In an earlier post, there was an oblique mention of seeing “Feral Quadrupeds of Interest”.  These would be the wild burros who live in the desert around Lake Pleasant, Arizona.

On our hike the other day, E and I encountered a small group of them.  They are often described as “more likely to be heard than seen” and in fact, we did hear them first.  A loud braying filled the quiet air of the desert morning, drowning out the breeze in the saguaro spines, the jingling of the Black-throated sparrows, and the chup-chup-chup of the male cardinal.  It was instantly recognizable — after we remembered there were supposed to be feral donkeys out here! — and after looking around for a bit, E spotted a group of about 5 on the top of a ridge.  They were not very close, but we did get some distant images of them, one of which is above.  The adults are gray, and you can see them on the very right-hand edge of the photo, behind a saguaro and a palo verde tree.  There’s a younger, darker animal visible grazing near the left side of the picture.  (Photo by E. Shock.)

These are the naturalized descendants of work-burros brought into the region by miners and others during the 1880s when gold prospecting and other pursuits were a big deal in the area. (I’ve read that Phoenix, on the Salt River, actually started as an ancillary vegetable-growing supply community for the then larger population around Wickenburg, where the local river, the Hassayampa, lives mostly underground.)  There are approximately 200 wild burros living in the desert around Lake Pleasant.  (The photo to the right is of a Burro I met in Veracruz last fall.)

But there’s a sorrowful angle to this tale which we didn’t know when we saw these guys the other day: just a couple weeks ago, an ORV rider found the bodies of 11 wild burros including several jacks, a jenny, and some colts, not far from this trail, on BLM land.  They had been shot by someone, which is a federal offense, and now there are investigations, a $5000 reward, a hotline (call 1-800-637-9152 if you have info about who did this) and a great deal of deserved outrage about the shootings.  Is it my imagination, or does the desert west of Phoenix harbor more gun-totin’, Saguaro-plugging, burro-murdering, gila-monster-kissing ignoramuses than necessary?

The discussion of whether feral animals like these should be in wilderness areas is not one I intend to engage in here — these issues are complex and I have no expertise (although I will say that the Federal Government allows cattle on these lands, and I can’t imagine cattle are gentler on the desert than a relatively small number of dainty-footed burros).  They certainly are part of the human history of the land, like a ghost town or an old stagecoach track, but of course, living.  What I do know is that I’m happy we saw this small family group of wild burros at home in this part of the desert.

Etymology

A bit of a stuffy etymological point unrelated to burros: although always used as a noun nowadays, the word ignoramus is actually a verb: in Latin it means “we do not know”.  So the proper plural really is ignoramuses, not ignorami, which is a “pseudo-learned blunder” (a favorite concept of mine — a common example of which is saying “pro-cess-eez” as if processes is a Latinate plural for process, incorrectly based on the thesis-theses model, which it isn’t: it’s just a plain old -es plural added to a noun that ends in a consonant.  You would never pluralize address by saying “ad-dress-eez”).

Here is the Hen today, sitting tight on her tiny cup nest built on two pine cones in our backyard Aleppo Pine.  She fills the whole opening like a cork, horizontally oriented.  Usually we see hummers either air-born or perched, in vertical orientation: it’s the horizontal arrangement, with her tail sticking out behind her and her back practically parallel to the ground, that makes her so Henlike.

She sits absolutely still for long stretches of time, with only the blink of her tiny eyelid to give away her presence.

I’ve been peeking up at the Hen infrequently, so as not to stress her with “eyeball pressure”.  She seems to be on-Nid most of the day.  I’ve tried a couple of times to catch her away from the nest, looking down on the Nid-bough from an upper bedroom window, to try to see eggs, but she’s always been there, strongly suggesting there are.  (The views from above are through a screen, so efforts at pictures from there have been unsatisfactory.)

