Update

A couple of weeks ago, a lady turned left in front of Ruby (my trusty Jeep) and she (Ruby) has been in the hospital ever since, Needless to say, without Ruby, there have been no trips to the desert. This blog will resume postings in October.

Red-tailed Hawk
Buteo jamaicensis


The may be the most forgiving big hawk. They build nests in trees, tall and not so tall, crevices and caves, and even tall buildings. This one, and her chick, were in a little park.

The Kirkpatricks

Western Burrowing Owl
Athene cunicularia hypugaea

Utah State Flower

I still remember the picture of this lily on canned milk tins from the time I was a child. The name, Sego Milk, and presumably the Lily on the label, survived the merge of its original Utah-based canned milk factory with a California-based one in 1917.


The lily root is edible, although, I understand, slightly hallucinogenic. During a period of food rationing in Utah, as a result of a Mormon Cricket infestation, between 1840 and 1851, many families supplemented their fare with Sego Lily roots. The natives of Utah also used the juice of the root to treat zits. Curious.

Sego Lily
Calochortus nuttallii

The Johnsons Again

When tracking nests, I assign surnames that correspond to letters so I can quickly place the location and its occupants when I am processing the media. Thus, my forbidden practice--the humanization of animals.

I heard an interview this morning in which a wildlife researcher commented on the similarities between human and animal behavior--mating, parenting, protecting and raising young... She stated that her observations support the animalization of humans. Interesting turn.


The Johnsons
Nestum psi

Shorebirds, Far from Any Shore

Long-billed Curlew
Numenius americanus










Both male and female incubate the eggs, but after the young are two weeks old, the female abandons them, leaving their care to her mate. Interestingly, the two will likely be mates again the following season.

Have a listen...

The Fly Boys

Here are the Johnsons


Western Burrowing Owl
Athene cunicularia hypugaea

Harry

Giant Desert Hairy Scorpion
Hadrurus arizonensis

K-So (Lindsey's dog) found this morsel for me under a rock. It is unusual to see a scorpion during the day, so it was a treat to be able to get some well-lighted pictures. Years ago when we were banding Burrowing Owl chicks, we commonly found scorpions on the butcher block at the nests--apparently they are a delicacy for the growing chicks. Burrowing Owls, like other diurnal birds, see UV, and scorpions fluoresce at night. It seems like a poor evolutionary strategy for a nocturnal desert dweller.
Nest debris often contains mountains of pedipalps (pincers) and stingers--sort of like the aftermath of a lobsterfest. Like the Burrowing owls, they live in burrows, up to 20 feet deep.
The venom is nasty stuff and and sting can be painful, but not fatal. For this reason, I always put my boots inside something for the night when I sleep under the stars. This is the largest scorpion found in North America. Its body is covered with sensory hairs--hence the name Harry.

Cliffrose

Mexican Cliffrose
Purshia mexicana or Cowania Mexicana

This beauty is a member of the Rose family, as implied by its name. I can't figure out why one of the common names for this bush is Quinine Brush. Natives used a tea to treat skin rashes, insect bites, measles and chickenpox, but there's no record of effectiveness. It seems suspect since they also used the tea to induce vomiting and to treat arthritis, venereal disease, kidney disease, constipation and worms, among a hodgepodge of others. They made a bitter concoction (bitter being the only commonality with quinine that I could discover) with sage and juniper to loosen mucus and treat pneumonia. Yet, the medicinal properties must not have been without merit. In 2006, there were some studies linking a complex tannin and triterpenoids from this plant to an inhibitory effect on Epstein-Barr virus early antigen and HIV. 1
Early natives also used shredded bark and for diapers, pillows, mats, shoe insulators and clothing and combined the bark with yucca fibers for rope. A brown and tan dye was made from the leaves and stems combined with juniper branches.
It is browse for native and domestic ungulates. Ants and small rodents are an import part of its life cycle. The little guys stow the seeds for the winter and, when the cellar is not bare come spring, the new seedlings emerge from these stores. The seed pods produce feathery plumes which carry the seeds on the wind and, once grounded, the plumes twist in the wind and drive the seed under.
Regeneration is aided by fire (although the plant is not fire resistant)--the smoke of burning Artemesia tridendata (Big Sage) helps seeds germinate. Bitterbrush is an "actinorhizal," meaning it is symbiotic with a certain type of bacteria (Frankia actinomycetes) and together they add nitrogen to the soil. Unlike many of the plants of old Lake Bonneville, this one is not tolerant of saline soils.
1 Hideyuki Ito, Masateru Miyake, Eisei Nishitani, Kyoko Miyashita, Morio Yoshimura, Takashi Yoshida, Midori Takasaki, Takao Konoshima, Mutsuo Kozuka and Tsutomu Hatano, “Cowaniin, a C-Glucosidic Ellagitannin Dimer Linked through Catechin from Cowania mexicana”, Chem. Pharm. Bull., Vol. 55, 492-494 (2007)

Fishing in the Desert?

