More Cool Dirt

Looking like snow, the salt crust covering this soil formed when salt-laden groundwater rose by capillarity and evaporated from the soil surface, leaving the dissolved salt behind.
http://wps.prenhall.com/chet_brady_natureandp_13/229/58750.cw/index.html

Eenie, Meenie, Miney, Mo and Still Mo!

I found some very, very, very small flowers in my favorite desolate spot. Try as I might, I can't ID them. It seems that very small flowers aren't important to taxonomists, or at least to those who populate the databases. If any of you have some hints for me, I'm listening....


Amsinckia something (Boraginaceae)


Another Amsinckia something (Boraginaceae)


Myosotis something?





As I tried to foil the wind and get some good pictures, it occurred to me that any pollinator would have to be the size of a grain of rice. When I got home with the pictures, I was shocked to see that there actually is such a thing!

The Land That God Forgot

If Art is About Light

...sunset is a master

Dazzling, Fetching Vetch

If you've never been published, here's your chance. What follows are 3 different Vetch plants that are found in the Western, Norsouthern desert of Utah. If you can identify them, you can post your name after the plant name and for the first time, be published.

Vetch #1

































































Vetch #2
Vetch #3





























































There are some 1600 varieties of Vetch world-wide. I understand that they are best identified using the seed pod, so where I could find them, I added pictures of the pods. In addition to having 150-some species and 120-some varieties in the Intermountain region, "Vetch" is a name applied variously to peas (Oxytropis) and locoweeds (Astragalus). Of the locoweeds, there are legions called "Milk Vetch." So...good luck.

By the way, the name locoweed comes from the tendency of this plant to absorb soil toxins, especially selenium. These toxins may cause grazing animals to behave as though they are, well, loco.

Rescue

I was checking on a nest that had once held Golden Eagle chicks and found that Ravens now hold the lease (not unusual). Unfortunately, it was not well supported on the outside edge. When one of their little munchkins backed up to the edge to jettison some mute, the edge of the nest (along with the munchkin) fell maybe 15 feet. The little fellow was just beginning to grow real wings, but wasn't far enough along to fly, yet he landed without apparent injury.






















I picked him up wanting to return him to his nest, but it was too high. I noticed a second cavity that looked as though it had also been prepared for nesting but it was too high to just put him in. I negotiated a rather messy, one-handed chimney climb up the crack under the nest, moving him up one ledge at a time, and finally deposited him in the substitute nest.

He was so cold. I really hope he survives.

Horny Toad

He ran across my path to a hiding place under a bush. I unsnagged him and put him on dirt for a better picture, but as you can see, his camouflage is impeccable. With a perfect match between the highlights on his suit and the fungus on the sage, he's the envy of Tommy Hilfiger.








He's not really a toad. His real name is Phrynosoma platyrhinos, or Desert Horned Lizard. He has a distinguished lineage that reaches back more than a million years, into the Pliocene. He shares an ancestor with the sand lizards (found in Europe and Mongolia). The Spaniards brought this lizard to European courts because Fernando Hernandez saw a live one squirt blood from its eyes and it was because of this rare talent that the natives of the American Southwest thought them sacred. (check out this really cool video http://www.evtv1.com/player.aspx?itemnum=1800) In Mexico, they were known as "The Virgin's Little Bull."

Four of the Horned Lizard species defend themselves by squirting blood mixed with a foul chemical from their eyes at mammal predators. The blood however, does not deter bird predators. For birds, they either flatten and bury themselves or raise their horns or both to keep the birds from finding a beak hold.





This particular species of lizard lives in lowland deserts, usually where there's sand; the northern reaches of their range start in Oregon and stretch through Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California and Baja. In many of these areas, they are declining. The decline is believed to be loss of habitat and loss of prey. They eat harvester ants, primarily, but these staples of the southern deserts are being challenged for territory by 2 species of agressive and territorial South American ants--both of which were introduced. Additionally, the use of pesticides is making poison of the Horned Lizard's dinner. I know, we all hate ants, but they do have a niche.