Audubon Arizona’s Gifts from Nature fundraiser.

Save the date!  Coming up quickly on the 11th and 12th of December, at the Cattletrack Compound in Scottsdale:

The Friday evening event is a festive preview and advance sale, with music, hors d’oevres, wine and hot cider.  It’s $25 per person (call for reservations, 602-468-6470 ext. 103). The Saturday public sale goes from 10 am – 4 pm, and has a recommended donation of $4.

There will be lots of local artists and their nature-related artwork – it’s a great place to do your holiday shopping.  Plus, proceeds plus a portion of the artist’s profits go to supporting environmental education and conservation in Arizona. Hope you can make it!  (And, keep your fingers crossed for fine weather!)

The next Three Star Owl event will be after the New Year, at Wings Over Willcox, January 13-17, 2010.

…for those of us who decide to enter the Fray, this is the kind of thing you’ll be up against:

Yes, the Holidays must be upon us, it’s the traditional Santa Hat-Wearing Wiener Dog on a Bun with Lettuce and Mustard Effigy Vessel (featuring removable lid), now appearing at your local discount department store.  Oh, Why didn’t I buy this when I saw it?

(cell phone photo A.Shock)

(Photo by E.Shock)

Spotting coatis in Sabino canyon was fortunate in many ways.  Not only is it always amazing to see a coati, but it was artistically inspiring, too.  Before the Tucson visit I had already begun a small coati effigy bowl, so on returning home I was all fired up to finish it and start another bigger one, images of live animals fresh in my head to draw from.

(left: pair of coati effigy bowls in various states of completion; photo A.Shock)

The little one is sculpted, textured, and burnished — bone-dry and awaiting bisque-firing.  The bigger one is still wet, with sponges propping up a tail that wants to slump forward, and a plastic bag over the head to keep the snout workable for a little longer.  (Our cool fall weather is keeping things drying at a snail’s pace, frustrating when you’re trying to get things through the studio rapidly, with the holidays coming up).

Sometimes clay places practical limitations on forms, and there’s no way to make tails as gloriously long and sinuous as real coati tails. But the snouty-shoulderyness of the climbing-digging critters is do-able, as is the higher-in back posture that makes them look like they’re always trundling downhill.  These pieces are destined for sawdust-firing, I think, so the smoky coloration of the twilight-colored desert animals should be suitably earthy, but I’m still thinking about how to get the spectacles and the rings to be visible but not too contrasty.

The little one is apparently a male.  Be sure to click to enlarge.

(All photos A.Shock)

…is bent on both mayhem and mischief.

She was lurking at the north entrance to Papago Park early Saturday morning, in the low spot where the White-crowned sparrows, House finches, and Mourning doves are usually found in great numbers on chilly winter mornings.  She even swooped over our heads on her way up to the top of the utility pole.

(Right, first-year Cooper’s hawk in Papago Park, Accipiter cooperi; photo E. Shock)

But just after E snapped this telephoto, the Coop’s glimpsed more grandiose prey: she started the sparrows, but flew right over them.  I can’t say I’ve ever seen a bird-specialist like a Cooper’s hawk chase a full-grown Black-tailed jackrabbit, but this bird did, and kept after it for ten or twenty seconds, as the jack zigged and zagged evasively until the Cooper’s pulled up, empty-fisted.  What do you suppose she thought she was going to do with it if she caught it?  She either had an inflated idea of her own skills, or was a very hungry bird: no matter how spry a flyer, she can’t have been that good a footer!

(Note: Cooper’s hawks weigh 8-21 ounces, and jacks weigh 4-6 pounds!)

This hawk was bent on causing trouble: here’s a picture of the same bird a few minutes later, on the felon’s side of the fence, trespassing on clearly signed military property.  Scofflaw!

(All photos E.Shock)

Click here to view another picture of an immature Cooper’s hawk in Papago Park that E took this spring.

The post-breeding influx of Costa’s hummingbirds in our Phoenix-area yard continues.  This tough little desert hummer is present at the feeders year round, but the population goes up noticeably between about June and December.  Most of the birds we see are males, some in fully developed adult plumage, some with scraggly purple moustaches just growing in.  Gray-green, slightly less pugnacious females are not as flashy, giving the impression of being less numerous, but I’m not certain if this reflects numerical reality or is a figment of observation.

