This was weird, and sad for sure.

In previous posts, I’ve mentioned the unfortunate similarity of our swimming pool to the LaBrea Tarpits.  Especially in the summer months when there are lots of inexperienced young animals out and about, we often have to carry out water rescues.  Since my studio is at home and looks onto the pool, this is often in the nick of time: desert cottontails, house sparrow fledglings, tiger whiptails, european honeybees, beetles, moths, sunspiders, and even the occasional “cowkiller” (AKA velvet ant) have all been successfully fished out to live another day.

Unfortunately, not everything that takes the inadvertent plunge is so lucky, and daytime critters often fare better than nocturnal ones, because I see them, and can help.  So, often, the first thing I do in the morning is check the pool for watery unfortunates: the closer to the surface, the better: the bottom, not so good.  Most days, there’s nothing.  But one morning, I was surprised to see this Striped-tailed scorpion (Vaejovis spinigerus) standing on the side of the pool about 18 inches below the surface (the infrequent drowned scorpion we encounter is generally on the bottom, belly up).  The poor thing must have fallen in and, unable to get out, found itself a place to stand ready for anything, with its tail fully armed,  and stuck there until it expired.  I fished it out, and took some pix for reference, and left the soft, waterlogged body for something to make a meal of.  I never saw what scored it — probably cactus wren or thrasher — but it didn’t take long; less than an hour later the little body was gone.

Here’s a close-up of it, eye-to-eye, a view we don’t often see of these close to the ground tiny arthropods.  If you’re wondering how this mildly venomous stingy thing differs from the more venomous stingy-thing, the Bark Scorpion (Centuroides spp.), the thicker, bulbous tail with longitudinal stripes on each section is the easiest characteristic to note.  The Bark scorpion has a much thinner, more gracile tail and pincers, and often holds its tail coiled to the side.

(Photos A. Shock.  Apologies; since upgrading to the latest version of WordPress, the editor doesn’t seem to support the “click to enlarge” feature… Don’t know what’s up with that, but I’ll fix it as soon as I figure out how.)

After our latest monsoon event, the yard was freshly rinsed and all dampy.  Everything was making the most of the moist: the succulents were sucking up water, the trees were drinking and dripping, and the whole world was washed in that most deserty perfume of creosote.

Also, the Cactus Longhorn Beetle came out.  Here is its picture, on a “Bunnyears” prickly pear (Opuntia macrodasys).

From a horticultural point of view, the cactus longhorn beetle (Moneilema gigas) is a serious pest: its eggs hatch into larvae which bore into the tissue of cactus, especially Opuntia, and the adults are happy to munch on tender growing edges of cactus pads.  The boring larvae exude their waste as an unsightly tarry goo on the cactus outside their boreholes, and their tunneling can be fatal to susceptible individual plants; the damage gnawing adults do to pads can alter an even growth pattern in new leaves.  So, many desert gardening sites recommend the barbaric “Insta-stomp” approach to relating to this large beetle. (They’re flightless and are easily captured.)

E took pictures of this adult, possibly just eclosed after the monsoon rain, and we left it to trundle off, having admired its long “horns” with the white “elbows” on them.  Stomping just didn’t seem like a viable alternative — frankly, I don’t know if flip-flops are up to the task of exterminating such a robustly-crusted arthropod (note the mediaeval spines around its thorax). Anyway, there’s plenty of Bunny Ears to go around.

Bonus Monsoon cactus flowers

Most Sonoran desert plants bloom in spring after the winter rainy season, but there are many that take advantage of the Monsoon rains, and bloom in late summer and early fall.  This barrel cactus in our yard, a Ferocactus herrerae, is currently putting on an extravagant floral display.

(Both photos E. Shock)

…things are more colorful in the tropics.

Let’s unofficially extend International Vulture Awareness “Day” to “Weekend”, just so we can examine the glorious elegance that is the facial skin of the Lesser Yellow-Headed Vulture, a cousin of the widely distributed Turkey vulture that most of us Norte Americaños are familiar with.

