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.

Xeriscaping with Native Plants

Don't you just love the word xeriscape? I mean, how cool is it to use a word that begins with the letter x. The meaning of the word is neat, too. It's landscaping without the use of supplemental water, and the word was invented by combining xeros, Greek for dry, with landscape.

This last year my husband and I have been trying to come up with ways to make our house and yard more sustainable. We live in a one hundred year-old house that has a rock foundation, and in the winter we didn't like all that cold air seeping under the house. So he put a planter around it and filled it with dirt as an insulator. Our heating costs went down, and the planter has the added benefit that I have a convenient place to plant. The water that falls on the roof of the house drips right into the planter, so I have a built in watering system.

This spring I did some research on the internet and found a native plant nursery a couple hours from our house (everything seems to be a couple hours away, if not more). We went over and I had a wonderful time picking out some native plants. One of the best things about the native plants is that they've evolved with the desert conditions, so they don't need as much water as most of the other plants available in nurseries.

We only get about six inches of precipitation a year where we live, compared to 35 inches a year in Chicago and 42 inches a year in New York. So most plants that grow in the East or Midwest don't do so well in the dry Southwest unless they get a lot of extra help. That extra help means watering, which as you can see by the precipitation amounts, is a scarce resource. 

Desert plants aren't necessarily drab, as you can see in the photo above. This beautiful flower is desert globemallow (Sphaeralcea grossularifolia), a common flower that decorates the desert valleys and benches beginning in May and lasting through a good part of the summer. It grows well, so is often used in reseeding mixes after wildfires. 
This little fern bush (Chamaebatiaria millefolium) will grow into a five foot tall bush with beautiful yellow blossoms. I love it because it's leaves look like ferns, which are so incongruous in the desert. Yet it is a native plant.

Great Basin wildrye (Leymus cinereus) is a native grass that can grow up to a horse's belly. It's not nearly so large in our yard, probably because the deer like to come through and munch on it!

When we planted this squawbush (Rhus trilobata), it looked like a stick in the ground. Fortunately a couple weeks later it started leafing out. In the fall the leaves should turn a beautiful red. Another common name is skunkbush, apparently because the leaves stink. I will have to go take a sniff soon.
We have several kinds of currants that are native here, including the wax currant (Ribes cereum). I think that's the one this is, but I'm not entirely sure. In the late summer they produce tangy berries. 
Cliff rose (Cowania stanburiana) is a shrub that has small white flowers. So far ours hasn't produced any flowers, but hopefully it will next year. It will grow to be a couple feet high. Deer also love to browse this plant, so we will need to train our puppy Henry to keep them away. So far Henry hasn't been good at keeping anything away, including the skunks.
Penstemon (Penstemon sp.) lend a lot of color to the planter. I really should have written down which kind this is (or take the time to key it out), but for the moment I will just say that it's a beautiful penstemon. We don't always have to know the name to appreciate the beauty, right?
And finally, this little cactus (maybe Simpson's Hedgehog Cactus (Pediocactus simpsonii)) surprised me by producing a flower bud. I can't wait to see it open. 

So what native plants do you have or would like to get for your yard?

Cows 101

I live on a ranch, so it's probably about time that I talk about the cows!  I'm using the term cows here generically to mean cattle. Technically, a cow is an adult female bovine that has raised a calf, a bull is an uncastrated male bovine, a steer is a castrated male bovine, and a calf is a baby bovine. That sounds easy enough, but it so happens there are other terms. A heifer (pronounced "heffer") is a female bovine that has not yet raised a calf; a feeder calf is a weaned calf that is in a feedlot.

So in the interest of simplicity, I'm just going to call them cows. At least most of the time. You'll know what I mean.
We have a cow-calf operation, which means that we have cows that give birth to calves, and those calves are raised for beef. Some of the calves are kept on the ranch to replace old cows. A cow is usually kept for 10 to 15 years on the ranch as long as it is productive.

The gestation for a cow is 9 months, just like humans. Some other time we'll go into the details of how they're bred. I bet you can't wait. It really is fascinating. Anyway, when a calf is born, it usually weighs about 55-100 pounds. It stays close to its mama, but before long it is romping in the meadows with the other calves. We have several different kinds of cows on the ranch.

Black Angus and Red Angus cows provide the yummy steaks found in higher class steakhouses. Notice that they are all one color.

