This horned lizard was snoozing beside a rock in the upper bird-feeding yard.
A beautiful example of cryptic coloring.
Can you find him?
He is in the lower right next in the photos, next to a pale rock.
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nature. Show all posts
Juvenile ravens at West Coast Tank
About 30 miles south of us is a large manmade charco (Spanish for cattle pond), which fills seasonally - usually in summer when the heavy rains flood the normally dry washes. West Coast Tank is several acres, with a small island in the middle that is sometimes a peninsula, depending on the volume of water. We were delighted to discover this amazing oasis in July and are making regular "safaris" there to enjoy the birds and other wildlife.
One of the highlights of a visit on Saturday was sneaking up on two juvenile ravens sitting deep in a mesquite tree - sound asleep! They were small, about 2/3 size, and the closest one to us (about six feet away) was clearly asleep, slightly wavering back and forth, very comfy in the cool canopy. When they finally heard us, they started shuffling around a little and then started calling - high-pitched for ravens, not yet fully developed. Soon their parents swooped in to scold us and protect them. We left soon thereafter. But the feeling of standing so close to them, while they snoozed, was really quite wonderful - a real nature connection.
Vin de noix ~ Green walnut wine
Walnuts (Juglans major) in the southwestern states are beginning to ripen . . . time to try something I've had in my nature notes for some time: vin noix (green walnut wine), made from noix de Saint-Jean (Saint John's walnut). One of the best tutorials on the origin and making of this European aperitif is on William Rubel's website (williamrubel.com). Traditionally in France the walnuts (from J. regia) are harvested around June 24, which is Saint Jean's Day, the feast of Saint John. Our southwestern species don't begin to grow until later in July. I don't know if our wild walnuts will yield a quality flavored product (it's actually one of several flavorings in what's known as a fortified wine, since it's made by infusing alcohol and wine with botanicals and spices). The recipes refer to the astringent quality of the walnuts, and ours certainly have that characteristic. I gathered these in New Mexico's Mimbres Valley, northeast of Silver City.
Vin de Noix (from William Rubel)
40 young walnuts that can be pierced with a needle, rinsed and quartered
1 liter alcohol such as brandy, marc, eau de vie, or vodka
5 liters red wine
1 kg sugar (2 pounds)
One or more of the following are often added, but are optional
12 walnut leaves
Zest of 1 orange
4 to 8 cloves
1 vanilla bean
[I reduced the recipe to 15 wild walnuts; 1.25 L red Italian table wine; .25 L vodka; 225 g sugar; 4 walnut leaves; half a vanilla bean; zest of 1/4 orange; 4 cloves.]
1. Pick the walnuts in late June when the walnuts are well formed, but can still be pierced with a needle. Place all of the ingredients in an 8 quart (8 liter) non-reactive container with a lid. I use a large glass jar. Store in a cool dark place for 6 to 8 weeks, shaking occasionally.
2. Strain through cheesecloth into a bowl. Taste, and adjust the sugar if you want the drink to be sweeter. Bottle and store in a cool dark place until the cold weather.
Check back in eight weeks for a taste test. I'll also look for ripe walnuts in the fall; these make excellent pigment.Prickly pear fruit ripening . . .
And the desert dwellers, including us, enjoy their tart-sweet goodness, complete with fuschia lips.
I will be extracting prickly pear juice this week. Meanwhile a local desert tortoise shows evidence of snacking.
iPhone as a journal tool
I caved in to the urge and got an iPhone 3G . . . and have been amazed. It's not 'just' a phone, it's a tiny computer and a GPS. It instantly replaced five 'gadgets' I usually have with me: phone, iPod, computer, camera, and GPS. An unexpected bonus is that I have found it a perfect journaling tool.
What bird was that? The other day we drove down to a pond south of us, and were astonished to find hundreds of birds enjoying the bounty of water in the desert. I didn't have my full field guide set with me, but I was able to confirm Common Ground Dove calling with National Geographic's Handheld Birds app - most every entry includes sound as well as images and data.