Assuming she’s incubating now, and has been for a day or two — I’ll use 16 March as an estimated laying date — she will sit on her eggs with no help from the male for about 14 -19 days.  The young will fledge around the 23rd to the 26th day.  That would mean if the nest succeeds (and my calcuations are in the ballpark) the eggs should hatch around April 1, and the young will be in the nest for about another week after that.  That puts the Hen right at the peak of Anna’s breeding phenology according to the Arizona Breeding Bird Atlas, which shows nesting records for the species in the state peak around the start of the month, with a second shorter peak near the beginning of May.

While she’s incubating, an Anna’s female will leave the eggs periodically to feed, primarily on tiny insects like gnats, but fueled with nectar from flowers or sugar water feeders.  We’re keeping our feeders well-stocked and particularly clean (thanks, E!), with the first hot weather of the year.  The garden is more than doing its part, with hummer favorites like penstemon, aloes, desert lavender and above all, chuparosa all in peak bloom.

(Digiscoped photo A. Shock)

E and I managed to break away from work and gardening and the yard long enough to go out into the desert world, on a trail on the edge of Hell’s Canyon Wildernerss west of Phoenix.  It’s a real wilderness, but the trail we took merely skirts the proper wild stuff. It’s right next to the heavily used Lake Pleasant recreation area, so the hike is a combination of feeling like you’re Really Out There mixed with the occasional irritation of ORV engine-blarts or gunshots in the distance — plinking is a traditional pastime in this desert.  But we didn’t see anyone else on the trail all day, and once into the hike a bit, did achieve a sense of being away from others.

We went in search of wildflowers as well as a new hike experience, and although we anticipated the height of the ephemerals and hedgehog cactus bloom, there were plenty of flowers, birds, certain Feral Quadrupeds of Interest, and other things to look at.  And I was finding desert Chimaera combo-clumps everywhere — natural ones the desert plants themselves had arranged.  Here are some chimaeric photos (all photos A or E Shock):

Branching cholla cactus, pink fairy duster, hedgehog cactus

Barrel cactus and Jojoba

This last one is harder to see since it’s a subtle tangle of non-succulent foliage, so be sure to click on it to enlarge:

Wolfberry (bright green foliage); Jojoba (gray-green oval leaves); Fiddleneck (tiny yellow flowers unfurling like a fern frond)

Much building activity: as of today the Anna’s hummingbird hen in our Aleppo pine is still finessing her nid.  This morning, she could be seen bustling and fussing at the site (yes, I anthropomorphize, get over it please, I’m not an ornithologist!), making frequent trips away and to, coming back with light-colored fibers, some of which could be seen stuck to her beak in the morning sun.

Beautiful looks through the scope, but focus continues to be a challenge with the camera, as my digiscoping is low-tech (camera lens hand-held to scope eye-piece).  Above is a new shot from this morning.  It’s an action shot, with the downwards-pointed bill apparently in the act of applying fluffy material to the outside of the nest and smoothing it.  The nest is getting taller, and very slightly narrower.

To the left is a photo from this afternoon, where the Hen is screened through the needles at the top of the cones.  Again, click on the photo to enlarge it a little.  You can see her scattering of throat-spangles, which look black because the sun is on her other side.

She seems to be sitting tighter now than in the middle of the day.  Anna’s will sometimes lay before the nest is complete, or rather, continue improving the nest even as they are incubating.

(This photo is with a 250mm lens, not digiscoped, and focus seems a little easier, although obstructions like pine needles are still a bit of a problem for photography, clever nest concealment though they are).

More as it happens, or if I get better pics.

(All photos A. Shock)

We go from desert Gryphons to desert Chimaeras — of course, not real chimaeras, in either the mythological or the genetic sense.  I’m talking about planting desert perennials in clumps, so that with maturity comes an exciting mixed-plant combo that combats the tedious “Plug-a-plant” school of xeric landscaping we see so much of here in Phoenix and other desert cities.

