A Summer Feast at the Berry-Go-Round

As you would expect from June, we have a feast for the eyes—and palate—at this month's edition of Berry-Go-Round. Visual appeal and tastebud tempters present themselves in our smorgasbord, and there's even a brain-twister or two to pique our curiosity and exercise our cranial muscles. Thanks, everyone, for bringing your specialties to our potluck!

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Whenever you're in need of a little something to whet your botanical appetite, you can check in anytime at A Plant a Day, where we're being introduced to delights from the central Great Basin. We'll pass on the Water Hemlock in favor of Wild Licorice, thanks just the same!

The Watcher takes us cruising through different altitudes in mid-June, following spring as it moves up the Wasatch Range from 5,000 ft, to 7,000 ft., and on up to 9,000 ft., where it's getting hard to cook (altitude, you know), so he throws in a touch of marital advice to season the pot. There's always a botanical kettle of stew bubbling at the Watcher's Suburban Stead, from Cottonwood seeds to wild geraniums and much much more.

Rabbit stew might end up on the menu at Phytophactor's, as he tries to balance the local backyard ecosystem. The Phactor introduced us to the sad malady of plant blindness a while ago, from which we're glad to say BGR lovers aren't suffering. He also introduces us to Magnolia, in a feature he calls "Know Your Genera," a very important skill in figuring out plants.

If you are having trouble with that, explore the perils of plant identification in Panama with Mary at Neotropical Savanna as she walks us thru the process of identifying a new plant, and her predicament reveals the pleasure of solving a puzzle, as well as how to go about identification.

The vegetable course picks up some floral notes at Kenton and Rebecca Whitman's Wild About Nature Blog. Foraging is apparently second nature to them, as they also bring us a review of the Forager's Harvest, by Samuel Thayer. Be careful out there, guys—and save some for the critters!

Hugh at Rock Paper Lizard offers a favorite grocery of that old weed-eater Euell Gibbons at Typha through the seasons, as well as a charming look at the much maligned Common Mullein.

Jeremy at Agrobiodiversity brings a favorite food of summer to the feast, with a post about corn (maize) traditionally kept by the Pawnee people. He mentions this story on the advantages of variegation, hoping someone else can provide us more detail.

Agrobiodiv is a also terrific trip target for tongue-twisting treats you've never tasted, like amadumbe. Over at Jeremy's friend's place, be tempted all over again, with a plate of ground nuts, soon to be better known as hopniss! Radix always seems to get at the root of things, and don't these look yummy! (No, these aren't the hopniss.)

The delightful and delectable Bluebunch Wheatgrass is species of the week at Elizabeth Enslin's table. Elizabeth is a lawn-hating recovering academic who learns to love grass, after years of fighting invasive grasses in lawns at Yips and Howls.

I can't resist cycads, even though they're rarely edible and often toxic. Tai haku introduces us to Zamia portoricensis, mother and child at Earth, Wind, and Water. You'll find links to all his cycad posts on this page.

Bobbie the Backyard Grower brings dessert, reminding us that Blueberry Benefits include anti-aging effects in addition to the other touted benefits of this dark luscious fruit.

Lastly, because you can't make a meal without killing something and to help us keep everything in perspective, Sarcozona reminds us of What We Killed Thursday at Gravity's Rainbow. While this particular species was declared extinct in the wild rather than completely extinct, the damaged herbarium specimen she found is apparently the only record of Erythroxlym echinodendron. Sadly, there don’t seem to be any reintroduction projects in place or even specimens being studied in botanical gardens.

That concludes our banquet today, thanks for coming. I hope you find it satisfying despite my tardiness in getting it together. Stay tuned to Berry-Go-Round headquarters for the location of next month's buffet. Meanwhile, it's summer—get out there and eat it up!

Bird on the Wire

I finally found the nest. The male Western Kingbird has been sitting on this wire directly over our driveway for a couple of weeks. Yesterday, en route to the mailbox, I paid a bit more attention, and discovered the female brooding in the crotch of the Russian-olive. Of course, she moved off before I could return with the camera.

‘Tis the season! We call it summer… and with all the rain we’ve had, everything is displaying glorious fecundity. We’ve already raised at least two broods of Magpies, so the Kingbirds have good reason to be watchful.

