Camouflage in the Desert

Three weeks ago, my roving buddy and I were walking the Saguaro Discovery Trail at Tohono Chul Park looking for a nighthawk nest we had heard about. Suddenly,  a lesser nighthawk erupted from the ground and flew several feet away.

Where it had been sitting—under a cholla on the bare desert floor—was an olive green speckled egg.

We did some research and learned that nighthawks usually lay two eggs. The chicks are semi-precocial, meaning that they can move about after they are hatched, but depend on parental care till they fledge, 17 days later. How can almost-helpless baby birds survive 17 days on the hot desert floor? The answer is that they are invisible!

These two amazing photos were taken by photographer John Durham and are used with his permission. He took them in the Altar Valley, somewhat southwest of Tucson.

Technorati Tags: lesser nighthawk,nighthawk chicks,Southwestern birds,Altar Valley

Amazing dove parenting

This morning, standing at the kitchen window at dawn, I saw a cluster of four white-winged doves on the wall. At first I thought it was two adults feeding two chicks, but then realized it was one extremely patient adult feeding THREE very demanding chicks. I finally sorted it out, and believe it was mama or papa, two recently-fledged chicks, and one nearly full-grown chick from the previous clutch. I’ve always known white-wingeds were good parents, but had no idea they would continue to feed a fledgling until it was nearly full grown!

I do not have pictures of the incident, but here are nestling doves in the carport from a previous year.

These homely little guys will grow up to look like this beauty:

Technorati Tags: White-winged dove,bird behavior,birds of the southwest

HOT HOT HOT June Rove

It is supposed to get to 109 today, but was only in the nineties when I did my weekly Rove at Tohono Chul Park. My roving partner and I had a great time. Even in the heat of summer, there is so much beauty. Here, for example, is the coral bean that greets visitors at the front gate:

We saw other beautiful flowers, and a number of birds, including “the usual suspects” (Gambel’s quail, cactus wrens, white-winged doves, verdins, and Bell’s vireo, common here in the warm weather). We also saw, at the top of big nest high in an ash tree, the fuzzy white head of a baby Cooper’s hawk. We’d been wondering if the nest was active, and now we know! In addition we saw desert spiny, whiptail, and zebratail lizards, and one smallish diamondback that was waiting patiently near a mouse hole in the ground. 

At the back of the Riparian area, a trichocereus was in bloom:

In the same area we cooled off by watching one of my favorite fountains, the Pot Wall.

Technorati Tags: Tohono Chul Park,outdoor fountains,trichocereus,coral bean

Jackrabbit encounter

Yesterday my roving partner, Sue, and I had a special treat. While walking on the Desert View Trail, we saw a jackrabbit that didn’t see us, and were able to watch it for about five minutes. It was eating creosote—first standing on its hind legs, and then crouched on the ground. As always when I see a jackrabbit, I was astounded by how big it is and how HUGE those ears are. Jackrabbits (which are technically hares, not rabbits), are among a very few animals that can eat creosote, because their kidneys are adapted to handle the poisonous oxalic acid in the plant.

Later on, we saw an unusual, double-decker verdin nest—one nest built on top of an old one. These are great times to be in the Park!

 

Technorati Tags: verdin nest,jackrabbit,Tohono Chul Park

Spring Changes in the Park

The whole front of Tohono Chul Park is being re-done. I previously wrote about the new Palm Canyon habitat on the left side; here’s a look in-progress at changes on the left (south) side, where the old entrance used to be.

It is a little hard for me to picture what it will look like when it is finished, but so far, though I miss some of the desert vegetation that has been removed, the new walls and walkways seem to open things up, and somehow the front of the Park is now looking much bigger than it used to.

Buckets with drip lines have been placed in many of the walls; presumably beautiful plants will grow in them.

 

 

 

 

Below are a new curvy wall and the old path, both west of the Overlook:

Other new things in the Park:

The first trichocereus of spring, in the Greenhouse

 

 

 

 

 

The first white-winged dove of spring; so happy to see my beloved white-wings are returning!

 

 

 

 

 

 

And finally, a sweet mama hummer in the nest she built underneath a lamp on the Bistro patio!