Many yards and businesses suffer from this dull technique of desert landscaping: start with a flat space topdressed with gravel, plug in a desert perennial, like a Rain Sage (AKA Cenizo, Leucophyllum spp.) or Brittlebush (Encelia farinosa), then plug in another one 20 feet away, and another, and another, ad nauseum, like the last pieces on a chessboard chasing each other around.  Worse still, these tough plants are then often abused by being trimmed into lollipops or wonky cubes.  To my eyes, it’s a sterile and unnatural look that people latch onto for two simple reasons: it looks tidy, and it’s considered “easy-care.”  These are not bad things.  But what some would call “tidy” I would call “severe”.  And the “Plug-a-plant” plan isn’t really easy care: Because although the plants selected are often natives, both the space between them and the pruning-up of their foliage allows sunlight and heat to reach the soil and even the base of the plant, which means they usually require supplemental watering to thrive.

In the Real Desert, plants don’t grow that way: in all but the most parched deserts, plants clump, intertwining and growing up through each other.  That way, they shade each other’s roots, and provide sun-protection for young plants, and wind protection in an open landscape.  This is such an advantage that to some degree it outweighs the disadvantage of competition among close neighbors for resources like water and nutrients.  The classic example is a saguaro growing up under a “nurse tree” like a Palo Verde or Ironwood: the tree shelters the young cactus until it’s tough enough to survive the hot sun and drying wind on its own, when it comes up through the branches of the nurse tree.  Many desert cactus, like Graham’s Nipple Cactus (Mammillaria grahamii) struggle in the full sun of the low desert, and grow their entire lives under the eaves of perennials like bursage and brittlebush.

An excellent example of how nature and gardeners differ is where each grows the excellent Sonoran twiggy shrub Chuparosa (Justicia californica).  Once established, it’s a low-care plant used along highways and in yards and commercial plantings, usually planted alone in full sun and lightly irrigated, where it takes on a robust cage-like growth pattern of its green, photo-synthesizing stems that in season end with lots of small red, hummer-attracting tubular flowers.  Very nice.  So imagine my surprise when I first saw it growing in the wild on a hike in the McDowell Mountains: it was clambering up inside palo verdes, ocotillo, and other shrubs and trees almost like a vine with shaded roots, its stems growing upward to the sun and offering its blooms to pollinators several feet in the air, often inside the shady branches of its support plant.

Once I observed this, there was no going back: Chuparosas went in under many of our mesquite trees, and intertwined with ocotillo, wolfberry (Lycium spp.), Ruellia (R. peninsularis) and the Chihuahuan native, Woolly butterfly bush (Buddleyia marrubifolia), Pink fairy duster (Calliandra eriophylla) and even red Chuparosa with the yellow-blooming variety.  When everyone’s in bloom it’s a mosaic of color.  Here are some photos, taken just this week in our yard.  Be sure to click on each to enlarge.

Above left: blooming chuparosa, up a mesquite.  When the chup is young, it’s protected by the light shade of the mesquite, but it quickly grows up to the light, where it blooms.

Next, right: a Pink fairy duster, red chuparosa, and a non-native senna.

Left, a yellow variety of Chuparosa growing entwined with a Ruellia.

You can also plant plants next to one another so they grow like different-looking parts of the same plant.  Here’s a blooming Pink fairy duster twinned with a Triangle-leafed bursage, also in bloom so that it looks like a half-green-half-pink plant:

I suppose I would have to admit that, like plug-a-plant, this style of desert landscaping might not be to everyone’s taste, as it does give the impression of lots of rambling natives and spots of mixed color.  But allowing your plants to follow more natural growth-habits does have the advantage of cutting down on or even eliminating supplementary watering, and NO PRUNING except in cases of particularly rambunctious growers.

All photos A. Shock.

One bit of advice for desert gardeners: don’t forget to water newly transplanted plants for a couple or even three years, until they’re well established. Plants grown in nurseries for sale in containers are grown very wet, even desert varieties.  This can actually shorten their lives as it it can hasten them to bloom, and it also makes them water-needy in your garden. Even desert natives need extra water to make the transition from pots to landscape.  Seedlings are another story: consider growing desert natives from seed — they establish rapidly without much extra water, adjusting their size and growth rate to what’s availble to them naturally.  So don’t despair if your gallon-sized Penstemon only lasts one season — as long as it flowers, you’ll have drought-hardy seedlings next year.