Yesterday, about the time of my discovery, the Magpies took great interest in the driveway area. The male Kingbird was vigilant, but I (par for the course) was concerned. I filled the suet feeder in hopes of distracting them. The male, sometimes accompanied by his mate, was more direct, and never tired of chasing off the Magpie parents. Baby Magpies, almost indistinguishable now from their parents, hung out near the suet bar, but couldn’t quite figure out how to make it deliver the goods.

One sortie by the nest defender led to a substantial chase; another time both parents got involved in a close situation involving body contact inside their tree haven. All seems well, but it’s difficult to tell just yet. The nest seems empty much of the time, but I did see the female leave it once today. I think she’s sitting as low as possible to remain hidden. The male is finding new spots on different wires from which to observe.

We, meanwhile, are enjoying the Leonard Cohen Live in London DVD, having opted to purchase that rather than concert tickets for his appearance at Red Rocks June 4th (rained out June 2nd). Once I was past the shock of seeing him, so aged after more than 30 years (aren’t we all!), I found I loved his later music and adapted readily to its infectious quality. Like a bird on the wire.

Rhymes with June

 

Not tune, or spoon… not even swoon or moon…

Sure feels like it anyway. I had in mind back-dating this post a week or two, as it's been somewhat clear these last few days, but the wetter side of Mother Nature is clearly not done with us yet, despite a few days break for Solstice Sun.

An impromptu field trip was rained out late Tuesday, but we went anyway yesterday and rain held off just long enough. Today we had a 50 minute downpour, complete with turn-off-the-computer celestial rumblings and cracklings, at 1 p.m. during which this picture was taken. Another deluge at 4:40 p.m., only lasted a few minutes, but now I see it’s back in business. I thought we’d changed from gentle rains of spring to our convectional afternoon thunderstorms, but today is beyond even the usual in that department. 

 

This all started, according to my notes, about May 22 in the evening. On the 26th, I wrote my boss something about 3 [days] down, 37 to go. Today I understand an ark floated by the office window. (Here’s a look at June 1st.) Water-cooler conversation focuses on “how green it is!” And it is, indeed, unusually late for it to be so green. Wishful gardener that I am, I keep wishing I’d planted seeds. My few tomato plants are waiting for a little sun and warmth.

June 2nd… same old, same wonderful old wet. I’m not complaining…

But I did quit trying to take pictures of it all, until today. All four corners of the house were pouring with runoff… all the rain barrels had already overflowed, but still it came. The small town in the valley below us has experienced repeated historic floods; I keep wondering if we’re in for it again.

But the plants aren’t complaining either. Here, prairie coneflower (Ratibida columnifera) like I’ve never seen it before. Covered with raindrops.

Don't Forget-- BGR #18 deadline

Submissions are due Sunday June 28th —at midnight Mountain Time—for the next edition of the Berry-Go-Round blog carnival, to be posted next week here at Foothills Fancies.

I've only received a few valid submissions (and a bit of clutter), so please send something, and you'll get a prime feature spot for your blog on the next edition! I'd prefer you NOT use the submission form, as that seems to be where the junk is coming from. See previous post for full instructions on submitting to this round.

Assuming we don't want to read about condo lodging, health care, or spyware removal in our plant carnival, please please forward links to your favorite plant posts—yours or someone else's— to help us out here! Drop a link in comments below, if you like!

Another Spring “Berry”

Berry-Go-Round #17, this month’s carnival of all things botanical, is now posted at Gravity’s Rainbow. Sarcozona has rounded up a nice selection of posts celebrating some of our favorite lifeforms—plants!

June’s edition of this carnival will be hosted here at Foothills Fancies. Please enter your favorite plant post(s), whether you wrote them or someone else did! You can email submissions to me, ffnaturalist at gmail dot com, post a link in comments, or use the handy submission form.

Honor Thy Planet

While we are discussing (previous post, a little bit) things you can do to help “the environment,” here’s one really simple one we can all tackle. Won’t cost anything, not more than a fraction of a second of your time, and will begin to remind us that a little respect is in order.

(Image from NASA, courtesy Wikipedia.)

Just this: Capitalize the name of your home planet. It’s Earth, sometimes Terra (Sol III if you prefer), and that’s its proper name. We all learned in grade school that proper names should be capitalized, so why don’t we all just practice it? I think it would remind us on a regular basis that we aren’t just dealing with an “it” here, we’re dealing with our home planet, that collection of astronomy and geology and biology—everything that makes up the ecosphere we all depend upon but seem to forget we need while we bounce around from the shopping mall to the grocery store in air-conditioned cars.

