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The Week in Review: the last monsoon event?

Earlier in the week we had a storm — technically outside the officially designated monsoon season — and it was a colorful one.  Our microcosm of Phoenix received about a half inch of technicolor rain in a very short time, without the wind and hail that the same towering clouds dropped on neighbors less than three miles to the east.  The storm brought amazing sunset skies, migrants, optimistic amphibians, and flowers to our yard.  (All photos E.Shock.)

Shortly after these clouds moved over the metro area, the dark skies split, pumping rain and lightning into the creosote-scented night air.

The next morning, we found an excellent red dragonfly drying its wings on barbed wire, “our” spadefoot wound up in the pool again along with the rest of the storm debris, awaiting rescue, and the Herrerrae barrel cactus’s crown of fragrant yellow and red blooms were saturated with color.  The architecturally precise buds tautly await their turn in the vortex of the flower crown — the easier-going little lemony pine-apples slouching around the edge are last year’s fruits, waiting to split open and disgorge their seeds, or be plucked and carried off by an herbivore, and left elsewhere to start a new barrel.

With luck, cactus and wildflower seeds all over the desert will be soaking up the fall moisture, preparing themselves for next spring’s blooming.

(Don’t forget to click to enlarge)

And it goes on…

It always makes me happy to see infant animals in the yard; it means the world is rolling along, as it should, species replenishing themselves and the natural systems functioning. This is why people love seeing babies — it gives the same satisfaction: that the world is carrying on as usual, despite everything, and because of everything. I feel it when seeing tiny cottontails hidden out in the open in their form, hatchling praying mantids swarming out of their bread-loaf egg-case, nest-cached hummingbirds waiting for mother to dispense nectar-and-gnat soup, even young raccoons trundling behind their mother, wreaking havoc in the yard, and young serpents making their way on the soil, searching for prey something the girth of a pencil can handle.


Pituophis catenifer affinis, the Sonoran Gophersnake (Photo A.Shock)

In the warm desert, a lot of this new life begins in fall, our functional second spring: ahead is the cool weather with its longer nights for foraging, the scorching hot temperatures are behind us. Monsoon is winding down too, a time when the intermittent deluges of late summer storms kick-start the food web after the stingy, dry weeks of early summer. This moisture encourages hatching and births, vegetation sprouts everywhere, and arthropod and rodent pray abounds, generously giving hungry young animals a solid start.

Yesterday, it was young lizards: the herb and vegetable garden we planted this year with its slightly raised-bed construction, bounded by hollow cinder blocks and stocked with minute invertebrate-rich compost, has proven to be a successful nursery for both Tiger whiptails and Ornate tree lizards. While watering, I watched three young tree lizards simultaneously hunting ants and other tiny prey: they would dash forward, whip out their tongue, swallow, and then slowly, sinuously wave their tails back in forth in an undulating movement — a slow-motion lash — that just looked like someone rubbing their hands in self-satisfaction. Each lizlet was only 2 inches long. A young whiptail, larger by species, but still young — its long tail was still faintly electric blue — was also puttering around in the vicinity, taking advantage of my shadow to hang out in the coolness of some overflow water from the beds.

This morning it was the young Gopher snake (above), about a foot long, but only as big around as a finger. Gophers are common in our yard, but I always admire how their yellow and chocolate pattern shifts subtly from head to tail, from yellow-on-brown to brown-on-yellow. You can’t tell where the change-over happens, but the tail is positively different from the head.

<< The change-over zone (Photo A.Shock)

Unfortunately, this beautiful pattern is the reason so many gopher snakes are killed by fearful people: it’s reminiscent of the diamond-pattern on rattlesnakes. Gophers (or bull snakes) are especially welcome here as efficient rodent predators; our part of the Phoenix area has been plagued with roof-rats for a decade or so.

This young’un in the photo above saw me before I saw it, and hid its head under an orange leaf, leaving the full length of its boldly patterned body out in the open. Here it is, sneaking slowly away in the hopes the looming predator (me) doesn’t notice.

Further fun with spadefoot

Saturday night in our yard, a Couch’s spadefoot emerged after a substantial monsoon event, and used our swimming pool as his stage to advertise his availability to females, and sovereignty to other male spadefoots.  (See previous post.)

<< Spadefoot in the pool net, after exciting dawnzerlylight rescue orchestrated with dramatic Great horned owl background music (photo A.Shock).  Look at those eyes — better than dichroic glass!