Technorati Tags: Tohono Chul Park,white-winged doves,trichocereus photos

A Saguaro Globe and Those Crazy Finches

The beautiful large saguaro at the end of our driveway has sprouted a perfectly round globe on the top of one of its arms. It will be interesting to see if it becomes oblong, and if it flowers.

In the meantime, perhaps knowing that I am fascinated by nests, a pair of house finches has been spending the last two days trying to build a nest on the rear spoiler of my car. No matter how often I remove their nesting materials, they replace them. They are using mostly creosote and Texas ranger. Here is what it looked like this morning:

This afternoon, they had amassed the pile into a much more nestlike structure:

I will of course remove this as well, and I do need the car to go to Tohono Chul Park tomorrow. I wonder when they will give up? Or will I have to give up driving?

Technorati Tags: bird nests,bird nests in odd places

Sandhill Cranes

The magnificent sandhill cranes return to southern Arizona every winter. They mostly hang out in the area around Willcox, including Whitewater Draw, an artificial wetlands that also attracts other water birds.

This is the second time I have seen the cranes as they fly back from gleaning the Willcox fields for a daily siesta. They come in great numbers, wave after wave, from a few to several dozen at a time. The air fills with their insistent calls. There is something primal and spiritual about them, something I feel through my whole body as I watch their eerie alien beauty.

This beautiful photo of Sandhill Cranes landing was taken by Bob Garrett..

Technorati Tags: Sandhill Cranes,Whitewater Draw

Pre-Christmas Rove with Diamonds and Birds

I have written frequently about Roving, which is among my favorite things to do as a Tohono Chul Park docent. Now that it’s winter, we have very chilly mornings, warming quickly to lovely cool and clear sunny days.

This morning it was actually cold—in the high thirties when we started--so my roving buddy and I went for a brisk walk on the Desert View Trail to warm up. It was so incredibly beautiful, I wish everyone reading this could have been with us. The air was so crisp and fresh! And all the plants, especially the creosote, held droplets of dew that sparkled like diamonds. These photos will only give you a pale inkling of how beautiful it was in real life.

Along the trail, and later in the Park we saw lots and lots of birds, all of whom seemed to be enjoying the beautiful morning too as they warmed themselves by basking or chasing each other. We saw a few rarities, and got great looks at some of the more common birds, like this Abert’s Towhee, which was hanging out by a finch feeder.

Here is a list of the 21 species of birds we saw either in the Park or over it: Harris’ hawk; red-tailed hawk; lesser goldfinch; house finch; phainopepla, verdin, Costa’s hummingbird; cactus wren; Gila woodpecker; northern mockingbird; cardinal; curve-billed thrasher; Gambel’s quail; Abert’s towhee; rock wren; house sparrow; hermit thrush; spotted towhee; and Anna’s hummingbird. There are many other birds that are usually in the Park that we didn’t see.

Technorati Tags: Tohono Chul Park,Abert's towhee,common SE Arizona birds

Autumn Miscellany, Here and There

In most parts of the country, there’s an autumnal nip in the air. Here, we’re grateful for chilly mornings and daytime highs only in the low nineties.

To celebrate the season, here are some recent random photos from Tohono Chul Park and the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum.

Palm Canyon, the newest “habitat” at Tohono Chul. It’s slated to officially open next week.

This weird-looking, alien-seeming plant is a boojum tree, from another part of the Sonoran Desert. At the Desert Museum.

 And a smaller boojum tree, close-up.

 Lately at Reptile Ramble, the Gila Monster has been trying to escape.

I wish this were a better photo. It is an inca dove, in the process of laying an egg in the Desert Museum walk-in Aviary. Her poorly-constructed nest was so small that her cloaca hung out over the end of it. I didn’t wait for the inevitable sad moment when the slowly emerging egg finally fell to the ground.