Fishhook Cactus
Sclerocactus sp?

Stinky

Green Stink Bug
Acrosternum hilare

Stink bugs are aptly named because they have stink glands on their underside that discharge a foul-smelling liquid when they are frightened.

This beetle prefers dry, arid areas. There is a bright green cousin of this bug that lives mainly back east. He and his kind are orchard nightmares because they love to eat developing seeds. When there are no seeds they feed on stems and foliage. In short, even though this fellow is beauty, he is a pest.

Listen to the Mockingbird

This cheery fellow sang from the top of the juniper canopy over my bed--he sang and sang and sang and...well you get the picture. His little opera had music scores that I recognized from the Meadow Lark Ballad, the Black Throated Sparrow Sonata, the Western Kingbird Cantata, The Horned Lark Madrigal, and The Raven/Magpie Roundelay and some that I'm sure he just made up on the spot.



Northern Mockingbird
Mimus polyglottos

Horse of Another Color

Littleleaf Horsebrush
Tetradymia glabrata

Horsebrush is toxic to sheep while it is flowering. It contains furanoeremophilanes and resins which cause liver damage, abortions and death. Interestingly, when eaten together with Horsebrush, Black Sage increases sensitivity to the Horsebrush toxins, primarily through photo sensitization. It seems counterintuitive that the most common domestic browsers in the desert are herds of sheep. The brush is found in saline and alkaline soils.

The Real Thing

Western Rattlesnake
Crotalus viridis

This one was no impostor. He was maybe 4.5 feet long and was crossing the road while a Horned Lark harassed him. I wondered if the snake was after the Lark's eggs.

The tongue flick is a method of "smelling." The tongue picks up particles in the air and reads them with special organs in the roof of the snake's mouth. They also smell with their noses and are very good at tracking the prey they have envenomated. They find their prey with heat sensing organs known as "pits" (hence the name, pit viper). Using a combination of the pits, very sensitive nerves in their mouth and an infrared detector, they detect differences in heat of 1.5 to 4.5 C between the prey and the background temperature.

These snakes hibernate enmasse and emerge between March and May. The males can mate anytime, except in torpor, but females only ovulate once a year in the spring. The females can hold the sperm until they ovualte, then they hold the eggs until they hatch. They actually lay eggs AND give birth. (Maybe there's a good excuse for their notoriously bad temper.) The females give live birth in a den to 2-14 snakelettes (equal ratio of males and females) sometime between August and October then stay close for awhile to to guard the little ones till they head out on their own.

Contrary to common opinion, adult snakes do not always deliver venom. The little ones are more likely to inject venom than the big ones--manufacturing venom is an expensive effort--but the big ones deliver more venom when they are serious. A "wet bite" can cause serious tissue necrosis (through hemolytic, neurologic and proteolytic action) if not treated within 18 hours, but does not usually cause death; however, northern snake venom is more hemorrhagic . Bites are almost always preceded by a warning rattle. I was disappointed that this guy wouldn't give me a good rattle, but Western Rattlesnakes don't rattle much even when threatened. When they do rattle, the rattle shakes 20-100 times per second. The snakes shed their skin once every year and put on another rattle each time. With 7 rattles, this guy was probably just leaving puberty (the oldest recorded is 27 years).

A few feet down the road, I came across a 6 foot Gopher Snake. He was incensed that I shooed him off the road. To make me think again about interrupting his trip, he blew up his cheeks to look like a viper and drew up into a mock rattlesnake coil. When he saw I wasn't taking him seriously, he decided to scoot. As he hurried away through the grass, he let the air out of his cheeks and looked once again like a harmless Gopher Snake. Imposter!

...and a Few More

A Few Great Basin Grasses

Sedges have edges,
And rushes are round,
But grasses, like asses
Have holes.