Swimming pools are not terribly good for wildlife.  Wonky chemistry + steep sides = unfriendly locale.  At two in the morning, however, I was not able to fish out the wary spadefoot, who fled to the bottom every time I approached with the soft mesh pool skimmer to rescue him.  Eventually he swam right to the very deepest depths of the deep end, where even the long-handled skimmer pole could not not reach.

So, I assembled an impromptu spadefoot ramp.  Mr. Spadefootdude had been calling consistently from one spot at the edge tiles of the shallow end, so rustling up a four-foot one-by-ten and some bricks, I put the structure there in the hopes he’d return to his stage after I’d gone away, and climb out if he wished.

<<  Spadefoot ramp.  Like purpose-made cat toy, not used by spadefoot.

Sunday morning, I got up at dawn to check on his progress.  After the rain it was cool enough to shut down the AC and open doors and windows, so the Great horned owls duetting from the alley phone pole had awakened me anyway.  These were very late hours for them, as the sky was lightening, and the Brown crested flycatchers and Abert’s towhees were already up, brrting and chnking.  Sure enough, the spadefoot was still in the pool, strongly kicking along the bottom of the deepest part with its sturdy legs.

By now I was more awake (and more coordinated), so using both the pool brush and the skimmer, I managed to gather the spadefoot gently in the net and lift him up to the surface.  He paused for the photo portrait above, then competently took himself off hopping, to find a sheltered hiding spot for the day.

If you are wondering why the word “toad” doesn’t appear in these spadefoot posts, it’s because, toadly as they look, spadefoots are not true toads.  On the basis of structural differences, they have been assigned their own family, Pelobatidae, which means spadefoot in Greek.  More info here.

Coincidentally during that very spadefoot night I’d done a smoke firing, and in the bin were two batrachian images, frogs to be sure (prominent tympanum instead of parotoid gland), but still in the ballpark.

<<  Here’s one of the whistles, very Couchy. They’ll be offered at Southwest Wings Birding and Nature Festival in Sierra Vista next week (object and photo A.Shock).

I hope the spadefoot doesn’t make a return appearance on his watery stage tonight; I might not hear him again, if the windows are closed.  I guess that toadramp will be staying in place a little longer.  “wraaaaaaah”

Words cannot describe the excitement…

…of finding a spadefoot in the yard!

A few minutes ago — just before one a.m. — I was awakened by a sound I haven’t heard in our yard or in our neighborhood for years: a loud bleating croak, with the slightly rising tone and resonance I can only describe as being like the noise a wet rubber boot would make slowly squelching against another wet rubber surface, like an inflatable raft.  “wraaaaaaah”   “wraaaaaaah”   “wraaaaaaah”  It was the advertising call of a male Couch’s spadefoot.

Couch’s spadefoot (Scaphiopus couchii, photo by A.Shock), having taken refuge at the very bottom of the pool, after I rudely interrupted his advertising song in the middle of the night by shining a flashlight on him, and looking at him.  >>

Our very own spadefoot!  This is exciting because, as I said, we haven’t had them in years.  I figured they were extirpated from around here, so when my friend Kathy, who has them, well… in spades in her north Scottsdale yard, offered me a mort o’ spadefootlets, I jumped at the chance.  I fed them up in a terrarium (a task made more difficult for being necessary during a nationwide retail cricket shortage) and released them in the yard.  After that, there hasn’t been a word from the spadefoots (spadefeet?).  Not a peep, not a croak, not a sighting, nothing.  Mind you, this release was two years ago, in September 2008.  (I blogged the event here.)  I figured they hadn’t “taken.”

Last summer’s monsoon was a pretty weak one in these parts; maybe the spadefeet didn’t get what they needed.  But this afternoon we had about six tenths of an inch of rain in just over half an hour.  The wash in the yard ran; I had to do some engineering to keep water out of the studio (at least from the ground up; water always comes into the studio from the top down).  Anyway, as much as we need the rain, and as cool and lovely as a windless monsoon event makes the desert air, I was not feeling fully friendly toward our wet weather.  Until it brought out a spadefoot!  I’m hoping there are others out there, females, with luck, and we can get a spadefoot thing goin’ on again in the joint.

