Breeding Birds and Their Babies

I've been doing breeding bird surveys around the ranch lately to see what birds live here. I'm using a point count protocol, which means to do the survey, I count all the birds I see or hear during 10 minutes, then move 300 meters to the next spot and count again. There are ten points along the transect. In addition to noting what birds I notice, I write down approximately how far they are from me and if they are showing any signs of breeding. This last week I noticed some definite signs of breeding in the form of baby birds. I was able to get a photo of this group of five ducklings partly because they can't fly yet. My camera is good at close ups but not so good with far away objects, so I don't have many photos today.
One of the common birds on the ranch near some of the ponds is the Yellow-headed Blackbird. (Don't ask me why, but common bird names are usually capitalized, but mammals, reptiles, amphibians, etc. are not.) This particular Yellow-headed Blackbird was part of a big family group including several immature birds. They have a raucous call that reminds me of being at a bawdy party.
This baby Killdeer was so cute. It and its sibling were following their mama around on the sand bank. Its legs look so long for its little body. 
We've had three Great Horned Owl babies hanging around our yard, and this is one of them. It doesn't look much like a baby now, growing rapidly over the last few weeks. We hear the owls a lot at night, sometimes waking us up if they're close to our bedroom window. 

I love breeding bird surveys because they make me focus just on the birds for a few hours. I'm always amazed how many different birds are out there, and how moving just a short distance from one habitat to another changes the bird composition greatly. I got excited this summer seeing my first Bobolinks and Savannah Sparrows out in the alfalfa fields, watching the Long-billed Curlews chase a Swainson's Hawk that had been perching on an irrigation pivot, and listening to the dinosaur-like Sandhill Cranes. As we enter July, the birds don't sing quite as much because they no longer need to attract a mate, but they still provide lots of color on the landscape that will be turning brown under the hot sun.

The Ultimate Desert Survivor

I'm relatively new to the desert, living here only about seven years. My life has been relatively straightforward: I have a truck so I can go get supplies and visit friends, I have a roof over my head that shelters me from the elements, and I can put on different clothes depending on what the weather is like and the need for heels or waders.

Now let me introduce you to a really cool critter that has been living here for thousands of years and manages just fine without any of the things I consider the necessities. This little guy is called a springsnail. Okay, I admit one particular springsnail has not been alive for thousands of years, but descendants of those springsnails have stayed in the same place for that amount of time. I bet you can guess where springsnails live: in a spring (at least most of the time). Not any old spring will do, it has to be the right temperature, with the right vegetation, and the right water chemistry. They are really tiny, so tiny that the different species can only be identified under a high-powered microscope.

For those of you wanting to sink your teeth into something a little more scientific, the genus name is Pyrgulopsis, and there are numerous species. They are most prevalent in the Great Basin region. That in a way is kind of funny, because the Great Basin is mostly a high desert, which means that it doesn't get much water. The water that is around is usually isolated and thus the springsnails in some cases have been isolated for thousands of years. Over this long time period, some populations have become so adapted to the specific water body they live in that they have become a new species. 

Consider yourself lucky if you ever get to meet a springsnail. Sure, they're tiny and relatively uncharismatic (they aren't furry, big, or make interesting sounds), but they do show that the place where they live has potentially been there for thousands of years since the last time it was quite a bit wetter and the Great Basin desert wasn't a desert. And since the springsnails don't move around, don't have much shelter except whatever vegetation is growing there, and only have one outfit, their shell, I'd say that they have done amazingly well to survive in the harsh desert climate.