(left: “YOYboy”, young-of-the-year male Costa’s hummer; photo A.Shock)

Since the vacancy of Miss Thang from the front garden, a new battle for the porch feeder is ON.  The combatants are two male Costa’s, who are easy to tell apart by comparing their gorget featheration.  One is “YOYboy” (male Young of the Year), with only sheathed feathers and small purple spangles sticking out from his face like cactus spines (see left).  His favored perch is about 18″ off the ground, the very tips of the leaves of an Agave americana mediapicta in a pot on the front walkway, where a volunteer chuparosa flaunts its red nectar-filled flowers conveniently nearby.

The other is a full adult male, Macho C (nicknamed in remembrance of Arizona’s recently — and tragically — deceased last known resident wild jaguar Macho B), who sports glorious grape Yosemite Sam mustachios.  He perches in low branches of the mesquite tree across the walkway, also near a blooming chuparosa.

(Right: “Macho C”; photo A.Shock)

These habitual perches are sallying points for fierce aerial combat and tail-chases that break out several times each day, accompanied by zoom-buzzy wing-whirr, metallic scolding, and sometimes actual brief mid-air body contact, audible as a quick, dry feathery tap that sounds like someone snapping shut a rice-paper fan.

Much of the action occurs at the feeder, and can go on for minutes — E clocked them at more than three minutes solid the other day, with the winner getting to sip supper from the sticky feeder ports.  The fierceness of the competition has somewhat lessened in recent days, but they’re both still close by, and in between bouts of strife, each roosts and preens on his perch less than 15 feet from the other. Occasionally they join forces to chase other hummers from the front yard.  As far as I can tell, with all but one of the feeders being defended by male Costa’s, the Anna’s hummingbirds have been confined almost entirely to one part of the yard: the airspace and perches in the big Aleppo pine in the backyard, where the Hen nested last spring.

An excellent working weekend in Tucson had an unexpected furry, long-tailed highlight: on a hike up Sabino Canyon with Kate McKinnon and the other participants of her metal clay workshop, we ran into a pair of Coatis! I’d forgotten my camera, but fortunately others had theirs, and the younger coati obliged us by being visible for a few minutes, nosing around for goodies among the grit and rocks in the hill above the stream-bed, so that everyone in the group got to see it.

(Photo right by Kate McKinnon)

If you’re not familiar with the White-nosed coati (Nasua narica) — nicknamed Chulo — it’s a Sonoran desert native with a long, flexible snout, beguiling spectacle-markings, bear-like ears, a long prehensile tail, and clever grippy hands. They are related to raccoons and another snouty-taily mammal the Ringtail, all in the Procyonid family.  They are at home in arid oak-sycamore woodlands and rocky desert canyons in the American southwest and regions south, all the way to Central and South America.  Coatis are not uncommon in their range, but like owls, even though they’re there, you don’t often see them, even though they’re out and about during the early and late daylight hours.

A bit of luck for me, seeing these, because I’m working on a coati bowl right now for upcoming holiday shows, so the furry, fossicking inspiration was welcome.

Can’t resist posting this swell picture by E of a Wrentit (Chamaea fasciata), a veritable Dinky Dude not of the Desert, but of West Coast scrub and inland chaparral.

(left, Wrentit, photo E. Shock)

It may have subdued plumage, but how can anyone not like a skulking, big-headed, tiny bird with white eyes, who is the only North American representative of the bird family called Babblers (Timaliidae)?

We had crippling views of several of these dinky dudes on our recent Oregon coast trip.  I saw more Wrentits in a weekend of casual birding in moist coastal forests than during years of birding in California.  This one was dinking around in thick brambles and undergrowth at the top of the headland at the Cape Meares Lighthouse observation platform, in the company of a couple of obliging Winter wrens, another bird I’m not used to seeing so easily (in Arizona, the presence of Winter wrens is practically mythical).

Wrentits are common in their range and habitat, but their skulking habits can make them hard to see.  According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Wrentits…

…may be the most sedentary bird species in north America, with an average dispersal distance from natal nest to breeding spot of about 400 m (1300 ft).

This Dinky Dude is also a homebody.

Listen to its trilling call here.

By the way, please note that the fabulous Ed Bustya figured out the snag in my photo publishing, so please be sure to click on photos posted here to see larger images.  Thanks, Ed!

