Arizona Oddity

Great Fair, Fountain Hills

 From January to April the art show season in Arizona is in full swing and I am busy preparing inventory, booking shows, setting up my tent, selling art, book-keeping and tax-paying, and then producing more inventory...So there is little time left for nature walks, photography and blogging.  But the shows are outdoors. Last weekend in Fountain Hills in Maricopa County, I was greeted every morning by a beautiful if strikingly unecological sight. And I don't mean the fountain itself...

"The eponymous fountain was built in 1971 by Robert P. McCulloch, the same year that reconstruction of the London Bridge in Lake Havasu City, another of McCulloch's projects, was completed.The fountain sprays water about every hour. The plume of water rises from a concrete water-lily sculpture in the center of a large man-made lake and is driven by three 600 horsepower (450 kW) pumps. When all three pumps are on under zero wind condition, the fountain can reach over 560 feet (170 m) in height. When built, it was the world's tallest fountain and held that record for over a decade." Wikipedia

Fountain Hills prides itself to sport the world's tallest fountain. True or not, it's certainly a waste of a lot of energy and  water here in the desert. It only raises up once every half hour, but even the pond, surrounded by manicured lawns, is produces a constant water loss due to evaporation....

Island of the Fountain Pond

 No natural vegetation, desert or riparian, is allowed to grow and upset the groomed appearance..
But still, the water attracts avian winter visitors as well as human snow birds. There are usually many wigeons and coots that graze the lawn and some diving ducks grebes that may indicate some fish in the sterile looking water.

 But this year a new group of birds had discovered the little island in the pond. About forty cormorants and two dozens Great Egrets perched in the bare branches of its single tree. Here they spent the night protected from prowling predators.

As soon as the sun broke the horizon south of the snow covered Four Peaks the cormorants stretched their long necks and the egrets shook their silky long-trailing breeding plumage. Then bird after bird glided off its perch, the cormorants dropping nearly down to the water level and the egrets gaining height right away with heavy flapping wing beats.
By the time most artists and customers arrived at the show all  cormorants and egrets had left for better fishing waters, maybe along the Verde River. But at night fall they were back to sleep on the island.

The garden planners left or even planted two lonely saguaros on the island. Their ghostly silhouettes added the strangest touch to this assembly of water birds against the clear morning sky of the desert.

Our Blizzard

Even if the weather forecast on tv sounded dramatic for days, blizzard conditions in Tucson are relatively tame. But snow in the desert is still exciting to us so here are some photos to speak for themselves.

Saguaro National Park West

Tucson Mountain Park

Ocotillos with their first green leaves

Not everything that's white is snow. Hundreds of tiny white flowers were already blooming on the desert floor.

Our friends' weekend retreat in Picture Rocks turned into a snowy-mountain cabin

Bighorn Sheep in the Waterman Mountains

Yesterday, Randy and I took the dogs to the Waterman Mountains. They are part of the Ironwood National Monument and visible from our house, but I had only been there once before with Bob Beatson. The desert there seem harsher than even our own Tucson Mountain bajada. I wanted to do a bird count for the GBBC but I soon forgot about it because there seemed to be just Black-throated Sparrows, White-crowned Sparrows and Gila Woodpeckers.

Nichol's Turk's Head Cactus, Echinocactus horizonthalonius var. nicholii

 We were also looking for Turk's Head Cacti which Randy hadn't seen before, and he actually did spot the first one. We found all sizes, from little round balls to nearly knee-high  twisted columns. Buds were promising early flowers which I have yet to see.
 Judging from the healthy, not frost-damaged foliage of the Ironwood trees and the freshly sprouting ocotillo leaves, this area was less hit by the latest freeze than the Tucson Mountains. Yesterday around noon the temperature had probably climbed into the seventies. After hiking in about 2 miles, steadily uphill on a loose-gravel road that made walking a little awkward, we were hot and the dogs were thirsty.   

Desert bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis nelsoni) in the Watermann Mountains

 When we were about to turn back our Coydog Frodo barked alarm. The object of his interest was high up on the slope above us: a small herd of Desert Bighorn Sheep. About eight of them, several rams with big horns, and some smaller animals with lighter horns, probably not females but young males(they form bachelor groups like deer). The were rather camouflaged. Without Frodo we would not have seen them at all. They moved effortlessly up the steep slope and they seemed sturdy and well-fed.

Big Ram (Watercolor by Margarethe Brummermann)

 After a stabilization in numbers from the sixties to the eighties, Desert Bighorn Sheep lost ground around here over the last 20 years. The Catalina Heard is probably completely extinct. It is thought that the drought weakened the animals and also destroyed the vegetation that they used for cover. The predation pressure of Mountain Lions under those changing conditions may have been too much. The Red Rock herd not far from the Waterman Mountains was decimated some years ago by a devastating eye disease. A developer had brought in domestic goats to clear vegetation of his land. They were carriers of the disease and infected the wild sheep to whom it proved deadly.

So we were very happy to see this healthy little group.  