Technorati Tags: Arizona Sonora Desert Museum,Tohono Chul Park,gila monster,inca dove,boojum tree

BEEP-BEEP! Visit from a Roadrunner

Greater roadrunners are common in the Tucson area. I once saw one crossing the road—at the crosswalk!—at the busy intersection of Grant and Craycroft. We often see them at Tohono Chul Park.
Yesterday afternoon a handsome roadrunner visited my porch, presumably looking for lizards, one of their favorite things to eat. He did not find one, so went on to explore the pond and the quail block. It was hot, and you can see him using the gular flutter, in which a bird rapidly vibrates throat membranes to create evaporation and cool off. (This is the avian equivalent of panting.)
Roadrunners have a variety of odd calls;  none of them sounds like the cartoon character. They are members of the cuckoo family, and their most common call is a percussive “Coo!”, which you can hear near the beginning of this video. The plaintive call just before the roadrunner’s is a white wing dove.

Technorati Tags: Greater roadrunner,birds of southern Arizona,Tohono Chul Park

A Tour of My Bird Garden

I have frequently written about my small Bird Garden, which is just across the porch outside my glass office doors. It is a smallish, fenced-off area that was originally a dog run without anything growing except for a sickly juniper tree. Over the years I have transformed it into a lovely and inviting spot for local and occasional migrating birds, as well as rabbits, squirrels, mice and probably other critters. It is always changing, but here are some of the things you can see these days.

Quail block, with cottontail and male Gambel’s quail.

   Cardinal feeder, pomegranates, and

                        Garden Buddha

                                                                           

My beautiful pomegranate tree in the early dawn.

Here you see the suet feeder (left), and the finch feeder (center) over the grapefruit tree.

A nonfunctional turtle fountain guards the algae and yerba mansa in the small pond.

In the back of the garden, I have a young mesquite, and just outside a palo verde and saguaro

My shade garden, on the porch. The gate opens into the bird garden.

And here is the garden on Feb. 20 of this year, during the Great Tucson Blizzard.

Technorati Tags: backyard pond,yerba mansa,bird feeders

Late June HOT Rove

Longtime readers of this journal know that I frequently write about roving, the docent activity in which I just roam around Tohono Chul Park, interact with visitors, and see what's what. Every rove is different, and there is always something beautiful and/or interesting to see.

Here are some sights I encountered on yesterday's rove, on a morning when it was already nearly ninety degrees by 8 AM and expected to go to the mid 90's or higher by 10, when my shift ended, and 103 or so by afternoon. It was also the 25^th straight day of temperatures 100 degrees or higher.

This gorgeous flower is Cereus Grandicostatus, a probable native of South America.

These depressions in the sand are antlion pits, created by the larval form of the antlion, an insect that preys on ants and other very small insects. The sand in the pit is placed at such an angle that a small creature will plummet through the hole at the bottom, where the voracious larva awaits. For more info on this fascinating duet of death, click here.

Two tarantula hawks seemed to be mating on this desert milkweed blossom. Tarantula hawks, which are specialized wasps, prey on tarantulas and other large spiders, and are very common as the monsoon approaches (which is when tarantulas leave their burrows to seek mates).

Pink Rain Lily, from Southern Mexico

Sonoran Spider Lilies. Note the orange anthers on these flowers. (I do not know what color the quethtions are.)

No Rove would be complete for me without a new bird’s nest. This is another Bell’s Vireo nest. Myy fellow docents and I watched as both parents fed their chicks.The nest appeared to have notepaper attached as part of the design.

Technorati Tags: Sonoran Desert in summer,Bell's vireo nest,antlion pits,Sonoran Spider Lily,Pink Rain Lily

Name That Bird! Sunday Nature Quiz #2

The Sunday Nature Quiz.  What are the names of these desert birds? (And I mean species names—not  Harry, Gwendolyn, and Marissa).

Bird A:

.

Bird B:

Bird C:

Bird D:

Bird E:

Bird F:

Answers:

A. Lesser goldfinch

B. Gambel’s Quail

C. Costa’s Hummingbird

D. White-winged dove

E. Curve-billed thrasher

F. Verdin

Scoring:

0-2  You’ve never been to the Sonoran desert, right?

3-4  Not bad—for a snowbird.

5-6  Either you’re a native—or you wish you were.

Technorati Tags: Southwestern birds