I have a real ineptitude for remembering astronomy. My all-time-favorite app thus far is StarWalk. Like having a mini planetarium and personal starguide in your pocket. It's difficult to describe just how cool this app is - you can zoom in and out, scroll 360 degrees around the dome of the sky, including what's below the horizon . . . click on a planet or star or cluster and get full data on it . . . and search for the name of a celestial object and it will show you where it is - all in exact relation to your current location. So when I note in my journal the arresting moonscape-and-planet I saw at 4 am, I can look up exactly which planet.
I always note the times of sun and moon rising and setting, as well as the moon phase. This great app, called Sun and Moon, always keeps it at my fingertips.
With the GPS and two very useful apps, I am always able to follow our route on topographical maps in the U.S., or using Google maps elsewhere. Topo Maps has a full set of USGS maps for download, and GPS MotionX turns the iPhone GPS into a fully functional track and waypoint tool and then some. I no longer need my Garmin, and furthermore it's much easier to use, download maps, and export and share data.
Finally, I am always using the built-in iPhone camera to take snapshots of things I want to sketch, like beetles or a nice sunset. And I can use All-in Notes to take quick voice memos or combined photo / note / memos and email them to my main computer.
All the apps are available at the App store; just use the Search function to find.
A touch of tropics
Lovely rain is turning our desert tropical.
Fruit ripening on the prickly pear cactuses.
A mini Zen-rock-garden, pebbles from Baja that turn cactus-green in the rain.
Pink: Summer color in the Sonoran Desert
Arizona pincushion cactus ~
a bee friend
a field of pink . . .
how many pincushions do you see in the image?
The perils of a curious (and absent-minded) spouse
For weeks now I've been plagued in my studio / office by the {highly} unpleasant aroma of something decaying . . . I had assumed it was a mouse that snuck in the open door one morning when I was airing it out, or perhaps had gotten in through some unknown hole in the roof (unlikely). We looked high and low, under and over, around and around - and we could not find the source, which seemed to come from higher up, and waft around in a frustratingly fickle manner. For at least five days it was impossible to even work there . . . I was not amused.
This morning I decided to air out the three motorcycle jackets hanging near my workbench - mine and two of Jonathan's. They seemed musty - and I didn't like that smell either - so I took them outside, and Jonthan helped. He seemed preoccupied with one of them, his Barbour International. But he's always preoccupied with jackets.
Just as we were concluding lunch, Jonathan said: "Um, I hope you enjoyed lunch with me today."
"Of course! But why do you ask?"
"Um . . . it might be our last for a while."
"?"
"Um . . . about three weeks ago I was riding home on the Royal Enfield and I found a just-roadkilled lizard . . . I thought it was a long-nosed leopard-lizard but wasn't sure . . . so I, um, sort of put it in the pocket of my Barbour, so I could ID it when I got home . . . and, well, I forgot about it.
"Until just now."
Mystery solved. The Barbour jacket was hanging behind 4 other jackets, so the smell was 'muffled' by lots of fabric and explaining why we could not locate it. Twenty-five years together, I'm not surprised, and . . . of course, I should have guessed!
{And yes, it was a long-nosed leopard lizard, quite lovely . . .}
Journal page ~ Fire on Elkhorn Ridge
There has been a fire on a ridge in the Baboquivari Mountains west and south of us . . . we watched it grow in the night, an eerie string of fire-pearls creeping up the mountain ridge. Now it is threatening Brown Canyon and the house where we used to live . . . and Elkhorn Ranch, owned by Mary and Charlie Miller . . . the fire was started by an illegal immigrant, trying to signal for help. We are in California right now and are watching and hearing the news from afar . . .
Journal page ~ Desert castanets
The seed pods on the foothills palo verde (Cercidium microphyllum) are drying out, and the wind today is turning each tree into a little band of castanets . . . click-click-rattle-rattle-clack. The colors are washed, pale yellow, soft green . . .
Tracking cougars in southeastern Arizona
On Friday and Saturday Jonathan and I were volunteer team leaders for the 20th Fort Huachuca Mountain Lion Track Count. We have been involved with this project for 14 years off and on. It is one of the longest-running wildlife tracking programs in the country, and this was the final count, according to founder Sheridan Stone, the fort biologist. Sky Island Alliance, a non-profit conservation organization in Tucson that works on wildlife linkages throughout the American Southwest and northern Mexico, coordinated the event. We have taught wildlife tracking skills for the organization since 2000 (and I was the executive director for several years).
