eastern Mojave Desert got some great fall monsoonal rains and good cold winter rains. Here are some shots near Baker, CA. For those of you not in the know... the verticle line in middle of the second photo - that's the Baker thermometer, the largest thermometer in the world! Oh yeah.

This is a spot north of Barstow, CA. They got rain in some of the higher elevations. This may not look very floriforous, but its very impressive in-person.

Isn't this one great?!? This is near the windmill pass east of Los Angeles. Plants that live in drier regions develope spiney hairs to protect themselves from herbivores. This gives them a nice "soft light" when back-lit from the sun. This spot is pretty amazing... I was going to post photos of it last year as an example of one of the ugliest places I've ever worked... then we returned this year... and the high rainfall in the LA region germinated all the flowers! Well... okay, I think you just have to see this! Here's a photo from last September:

San Gabriel Mountains

2007-06-13T11:18:00.001-07:00

We're working up in the Angeles National Forest these days. ANF is comprised of the San Gabriel Mountains, a fault-lifted zone just north of the San Fernando Valley (the Valley Girls valley just north of Las Angeles). Being in the mountains is nice this time of year... but don't be too jealous. These mountains are steep, covered mostly with chaparral, and rather hot and dry.

There are still some nice critters and plants to be found, however, and we're doing our best to discover them.

This is a sagebrush lizard, which is uncommon. The male has the bright red under his chin, either to attract females or to threaten other males (or maybe me?). Who knows?

The plants aren't doing so well this year, as I've mentioned (drought year), but we've found one particular species that's just booming: the Mt. Gleason paintbrush (Castilleja gleasonii). Yes, the paintbrush, everyone's favorite, known for its brilliant red blooms and long-lasting flowering duration. This species is doing particularly well because its getting a little help from its "friends". You see, the paintbrush is a hemiparasite, which means that it derives part of its nutrients from its chlorophyllus leaves, and part of its nutrients from another plant (to which its attaches by the roots). This plant is a Forest Service Special Status and California Rare plant, which makes it especially exciting to find so many of them.

Here's a view of some of the earliest-bloomers - the chamise shrubs within the chaparral. The white dot in the background (on top of the far ridgeline) is the Wilson's Observatory. Its a landmark for the San Fernando Valley, something they can see on those (occassional) clear days. Speaking of clear skies, we had some clear ones when we were working up there, and got some views of Los Angeles at night. It was strange to be camping, and to have city lights so bright along the horizon. They just went on and on and on...

Cactus Flowers, Pt 4

2007-06-05T14:49:00.001-07:00

We've still got cacti flowering in our yard! As the flowering season wears down, we're getting some of our more-varied cactus flowers (ie, not just "prickly pear" types of cactus). Now the "pencil chollas", and some of the more-mesic associated cacti are flowering.

This is a diamond cholla. Isn't it cool? The larger flower is very unusual. Its called a "cristate" form, which is actually a fusion of a couple of normal flowers.

The smaller flower is what it should look like - round and like a rose.

This is a mamillaria cactus. It is one of the cacti associated with mesic habitats, and is often found growing in bedrock shelves along small desert washes (which are often dry most of the year, yet still more-wet than other desert habitats). They are tiny and cute-as-buttons. They are often difficult to see because they are so tiny and white; but these bright pink flowers really bring them out.

This is one of my favorites. Also associated with desert washes, but these grow on the secondary floodplain, just above the stream channel. They are called Devil's club cacti... which leads to the question, "why are so many things in the desert named after the Devil and why are there no Fairies-and-Puppies cacti around?"

Cane cactus

Barrel cactus

And finally... some pencil chollas for you. These seem to be very tastey cacti. They are constantly being eaten by our tortoises, the ground squirrels, and rabbits.

Our Babies Are Growing... Legs!!

2007-05-29T19:18:00.001-07:00

Life in the pond is going well. When we first met our little western toads (Bufo boreas), they were just mere masses of egg strings.

Then the hatching...

And now - metamorphosis!!!!

All of the eggs appeared to have been laid within a single 24 hour period, however, we've noticed that the tadpoles appear to mature at very different rates. Must be some evolutionary adaptation thing...