You’d probably like a more authoritative source than your local neighborhood blogger. Don’t take my word for it, please:

• Nine Planets.org (see, all the others are capitalized too!)
• NASA Welcome to the Planets
• Earth on Wikipedia
• And, just for fun the Earth disambiguation page on Wikipedia, to see all the ways you can use the name of your planet

Not to get all sermon-y on you, but Lovelock (?, just read this, now have to find the source again) has a point when he says it’s hard to work up some fight against invisible gases that are destroying faraway ice caps most of us will never get to see. Hawken hits the mark too (albeit in lowercase*), when he remarks:

 

We have an economy that tells us that it is cheaper to destroy earth in real time rather than renew, restore, and sustain it. You can print money to bail out a bank but you can't print life to bail out a planet.

So get personal with your planet. Know its proper name, use it, and learn a little bit about it. The Nature Blog Network is a great place to start exploring all the beings that make this such a miraculous place to live.

* Shouldn't really blame Hawken for this, it could have been the transcriber, or some editor.

Rainy Day Rosies

No blues around here, despite four days of rain and gray. Tough to wallow in depression when there’s company like this about. Yes, the Rose-breasted Grosbeak (Pheucticus ludovicianus) has made another appearance here at the fancy foothills home base! What a way to brighten the gloom! He showed up late Sunday afternoon, between downpours, and popped in again while Bee Lady and Flame were in attendance yesterday afternoon. Perfect timing!

Last night he shared the feeder with two pairs of Black-headed Grosbeaks, or hovered photogenically nearby in the ash tree waiting his turn. We sat out a bit this evening, but it’s downright chilly out there now, so in it is.

(Two consecutive days is a new record. Last year’s visit was a singular occasion.)

Downpours and thunder have alternated with gentle spring sprinkles since Friday night! All most welcome, not least for the weeding it affords. We  have green to rival the best of Ohio—or Ireland! After a droughty winter, it’s a wonder and joy to see the response of the plants to all this moisture. Today’s ritual photo is bright, compared to the weekend’s experience. No complaints.

Water is rising in Bear Creek, well past cafe au lait and on its way beyond dark chocolate mocha. Our Historian says the cottonwoods in Mt. Vernon Canyon, just upstream of town, are of a size to indicate flood times due, but so far, it all seems to be soaking in pretty well.

Extreme weather, they say, is what we can expect more of as nature gets even. Unusual events, too, most likely—the appearance of critters where we haven’t seen them before, and the disappearance of others as Earth seeks a new equilibrium.

As Paul Hawken, choosing to be optimistic, told a graduating class recently: “Basically, civilization needs a new operating system, you are the programmers, and we need it within a few decades.” Career-wise, no problem for new graduates: “The Earth is hiring!” And there’s a lot of work to do!

Dave at Osage+Orange shared a great interview with James Lovelock, who takes a different tack on optimism. He tells us that it’s already too late, but facing the challenges ahead will cause us humans to pull together like never before. “[S]o when I think of the impending crisis now, I think in those terms. A sense of purpose - that's what people want.”

Lovelock’s advice: "Enjoy life while you can. Because if you're lucky it's going to be 20 years before it hits the fan." Heckuva legacy to give to your children.

Sarcozona, who will be hosting Berry-Go-Round this week at Gravity’s Rainbow, has a great post on Advocacy (check her links), and a suggestion about kids: “have none or fewer”… I’d add, especially if you love children! We’re leaving them a tough uphill battle, and this is a conversation we need to start having. Sustainability? There are simply too many of us.

 

Meanwhile, for the time being, Earth offers wonders, daily, to each of us.  Every bird in the backyard, every flower and, yes, weed is another opportunity to share in the incredible that lies before and around us. We have only to look, and if we look, won’t we want to preserve? A parting quote from Hawken:  

Ralph Waldo Emerson once asked what we would do if the stars only came out once every thousand years. No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would create new religions overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night and we watch television.

Scales and Tails

One of the things I notice about reptiles, in comparison to birds for example, is they’re so quiet! That probably contributes to the notion people have that they’re sneaking up on you, inspiring that zero at the bone sensation Emily Dickinson describes so well.

It also means we have to be more observant this time of year. I think of rattlesnakes now, every time I’m out in the field, trying to be more conscious of potential hiding places. Apparently a child was bitten last week on Morrison’s main street, so it’s officially snake season—and they can turn up anywhere.