Black Baldy is a mix of Black Angus and Hereford. They have a black body with a white face. These are probably the most common type of cows we have on the ranch.
Herefords, with red bodies and white faces and bellies, are the type of cows that my husband's family started ranching with. It's a family ranch operation that has been passed down from generation to generation and is now operated by my husband and his brothers. 

During the summer, most of the cows graze in the meadows. In the winter, some of the cows go out on the desert range while others are taken to the feedlot. Cows are able to eat otherwise indigestable foods because they are ruminants and their stomachs have four compartments. After they eat food, they regurgitate it and rechew it, called chewing the cud. They may repeat this process several times until they have broken the food into small enough pieces that microorganisms in the rumen have time to break down the cellulose and other carbohydrates into volatile fatty acids, which give cows their oomph. Oomph is the highly technical term for metabolic energy, but I think oomph just sounds a little better. 

This is probably a good place to dispel one of the common myths about bulls, that if they see red they charge. That's why a matador uses a red cape to entice the bull to charge him, right? Not quite, it turns out that cows are red-green colorblind, so they can't even see the color red. The matador's movement of the cape is what attracts the bull. 

And because I'm an ecologist, I couldn't help but slip in a photo of some wildlife with the cows. The mule deer population on the ranch is booming. They find plenty of food in the irrigated meadows and fields, and a variety of shrubs provides good cover for them. Mule deer are also ruminants and you can go wear red near them without any problems, because they are also red-green colorblind. 

Playing in Water

Summer means it's time to play with water! It all started with Daddy taking Nature Boy irrigating. Nature Boy had lots of fun, coming home entirely coated with mud. We got out the little swimming pool and the hose.
Notice the mud around his mouth. No matter how many times we tell him not to, he still eats dirt and mud!
Nature Boy, sporting a lovely farmer's tan, did most of the work of filling the pool. He thought the hose was terrific fun. He was already soaking wet, so we didn't care how much wetter he got.
And when it got deep enough, he crawled right in, with his trusty sidekick close by.
We had so much fun in the morning that we had to come out again in the afternoon for some more fun.

The added benefit of playing with the hose is that our scraggly grass and trees got a little extra moisture. It's stream water and cold, but Nature Boy didn't seem to mind. I put my feet in for a couple minutes and that's all I could take.
Henry is back to his old tricks of tackling his buddy. Henry was good about staying out of the pool, but he wanted to be close to all the action.
The two share a special moment.
And they're both good about posing for Mama.

But I swear I didn't have Nature Boy pose for this picture. When I turned and saw him doing this I cracked up so much I could hardly hold the camera still. 

Desert Destination: Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge

Every Monday we'll take a trip to the desert to help ease the transition into the work week and perhaps give you ideas of places to go.

Today we'll head to Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge located in western Utah. This place is so remote that the refuge personnel have to drive an hour to pick up the mail. An hour on gravel roads. An hour with no house on the way. An hour that if you break down could turn into many hours or even days due to the lack of traffic.

Now that I may have scared you (at least my city relatives and friends), let me tell you that the adventure into the remote desert is well worth it. Fish Springs is an oasis, with five major springs putting forth about 22 cubic second feet (cfs) of water. That water supports nearly 10,000 acres of marshes, and the birds know where to find them, arriving in stunning numbers during migrations. Even during the middle of summer it's surprising how many birds are taking advantage of the cool spot in the desert. 

The entrance sign is quite obvious. It's the only big sign along the gravel road for at least 50 miles.
From the gravel road, it's not apparent what Fish Springs is. So take the time to enter the refuge and take the self-guided auto tour, which follows along dikes that separate the different pools and marshes. 
Fish Springs National Wildlife Refuge was created in 1959. Before that, the area was used as hunting grounds, a supply stop for the Pony Express and Lincoln Highway, a ranch, and to raise bullfrogs and muskrats. During the height of the Lincoln Highway in the early 1920s, more people traveled near Fish Springs than do today. 
The American White Pelican is a common sight in spring and summer. An American Avocet lends some color to the water. The springs and ponds also support native fish like the least chub.
A Black-necked Stilt is well equipped to find insects in the tall grasses and mud.
This sign explains some of the shorebirds seen in Fish Springs. From the looks of the white streaks on the sign, some of those birds should be called signbirds.
So pack your hat and water and a couple spare tires and head out into the desert to Fish Springs. It's worth the trip. For more information check out http://www.fws.gov/fishsprings/