Here's one of our little critters, complete with back legs. (The focus is a little blurry because the camera seems to insist on focusing on the water surface... argh!)

The next step... front legs and development of air-breathing lungs! Here's a freshly-metamorphed toady, ready to face the big, big world. Pretty cute, huh? We've got these little hoppers all over our pond area now. Its so much fun to watch them roam the mud flats, eating insects I can barely even see.

I guess it might be appropriate to also show you a picture of our little pond. Vegetation from left to right: The light green shrub is coyote bush (Baccharis pilularis). We like this shrub a lot because it blooms in the fall, and so helps to provide year-round nectar for our local insects. Its a huge favorite of the butterflies, and we get an especially large number of Painted Ladies (Vanessa cardui). The low green veg in the middle is Torrey rush (Juncus torreyi). The tall green veg is cattail (Typha latifolia). The cattail just appeared once the pond area became regularly innundated (all other plants were brought in as seeds or in containers). The large skeleton in front of the cattails are good 'ol sunflowers (Helianthus annua). The sunflowers started as seeds we would spread, but now they re-seed themselves each year. We enjoy the sunflowers because the birds appreciate them so much. We've had flocks of goldfinches (Carduelis tristis) come through and feed off of them in the fall. In the back, behind the bridge (the shiney white thingey) is deer grass (Muhlenbergia rigens). It started as just a couple bunches, but the stuff has become a monster and is sprouting up all over our stream bed. Its all we can do to dig them up and replant them in more-desired locations.
And finally... I'll leave you with a second toad video, "Tadpoles in a Pond, II". You may notice that there is a tadpole in there with back legs. Very exciting stuff!!

A Little Lizard Told Me...

2007-05-28T13:14:00.000-07:00

...summer has arrived!

And with it, the emergence of our favorite lizards/iguanas, the desert iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis). These critters don't even emerge from hibernation until temperatures reach the mid-90's. According to my Peterson Field Guide, the desert iguana has a normal activity range at 107 F, and a max voluntary tolerance of 115 F. They are native to our area, and occur naturally in our yard. There used to be many more iguanas in our neighborhood, but development of new homes and removal of native shrubs has diminished the local populations. We don't think that peoples' pets disrupt the iguanas since their active temperature is so high, most domestic animals are seeking shade by that time of day.

To help themselves deal with the heat (because 115 air temperature is often over 125 F surface soil temp out here in the desert), the lizards will climb up into shrubs. This also helps them to get to their food, as desert iguanas are herbivores and eat leaves and flowers.

This, however does not stop them from enjoying a tasty meal worm or two. I buy meal worms from our local pet store and, once the temp gets good and hot, go outside in search of iguanas to feed. They recognize me now, and even run up to me the very first time I see them each summer, remembering tasty meals from the previous year.

In this photo, you can see me with 4 iguanas.

Here the hubby is feeding one particularly enthusiastic male that I have named Stumpy Joe. This is another photo of that same male with a juvenile iguana in the back.
You'll notice that this male doesn't have all his back toes. Normally, lizards have very elongated toes on their back feet. Either he lost them fighting with other males or evading some sort of predator (such as a road runner gopher snake or coachwhip snake).

This is a very pregnant female. She's loaded up with eggs, which she'll be laying any day now... leading to more and more iguanas in our yard. Yay!

Lastly, we have one of my favorites, an iguana I named Half-tail Willie. You can see that he lost his tail and has grown it back. In this photo you can also see his very long toes. You can also see the ridge of keeled scales down his back, an identifying mark for desert iguanas.

Quail Diaries: Our Little Chickens

2007-05-21T20:18:00.001-07:00

The quail babies are here!! This is one of my favorite times of the year! Our neighborhood has roaming coveys (aka, groups) of California quail (Callipepla californica) that wander among the yards and vacant lots. The desert area is normally inhabited by the Gambel's quail (Callipepla gambelii), but we believe that our locality near the Sierra Nevada mountains, the eastern edge of the CA quail's range, provided a corridor for these quail to come down into our valley and settle within the residential area.

