Celebrate Pollinator Week

Bee in tufted evening primrose (Oenothera caespitosa)

I recently learned from Bug Girl's Blog that the week of June 22-28 is Pollinator Week. Okay, so today is the last day of the week, but you weren't really planning on running out and celebrating it, were you?

Here are a few facts from www.pollinator.org that might make you decide to have a party after all. Pollinators are responsible for pollinating over 75 percent of flowering plants and 80 percent of the world's crops. They help produce $20 billion of crops each year, despite the fact that 3,000 acres of farmland are lost each day.

In honor of these awesome and often overlooked pollinators, I have some photos showing these pollinators in action. After taking a look here, go out and give the pollinators in your neighborhood a high-five. Well, you really shouldn't touch the wildlife, but give them a mental high-five. They'll appreciate it.

Small butterfly on unknown yellow flower

Swallowtail butterfly on Western columbine (Aquilegia formosa)

Small fly or bee in prickly pear cactus (Opuntia polyacantha) flower

And for those who think that there aren't many pollinators in the desert, in our valley alone we have over 200 species of bees, 150 species of butterflies and moths, 4 species of hummingbirds, and many species of bats, small mammals, beetles, ants, and wasps.

Scatology: Who Left the Poo?

Scatology is the study of scat, otherwise known as poo, doo-doo, feces, turds, dung, excrement, and other terms that are not kosher to write on this family-friendly website. Scat is the "technical" term for what comes out after something has been eaten and digested, and it can tell you a lot. Over the years I've looked at a lot of scat. The desert is a great place to look for scat. It doesn't decompose all that fast, so there's lots of scat around, and if you're a scatologist, you're in luck.

Most of the scat I see comes in two forms, pellets or turds. The photo above shows jack rabbit scat, with rounded form and brown color. Rabbits are herbivores, so their pellets all have about the same consistency. Other pellet scat found in the area include deer, elk, and pronghorn antelope. 

This scat is obviously not a pellet and it obviously does not have uniform consistency. If you look closely (you can click on the photo to see a larger version), you can see bone fragments and matted fur. This animal is a carnivore, it eats other animals. To determine what animal left this scat, I look at the size and shape. Blunt ends are left by cats, and it's about four inches long, so it appears to be bobcat scat. 
This scat has some similar characteristics to the bobcat scat, but it seems hairier and is smaller. The animal was probably eating mice and voles. The ends are tapered, which means that it is from the dog family, which includes coyotes and foxes. Based on the size and habitat, it's probably gray fox scat.

Here's some more pellet scat. If you look carefully, you can see the pellets aren't rounded like the jackrabbit scat at the top; instead they have a pinched end. This is deer scat.

Now I want to make sure that you notice I haven't included Desert Boy in any of these photos. I do have some sense of propriety, plus I know all too well that just seeing the scat wouldn't be enough for him to learn about it. 

I've done some talks about scat for school kids, and one of my favorite ways to help them learn about different types of scat is to show them a variety in ziploc bags. Then I ask them how to tell the difference between old deer scat and new deer scat. After I hear a couple suggestions, I tell them that the best way is by taste. I secretly put a Raisinet in my fingers, pretend to open the deer scat bag and pull out a pellet, and put the Raisinet in my mouth. All the kids look aghast until one figures out what I've just done. I've always wondered if any have gone home and tried to do the same thing with their parents.

Rhubarb Crumb Bars

Okay, I know you're supposed to start a recipe post with the finished product. But we scarfed it down so fast that I didn't get a chance. In fact, my husband finished the rhubarb crumb bars off at breakfast this morning. He was lucky I was out doing a bird survey or I might have beat him to them. So here's a photo of the rhubarb I'm going to use for the second batch. 

Our wonderful neighbor had given us a bunch of rhubarb and I looked on the internet until I found a recipe that sounded healthy. It's got oatmeal in it, so it's got to be healthy. We'll ignore the butter, sugar, and brown sugar part of it. Besides, rhubarb, always needs a little help, doesn't it? 

Here's the recipe, a tasty dessert (or breakfast) good in or out of the desert:

Ingredients:
Top and bottom "crust"
1/2 cup butter, (melted)
1 cup brown sugar (packed)
1 cup flour
3/4 cup oatmeal (uncooked)

Filling
1 egg (beaten)
1 Tbls butter (softened)
3/4 cup sugar
1-1/2 Tbls flour
1/4 teas nutmeg
2 cups rhubarb (cut into 1/2" pieces)

Directions:
Mix butter, brown sugar, flour, and oatmeal, until crumbly. Press 1/2 into greased 9" square pan. In another bowl, beat egg, mix in butter, sugar, flour, nutmeg and rhubarb. Beat until smooth. Top with other half crumb mixture, press mixture down lightly. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.

