The patience of snakes

 It's snake weather again. Each year, our rattlers show several bursts of activity. One is beginning now at the end of the monsoon season after a few good soaking rains. Diamond Backs even have a second mating season in fall. So every evening Frodo, our snake barker, announces his sightings on and around the patio.

Yesterday I heard a loud buzz when the dogs were running up to get their dinner. A big Diamond Back was curled up in their path, looking somewhat annoyed, but sat quietly while the dogs were being fed 10 feet away and then let into the house. He then moved on, too. Go, get those packrats!

This morning we walked into the state land right next to our place, happy that for once we heard no 'puff puff puff' noise from the guns of dove hunters. But we aren't able to pay enough attention to two things at once. On the way back I nearly stepped on a curled-up Sidewinder with Randy's tracks firmly imprinted on both sides and Bilbo's nearly touching the snake's body. That had been very close.

Temperatures in that sunny spot were approaching the nineties by then. Nevertheless, the snake was tightly curled up, snuggled in and keeping a low profile as only Sidewinders do. I thought that he'd soon be too warm, so he'd probably be close to moving on. I had not seen the 'side-winding' motion and was determined to make him demonstrate it. Camera in one hand and a thin, dry creosote branch in the other, I tried. Gently. No reaction.

A little more forceful. He acknowledged me with a flick of his tongue. I pushed the stick under him. He turned out to be much easier to flip than a pancake. I unraveled his coil, admired the small, perfect rattle, he just gave me a look.

I felt more and more guilty about disturbing his peace. I moved him back to his favorite spot, tucked him back in and rearranged his coils. Not quite right, he sighed and perfected it himself.

I apologized for disturbing him so rudely. I still haven't seen a Sidewinder side-wind. He dozed off for another hour or so.
This blog has links to 2 videos on flickr. Please click on the orange highlights in the text to see them. And trust me, while clumsy, I was gentle.

The Night of the Desert Queen Peniocereus greggii

Last night the flowers on our backyard Queen of the Night (Peniocereus greggii) finally opened. The flowers were small but perfect. They seemed to glow in the light of the full moon and their sweet fragrance floated on the humid, warm air of this monsoon night.

 A single small moth was visiting. Even at my black light, this still is a moth-poor time. Last year I noticed that many queen flowers wilted away without producing fruit. The reason could have been a lack of pollinators. But last night I found a longhorn beetle obviously doused in pollen. I'm sure he came to the sweet smell and found the nectar and will also distribute the pollen.

I went back in the very early morning hours to find more blooming plants. The first thing I noticed was that our backyard flowers had already closed up, usually a sign that they are pollinated.

I walked across about half a square mile of state trust land. Many of the plants that were blooming last year were resting this season. The wild native Queen cacti whose branches are thin and not very succulent rely mainly on  big underground tubers for survival during droughts. After a year with many flowers and fruit, the above-ground stems often shrivel and dry up. New sprouts emerge from the ground but rarely bloom for the first two years.

But I found about a dozen new plants that I had not known before. Many were small and had only a single flower, but some were as tall as I, with big, antler-shaped stems and up to a dozen flowers.
Of course the pollinators may be drawn to the flowers by the sweet fragrance, but I, being a visual creature, scan the area for the pale white spots that barely clear the branches of the creosote bushes. The color seems perfect to reflect the uv part of the lunar spectrum. So the big mobile sphinx moths can probably also do a long distance visual scan, even at night.

This morning however, I found even the wilting flowers inundated by honey bees that were obviously still getting their fill. Every plant was surrounded by dozens of honey bees. This is very different from last year, when I found little Agapostemon sweatbees but no Apis melifera at all.
I think I know the explanation: the winter of 2012/13 brought several nights of deep freeze. Well provisioned honey bee hives in Europe are able to keep the temperatures high enough during cold spells to allow the majority of bees to survive. Africanized honey bees usually sustain much greater losses. Small feral hives (many Africanized bees tend to split hive and swarm more frequently than Italian honey bees) are even less cold resistant. So while Africanized bees can usually survive Arizona winters as feral colonies, the winter of 2012/13 had pretty much wiped out the local population. But now, after the very warm winter of 2013/14, they are back in force.
The Queen of the Night is by timing and color the very opposite of a bee flower, but those feral honey bees have great scouts and are fast learners - I think they found all the wilting flowers today and carried off all the drags.    