Since more houses have been built, its been a little difficult for the quail; but they seem to be adjusting and we've noticed that they are definitely better at managing fences. In past years, they would run run back and forth and back and forth at the base of the fence (quail avoid flying whenever possible, so as not to bring attention to themselves). They now seem to understand that flight is necessary and not so dangerous out here in the 'burbs. That's a good thing, because the hubby and I were wracked with angst when watching the little guys freak out at our fences (and we've got lots of fencing in our yard - to keep out rabbits, dogs, and cats).

To attract the quail into our yard, we throw out a lot of seed and also create various quail safety-zones (lots of shrubs, patches of cactus, and cover shelters made of tangles of branches - this structure especially helps to protect the quail from predatory hawks, such as Cooper's hawks (Accipiter cooperi), a winter visitor to our valley.

It is not easy to get photos of the quail. They are very timid and panicky birds. That's one of the reasons we call them "our little chickens". The other reason is their scratch-and-peck way of eating seeds. Here's a picture of a quail "feeding frenzy" last October. Fall is a great time for quail because they band up together in large groups. Last fall we were getting over 100 birds in our yard each day! As you can see, another difficulty in photographing the birds is their tendency to stay in shady spots. They do this both to avoid the heat of the desert and also to remain in relative darkness, under cover of branches; again, to avoid predator detection. Quail also have an amazing ability shown by all wild birds - a great awareness of when they are being observed, especially through a camera lens. Its pretty incredible. They are now finally becoming less fearful of when I look at them through binoculars, but the photo lens is still too much for them. I believe I was able to take this photo because there were many quail present and they were becoming habitualized to feeding in our yard. I also had the camera on a tripod and fully zoomed-in. In addition, this photo was taken before their major predator, the Cooper's hawk, had migrated down into our valley from its summer range up in the mountain forests. The quail are still rather fearless at this time of year...

This is a male California quail, strutting his stuff. See the black plume feathers on the top of his head?

Here is a female. There was a lot of competition amongst the birds for this perch.

In early spring, the covey breaks up as the males and females begin to pair up, defend territories, and create their nest. In the 6 years that multiple quail pairs have nested in our yard, we've only found a single nest. They are very secretive!!

We were unsure if we would see any babies this year, since its a pretty rough drought year; but I'm sure that the watering we do in our yard and spreading of bird seed has helped. As a result, about 2 weeks ago, we got our first glimpse of the proud parents and their babies. Happy day!

Getting photos of adult quail is hard enough. Taking a picture of mom and her babies is nearly impossible!!! I tell ya, they can see into our house, in our dark living room, and recognize a camera lens. The moment they see it, they herd the little babies into the nearest shrub. I think these parents were just so hungry, they didn't notice me at first. Soon after I took this picture, though, mom saw me and the babies were led into a shrub... You can see in this photo that there are two females. We were lucky enough to have two pairs successfully breed this year. As quail often do, these two pairs are raising the babies communally. Cornell University says that there is a higher life expectancy in adults who raise their chicks communally.

I was able to count 11 babies in the above photo. The chicks are very difficult to see because of their cryptic coloring. Here's the best photo of a baby quail I will ever be able to take. This is because, unfortunately, the little guy got stuck in one of the holes in a cinder block in our yard. The hubby found it and rescued it. I snapped a quick photo before we placed it under one of the quails' favorite shrubs and hoped and hoped that the momma would bring her babies by soon so that this little fellow could rejoin its family. By the way, I went out and filled the holes in the block with soil. One less hazard in our yard!

And I'll leave you with this picture of my cat, Zeebo, happily quail-watching along with us. You can just barely see a male quail on the edge of our porch, taunting the poor kitty.

Hummingbird Video

2007-05-04T20:56:00.000-07:00

I've got another low-res video for everyone! This is one I made last year. Its of a Costa's hummingbird (Calypte costae) female feeding on our desert penstomen (Penstomen pseudospectabilis). The Costa's are our resident hummingbirds and are a great entertainment for us. The males have shiney purple gorgets and bold attitudes. My friend Laura can attest to that. During one of her visits she was wearing a red coat, and our male hummer wouldn't leave her alone whenever she was outside. He would hover just a couple feet from her and watch her every move!

In this video, as low quality and fuzzy as it is (the original is so much better... YouTube really loses out on the resolution), you can see that the hummingbird has a very big belly. That's because this female is ready to lay her eggs. I would see her visit these penstomens every day to feed. The following day that I took this video, she was about half that size! She must have laid her eggs that day, which can explain her need for so much feeding!

