I’ve just returned from a visit to the parental home in coastal Orange County California, where my mother still lives. The house is walking distance from the beach — all during the Labor Day weekend, we could smell the beach fires and hear the engines of small planes dragging ad banners low along the coast. When I was a kid, the beach was where we went to “lay out” or body surf. Now, I’m more likely to head to the Bolsa Chica Ecological Preserve, also within a short walk, to look at birds. One of the last remaining wetlands in southern California, Bolsa Chica has been a battle ground for decades between developers, politicians, environmentalists, and citizens.

Though its current state is more stable than it was, it’s hard to believe the struggle is over, since the Preserve is still being hemmed in by huge showy homes looking down onto it from the bluffs on one side and clanking, chugging oil rigs on the other. But in between is a haven well-known to birds and birders, as well as families and walkers with (forbidden) dogs. The Preserve is in a constant state of change, not only from natural phenomena like tides and the weather, but also man-made: fairly recently a channel was constructed to open the water of the Preserve to the sea — a re-engineering of its natural daily access to fresh ocean water, instead of a sluggish exchange of greasy harbor water that worked its way through local marina channels. Observers are still evaluating the effects of this. But the terns and Black skimmers still nest on the sandy island, endangered snowy plovers have nesting areas safe from foot traffic and vehicles, and the endangered Belding’s race of the Savannah sparrow is sometimes ridiculously easy to see in the pickleweed. Small numbers of Least terns, also endangered, are harder to pick out from among the clouds of larger, skrekking Caspian, Elegant and Forster’s terns. Winter will bring ducks and grebes, and now in late summer, the shorebirds are returning, some, like a few of the dowitchers, still sporting shreds of buffy breeding plumage fresh from their arctic breeding grounds.

As havens often do, Bolsa Chica has attracted unexpected residents. For a couple of years now, birders have been watching a small number of Reddish egrets in the tidal flats — two that I know of — a species that is normally found in warmer regions. On the Bolsa Chica Conservancy‘s online bird list, the Reddish egrets rate only an “X” for “accidental”. They seem to know exactly what they’re doing, however, with their active foraging dance in which they dart and hop, holding their wings above their head, snaking their long necks forward to snatch at small fish and invertebrates from the water at their feet. You’d expect to see these guys in Louisiana, or Mexico. But here they are doing what they do like they belong here, being spied upon by scopes and long lenses, among the resident Snowy and Great egrets and Great blue herons. Like immigrants everywhere, they are sometimes subject to competitive pecks and unwelcoming charges by the locals, in the form of irritable Great Blues whose personal space is compromised.

All of Southern California has a reputation for harboring incomers from other places. The Reddish egrets are only one example. Another, new to me as a non-resident, but apparently known to local fishermen and living here for a while, are Green Sea Turtles. A news story over the Labor Day weekend was the first I’ve heard of this: a Green sea turtle was rescued from where it was trapped in a dishcarge channel in the Haynes Generating Station on the grubby and channelized San Gabriel River. Check out the excellent LA Times article for the full fascinating story, but apparently there is a handful of these big turtles living at least part of their lives in the warm waters a short distance upstream from where the San Gabriel empties into the Pacific at the border of LA and Orange Counties. Even more remarkable is that there is a large colony of these animals living in San Diego. This group numbers at least a hundred and, according to researchers, is headed up by a 570-pound matriarch they call “Wrinklebutt.” The theory is that the San Gabriel River turtle group is an outpost of Wrinklebutt’s colony. It makes them the northernmost known foraging population of Green Sea turtles in North America.

This coastal visit is well-timed for me artistically, bringing an influx of fresh ocean species, just at a time when I’m beginning work on pieces for the San Diego Bird Festival next March. So soon skimmers and terns and sea turtles will be migrating into Three Star Owl imagery, joining the desert species dwelling there already. And, maybe when I’m in San Diego, I’ll try to see Wrinklebutt and her cohorts.

About horned lizards

Though sometimes called “horny toads” these reptiles are not toads at all but flat, round lizards which inhabit dry open areas of the western US and Mexico. They are especially well-armored with keeled scales, knobs, and yes, horns, making them look like little dragons. But they feel surprisingly soft when you pick one up, not unlike a beaded purse. (The grumpy-looking guy in the photo below is a Greater short-horned lizard E and I found trying to bask on a cloudy day on a ponderosa log on a backpacking trip in the Gila Wilderness of western New Mexico.)

Failing camouflage and flight, their ultimate defense from harassment is to shoot blood from their eyes. This isn’t an old wives’ tale like bats getting snarled in long hair — they really do it. It works pretty well, often startling the lizard’s captor into dropping it.

Horned lizards favor ants, especially of the genus Pogonomyrmex, Harvester ants, which comprise a generous portion of their food intake.