Our assigned transect for the weekend was only accessible by a difficult 4WD trail, so our team of five piled into my Land Cruiser diesel and headed up the mountain at 6 am. Six teams in all spent the weekend surveying sections of trail for mountain lion and black bear tracks and sign. The data has helped the Fort get an understanding of wildlife numbers and movements over time. Here are some pictures:
That's me showing off some mountain lion scat (poop!).
Jonathan on the trail.
The rough road required the team to pile into my Land Cruiser diesel (note the cheetah spots).
Lunch break - me, Hanna, Rachelle, and Ron
On our 1.5 mile-long transect, we found sign of one lion - a set of tracks heading downhill from about 200 meters. The tracks were hard to see because the wind had been high all night, scrubbing the dirt and disturbing the tracks. In the photo, the track is hard to see; it is between the two and four on the bottom ruler - it is about 2.5 x 2.5 inches, a smallish lion, probably a female. Below is a track from another field session; the large main pad and three lobes at the bottom identify it as cat, and the size as cougar.
Greening of the desert
Yesterday I found this lovely vintage Indian scarf at my favorite thrift store, which was closing for the summer and marked everything at 50 percent off ~ so this was $2. It's a beautiful desert-summer-green cotton, pale, with tiny sequins and one rhinestone decoration. The hem is hand-rolled and sewn
The desert here is also greening up, after an unusual late May rain . . . usually in June it is dry, bone dry, and plants are withered and brown. But now, even the ocotillos have leaves.
Prickly pear cactus fruit ripening
Palo verde seed pods ripening
Prickly pear cactus pad growth
Ocotillo leaves
An early appreciate for nature & beauty
Are creativity and curiosity innate, or learned? Perhaps a combination. My parents are both very creative and appreciative of nature, beauty, and art. They passed that on to their children - all of us are creative in different ways, and interested in the world around us; I see it in the my nieces and nephew, too. My dad loved rockhounding in the Southwest, and took us kids with him on trips to search for geodes, desert roses, chalcedony nodules, agates, and pyrite. That's me circa 1972 or so, with my little collecting bag, probably filled with a hammer and some unknown rocks. Dad cut rocks into slabs and made them into cabochons, and then made jewelry. I loved hanging out in his workshop - it smelled of dusty rocks and machine oil. Little did I know I would pick up the thread decades later and become a lapidary and jewelrymaker, too. All those weekends exploring the deserts around our home also rubbed off on me - nature is an enormous inspiration to me, a real passion. I'm so grateful to have a spouse who shares that, and a wonderful retreat in the desert where I am surrounded by the things I love the most.
Beautiful patterns in nature ~ scales
Not everyone thinks snakes are beautiful, but to me they are. It's snake season here in the Sonoran Desert, so it means being a little more careful where one puts feet or hands. But when you chance upon a rattlesnake hunting, like this one, coiled near the bird feeders, it is a chance to appreciate the beautful colors and patterns in their skin, rendering them nearly invisible in the pebbly ground.
Cream-white: the color of Sonoran Desert summer
As we move into full summer, the colors become bleached . . .
Saguaro cactus blossom
Soaptree yucca flower stalk
Seed pods of pincushion flower (Chaenactis)
Deer skulls and antlers
Beautiful patterns in nature ~ rocks
Today is cloudy and rainy, the colors muted, and the patterns in this little pile of rocks on my front porch just appealed to me in the soft light. All collected within a mile of home: tumbled amethyst-striped quartz; copper ore; chalcedony (white and amber quartz); and a translucent red and soft green (rock types unknown).
Yellow: The color of early summer in the Sonoran Desert
Beautiful patterns in nature ~ cryptic coloring
Summer is dawning on us gently this year in the Sonoran Desert. Two nights ago the Lesser Nighthawks began trilling - one of the signature sounds of desert summer. It is still cool - we haven't had any hot days yet. But the ancient rhythms carry on. Soon there will be nighthawk nests, which aren't really nests at all but just barely discernible indentations under a small shrub. A cryptically colored egg or two is laid. In a few weeks, a chick will hatch, if the parents are lucky, and it will be ready to fly very soon - nighthawk young are precocial, like baby quail - they must be ready to run or fly from predators very soon, since their rocky nests offer no protection. The egg above is beautiful - inspiration for a future art project.
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