As an intro to the movie, I'll also leave you with this photo of one of our African spur-thighed tortoise (Geochelone sulcata) babies sitting under the penstomens. As you can see in the photo, her name is Buffy. And yes, that IS from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer".

For your viewing pleasure, Costa's Hummingbird:

Cactus Flowers, Pt 3

2007-05-04T20:43:00.000-07:00

We've been grounded recently while our field vehicle gets $700 of work done to it. Sounds rough, but its better than getting stuck out in the middle of nowhere in scorching heat!! We pay a bit to keep our car running smooth; but the cost is worth the peace of mind.

Although it would be nice to be out working, it is also pretty nice to be here at the house and enjoying the multitudes of blooming cacti. I should mention now that all the cactus flower photos you've been seeing are from cacti in our yard. We've got tons of 'em!! (and I mean that weight quite literally!) When out in the field we'll collect a pad or two and plant them in the yard. Or cactus enthusiast friends and cactus researcher friends will give us some samples. The hubby even got one variety from our town dump! We affectionately call that one, "trash can cholla".

Tadpoles In A Pond

2007-05-01T13:27:00.000-07:00

Finally!!! Its here!!!

Yes, the highly anticipated release of my movie, "Tadpoles In A Pond", is now available for viewing on YouTube. Well... the clamor isn't quite so big as Spiderman 3, but my cousin, M, did send me an email in which she mentioned that she was looking forward to seeing my tadpole movie. And, relatively speaking, that qualifies as high anticipation to me!

First, a history of our tadpoles:
It all began innocently enough back in April of 2006. The hubby was digging in our yard (an everyday occurence for us... nothing special there). He as hoping to create a pond along our "stream" - which is essentially a ditch dug through our property that we flood with water from a hose. He accidentally left the hose running through the night, which filled the hole with water. No problem, except that a couple of opportunistic western toads (Bufo boreas) decided to breed. We awoke the next morning with strings of toad eggs scattered throughout the pond.

Here's a photo the string of eggs from this year's toads. There are so many eggs laid by a single pair, they extend throughout our little 10 x 4 ft pond. What a producer that female was!

** Important hint => if you place the cursor over the photo and left-click, you can see a larger version of the picture. This is the case for all the photos in my blog. Sorry, forgot to mention that earlier...

Well, after we found the eggs in the flooded hole last year, as concerned animal lovers, we HAD to keep watering the area and keep the little guys and gals alive. It was an interesting science experiment, and we got a lot of enjoyment out of it (in addition to more toads in our yard, a bunch of dragonfly larvae - many of whom ate most of our tadpoles - and even some mayfly larve. Exciting times!).

By the way... yes, we do live in the desert, but the toads were already there. The hubby had a tiny pond in the yard (3x2 ft black plastic tub type) for about 10+ years and the toads had already appeared for that. We've got cottonwood trees for shade and through the years have planted assorted rushes and reeds. The cattails showed up on their own. All in all, the toads have got a pretty sweet deal in our yard.

After the toads, mayflies and dragonflies all metamorphosed into their terrestrial adult forms, the pond was drained and further excavation (deepening, widening, and lengthening) was conducted over the winter time. This spring, we were ready for toad action. And act they did!!!

Can you see all the egg strings in that second photo?

Two weeks later... we had tadpoles!!!! And therefor, "Tadpoles In A Pond". Now, I admit, the video is oh-so amateur. I moved the camera too quickly. The resolution drops when uploaded onto YouTube; they just look like a bunch of blobs with tails. But, hey, that's sort of what they look like in real life anyway.

So... with no further adoo, I present to you my movie for your immense enjoyment, "Tadpoles in our Pond":

I recommend you browse YouTube further (edited in later: only web virgins haven't surfed YouTube these days! So if you haven't, start with these:) I recommend it, because there are so many other wonderful videos to see, such as Nora, the piano playing cat, or clips of Bill Maher's New Rules (however, I would only recommend the latter for those of you who are left-leaning and not easily offended. If either of these are the case, just stick to watching Nora the cat. Or maybe you can watch a cool real-life version of the Simpson's TV show intro. I like that one, too).