Another tip for low-desert gardeners is regarding the ever-present Creosote bush, or “Greasewood” (Larrea tridentata).  It’s one of the toughest, most drought-hardy desert shrubs around (and smells great in the rain), but it’s got a chemical defense system that “discourages” (i.e. kills) some other plants, or inhibits seed germination.  (In fact, this plant is the exception that proves the rule: it’s got this defense to keep shade-sharing and water-sucking free-loaders away.)  So, if you’re planting under Creosotes, make sure you’re putting in creosote-tolerant species.  For instance, we’ve had luck with Christmas cholla (Cylindropuntia lepticaulus), but less luck getting Chuparosa started under creosote.

The Anna’s hummingbird hen is on the nest! This morning I saw her bringing small beakfuls of fluffy white material like spider web or some kind of aerial seeds and adding them. She would then settle in the cup of the nest, and wiggle a little, as if to get the shape perfect, and run her bill across the outer surface of the nest in what looked like a smoothing gesture.  Being a clever little hen, she’s chosen her site well — it’s hard to see from either above or below, but here is a picture, not well digiscoped but recognizable.

The tiny nest is built on the top of a pair of pinecones about ten feet off the ground.  Though the angle of the photo is from below, you can see the well-compacted mix of material packed onto the cones, with the hen’s little head and beak (pointing to the right) above it.

We have the scope set up a reasonable distance away from the spot on a walkway below the pine, and we can check on her throughout the day. We don’t know if she’s incubating yet, although as I mentioned, construction was still underway earlier today.  Stay tuned!

Photo by A. Shock.

Today I saw the First-of-Season Black-chinned hummingbird for our yard at the back door feeder.  It was a male, as the first birds always are.  He whirred in and made his characteristic little “chup-chup” feeding noise, pumping his longish tail and being generally tidy and well-defined in his gorget feathers, without moustaches.  Black-chinneds typically have longish, slightly-down-curved bills, a fairly flat crown, a sharp color difference between their breast and their chin (the lower edge of which flashes purple in the right light, but looks black otherwise), a graceful silhouette including a narrowish neck (compared to the no-necked Costa’s) and a distinctive s-shaped posture while drinking nectar.

“Black-chins” are breeding hummers here in the Phoenix area, but don’t stay year-round.  They’re with us from about now until late September or the beginning of October, when they return to their wintering grounds along the western coast of Mexico, north-central Mexican highlands or the Gulf Coast of the US.

In other yard hummer news, yesterday E found a female Anna’s building a nest on top of a pinecone cluster in the big Aleppo pine in the backyard.  It’s in the same general area we’ve seen Anna’s nest before in previous years, so it’s either the same bird re-nesting in a favorite area, or just a good place in the tree for Anna’s to build.   This branch has a mixed record of nesting success in the past: one Anna’s nest successfully hatched two fledgelings, but the most recent attempt was destroyed by a predator, perhaps a rat. We’ll try to get pictures and post progress.

The photo above is a male Black-chinned hummer from Wikimedia Commons.  The detail on this photo is excellent; be sure to click on it to enlarge!

On the way home from San Diego Audubon Bird Festival, E and I stopped at a location near the Salton Sea where Gryphons are known to snore and slumber.

Gryphons, in this case, are geothermal features: modest but surprising cones built up by mud pots burbling out of the flat salty floor of the agricultural land around the Salton Sea.  This gyphon patch is officially known as the Davis-Schrimpf Seep Field, and is in the midst of a geothermally active area sprinkled with power plants that harvest energy from spots where warm gases rise up through cracks from deep underground, heating the salty water and liquefied clays they percolate through.  The gryphons lie sleepily in a field at the corner of two agricultural roads, some with briny pools of their own, tinted by hardy algae in red and green and orange, and others dry humps rising from the salty, cracked dirt.