The Allure of Going Underground

It's starting to warm up, and during the hot summer afternoons I think about what the animals are doing to stay cool. I especially admire the animals that go underground--the burrowing owls, snakes, marmots, badgers, kit foxes, and many insects. If you just go a couple feet underground it's amazing how much cooler the temperature is. I spent many afternoons as a kid in the basement to take advantage of the natural coolness the ground provided (and Mom wouldn't let us go to the swimming pool until late afternoon when the sun rays weren't as strong). Perhaps those many afternoons in the basement helped develop a love of caves in me.When I see a dark hole beckoning, I can't help but wonder what is in there. The desert is full of caves; perhaps the most famous one is Carlsbad Caverns in the Chihuahuan desert of New Mexico. Gigantic rooms are followed by even larger ones. Towering formations that reach to the ceiling are overwhelming. I can't really fathom the time it took for these formations to grow, one drop of water at a time, the calcite slowly accumulating over years, decades, centuries, millenia. Seeing so many formations in desert caves makes it obvious that the desert above the cave has not always been around, at one point the climate was much wetter. A trip through a cave like Carlsbad Caverns is breathtaking and awe inspiring.
But what really gets my blood pumping is when I'm in a cave off the beaten path and see a hole that perhaps no one has been down. I'll wiggle through to see what's on the other side. I even know how small a hole I can fit through and not get stuck. That's important when your hobby is wiggling through little holes in the ground.
There are always holes too small for me, but I know that other creatures might be there. I'm just a visitor to the cave. There are creatures who make their homes underground. This cave cricket spends part of its life cycle in a cave and has extra long antennae to be able to feel around in the entirely dark environment. I always make sure to take three sources of light and a helmet because I don't want to be left in the dark and bump my head. But sometimes I turn off my light in the cave, and the rest of the group I'm with does the same, and we stay as quiet as we can. The dark becomes so intense that I start imagining that I'm seeing cave walls or creatures. The quiet becomes a dull roar in my ears, sometimes punctuated by a drop of water hitting the cave floor. Drip, drip, drip. The monotony becomes torture, and before long someone makes a noise so that we can reassure ourselves that we aren't alone. We'll continue on the trip, enjoying the journey of being in a place that few people experience.
No matter how beautiful and exciting the cave, I always feel a little surge of adrenalin when I see daylight peeking through the entrance. I emerge from the cave and take a deep breath of the vegetation-tinged air and feel the heat of the sun on my cheeks. I've made it out; the cave has not claimed me. It doesn't take long, though, to start thinking about that next trip into the unknown. 

Driving Tractors Part I

First off, I've been told that Nature Boy is not viewed by some as a good nickname for my darling son. When I think of the term Nature Boy I think of a juvenile that has fun playing outside and doesn't like to come in much, but apparently the appellation holds other connotations for some. So if you have a better epithet for the little guy who likes to eat dirt, climb everything, wrestle with his puppy, eat dogfood, try to get into things he shouldn't, play in water, eat strange unidentifiable black things and get dirty, please leave a comment with your suggestion.

The ranch has many tractors of all shapes and sizes. Most don't work, giving my dear husband, his brothers, and the mechanic palpitations. Nature Boy doesn't care if it works or not, he just wants to see how much fun it is to pretend to drive it. So here are a few of the tractors on the ranch as Nature Boy "test drives" them.

This John Deere 720 is missing its seat (and probably several other parts), but it still looks cool. It sits down by the shop for everyone to admire (or not).

This is an important tractor, a John Deere 4450, which is used daily to feed the cows in the feedlot.
This John Deere 8100 is also used quite a bit.
Nature Boy likes the interior, but he will have to grow a bit to see over the steering wheel.
This seat appears to be a little closer to his size. He already knows he needs to shift. He's inside this old loader.

Here's an old John Deere 55. It hasn't been used in a long time, the wheels have sunk into the ground. But it has a lot of interesting looking parts.
Nature Boy pretends to like the different parts, but I notice he's putting some dirt in his mouth. When I tell him to spit it out, he just laughs at me.

Nature Boy loves the Backhoe (Case 580 Super M) more than any other piece of equipment, probably because he sees his Daddy use it often.
Or maybe it's because it has a comfortable seat. He crosses his legs all the time.

On the other hand, Nature Boy doesn't seem to mind the wind and lack of air conditioning in this backhoe. His Daddy says he needs to learn how to steer better. Maybe by the time he's 18 months.