Bighorn Sheep petroglyph

 For thousands of years Bighorn Sheep have been very important to the human inhabitants of our area,  not just as prey for hunters but also as inspiration for artists. They figure prominently in petroglyphs all over the Southwest and they are a big part of the imagery of Picture Rocks that was name-giving for our own little community northwest of Tucson.    

Great Backyard Bird Count

My friend Carol Tepper invited me to take part in the GBBC, a citizens science project by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Audubon. Their web site is very nicely organized with a specific pop-up bird list for every gps point that you log on their map. You can still join for another couple of days, and the data do NOT have to be from your backyard, you can also send the list of a short birding trip.
So I spent a leisurely hour on our property this morning, with my new Papilio (Pentax) close-focus binoculars that I'm really fond of.

Mourning Dove and Gambel's Quail

 The most common and numerous birds by far were Mourning Doves, followed closely by Gambles Quail as long as there was bird seed on the ground. The noisiest are always the Gila Woodpeckers, and the most in-our-faces-at the breakfast table are the Costa's Hummingbird males. A Cactus Wren investigated between the pages of Randy's newspaper. No great surprises so far.

White-crowned Sparrow, Black-throated Sparrow, Brewer's Sparrow and House Sparrow (two left photos by Ned Harris)

 Then a whole group of sparrows flew in, searching for seeds among dried up bunches of cheat grass.  We used to weed after rains to keep this introduced species out, but when the rains became rare so did the grass. Now we appreciate it for its golden color and its attraction for Harvester Ants and birds. The sparrows, very clearly smaller than our usual White-crowned and Black-throated, and very lightly marked, were Brewer's.



Cactus Wren, Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Pyrrhuloxia, Lesser Goldfinch,
Curve-billed Trasher, Verdin, House Finch, Phaenopepla

Lesser Goldfinches used to appear in groups like that, but today I found only two singing territorial males and their mates. The same for the Phainopeplas: In early January, there was a couple of them on every Mistletoe bunch but today I found only one male sitting close to last years nest in a mesquite tree. Verdins were also close to new nests and territorial, so were the Black-tailed Gnatcatchers that I heard and then attracted by pishing. They were paired up, but I noticed no black cap on the male yet. I'm pretty sure about the species though, because I believe that I know their warning call and they have been nesting in that wash for years (with black caps). I will watch them though...could we have Blue-grays this year?


Gila Woodpecker and Gilded Flicker

 At the border between our property and the adjacent State Trust Land a huge saguaro has lately lost its tallest trunk. A Woodpecker perched on the break turned out to be a Gilded Flicker female. She slipped into a fresh cavity and stayed inside for a long time. I hope they will raise a family, this species has become rare over the last dry spell.
A sharp 'zick' announced a Ladder-backed Woodpecker. The markings on the head of this female were so dark that I could have sworn she was a Nuttal's, but those simply don't range this far east.
I found a Mockingbird, a Cardinal and male and female Pyrrhuloxia. Curved-billed Trashers began singing as soon as it warmed up a little.
A young Red-tailed Hawk was sitting in his usual dead Ironwood, but on this cool overcast morning the other raptors didn't show. Only a pair of Ravens flew by with heavily swishing wing beats.
The only introduced species were Eurasian Collard Doves and House Sparrows. The sparrows are trying to claim a saguaro cavity that was used by Ash-throated Flycatchers last year.

My morning count took an hour from 9 to10 am, covered loosely 14 acres of Sonoran Desert Shrub in the bajada of the Tucson Mountains, the temperature was about 55 F, under an overcast sky. I logged 24 species plus one unidentified Vireo.


 

What a day!

 Rain! Cultures have many words for the things that are important to them. Here in the desert that has always been rain. I don't know many words of the Tohono O'odam language, but I do know that they call the violent downpours of the summer monsoon male rain and the soft drizzle of the winter month is female rain. The monsoon can be more destructive than beneficial and the winter rain should be rich and nurturing. Historically, December used to be the month with the highest precipitation.  I remember years of heavy flooding in March in the early nineties. But for the last seven or eight years we often waited in vain for our winter rains.

So today we felt very content to see clouds roll in from south and west, obscuring Wassem Peak and Kit Peak, rain drumming on the roof and blowing into the patio. I planned on a day of peaceful painting - finishing the Costa's Hummer sketch  above and starting something new...

But it wasn't going to be. Yesterday we had found cattle tracks on the grounds and discovered that an earlier rain had washed out the ground under the fence, so small cows could walk through. The wire of the electric dog fence is broken, too. Around noon today I heard the dogs barking in the neighboring quarry as if they had treed a big cat (at least I think it would sound like that, it has never happened so far). I got worried and crawled through the quarry fence to follow them. Of course, my appearance gave them just the momentum and confidence they needed to dislodge not a cat but some big javelinas that they had driven from our land into the lower part of our lone Twin Peak (its twin was mined away by Portland Cement). As I was watching, a line of seven adult javelinas emerged from the rocks. They moved somewhat stately and slowly, but the dogs were in mad pursuit. Eventually they scattered most of the herd.

