Cattle tanks and Tinajas

La Sierra Sierra Huérfana in Sonora, Mexico is a beautiful sky island that concentrates enormous biodiversity in a very small area. But when we arrived at the end of April 2014, there hadn't been any rain since June 2013. So no real monsoon and no winter rains. The ranchers told us that they were embarrassed to have us visit at a bleak time like this. But the drier it is, the more life will concentrate around the few spots that still have water. During bird migration,  the rings of green, blooming trees around cattle tanks and tejadas function as veritable magnets. Or 'migrant traps', more dramatically expressed. The birds are seeking water, of course, but insectivores also find food and many will  directly take nectar from the blooming trees to replenish their energy resources.

 Cattle tank and tinajas provide water. Green and blooming trees around them attract insects and scores of migrant and resident birds

Blooming Acacias Havardia mexicana and a few Mesquite trees were buzzing with Mexican Honey Wasps  Brachygastra mellifica. This is  a small paper wasp that builds basket ball shaped nests.

Campsomeris ephippeum left photo by Doug Danfoth. Specimen spread by John Palting

There were also a few huge scoliids of a species that has made it into Arizona in recent years, Campsomeris ephippeum.

But for most of our group, birds were the main attraction. During the first 2 mornings, we just waited by a pool close to the campground and were rewarded with a multitude of warblers, fly catchers, wrens, tanagers and sparrows. On the third day the stream began to trickle out. We had arrived just at the right moment.

Acorn Woodpecker, Black-headed Grosbeak, Western Tanager

My cameras and lenses are for macro photography, but I could not resist trying. Much better photos can be found in Doug Danforth's flickr album.

Hooded Oriole (in the Pueblo), Dusky Capped Flycatcher, Summer Tanager, Hermit Warbler 

Eric Wallace, our Limnologist, sat out traps for turtles over night. They were baited with fat from the barbeque. On the first morning, he found mud turtles lined up in the entrance: most individuals of the locale species was to large to actually get into the traps.

Tom VanDevender, Enrique Yescas and Eric Wallace with Mexican Mud Turtle Kinosternon integrum

Photo by Nikki Burns

Mud turtles can close their shells in the same way box turtles do, but when these did stick out their heads, they were very impressive. They also smelled very bad.

Cattle hoofs had churned every inch of the banks into bare mud, with no room for wet-land vegetation. The water was on the eutroph side, to say the least. But non of the pools I saw had reached the tipping point, and they are probably to shallow to become dangerously oxygen deprived.

Decidous Tropical Thorn Forest

(part of a series of blogs about the Sky Island Alliance expedition to the Sonoran Sky Island Sierra Huérfana in Sonora Mexico)

Tropical Thorn Forest

On the way up, when we crossed the belt of tropical thorn forest that covers the lower elevations of the sky island, I knew that that was the most exotic habitat I would see. So I was eager to get down there again on our first full day. The area looked bleached and shockingly dry. Many plants had been badly damaged by a deep freeze that hit the area in February 2013. This was followed by an extended severe drought, as there was no rain at all since June 2013. So most of the expected monsoon and all of the winter rains missed the Sierra Huerfana last year.

Adobe building and corrals

Feather Bush Lysiloma watsonii, Kapok Tree Ceiba acuminata, Mexican Tree Ocotillo Fouquieria macdougalii, thorns of the Kapok Tree, Boat thorn Acacia Acacia cochliacantha

 Even though many sat dry dry and lifeless, the plants were fascinating. Huge Tree Ocotillos were actually in bloom, Kapoc trees were full of fluffy white seeds. I think I saw a few flowers on Morning Glory Trees. A few Mesquites and Palo Verde relatives added some color. Organ Pipe Cacti and another tree cactus rose up among Boat Thorn Acacias Acacia cochliacantha and Feather Bush Trees Lysiloma watsonii.

Elegant Quail pair under an Organ-pipe Cactus

Dale with over 6 feet of Indigo Snake shed

A large tenaja still retained some water. Birds and insects were visiting to drink and collect minerals from the mud. Close by we found an enormous shed skin of an Indigo Snake.

5-striped Sparrow, Prickly Poppy, Common Ground Doves, Tarantula Hawk, Blackened Bluewing, Mexican Amberwing, Mexican Honeywasp

Roseate Skimmer and Mexican Amberwing

Hydrophilus triangularis (Giant Black Water Beetle), Cicindela sedecimpunctata (Western Red-bellied Tiger Beetle), and a leech

I saw a Giant Water Beetle surface to take up air into his plastron  (physical gill) so  I sacrificed the integrity  of my butterfly net and leveled him out of the flat murky water only to discover several leeches as by-catch.

Atta mexicana colony, Major worker and refuse heap guests Bess Beetle Ptichopus angulatus, female roach similar to Arenivaga sp.

Close by Dale found a big Leaf-cutter Ant Atta mexicana colony. With hardly any fresh leaves available, the ants were busily house-keeping, piling debris and dead colony mates on the huge refuse heap in front of the colony. We noted that the dead ants were dumped unceremoneously, but all in the same corner of the pile. Digging though the material we found interesting beetles (dead) and roaches (alive).