If you happen to have lots of rhubarb and need more ideas of what to do with it, here's a website to the rescue: http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/

Desert Boy and Henry Go for a Swim

It's getting really hot here, into the 90s every day, which I realize isn't as hot as say, Phoenix, but it's still hot for me. And for Henry. And for Desert Boy. So the other day we went for a walk to the little pond near our house. We like the pond a lot, and had been there a few days earlier. It's a settling pond where the stream water goes before it's sent down a long pipe to the irrigation pivots in the fields below. As the stream water suddenly loses velocity, sand and gravel drop out of it, so the pond has gradually gotten a lot shallower. That makes it wonderful for us to go wade around.

Henry obviously remembered how much fun the pond was, because as we approached it, he took a flying leap and jumped in. Except it wasn't the shallow part, it was a deep part over his head, and he hasn't decided that he knows how to swim yet. He's a labrador retriever, so I thought it was sort of wired into his DNA, plus I did see him do the doggy paddle one other time when he got a little deep. But this time, he panicked and was trying to scramble out of the pond, but the edge was too steep and he was stuck. So recalling all my training from my lifeguard days, I walked over to the edge, grabbed his collar, and hauled him out. My reward was him shaking the water off him and getting me all wet.

Henry didn't want to get back in the water, but I figured he better get over his fear right away. So we went down to the shallow part and I threw sticks into the water for him to chase. No way, he was stubbornly staying on shore. So I walked into the water and called him. Then I looked up and saw that Desert Boy was managing to climb out of his stroller, despite being strapped in. I got out of the water, grabbed Desert Boy, got back in, and called Henry again. Seeing his pal in the water did the trick, and Henry leapt into the water and began splashing around, getting us a lot wetter than we wanted to be. Than I wanted to be. Desert Boy loved it.

The Four North American Deserts

In an earlier post, I briefly mentioned the four North American deserts. Now I'll describe them in a bit more detail.

Sagebrush in the Great Basin Desert

Great Basin Desert

The Great Basin Desert is the biggest North American desert, covering most of the state of Nevada and extending into the states of Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and California. It is the only North American desert considered to be a cold desert, which is largely a function of its high elevation, with most basins above 4,000 feet in elevation, and mountaintops over 13,000 feet. Average annual precipitation is 6 to 12 inches. The term Great Basin originates from the fact that the water that falls in the Great Basin does not drain out to the ocean, but stays within the basin. It's really a bunch of basins separated by mountain ranges, but somehow trying to say that succinctly isn't easy.

The primary plant in the Great Basin Desert is sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata), a fragrant green-gray shrub that grows up to several feet high. Several species of sagebrush grow in the desert. Other common plants are winterfat, greasewood, rabbitbrush, and saltbush. Salt Lake City, Utah and Reno, Nevada are in the Great Basin Desert.

Lechuguilla in the Chihuahuan Desert

Chihuahuan Desert

The Chihuahuan Desert is the spiny desert, with lots of sharp plants. It is found primarily in Mexico, but a small portion creeps across the border and into New Mexico and Texas. It's the coolest of the hot deserts, with elevations ranging from 1,200 to 6,000 feet, and it receives up to 10 inches of precipitation annually.

While creosote bush and ocotillo are common, the distinctive plant in this desert is the lechuguilla (Agave lechuguilla). It's a member of the Agave family and has razor sharp spines. Other spiky plants are other agaves, yuccas, sotols, thorny mesquites, and a variety of cacti. El Paso, Texas and Carlsbad and Roswell, New Mexico are within the Chihuahuan Desert.

Saguaro cactus in the Sonoran Desert

Sonoran Desert

The Sonoran Desert is the neat cactus desert, with the characteristic saguaro cactus (Carnegiea gigantea) holding up its arms. In addition to this charismatic character, the Sonoran desert has the greatest species diversity of all North American deserts, despite being the hottest of the four deserts. 

Precipitation ranges from less than 2 inches to more than 12 inches. The desert creeps into southern Arizona and California, but the majority of it is found in Mexico. Phoenix and Tuscon, Arizona are part of the Sonoran Desert.

Joshua tree in the Mojave Desert

Mojave Desert

The Mojave is the smallest of the four North American deserts, but what it lacks in size it makes up in character. This is the desert with the Dr. Seuss-like Joshua trees (Yucca brevifolia).

The Mojave Desert is found between the Sonoran and Great Basin deserts in California, Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. It is a transition area between the two deserts, ranging in elevation from 2,000 to 4,000 feet on average, although it also includes Death Valley which descends below sea level and Mt. Charleston at over 11,000 feet. This is the driest of the four deserts, with 2 to 5 inches of annual precipitation. Las Vegas, Nevada and Palmdale, California, St. George, Utah, and Lake Havasu City, Arizona are in the Mojave Desert.

So in summary:

Largest Desert: Great Basin (or Chihuhuan based on some maps)

Smallest Desert: Mojave

Hottest Desert: Sonoran

Driest Desert: Mojave

Best Desert: You decide

A great resource for learning more about these deserts and the plants that live in them is Ronald J. Taylor's Desert Wildflowers of North America. And now Desert Boy, Henry, and I are going to head outside to go enjoy another desert adventure.