(Now to get him out of the pool, which can’t be good for him, chemically; plus, he can’t get out by himself, so he’s a sitting duck for the raccoons, which have been marauding recently, mama and two kits.  Poor dude, he’s just lookin’ for love…)

An interim Spot the Bird…

…without a bird.  Not that there isn’t something to spot. And it is spotted.  Also, toes are pretty much always a giveaway. (Photo A.Shock; click to enlarge for easy viewing)

This is an “interim” Spot the Bird because about a third of our photos from our Mojave camping trip are locked onto a recalcitrant memory card.  The jpegs are intact — we can view them when the card is in the camera — but communication between the card and our computers is currently at a standstill.  There are images I’d like to share (like the one of The Boss in Her Office), but until we pry them free, there are other things to look at such as the image above: the hindquarters of a Canyon Tree Frog blending in with Aravaipa Creek bed gravel. Oops, I gave it away.

Posted by Allison on Jun 10th 2010 | Filed in close in,natural history,reptiles and amphibians,spot the bird | Comments (1)

Rock-watching in the wind

A few days ago, we drove far out into sage-covered lava rocks to check out some hot springs on the east side of the Sierra Nevada.  After walking to the top of the hill, walking around the next hill and between two other hills, seeing what birds were around and about, and while E was nearby doing Science in Hot Water, I felt I’d had enough wind — since we were above 7000′ feet, it was a cold wind — so I sheltered in the cab of the truck.

The rock I watched >>

If this seems like a nature-phobic sort of thing to do, let me recommend it: a vehicle makes a wonderful blind, great for observing otherwise human-wary wildlife.  I watched a Wilson’s warbler, a sweet scrap of yellow with a smart black cap, struggle in the gusts from one juniper tree to another right in front of the hood; an Audubon’s warbler, too, was getting buffeted about in the same nearby trees. And, next to the truck was this large Rock (top photo).  I studied it, thinking about making a sketch.

<< Ground squirrel and spiny lizard (far right edge of rock)

It was clear that this rock had been heavily used — most obviously by people, who’d built fires under it, but also by plants who’d sprouted in its cracks, lichens crusting its surfaces, and by animals, who were sunning themselves on it. Although I never made a sketch, I was able to watch and photo a series of species — seven in all, ultimately, although I only could photo five — as they used this rock as viewpoint, shelter, sunning place, food storage or source. (All photos A.Shock; be sure to click on each image to enlarge for better viewing.)

Birds landed on it briefly, including the Wilson’s warbler, and a vivid Western tanager male.

<< male Western tanager on the Rock

Being hydrothermally altered (so I’m assured by E), it was porous and full of useful cracks and refuges.  A small movement caught my eye, and in the darkest crack in the darkest center of the sooty overhang, a Piñon deermouse had packed the crevice with soft needles and moss, and was turning this way and that in its snug, sheltered nest, running tiny paws over its big ears.

<< Piñon deermouse in crevice nest in the Rock

Best yet, I happened to look over at the upper dark hole in the rock just in time to see this little face peering out, checking on how things were in the middle of the day.  It’s a Long-tailed weasel, a native here (unlike in New Zealand), but still an active and industrious predator.  I was alarmed when the ground squirrel above made a short trip into the very hole the weasel had just gone back inside.  But there was no disaster, and the squirrel came right back out again, presumably with all its parts, and with no dramatic nature-show confrontation music to mark the event.

Long-tailed weasel outside its hole in the Rock >>

The seventh species I observed on the Rock was Homo sapiens.  It was one of the two dudes that came by in a battered Isuzu Trooper (like the one I drove for years).  Although I didn’t get a picture of him up on the top of the Rock, we were particularly glad to see this human being: something you won’t often hear me say.  The reason he was a fine sight on this backcountry, rocky road?  That’s another story.  I won’t tell it here, except to say that it involved jumper cables…

Mohave patch-nosed snake…

…was a “life snake” for us, meaning we’d never seen one before we stopped to photo this graceful specimen crossing the road on the way to Titus Canyon on the east side of Death Valley.

The Mohave patch-nosed snake (Salvadora hexalepis mojavensis) is a diurnal generalist, with good eyesight and quick reflexes; this one was sunning itself on the rocky dirt road on a east-facing hill.  We kept our distance, but moved closer after we’d photo’d it, so it moved off the road to safety.  (Photos A.Shock)

Be sure to click on the close-up to enlarge it, so you can see the big rostral scale on the nose-tip of this burrowing, non-venomous snake.  There’s even a little bit of grit still sprinkling its broad head-plates.