We’ve been trying to Green Up around here.  In addition to starting up a composting system for garden waste and kitchen scraps, as well as having plans for an herb and chile garden to use the compost on, we recently went to a mesquite-pod milling event.

Left: dried mesquite pods

Mesquite pods and seeds are really hard.  Really really hard.  The seeds especially.  So hard that not many animals, even hungry desert mammals with sharp teeth and strong jaws, eat them — despite the seeds’ high protein content.  Rock squirrels, coyotes, and gray foxes are among the modern Sonoran species that use the copious pods for a food source.  Often, pods are chewed briefly and swallowed whole for the animals’ stomach acid to take care of, and the hard seeds are pooped out later on, germination-enhanced, ready to sprout into fast-growing hardy trees.

Southwestern mesquite tree species evolved at the same time as large Pleistocene grazers like Mastodon and Ground Sloths (below), whose massive grinding molars and powerful digestive systems propagated the seeds efficiently. The trees’ fast growth habit could keep pace with major inroads of hungry megafauna, and the animals spread the seeds far and wide (cattle have largely replaced these extinct giants in the modern system).  People are prodigious users of mesquite, too, for food, furniture, and firewood, and browse for livestock. In some seasons and years, mesquite kept people alive, both indigeños and pioneers. Indigenous people milled the pods for gruel, atole and cakes, but the seeds are almost too hard to grind by hand with a mano and metate, which often were of wood.

This is where the Desert Harvesters come in.  They are a group dedicated to using food sources native to the Sonoran desert, including mesquite meal, which is nutritious, naturally sweet but with a low glycemic index, and gluten-free.

Right: The Desert Harvesters hammer mill rig

To get mesquite meal, the pods must be ground quite fine, so they use a generator-operated steel hammer mill on a trailer, which they tow to various locations around the state for milling events.  The one we attended was sponsored by the Phoenix Permaculture Guild at Roadrunner Park Farmer’s Market.  For $5 per 5-gallon bucket, they will grind your clean, dry mesquite pods into fabulously tasty, nutritious meal.   We toasted our pods in the oven first, so our meal seems particularly sweet and nutty.

Right: the steel “hammers”

Collecting the pods is easy, but time-consuming.  If you’d like to mill your pods, collect whole, dry, brown pods just as they begin to drop from the trees.  In the Phoenix area, this is roughly mid-summer as the monsoon rains are really beginning to get underway.  Dry the pods thoroughly, or toast them in a warm oven until they’re slightly brown.  Then store them in an insect-proof bucket until the hammer-milling event is in your neck of the woods, usually the end of October or the beginning of November.  (If you live in the Tucson area, you have a few more date options, since Tucson is Desert Harvesters’ home base, but all around the same time of year.)

Standing on line waiting for the millers to put your beans in the machine gives you ample time to shop around the Farmer’s Market or talk to other mesquite-bean collectors, and swap mesquite recipes and chat.  We talked to Jean, who also had carob pods to grind.  The process is not rapid — only a handful of pods goes in at a time, with the mill operators keeping a sharp eye out for rocks and debris, even though everyone’s pods are inspected once already, since hard objects in the steel blades would be hazardous and damaging. The millers often stop to remove the “chaff” from the hammer chamber: even with the powerful steel grinders, the seeds and tough fiber don’t pulverize, and has to be vacuumed out with a shop-vac every few minutes.  The chaff is saved for composting, brewing beer or tea, or feeding goats.

Left, our beans going into the hopper; note dude’s ear-plugs.

The meal-collection bin is emptied after each person’s pods have been ground, so the meal you end up with is from your own pods.  We brought two 5-gallon buckets of beans, and ended up with several pounds of meal.

Since there’s no gluten in mesquite meal, it can’t replace wheat flour 1:1 in most recipes, but you can use mesquite meal for up to 1/3 of the total flour amount, including gluten-free recipes.  This morning, we enjoyed mesquite pancakes sweetened with agave nectar for breakfast. Native Seed Search is an excellent source for info about mesquite meal, or for the meal itself, if you don’t have mesquite trees where you live.  But if you do, when you see the price, you’ll definitely want to collect and grind your own.

Right: our mesquite meal being poured back into our bucket

(All photos A or E Shock)