For our trip we were lucky: though the ground had been wet recently, it was dry now, and we could approach the drowsy gryphons without sinking too deep. Some growled and burbled from deep inside without disgorging their liquid contents, while others sputtered and bubbled brownish gray mud, sometimes thin like a melted malt, sometimes almost thick as pudding.  Even in the brisk wind that blew, a slightly sulphurous and organic smell could be detected.  E wished to sample the waters, and I was the lackey, scooping up clays and biofilms into Falcon tubes, prepped for biological sampling.  My hi-tech tools were a narrow stainless steel spatula and a lighter with a  WWF wrestler on it, so it was work I could be trained to do.  (Although having made that claim, I should add that the wind made using the cheap lighter difficult, and I actually worked up a blister firing it over and over to flash off the sterilizing ethanol between samples.)

Meanwhile, E handled the serious equipment for testing pH and conductivity of the pools (several times reading “over range”, since the water is a few times saltier than seawater), and a couple of hours passed while we collected data and samples, trying not to let papers and zip-bags blow into the pools in between.  Clumps of visitors, locals and their friends, mostly, but others from farther places like Canada, came and went, asking questions about what caused the mudpots, what we were measuring, and if it was safe to walk around.  Some folks climbed right to the top of active gryphons, unconcerned about their own safety or the condition of the formations.  So far, this area is unprotected, and visitors have been fairly good about being careful.  For now, the only marks people had left were footprints, and a few unwise vehicle tracks.  As long as that’s the case, the gryphons will probably remain unfenced, regally accepting conscientious company into their realm.

Late post (Sunday 8 March 2009):

Hello from San Diego, where today is the last day of the San Diego Audubon Bird Festival.  Things have been busy here, and I haven’t had a chance to post until now.  The Festival is at the Marina Conference Center right on Mission Bay — here’s a shot of the Three Star Owl booth.  It’s nice to be in a room with windows and a view.  So many facilities are completely interior and have things like accordion walls with scotch tape holding up a leftover honeycomb wedding bell that was too high for the cleanup crew to reach.  This room is wood-panelled and bright, and looks out onto a marina.  Nice!

E was able to come along and help, which is a treat because then each of us had an opportunity to go on a field trip.  He’s doing a San Diego River outing as I write this, and yesterday I joined a pelagic trip out to the Islas Coronadas, a small grouping of islands in Mexican water within sight of San Diego.  The room is still swaying a bit this morning, although by Pacific standards the seas weren’t rough. My little camera doesn’t do distant birds well, so I don’t have a picture of what was for me the highlight of the trip, several pairs of small alcids (a type of sea bird) called Xantus’s murrelets, which, although we had great looks, would never be more than little black and white blobs bobbing on the waves in my photos.  There were many excellent sea birds to be seen, but also mammals, including close looks at Gray Whales migrating north, and four species of dolphins: Risso’s, Common, Pacific white-sided and Bottlenosed, who larked under the bows, close enough so that we could hear them exhale when they surfaced. Above is a photo of something my camera can handle — a California sea lion beach-master with his harem.

In case you’re a non-birder, and don’t know what birders do at bird festivals, the main events are organized field trips to local hot-spots, led by experts, to look at birds.  The exhibit room has exhibitors like state Fish & Game people or the American Birding Association giving out info, and vendors with bird and nature related supplies, photos, and art for sale (like Three Star Owl).  Optics manufacturers have reps there, so that attendees can check out scopes and binox.  Occasionally impromptu viewings break out, such as when a Merlin was spotted atop a mast in the Marina, and the line of demo scopes was commandeered for viewing.  Pretty heady times!

Stay tuned: on the way home E and I stopped at the Mud Volcano site on the Salton Sea for a spot of sampling and marvelling at gloopy mud-blorping “gryphons”.