Enjoy!

Poppies for Steven

2007-04-29T21:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Steven went to the Antelope Valley Poppy Preserve in search of the beautiful California poppy (Escholtzia californica), but, unfortunately for him, there hasn't been much rain out here and the poppy preserve wasn't much to behold...

Well, I was in the same valley recently, but in an area that had gotten just a little more rain, and a result - I got to see some poppies. Its not the same as seeing them in real life... but this will have to suffice for now:

Cactus Flowers pt2

2007-04-29T21:31:00.000-07:00

Need I say more?

Saved!!

2007-04-29T21:23:00.000-07:00

What a lucky snake! Lucky for one thing that the driver at the wheel loves snakes. For another that the driver was alert to the possibility of snakes sunning themselves on the road and alert enough to swerve just in time to avoid it.

Can you see the tracks of the car which show how narrowly this fellow was missed?!?

And here's a close up of the lucky gopher snake (Pituophis catenifer), most likely unaware that it just stared death in the face. All it cares about now is that it has to stare at my camera...

Warbler Days

2007-04-29T21:06:00.000-07:00

Spring is certainly here and life is exploding in our yard. We've seen an adult desert iguana (Dipsosaurus dorsalis), which means the heat has arrived (i.e., hotter than 95F or so). Our mesquite trees are blooming, and that means that all is well with the world.

Our matriarch mesquite is an amazing tree. It has produced seed to sprout a number of other mesquites, all of which provide nice shade in the hot summer days. Now is also their time to shine. They're flowering, which brings out a great diversity of native bees and honey bees. We walk out onto our porch in the mornings and can hear a low buzz from all the bees flying around the trees. Today was a great treat because we also had a number of insect eating warblers taking advantage of the trees' multitude. There were probably about 15 warblers, mostly Wilson's warbler (Wilsonia pusilla), hopping around among the branches, actively feeding on all the insects.

Here's a photo of the Wilson's warbler. Not so good; but those guys just wouldn't stay still. There are about 20 of these birds in our yard right now, feeding amongst all our trees and shrubs. They must be migrating north right now.

Also found out there was a Townsend's warbler amongst the Wilson's. See?

These aren't the greatest photos... wish I could somehow express to you how magical the birds and the bees are right now! Its amazing!

Long-nosed leopard lizard

2007-04-15T21:32:00.000-07:00

Here's a long-nosed leopard lizard (Gambelia wislizenii) that we found while working in the desert last week. Poor guy was pretty dehydrated and tired (there's a drought going on this year and everything is having a tough time of it).
I guess he was conserving his energy, I wasn't appearing to be much of a threat, so he let me get pretty close to him to take this picture. He even jumped up onto me as he was trying to catch some flies that were landing around us.

WindyDaysInSoCal

2007-04-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

The hubby and I have been working in a beautiful area recently. Can't tell you where it is because that's confidential. If I tell you, well then I'd have to kill you. And we don't want that, do we??

You can't really understand the humor of the pic of the hubby unless you could also get the full effect of the wind that is whipping past us at the moment the photo was taken. The wind was probably up to a constant blustery flow of 60+ mph!!! I was getting pushed backwards at one point.

I think the pic of the oak gives a good impression of the force of the wind. Mighty! By the way, that's a blue oak (Quercus douglasii), which is one of the highly valued oaks down here in SoCal... just in case you were interested.

Dedicated to Opuntia

2007-04-15T16:09:00.000-07:00

A big welcome to all my family and friends!

I've set up this blog essentially to share photos and maybe some avi's of my world with you all. Instead of cramming your email systems with all my silly pix of flowers, trees, lizards, etc and some movies of swimming tadpoles and walking turtles; I'll instead post them here so that you can look at your leisure and level of interest...

Hopefully this site has enough space for all the pictures I'd like to post. We shall see!

My first photo is dedicated to a cactus. This is based upon a question asked to me by the hubby, "Does the world really need another picture of a prickly pear cactus flower?" Obviously, my answer must be, "YES!"

This is no ordinary Opuntia flower. Its called a cristate flower, which makes it look oblong instead of rounded and rose-like.

I can certainly predict that I'll be posting several more cactus flowers, including opuntia, so stay tuned!