 

I did not ask any dogs to join me on my NBC quest, but after a while I noticed that Cody had quietly joined me. We walked all over together, until he finally got tired of my meandering from plant to plant. He might have felt too weak to go on and returned home as quietly as he had come out. This was our last walk together and the photo above is the last one I took of our most beloved dog. A week later, Cody died.

Late June at the Backyard Black Light

Around mid-June there was a drop in barometric pressure, clouds piled up over the mountains and some parts of town celebrated the first showers and even hail. All we got was a partial rainbow  that did not quite fit into the same frame as the spectacular raising full moon.

Male Palo Verde Root Borer, Derobrachus hovorei

But some insects got the message. Some male Palo Verde Root-borers appear now every night at the black light. They are over 2 inches long, but much smaller than the females that will probably show up soon. Other summer longhorn beetles are still around and some of the spring species are reappearing.
Typical Midsummer Longhorns are the tiny flighty Methia sp. with very short elytra.

Eustromula validum

Achryson surinamum

Megacyllene atennata

Methia sp.

There really has not been a mass emergence of any scarab species this year. Remember, I am in a very dry part of the lower desert and things may look different in the mountains or in Cochise County. The few species that I described in May still turn up sporadically.

Phyllophaga scoparia

Cyclocephala longula

Diplotaxis sp.

 The only typical June Bug that scrambles over the gravel of our driveway in numbers is Phyllophaga scoparia. At least two Diplotaxis sp. are present and as usual very hard to identify.

Epicauta sp.

Here is a Blister Beetle: A single individual of Epicauta sp. appeared on June 16. This could be Epicauta subgenus Macrobasis hirsutipubescens.
  

Anthicidae (Antlike Flower Beetles) are well represented this time of year, from the tiny very antlike Vacusus confinis that gets through every insect screen, to the genus Notoxus, recognizable by their cowls to Duboisius arizonensis which are unusually big for this family.

Hyporhagus sp.

When photographing at the black light, I pay attention to a lot of very small insects that might not thrill the collector. A decent macro-lens give insight into groups that may challenge the resolution capacity of many peoples eyes. Most of the beetles I am showing here are in the range between 2 and 7 mm and they are members of many different families. 

Diabrotica undecimpunctata (Spotted Cucumber Beetle) and Pachybrachis sp., Ptinus sp., Typhaea stercorea, Cymatodera aegra, Bembidion sp.

Pachybrachis sp., Hybosorus illigeri

There are also many True Bugs like Cicadellidae, Miridae and Coreidae, dozens of different species of Mutillids (wasps), alate ants and a few earwigs. 

Gyponana procera

Neivamyrmex sp. (Legionary Ants)

Vostox apicedentatus (Toothed Earwig)

Green Heron at Agua Caliente

On May 5, after a long hot day of bug-hunting up and down Sabino Canyon, Eric Eaton and I decided to end the day with a stop at Tucson's beautiful palm-studded desert oasis Agua Caliente.


























Against the light of the setting sun, Eric spotted the sillouhette of a small Heron crouched on a dead branch over the still water. At first he even doubted that it was a bird at all because it was so motionless.





















The heron was intensely focused on his fishing. Ever now and then, his pose would freeze even more, he'd lean forward in nearly imperceptible increments until it seemed impossible that he would keep his balance. Only his strong, very long toes made this acrobatic stunt possible. Eventually, his head would shoot forward and the sharp beak would grab a small fish. While we watched he never missed once...



The birds at Agua Caliente are used to visitors and not too shy. I still think we were lucky that this guy stayed out in the open when we slowly circled around for better light and then were even joined by a third photographer.
The right angle of warm evening light and the overall golden hues of the still water of the lake with reflections of huge old Palms all came together to perfectly show off the jewel tones of the heron's breeding plumage.