For some reason, as I drove home Friday, I wasn’t thinking of snakes. My mind wandered, and I had to slam on the brakes near our driveway to avoid hitting a nice young 3-foot Bull Snake. Time to start carrying a stick in the car again for moments like this. I found an old stalk of yucca and spent a few minutes encouraging her to leave the right-of-way where she preferred to bask in peace. Should have just picked her up; the bite is harmless and not that painful, and she seemed mellow, but why court trouble? By the time I returned with camera a few minutes later, she had disappeared as silently as is usual. [No, I have no idea whether she was really female, but one has to choose, “it” is just impolite.]

Happily, another opportunity presented itself later in the afternoon. We were sitting in the backyard when the Husband picked up the sound we dread. Rattlesnake! Starbuck, the snake-pointer, heard it too; he went on alert, showed us the spot, and barked to let us know he was holding this intruder at bay. Husband checked, diagnosed “No, Bull Snake,” and we all breathed a sigh of relief. Once the dogs were inside, we got a closer look at my second bull snake of the year.

Bull Snakes (Pituophis catenifer) regularly imitate Rattlesnakes (here Crotalus viridis), and, as they look somewhat similar, many people confuse the two. To me, Rattlesnakes just look mean; something in those ridges over the eyes gives them a brooding dangerous look, like crocodiles. Chris, at Coyote Crossing, has a nice picture of one of these “sweet and noble animals.” Good story, too.

I like rattlesnakes too, long as they’re not sneaking up on me! I like to know where they are. Rattlesnakes are, of course, one of the few reptiles that let you know where they are. Sometimes. I bet 90% of the rattlers I encountered when I lived in Arizona never made a sound. My theory is that rattling, these days, is behavior that can cause you to lose your head, and  thus we humans have been deliberately selecting for rattlesnakes that prefer not to rattle. That’s why it pays to keep your eyes open too. Here's a prairie rattler recording, for reference.

Back to our visitor: What was it the Husband heard, if not a rattlesnake? Bull Snakes can mimic the rattle of their model by shaking their tails in dry weeds, but also by hissing. This was the first time I’d heard a wild bull snake make a sound so much like a rattler, so near perfect I didn’t believe DH at first but had to see for myself. As we discovered, hissing was the only “vocal” opportunity this snake had; an accident had cost him the last few inches of his tail.

As long as we can see the whole snake, or most of it, a little attention to detail increases our comfort. The overall gestalt that says Bull Snake includes a long streamlined body (as opposed to the stockier form usual in rattlesnakes), a narrow innocent-looking head blending into a neck of similar dimension (unlike the so-called “triangular” head and narrow neck of rattlesnakes), and tapering pointed tail (rattles blunt the tail tip, even in young rattlesnakes). Stocky is relative. Bull snakes are our biggest snake here in Colorado, so they can get very hefty when they reach a length of 5  or 6 feet (1.5 m or more). The girth of this one was probably 7 or 8 inches (17-20 cm). A rattlesnake that big around would be much shorter, maybe 3 to 4 ft (1 m). Of course, rattlesnakes’ eyes also have vertical pupils, unlike the round ones in the mimics, but do you really want to get face-to-face with one to check that feature?

Behavioral cues contradict visual evidence. Wild Bull Snakes may be harmless, but they’re determined to make you believe they’re dangerous villains. They can hiss, “rattle,” coil and strike in very aggressive fashion when cornered. Here he’s got his neck pulled back warning of a fast strike that will make you jump no matter how cool you are. Too often, such tricks get them killed, eliminating the ecosystem services they provide, such as rodent control, and, I’m told, rattlesnake control.

Most people are willing to believe any patterned snake is a rattlesnake.  This little baby Yellow-bellied Racer (Coluber constrictor mormon) was found at the local elementary school. They called us at the museum: “we’ve got a baby rattlesnake, help!”
These guys are even called “pugnacious” in the guidebook, so it’s easy to believe, again, that you’re dealing with a dangerous predator. Even at 15-18 inches (+/- 40 cm), this little fellow was a handful. Jace at Nature Journals describes the rattlesnake-mimicry racers will perform. I’ve never seen them tail-buzzing myself, but then I’ve never tried to confront one in the wild as he describes in his last paragraph. For a nice collection of photos of juvenile and adult racers visit California Academy; the adults are completely different. After our photo-op, we returned this little guy to a safe place a little farther from the school.