Most horned lizards lay eggs, but species like Short-horned which live at higher altitudes where the breeding season is too short to incubate eggs, give birth to live young — from 5 to 48 at a time!

These amazing animals have a specialized solar receptor under a clear scale on the top of the head. It’s called the pineal gland, and it’s linked directly to the brain. Although its function is not fully understood, it plays a role in the regulation of body temperature. The pineal gland has many features similar to the structure of an eye, though it is not linked to the optic nerve. Look for the small pineal gland on a Three Star Owl horned lizard bowl, indicated subtly on the top of the skull between the eyes.

Herpetologists currently recognize 13 species of Horned lizards, 8 in the US and 5 in Mexico.

My favorite horned lizard resource is the book Introduction to horned lizards of North America, by Wade E. Sherbrooke, UC Press 2003.

Horned lizard bowls from Allison Shock and Three Star Owl

I’m currently making horned lizard bowls representing two species, both native to Arizona and other parts of the Southwest: Short-horned lizards and Regal horned lizards. You can tell them apart by their horn configuration: Regals have an even corona of ten longish horns on the back of their skull, and Short-horns have 6 very short horns divided by a deep notch.

Both eat ants, so I depict Harvester ants in their bellies. The Short-horned is a live-bearer, so some have young lizards shown inside.

These bowls are handmade from stoneware, and fired to cone 5. Each bowl is different, and each scale is done individually by hand, as is the slip-painting in their bellies. There is no glaze on these pieces, but the mineral-pigmented slips are fired in place, and are indelible. Because of the lack of glaze, I don’t recommend them for frequent food use, or storing liquids. Primarily they are meant to be gazed at adoringly. Click here to see a picture of Horned lizard bowls on threestarowl.com.

Earlier this year, Sky Island Alliance presented their second annual Citizen Awards to people and businesses who have shown distinction in achievement, support or activism in the international environmental arena of the embattled Sonoran ecosystem. Instead of traditional trophies, SIA commissioned custom handmade plaques from Three Star Owl to honor the recipients. Each one was personalized with native species chosen for each recipient according to their field, interest, or accomplishment. Below are: Ray Carroll with Elegant trogon, Summit Hut representative with Coati, Sherry Barrett with Desert tortoise, Sergio Avila (SIA wildlife biologist), Carlos Robles and Martha Felix de Robles with Ocelot in an oak, and David Parsons with Mexican gray wolf.

The awards were thick stoneware tiles, modeled and carved in low relief and finished in mineral oxides and glazes. The project was a pleasure for me to work on for many reasons, not least because the species selected were ones I’ve been fortunate enough to see in the wild. And I was proud to have been part of the process of recognizing people making a difference in a critical effort. I hope to work with Sky Island Alliance again in the future. (My thanks to Shiloh Walkosak for finding me, everyone at SIA, and to Jessica Lamberton and Sergio Avila of SIA for sending photos.)

On the left is a green limestone cylinder seal and the impression it leaves in wet clay. Six thousand years ago, it hung around the neck of a Mesopotamian scribe or businessman. Now it’s now in the Louvre and despite a nasty crack you can see lovely stout beeves in a wheat field marching around it, very pastoral and comfy. This kind of seal was used all over the ancient Near East (what we now know as Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and other countries in the eastern Mediterranean and western Asia) to authenticate inventories and letters written on clay tablets, clay sealings on rooms, jars and parcels, bricks, and anything else needing a stamp of approval or ownership. A combination of archaic in material and modern in use, cylinder seals were the stone rubber stamp of their day, highly portable and personalized.

Clay’s property of taking detailed impressions when moist hasn’t changed over the millenia and potters, now as then, take advantage of it. Many Three Star Owl pieces, like Beastie Ware, are textured with cylinders I’ve carved in clay and then fired, giving me a way to pattern the clay just as distinct and personal as fingerprints.

The rattlers below get lots of use in making “Crotalus” items, like this oval jar with a roadrunner on the lid.

For etymology enthusiasts: Crotalus, a genus of North American pit vipers including many of our familiar rattlers, is derived from Greek krotalon (το κροταλον), a type of rattle or castanets held in the fingertips. They were used particularly by revelers of Dionysus, making the apt connection with rattlers both for their sound and their cthonic origins. Incidentally, I’ve read that Arizona has more species of rattlesnakes than any other US state.

Thanks to Ed Bustya Nature Photographer and Web Dude extraordinaire, Three Star Owl is careening into the present with this fine site. Although right now I feel like Mr Toad on his Wild Ride, soon there will be a way for visitors to view and even shop for Three Star Owl clay items. So, welcome, and enjoy! And, Honk if you love Owls…

…and is mildly miffed.