Javelinas or Peccaries way between 35 and 60 pounds

 One big guy stayed behind between me (with Laika) and the action. His hackles were up, nearly doubling his size, he was grunting and showing me his widest side. The dogs cornered some of the other Javelinas at the quarry tailings. Now I had to worry about rock avalanches in addition to javelina teeth.  It took nearly an hour until, with Randy's help, all three male dogs were back on leashes. They were exhausted and dirty but had only some scrapes on legs and faces - nothing that looked like a javelina bite. This was lucky because the pig-like javelinas or peccaries have huge teeth and their bites leave deep holes in legs and bellies of dogs - we've had some injuries before.  
   

Who let the Dog out?

Casually glancing out of the front window, I wondered which of our dogs had jumped out of the dog-run this time. He looked just so familiar.  Cody's color, Frodo's ears, Laika's shape....

Well, none of our dogs, but he turned and walked very confidently towards the house. There is a bird bath and a place with bird seeds under our big Ironwood tree.

That's a huge, well-fed coyote, Canis latrans. According to some literature, Coyotes found in low deserts and valleys weigh about 20 pounds, less than half of their mountain kin, who can weigh up to 50 pounds. Desert coyotes are light gray or tan with a black tip on the tail. The description at the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum allows for at least 35 pounds, but I always thought that that referred mainly to their own over-fed specimen.

Coyote, Canis latrans

 This individual is big, though, otherwise I wouldn't have mistaken him for one of my dogs who are all between 50 and 60 pounds. We keep them lean.
January is mating season for the coyotes, and I lately I have been especially careful not to run into playful couples when I'm driving. Since his first visit, I have seen this guy around several times. When he first appeared during last weeks hard freeze he seemed to be searching for water closer to the house after he found the birdbath down the driveway frozen solid. But I have also found chicken feathers along his trail, so he has found a rich, but dangerous source of food in the neighborhood....

Sorry for the for-shortened legs. I was shooting down from the window

    Our desert coyotes are usually quite solitary, there doesn't seem to be enough food for larger groups and the prey animals are small, so hunting in packs brings no advantage. The only time to see more than two individuals on our property is in late summer. Last year after a relatively productive monsoon a lot of young rabbits, quail, pocket mice, lizards and toads were hiding under the burr sage bushes that finally had some leaves again. One afternoon when I was standing quietly in a dry wash not far from the house, there was suddenly so much noisy crushing and stomping in the brush that I was sure that the neighbors' cattle had finally broken through our fence. But then three or four nearly grown coyotes appeared, chasing each other in the blissful abandonment of playing puppies. They looped around me without noticing me at all, followed the wash to the dog-run, seemed to shortly hesitate as if looking for more company, and then took the fun back into the State Land.  At night they were back, teasing the dogs with howls and yodels.

Coyotes are often watching us when we are walking

  There is no great animosity between our dogs and the coyotes. I have seen them run right past each other without any interaction, even with pointedly averted heads. At other times, Cody has chased them out of his territory, like he would do with any male canine.   

 This is one of my earliest Arizona watercolors, after a coyote encounter at Gates Pass in the Tucson Mountains. I was still so fascinated with chollas, ocotillos, prickly pears and volcanic dikes that they all got equal consideration and sharp focus in my painting. Even the dreaded buffelgrass got its due (I didn't know anything about it then).

Frozen Hummingbird Feeders

My friend Rich Hoyer had warned us via facebook for a couple of days: move the hummingbird feeders inside over night, or they will turn into blocks of ice. Ours are under roof overhangs,  the birds were still feeding after sunset, and later it was too cold and dark to climb up to get the feeders down ... so this morning hummers and Gila Woodpeckers looked quite unhappy and we quickly filled our spare feeders to bring outside. Now there are much more hummers feeding than I had seen for weeks.

Male Costa's Hummingbird

 In the backyard, a male Costa's guards a feeder from his perch in a Creosote Bush. He is confident enough to let me push my camera in his face. Yesterday I was only half a meter from him using the macro setting and he kept coming back to his perch and my camera after short feeding and fighting forays.

Around the corner of the house, right in front of my studio window, resides as Costa male with a gorget that resembles the beard of an old-fashioned Turkish Bey and the attitude of a territorial pit bull...He routinely threatens Randy when he hangs the laundry.

 Today several females are trying to use 'his' feeder. They are hungry and determined to stay. He attacks them in a peculiar way. He grabbs the neck feathers of a drinking female with his beak and pulls. When she ignores him, he lands on her back. I looks now more like a mating attempt then a feeder defense. Please see the video here. As the day progressed the male's approach became less aggressive and clearly more sexual. The females still ignored him if they could: they kept feeding.
Of course, I can't tell whether the females are even Costa's. I also don't know whether this feisty guy would care. I do know that ethologists see an evolutionary connection between aggression and sexual behavior...
We have been hearing the sharp whistling of the male Costa's display for a couple of weeks. I haven't found any nesting attempts yet, but the tiny nests are easy to overlook. But I guess it's too early. Rich looked up when egg laying could begin: According to the Birds of North America species account, egg laying begins in March here, but the Breeding Bird Atlas says February, with January 20 being the record early.

 With a nice flash of those structural colors (as opposed to pigments) of his gorget: Blurr and out!