Here’s the real deal. A baby Western or Prairie Rattlesnake (Crotalus viridis) looks about the same as the adult and can vary in color from gray-brown, as here, to yellow or greenish. This baby has recently had a big meal.

Diagnostically speaking, note the narrowness of the neck compared to the head, and the black tail near the rattles.

The rattlesnake I encountered at the chicken coop last summer was a clear green. Just lovely… as long as I knew where he was. Thankfully, that one did rattle at me. To this day, I still expect to see him every time I go out there, now that it’s spring.

By the way, a good resource for Colorado reptiles and amphibians is the Colorado Herpetological Society, especially their identification pages, essentially an online field guide. Extensively updated since my last visit, it’s a great site.

Live at the Bear’s Lair

On our second trip to Lair o’ the Bear last week, we never made it to the jelly lichens, but we did get a good look at two beaver dams and dozens of wild bloomers.

A main attraction was the Mountain Ball cactus (Pediocactus simpsonii), in full bloom on a rocky bend in the trail. I think this is the best looking cactus we have in our area.

This garden-like view of wildflowers on a dry slope includes Sand Lilies (Leucocrinum montanum) in white and Oregon Grape (Mahonia repens) in bright yellow on a background of fringed sage (Artemisia frigida).  

 
Here’s a close-up of a Sand Lily. In these spring plants, the ovary is below ground level, so the pollen tube has a long way to go to reach it. The seeds mature underground and later get pushed out onto the surface where they can germinate. 

Short’s Milkvetch (Astragalus shortianus) is about the earliest of our many milkvetches. Its two-tone flowers are distinctive, but it’s the timing of bloom that helps, with other species of milkvetch not ready this early. (This year “early” is coming a few weeks late; the sand lilies should have been gone by now.)

The Lair is a riparian park, as we’ll explore more tomorrow, and shady spots near the stream are great locations for Canada Violet (Viola canadensis). Or maybe not—looks like Bill Weber now calls it V. scopulorum, V. canadensis being an eastern species. There’s also a similar species, V. rydbergii. I didn’t diagnose, so perhaps I should just call it Violet to be safe! (Other sources consider both of these subspecies of Canada Violet.)

Golden Smoke, Corydalis aurea, is easier, as it’s the only representative of its family we’re likely to see in our foothills. It’s related to the eastern Dutch-man’s Breeches, and to Bleeding Hearts in gardens, and has the unusual flowers typical of the Fumariaceae.

 

Serviceberry, one of my favorite shrubs, is a special treat. It’s not quite as abundant, it seems to me, as others in the Rosaceae, which sometimes seems to be our dominant woody family around here. Amelanchier alnifolia, also known as Saskatoon Serviceberry, is one of many species native to and widespread in North America; we also have Utah Serviceberry, A. utahensis, which has shorter petals. It’s called serviceberry because it’s so useful—tasty fruits look a bit like blueberries and are eaten fresh or dried by most tribes, as well as anglo settlers who came later. From pemmican to pies, berries have been prized, but the wood and twigs were also used in basketry, arrow shafts, and tools or toys. This attractive shrub is serviceable in the landscape as well, and often available at nurseries.

Thin-leaved Alder (Alnus incana subsp. tenuifolia) is a common riparian tree at this park. Its pleated leaves were just unfolding on these twigs over Bear Creek. The female inflorescences look like tiny pine cones. They become woody with age, making the tree instantly recognizable! Here a male strobilus and several females cling to a branch where new inflorescences are just budding out. (Click to enlarge.)

I tried to capture the Pasqueflowers (Pulsatilla patens) that were everywhere in the park, but somehow failed to get a good shot of any of them. Bee Lady’s husband Dave, an excellent photographer, really focused on them, with great success. I’ll let you know when I talk him into having his own blog!

  Coming soon!
  Next up, some of the critters
  we saw during this visit. Bee  
  Lady made a wonderful guide;
  she knows all the park’s
  secret places. 

Morning Scold; Power of the Internet

Yesterday I received constant scolding from the magpies when I went to feed the chickens. As I bent to fill a feeder, I heard clumsy flapping above me. No wonder it was so noisy! Three baby magpies just over my head, holding tight to the branches of their chosen security tree. Must be the first day or so out of the nest.