Indian Ricegrass
Achnatherum hymenoides

This delicate grass is much more robust than it appears. It is used to reclaim disturbed sandy soil in very dry areas, but it does require good drainage. The seed has a very hard coat that can resist fire and can lay dormant for several years, which makes the see marketable to small rodents who collect and store the seed for the winter months.
The seed has a high protein and fat content, so it is a favorite of Mourning Doves and Pheasants, as well as other songbirds. It was also a staple for American Indians. It is also named Sand Grass, Indian Mountain Grass, Indian Millet, Sandrice and Silky Grass for obvious reasons.

Foxtail Barley
Hordeum jubatum
This grass is the bane of long-haired dogs and dogs with upright ears. Like the Ricegrass it is an invader of disturbed areas and tolerates salty soil. Because the salt accumulates in leaves and roots, it can reduce soil salinity. It can thrive in wet or dry ground and is drought tolerant, but has to have a period of cold in order to germinate. Each plant produces up to 200 seeds with long tails which have barbs, so can travel to far away places with strange sounding names.

Family Portrait

Ferruginous Hawk
Buteo regalis

Who Pinched My Bum?

I found him in an old horse print--deep enough to have been made when it was muddy and old enough to be very dry. All I could see was 3 inches of snake skin, obviously occupied since it was about an inch in diameter and breathing. I looked closer and saw that a small rodent hole held the tail part and a second hole held the head part. I couldn't tell for sure from the small section of him what kind of snake or how big, so I poked him with my finger. I have never seen a snake move so fast. Within 4 and a half nanoseconds the tail appeared out of the tail hole and disappeared down the head hole and the head emerged from the same hole. I was looking eye to eye with a very offended viper. That look said it all!

Seeps

If I understand this correctly, the water seeps upward through the soil by capillary action forming a hard pan and bringing salt to the surface. The water evaporates, leaving the salt behind.





In Arabia, these are called Sabkhas.

In any case, the crystals are beautiful, even though the green water is a bit revolting.

Crone Clone

My deaf, half blind buddy got herself lost this weekend. We slept under the stars and it was cold. That's not a problem, because I anticipate cold until June AND I have Jessie. She's better than an electric blanket. She and I started out in separate beds, but as the cold descended we moved into one bed--mine. Somewhere in the hours between the dead of night and the crack of dawn, she decided the ground squirrels might be misbehaving and that it was her duty to check on them. She complained, and complained, and complained. I finally pushed her out and fell asleep listening to her tags jingle. Some time later I woke up and realized I could no longer hear the tags. I sighed, got out of my warm bed and into my cold shoes and jacket, and headed out with a flashlight to look for her. I found her close to a quarter of a mile away, wandering in circles and looking very bewildered. She stared into the flashlight at first, ready to bolt, as if she thought it was a UFO. When she realized that I was behind the light, she almost screamed. "Hoauh, Hough, Ark Ark ARK" (meaning, "Where have you been?!?"). We went back to bed and she lay very still until long after dawn--and for the rest of the day, she stayed very close.

Sudafed Tea

Mormon Tea
Ephedra viridis

Eaten, mostly in the winter, by game animals, domestic animals, rodents and even quail, Mormon Tea is highly toxic to pregnant cows and sheep. New shoots of Mormon Tea are rich in potassium and iron. The one-plant desert pharmacy contains ephedrine, pseudoephedrine, norephedrine, and tannin. Native Americans brewed a medicinal tea for backaches from Mormon Tea (also known as Brigham Team, Nevada Joint-fir, American Ma Huang, Mexican Tea, Desert Ephedra and Desert Tea) and ground it into flour and "coffee" grounds. The buds in the pictures above are edible and the Seeds can be ground for Desert Starbucks. The young raw stems have the greatest concentration of the ephedrine alkaloid.

Here are all the uses claimed forthis miracle plant: anti-viral (esp. for influenza), antidote, antispasmodic, diaphoretic (causes sweat), blood purifier (whatever that is), diuretic, pectoral (relieves cough and asthma), vasodilator, stimulant, and, to cover anything that might be left, a tonic.

Here's What's Blooming Now

Filaree Storksbill

Erodium cicutarium

Nuttall's Larkspur
Delphinium nuttallianum




Desert Globemallow
Sphaeralea coulteri

Lupine
Lupinus Oneofmanius

(double click)

Popcorn Flower
Cryptantha angustifolia

Desert Paintbrush
Castilleja angustifolia

Long-leaved Phlox
Phlox longifolia

Sweet Sand Verbena
Abronia elliptica

Cushion Buckwheat
Eriogonum ovalifolium

Lily
Eremocrinum mysteriofolia