Pseudomyrmex sp.

 Another ant landed in my beating sheet under a mesquite tree - one of the pretty Pseudomyrmex species that all lead an arboreal life style. I passed the observation and the specimen on to the ant guys of our expedition and they managed to collect just one more specimen at the same location.

Century old cooking pits along the road indicated where agave (sotol?) hearts had been first cooked and then fermented to produce the local tequila like alcohol. For a long time, this activity was illigal, but who would have controlled these inaccessible mountain paths?

Desert Iguana, Ornate Tree Lizard, Clark's Spiny Lizard

Most of the participants of this particular trip were herpetologists. But the drought had not only diminished the insect fauna but also driven most reptiles into hiding. A few lizards, all old acquaintances from Tucson, obliged.

The little mining camp with Javelina jerky and chaps hanging in the kitchen tree

But my friends wanted to see snakes! So when we met a cowboy who said he had seen a big grey snake a couple of hours ago and several miles up a dirt road, we drove out to find it. Less enthusiastic and also doubtful that the snake was still waiting to be found, I decided to stay in a little camp where we left the cars. The two guys living there seemed happy for the company, even if the communication was difficult. First the showed me, in confidence, a bag of gold sand that the had dug up while digging a well. It wasn't shiny, just very heavy. Then they cooked coffee, to be served in cups that were hanging from a tree. We even had cookies! Also in the tree above the coffee table were pieces of a javelina, drying to become jerky. When Tom Jones returned from the unsuccessful snake hunt, he was very interested in the javelina meat, and our gracious hosts brought out the filet pieces and gave them to him. People can be so generous! They would not take no for and answer.

For more photos go to Doug Danforth's flickr album

The Ant and the Caterpillar

In Costa Rica I watched Bullhorn Ants living in close association with their acacia. The ants live in the huge hollow thorns of the tree and in addition to housing the tree offers all kinds of incentives to the ants, who in turn defend the Acacia against 'pests' like caterpillars that would love to chew on those beautiful feathery leaves. If you lean too closely into the tree those ants get ready to attack even a camera or a human hand. Vicious Pseudomyrmex ferruginea.
 I had great photos and lost them all to a computer bug that was even more vicious.

When the Velvet Mesquite is in bloom on the state land in Picture Rocks, Arizona, I spend a lot of time staring at the catkins. They are full of insect life, but most of it is both cryptic and tiny, including our smallest bees with the nice name Perdita, the lost one. To find one check the top of the catkin  in the right half of the picture above.

Pseudomyrmex sp. and Lycaenid caterpillars

 Today I saw an ant that was rather large and obvious by comparison. Its slim build and large eyes let me think of Pseudomyrmex apache that I had beaten off mesquite trees in Madera Canyon before. Drawn in by the ant I discovered two cryptic caterpillars of a Lycaenid Butterfly, probably a Marine Blue. They were sitting just as quietly as these guys usually are. Hard to tell if they were feeding or simply resting. The catkin was past its prime and probably not much of a resource anymore and the caterpillars big enough to pupate soon. The ant was standing above one of them, sometimes bobbing up and down, but mostly just excitedly trilling its antennae at the caterpillar.

Vanduzea laeta and Crematogaster Ants

Ants communicate with each other in this way, but I have also seen them 'talk' to other insects that serve them as honey-dew-cattle. Crematogaster (Acrobat Ants) can often be seen stroking Aphids or Leaf hoppers with their antennae. Those hemipterans suck fluid from the phloem of plants and eliminate the surplus as honey dew. Ants are crazy for sweets and tend and defend their hemipterans facefully.

But caterpillars? Dave Wagner states in his book Caterpillars of Eastern North America: 'It turns out that nearly half the worlds 5500 lycaenid species (blues, coppers, hairstreaks) is tended by ants. In some species the association is so tight that the ants even carry the caterpillars to and from their nests' (where some species turn into brood parasites) and back to the feedings site on the proper host plants. The caterpillars of ant tended species have dorsal nectar glands on the 7th abdominal segment. From those, they periodically release a sugary substance. Most feed on flowers or fruit so they have access to excess sugar. The caterpillars can even call for the ants by vibration, but I got the impression that my ant was also trying to stimulate the caterpillar. If predators attack the caterpillar the ants will probably defend it, but I think in the most primitive form of this symbiosis the caterpillar is simply paying off the ants who otherwise might be the most dangerous predators themselves. The six legged mafia.
I saw the ant leave a couple of times and climb deeper into the tree. Pseudomyrmex are arboreal ants so the nest was probably inside a hole of a tree branch. Even though it was close to sunset and the wind was gusting, again and again there was an ant sitting on the caterpillars. I never saw more than one, perhaps always the same individual.
To me it was a surprise that an ant of the same genus as the tree-garding Bull-horn Ants of Costa Rica would be in a close relationship with caterpillars in Arizona. 

To see a video of the ant with the caterpillars. Please click!

A nearby Catclaw Acacia was still in full bloom and females of Marine Blues were depositing their eggs. I assume that my caterpillars are of the same species.

Who needs Chihuli?

