…she’s Queen B in the Fiery Jungle.

(B in the Grass, watercolor 7×10″ A. Shock 2009)

The Eurasian Collared Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) has an agenda well-befitting a Columbid: “Must Colonize New World.”

Actually, it started before that, and a lot farther east: a native of central Asia, the Collared Dove had populated Europe as far west as Great Britain by the 1950s.  By the early ’80s, a population had taken hold in Florida, likely coming from the Bahamas where they also had been introduced (or escaped captivity) in the 1970s. From there, the large doves filled the southeastern US, and have been spreading inexorably west and north.  The first documented report of the species in the state of Arizona was in Eager, AZ, on March 6, 2000, and they were regularly sighted in Maricopa County by the end of the same year.

As mentioned in a previous post, they’re quite similar to the African Collared Dove (which used to be called the Ringed Turtle Dove), but they’re bigger, and a darker beige, and have different vocalizations.  In the Phoenix area and over much of Arizona, Eurasian Collared Doves have become quite numerous — on some days I would ungenerously call them a pest in our yard — and a few theories exist as to why they’ve spread so rapidly.  One is that they fill a niche left empty by the extinction of the Passenger Pigeon  (Perhaps in the Northeast U.S., but I’m not so sure that applies to the desert regions?).

Like the African Collared Doves, they show a disturbing willingness to become tame, and quickly learn  to fly down to empty feeders when they see someone coming out with a bag of birdseed.  I’ve caught them lurking on top of my studio — their toenails clicking on the roof, their pink foot skin glowing hazily through the translucent plexi panels — as if lobbying for the filling of neglected feeders in a kind of inexorable zombie-like way.  They’re hard to miss since their arrival is a dry noisy wing flapping, the thump of a hard landing of a big heavily-wingloaded airship, and the inevitable repetitive hoo-ing and gibbering that follows.

(Images: pencil sketchbook drawing and photo by A.Shock)

…he is Hector Roi:

“Hector Roi” watercolor and colored pencil, 7×10″ by A. Shock 2009

Raccoon recount

Also, on an unrelated but more naturalistic topic, a reassessment of the local raccoon population has been necessary.  The night after the Hair Hen post, mama raccoon showed up with FOUR kits.  It was clear that this could not be yet another litter, and also that there were not two Hairhens: it was one female who was bringing out cubs one or two at a time, as they became ready to join her nightly foragings.  So, as it stands now, the count is ONE hairhen and FOUR kits.  Last night they were preening and nipping each other in the fork of the big Palo Verde, making endearing snarling sounds.  Too dark for photos, unfortunately.

This is the Hair Hen.  Actually, there are two; we call them both the Hair Hen because we used to not be able to tell them apart.  Now we can: one has two kits, the other has three.

This is a picture of the three-kit Hair Hen.  She lives under the Mexican Fan Palm in the back yard, where she spends much of the day.  She talks to the kits and keeps them in line with a soft churring purry noise, so we know they’re there even when we can’t see them in the deep thicket of thorny fronds and shaggy trunks.

We’ve been seeing the two-kit hairhen and her brood, but this evening our neighbors called and alerted us to the three-kit hairhen: the furry family was headed our way.  Sure enough, a minute later they were strolling along the pool deck, learning how to drink from the pool by putting their paws on the plaster under the tile and leaning way over.  (Hey! be careful — no lifeguard on duty…)

This may or may not be the same hairhen who threw three kits last season; we can’t know for sure.  (If she is the same one, she now has a chip in the tip of her right ear).

How many raccoons is too many?

(Photos A. Shock)

For a few days I’ve been whiffing a whiff, which has caused me to search for the dead mouse in my studio.

Then, I noticed the Hoodia is blooming.  It sits on the shelves right outside the work tables.  That window is always open, being the draw-source for the swamp cooler air.  So the stinkitude of the big radar-shaped flowers was being propelled directly into my work area.  Here’s a picture of the offending vegetable; you can see glaze bottles and a banding wheel through the glass behind it.

The genus Hoodia is comprised of cactus-like stem-succulents whose flowers are pollinated by flies.  To attract flies, it is desirable to smell like carrion.  So like their cousins Huernias and Stapelias, Hoodias put out flat flowers the color of puffy, pus-streaked dead flesh with a blood-dark target center.  They smell convincingly of rotting meat, especially in warm weather.

Does it work?  Yes; there are a number of flies buzzing inquisitively around the plant all day.  And — is it possible? — this morning as I was hanging out laundry to dry, there was a turkey vulture circling low, right over the studio perhaps aiming its pervious nostril at our garden…

This specimen blooms heavily around the middle of June every year, as long as it gets enough water in the growing season.  It is labeled Hoodia gordonii, of appetite suppressant fame, it having been observed by ethno-anthropologists that the indigenous people of the Namib use Hoodia to relieve hunger.  Hoodia are not cactus at all, but members of the subfamily Asclepiadoideae, and so are related to milkweed.

(Photos A.Shock)