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/