You could argue that the King Vulture, also a New World vulture, is even more colorful, especially taking into account its snowy white-and-black plumage, but among the “Cathartes” vultures, the Lesser Yellow-headed takes the prize for chroma.  This colorfulness is limited to its face — in other ways, its plumage is so similar to its “cousin” the Turkey vulture that in flight, at a distance, the two are possible to confuse.

I’ve seen Lesser Yellow-headeds in Belize and Veracruz, and it’s always a thrill to feel that small jolt when you realize the bird gliding above the pasture that you were about to pass over as yet another Turkey vulture has that little extra something… the sun-colored facial skin gleaming in the tropical daylight.

(Photo by A.J. Haverkamp, from Wikimedia Commons: Especially, note the Pervious Nostril in this shot!)

Lesser yellow-headed vultures (Cathartes burrovianus) live in Central to South America, and are birds of tropical lowlands, seasonal wetlands and agricultural areas.  Like the majority of vultures around the world, they are carrion feeders. It’s widely reported that they have a mutually beneficial relationship with King Vultures: King Vultures, which lack the keen putrescine and cadaverene-sensing olfactory prowess of the Cathartes vultures, follow Yellow-headed vultures to locate fresh carcasses.  But the Yellow-headeds lack the mighty hide-ripping bill of the King.  So they wait at a carcass for the King vulture to show up, to “start” the meal.

(Photo: coastal agricultural wetlands of Veracruz, typical Yellow-headed vulture habitat.  A.Shock)

International Vulture Awareness day is Sept. 5

Vultures and condors are really useful in your niche or ecosystem.  What to do with that pesky roadkill, thawed winterkill, shot-winged quarry, victims of natural disaster, contagion, or warfare, or any other squishy, odiferous and past-its-prime meaty object?  Just leave it to vultures — it’s easy, quick, FREE, and All Natural.

Recommended by ornithologists, epidemiologists, jhatorists, and vultures worldwide!

(Not available in perpetually frosty environments)

For more about International Vulture Awareness Day, click here.

(Photo:Turkey vulture; A.Shock)

Now you can follow Three Star Owl, me, and Cranky Owlet on Facebook.  Just click on the Facebook icon to the right, and friend “Cranky Owlet”.  Or, if you’re not already on Facebook, join to friend Cranky Owlet.

Cranky Owlet says, “Friend me!”

As kids growing up in coastal southern California, we loved to warn each other authoritatively “Shuffle your feet!”, having been scared by older cousins and uncles about the dangers of stingrays in the warm shallow waters of some of the bays we swam in.  Older cousins and uncles may like to terrify little girls for fun, but there really are stingrays in these waters.  They are mild-mannered and usually slow-moving in their search for amphipods and other small crustaceans, but would defend themselves instinctively if a little foot stomped down on their backs, as anyone would.

This ray was gliding slowly in and under the edge of the pickleweed mats in the summery shallows of Bolsa Chica Preserve in coastal Orange County California.  It’s a California or Round Stingray, Urobatis halleri, and is about the size of a small dinner plate, if dinner plates had tails. (Photo A. Shock)

For all the info about this species you ever needed and more, click here.

In an earlier post, I recalled an uncomfortable encounter with a bison on Catalina Island.  For the past few days, we were in Yellowstone (no internet anywhere in the Park!), and our interactions with large mammals were definitely calmer and thankfully more removed.  Here is one, placidly grazing by a park roadside.  He’s been head-butting vegetation in order to beautify himself for the bisonettes, and is admirable in his festoonage, which includes a small pine bough.  I’m unable to report if its piny freshness improved upon his bovine musk.

One of the things about Yellowstone is the range of scale of amazement in the park.  There is really really big amazing stuff, like bison, the Canyon of the Yellowstone River, Grand Geyser, and the size of the volcanic crater at the center of the park itself.  But there is also amazing tiny stuff everywhere, too.  Here are some branches that have fallen into hot water, and become festooned with minerals. There are even tinier things — so inconspicuous as to be hard to see unless you know to look for them — in the form of the crazy-hardy and diverse thermophilic organisms that live in the scalding chemical brews of the hot water in the park.

(Bison in the Hayden Valley; branches at Mammoth Hot Springs; Morning Glory Pool, Upper Geyser Basin.  All photos A.Shock)

Hector Halfsquid leaves his mark.