Posted by Allison on May 25th 2010 | Filed in close in,field trips,natural history,reptiles and amphibians | Comments (4)

Lichen with legs

Yesterday was a rich day; with all sensory input oddly and schizophrenically split between very early and very late.  The day ended after midnight with a fun and funky evening at the CD drop party for the Groove Noodles, a friend’s band.  But it started before dawn in the outdoors, on Queen Creek and in Devil’s Canyon, a rock-girt desert riparian corridor east of Phoenix.  E and I were part of a team censusing birds in Pinal County for North American Migration Count.  There were great birds — including 7 species of warbler, both passing through and staying to breed, as well as orioles, and tanagers.  But one of my favorite sightings of the day was this Canyon tree frog (Hyla arenicolor) hopping up a nearly vertical rock wall, as we too were rock-hopping up and down the trail-less creek bed, which still contained large pools and slow flow.  We had to rely on our hiking boots to stick us to the water-smooth cobbles, but the frog has large suction discs on the ends of its digits, visible even at a distance (top photo).  It looks as much like a spot of gray lichen as possible, until it moves.  It also has delightfully colorful markings in lichen green and orange on its under-belly and under-thighs, which you can see better in this photo to the left <<.  I’m thinking the rotunditude of this particular frog may mean she’s a gravid (egg-filled) female.

Canyon treefrogs are, as I’ve stated before, “quite a toadly frog.”

(Photos E.Shock.)


Posted by Allison on May 9th 2010 | Filed in birding,close in,field trips,natural history,reptiles and amphibians | Comments (1)

Nudging clay horned lizards along

A while back, I posted about my process for making horned lizard bowls (affectionately known as Horny toads) from clay.  Here are the next few steps, all shown in one photo, below.

To the right is a now completely assembled and textured horned lizard, in the leather hard stage, drying.  In the center is a bone dry and partially tinted lizard — note that the clay is now a lighter buff.  I use a sponge and mute slip colors to give the textured skin a mottled appearance, like a horned lizard’s camo-flecked pelt.  (You may remember that slip is a paint-like water and clay mixture with mineral oxides and stains added.)   The colors, which look very contrasty and unnatural at this point, will calm down and become more subtle during firing.  Normally, adding slip is done no later than the leather hard stage to avoid flaking, but the refined slips I use have no problems hanging on.  On the left is a completed horned lizard awaiting its first, or bisque, firing. I’ve added the ants with a very fine brush (a 00 squirrel liner), also in slips.  This is a touchy job: the fine work requires a fairly long process of painting delicate lines — the more ants, the longer the work time — and a lot of handling of a bone dry piece with pointy sticky-outy bits.  If you’ve worked with clay you know that this bone-dry phase (where all the liquid water has evaporated from the clay body) is when a piece is at its most fragile.  On top of that, if something like a horn, a toe or a leg snaps off, it is difficult or even impossible to reattach it trustworthily.  Not that… ahem… that ever happens, or if it did I would admit it… These guys, Regal Horned Lizards, have 10 coronal horns, and so I have to be careful while “anting” them.

<< A favorite teeshirt of E‘s, a mimbres horned lizard design.  Nice depiction of the lateral spiny scales along its flanks.

A note on the ants.  They are Pogonomyrmex, a genus of harvester ants, called Pogos for short, understandably.  These are the guys you see issuing forth from their nests, with every seed and scrap of vegetation gleaned clean to the grit for a 5 meter radius around the entrance.  They have a potent and painful bite, but despite that, they are Horned lizards’ most favoritest thing to eat.  It’s tough to capture their essence in a sludgy, opaque medium like clay slip, because they’re waxy like tropical fruit: sort of clear but satiny, too.  I can get close to the effect by depicting them with highlights in white on their red bodies.

Pogonomyrmex ants photographed at Kartchner Caverns State Park (A.Shock)   >>

They’re extraordinary animals: physically very strong, and focused in their social pursuits, with big bolster-like heads (which appear to be larger than their abdomens) sporting impressive grasping mouthparts you would have no trouble seeing with your naked eye, if you got close enough.  Or, you can just click on the photo above — which I call Pogos Agogo — and look at the solitary ant to the lower left.

If you love excellent up-your-nose close-up photos of ants (and who doesn’t?) check out the site of Alex Wild, myrmecologist, or studier of ants.  Better still click here to see his photos of Pogo ants in particular, to get a much better view of the fearsome mouthparts than in my photo above.

Etymological side-bar. In Homer’s Iliad, Achilles’ posse were the Myrmidons. μύρμηξ, myrmex, is ant in Greek.

You can see finished horned lizard bowls in the Three Star Owl Shop.

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