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.

Poor Darkling

We found a deep hold dug by a hungry badger looking for ant larve. At the bottom there was a poor Darkling Bettle who fallen? in the hole. The ants, being opportunistic as ants are, had begun to eat the poor guy alive.
















I reached in and scooped him out, but noticed that he was still dragging 4 ants, like cement shoes. No matter how fast he tried to run, there was and ant or two holding him back.






I pulled off two of them, but the two on his antenna were a bit more difficult. They had his antenna in their pincers and I was afraid that I would pull off his antenna if I tried to remove them.








Then I noticed that the beetle was using his legs to scrape them off himself.












Eventually he got free.

The Birth of Creativity

Ravens are such good parents. They make creative, soft nests lined with all sorts of manger makings--cedar bark, wool, orange baler twine...

Ravens mate for life and establish a territory, often using the same nest year after year. While 10-15 years is the usual lifespan, there are records of Ravens living as long as 40 years at the Tower of London.

They are hardy and adaptable, in part because they aren't picky eaters. They eat insects, fruit, berries, small mammals, road kill, garbage, you name it--if they can swallow and digest it, they eat it.

They are vocal and their call is raucous. Between 15 and 30 different calls have been recorded (depending on who you ask) and they start talking very early.

In short, they are intelligent birds, very clever and even playful. Here's one of the most amazing demonstrations of cleverness I have ever seen.

Crusty Dirt

The Great Basin is encrusted by a biological soil known variously as cryptogamic, microbiotic, microphytic, and cryptobiotic soil. Basically these are different names for crusty soil made by organisms (vs. crusts made of inorganic substances, like salt, or crusts that are the result of compacting the soil, like trails). The organisms within the soil release a gelatinous material that binds soil particles together in a dense matrix. Cryptogamic and microphytic refer to the fact that the crusts are formed primarily by plants that produce spores (blue-green algae, green algae and brown algae) and by bacteria, mosses, lichens and fungi. Micribiotic refers to the fact that the crusts are formed by living microorganisms. Cryptobiotic refers to a dormant or suspended state of animation that allows organisms to survive severe environmental conditions.
So any one of the names is correct--pick the one that rolls off your tongue. In the great basin, the biological soil is usually darker than the soil around it due to the density and characteristic colors of the organisms that hold the dirt together. The crusts and the surrounding flora have evolved some important survival strategies. The soil has nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium, iron, calcium, magnesium, and manganese fixing properties. The more gnarly soils trap water and increase infiltration. There are some studies that suggest the biological soils inhibit the germination of cheat grass seeds, but encourage germination of native grasses, globe mallow, blue flax and others. My own observations would support this--cheat grass is rare in biological soils. This is fortunate since cheat grass fires are hot! Biological crusts can survive low intensity fires, but are destroyed by hot fires.

Long ago, I learned that one should never walk on these soils because they take hundreds of years to form. That's not the whole truth. The cyanobacterial and green algae component can recover in as little as 1-5 years giving the appearance of a healthy crust. However, recovering crust thickness can take up to 50 years, and moss and lichen recovery may take up to 250 years. When the structures that hold the soil are crushed, the soil starts migrating from that destroyed spot and may cover neighboring biological soils deep enough to kill the organisms. The dead spots get bigger and bigger, and the dependent plats get fewer and fewer.

To me, what is remarkable is that the crusts represent a living organic community. I've heard reference to the lifeless, barren desert. By some estimates, these soil crusts cover as much as 70% of the open ground in the Great Basin.

Lifeless? Hardly!

Fore more information and some really cool microscopic pictures follow this link
http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/impacts/biology/crypto/