(we all do :)

It's been a while since my last post. With a small business like mine, tax time means a lot of work, and then I had two workshops to prepare and present, one at Butterfly Wonderworld in Scottsdale and one at the Desert Botanical Garden in Phoenix. Both went over well, I think. I definitely enjoyed both locations for their spectacular beauty and the great groups they had attracted. While both events were a pleasure for me, the preparations too a lot of time. And on Saturday I'm off to a Mexico Expedition!
So here are just a few photos that I took during the Insect Photography Workshop that I taught in Phoenix.

 
Some of our group at work and a Chihuli glass sculpture. I had geared the class towards beginners with point-and-shoot cameras. Those were quite under-represented. But we did find that there is use for everything, even a smart phone.

Following is a series of highlights from the Gardens by the participants of the workshop and myself. (photos without attribution)

Beefly by Pete Moulton

Difficult Light and tiny Crab Spider, Mecaphesa sp.

Intimate moment in the live of bees. Calliopsis sp.

Green Lacewing Eggs

Convergent Lady Beetle Larva

Ashy Lady Beetle

Reminiscent of expressionist Emil Nolde. Pteleon brevicornis

The elusive Chrysobothris high up in a tree, but we got to watch some interesting behavior

Who turned the Cottonwood Leaves into lace?

More Chihuli

Oncopeltus sanguineolentus (Blood-colored Milkweed Bug)

This is a bug I really wanted to see: Apparently the host plant is Rush or Desert Milkweed - Asclepias subulata which is restricted to w. AZ, se. CA, and s. NV. in the U.S. In our area the Desert botanical Garden is the only place where this bug occurs. There were many of these and few Large and Small Milkweed Bugs. Were they out-competed?

Augochlorella sp.

My students wanted me to crop this more tightly, but  I like the complete version, which is unusual for me.

Disclaimer: The title of this blog is of course tongue in cheek. We all loved Chihuli's work and it greatly enhanced our visit. I was also told that it looks even better in the dark when it's illuminated. But I think the natural beauty of the Gardens is just very hard to beat.

Many thanks to the great people in the Garden's Adult Education Program who made this event possible and kept it running smoothly.The computer room in the Archer building is awesome for photography classes.

The first Gambel's Quail chicks of the year!

Today we celebrated Randy's birthday with an early morning walk to the Red Tail Hawk nest. Finally, a chick, still white and fluffy, was visible. Of course we had the dogs with us and they discovered some great new toys: Our rodeo-riding neighbor had brought in a fresh herd of cattle.
So luckily everybody was nicely tired out when we returned home.

During our unusually calm entrance I noticed a male quail quietly guarding the corner of our brick patio. It made me curious, because these guys are usually boisterous and noisy. When I saw him slipping into a small raised bed of Barrio Petunias I was fairly sure that I would find a quail nest full of eggs in there.

The Barrio Petunias are among the few plants in our garden that we water regularly and generously. But before flooding whatever was in there, I wanted to carefully check. Well, not careful enough, because mom took off with a shriek. But when she was gone, I kept hearing little voices.

Quail nest some years ago in nearly the same location

 So I bent the plant stems apart. I didn't expect much of an actual nest. Quail really don't bother with a lot of nesting material, they just lay their many eggs in a tightly packed clutch on the ground. In this case, most or all of the eggs were empty shells already. But right next to them, something moved.

All the little hatchlings were still there, fresh out of the eggs but already dry and fluffy. I felt very privileged to witness this short moment that these precocious birds spend at the nest.

Can you see the little egg tooth on top of the beak? It's used to scrape open the eggshell from the inside, and is lost very soon after hatching.
The panicky exit of their mother had send some chicks hiding in the plants around the nest, but soon they all instinctively huddled together again in one tight clump. video click here

Being kids, they quickly forgot their scare and began pecking around, pecking at everything in their surroundings, including their siblings toes. I took some photos, resisting the idea to use the flash to brighten up the very deep shadows. The parents were calling close by, so I let them be. From a distance, I saw the female slip back under the Barrio Petunia. I know the family will not stay around the nest too long, they may be gone tomorrow.

Maybe I'll see them at the feeder or the bird bath, and hopefully in a bigger group than this one from last year.

When Randy checked the next morning, only broken egg shells were left behind. Empty Nest Syndrome!

Backyard Beauties in April

Fairy Duster seedpods with Santa Rita Prickly Pear background

Strawberry Hedgehog, Echinocereus engelmannii

Pencil Cholla, Cylindropuntia ramosissima

Hybrid between Beavertail and Santa Rita PP?

Texas Longthorn, Opuntia macrocentra

Another Hedgehog

Staghorn Cholla

Santa Rita Prickly Pear, Opuntia violaceae santa rita   

Chenille Prickly Pear Cactus (Opuntia aciculata).

Yellow Bird of Paradise

Ocotillo

Catclaw Vine

Hybrid Palo Verde

Teddy Bear Cholla

Orange Bells, Tecoma alata

Bougainvillaea

Barrio Petunia

Cat claw Vine

Texas Longthorn, Opuntia macrocentra

Oleander