Same thing today… it’s bad enough to get scolded by Orioles when the hummingbird feeder runs dry, but now this! Here are 13 seconds of magpie scolding for your listening pleasure. I was lucky—my cat just looked at one of the babies strolling on the ground, and the parents chased him straight out of the yard. Parent on the right, babies hidden among branches in photo left. Can you see the 3rd one below the others?  

Because the babies are huge, and closely resemble the parents, you might want a couple tricks. I have two: the shorter stubby tail compared to the adult’s flowing one, the only long-tailed bird in most of the U.S.* And baby lips, nicely displayed in this portrait of baby #2. 

As far as I can tell, the parents aren’t feeding them, just keeping an eye out that they’re safe.** The babies are trying to figure out the sunflower and suet feeders.

In fact, it’s a complete zoo out there. Feathers zooming around everywhere, yellow, orange, pretty amazing. Here’s a quick inventory, some of which will have to be added to the May bird list.

To be honest, some of them aren’t zooming, they’re walking around looking for whatever it is towhees and doves and such look for.

Right now, in the yard:

• Bullock’s Oriole, 2 males, 1 female
• Black-billed Magpie, mom, dad, 2-3 kids
• Scrub Jays, 2
• American Goldfinch, male
• Spotted Towhee, 3
• House Finch
• Mourning Dove, 2
• English Sparrow, male
• Broad-tailed Hummingbird, female
• Common Grackle, 1

Darling Husband, just back from Moab a few days ago, was just commenting on how nice it is to be back amid all our birds! (And we still have some green on the hills, too!) I guess the desert was pretty quiet compared to our yard this time of year.  

Power of the Internet

Tuesday I had a powerful reminder of how not-alone one is online. Sometimes it seems pretty quiet here in blog-land, but within hours of posting the Jelly Lichens story, two interesting things happened. First, I got an email from the lichen curator who discovered the new lichen I mentioned. Very cool of him to stop by, but I can’t figure out how he found out I mentioned him. Second, in attempting to figure out how he discovered the post, I googled “jelly lichens,” and, imagine that, my post came up #5! Right after something called arkive.org and the USDA Plants profile (who knew they had lichens!), and ahead of my favorite lichen site, Lichen.com. I’m still baffled.

 

So, just remember, next time you google some obscure term or phrase, you could end up at the blog of some highly authoritative fancier of the item in question!

——
* According to my book, if you're in Texas, you might also get to see the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher; the Fork-tailed Flycatcher occasionally visits Florida. The rest of us will have to make do with Magpies. By the way, "long" in this case means longer than the body.
** Wrong again; the parents are still feeding them. Finally witnessed it late yesterday. See what I mean, authoritative! [grin]

In Search of Jelly Lichens

Last week I took advantage of TWO opportunities to play hooky and go looking for jelly lichens at my favorite location. It had rained over the weekend, so I knew they’d be happily soaking in the humidity.

Bee Lady and I also reveled in springtime humidity as we enjoyed the sights along the way to the best cliff in Lair o’ the Bear. Spring is brief in Colorado, making it very important to play hooky this time of year! 

I hadn’t visited for a while, so had to check every cliff to find the right one, way out at the west end of the creekside trail that was once the main road from Morrison to Evergreen.

Maybe this cliff, with a vertigo view from shady-mossy base to sunny exposed rocky-top?

No, lots of neat things to see, including this little spring beauty growing in a cushion of moss—but still not the right cliff!

Was it this cliff, with the Violet-green Swallows cavorting above?

No, but at the base of it, in a crevice, Bee Lady spotted a Woodrat nest, composed (on the outside at least) mostly of pine boughs and cones.

This also turned out to be a good place to see the unfurling croziers (love that word!), or fiddleheads, of new ferns. I guessed brittlefern, Cystopteris fragilis, based on later specimens, but as these were too young (for me) to tell, they might also be Woodsia.

Eventually we reached the proper cliff, where we could see not only the sought-after jelly lichens, but the wonderful Sticta, and verdant masses of spikemoss, Selaginella. The jelly lichens were soft and slimy from recent rains and lingering rivulets in the cracks and crevices of the cliff. Here a large Umbilicaria (lichen) under the ring, with Selaginella to its right, and masses of true mosses surrounding.

By now, my camera was acting up, so I failed to capture good examples of the very critters I’d come to see. Properly called gelatinous lichens, these guys are so named because they lack the firm texture of more typical foliose lichens and have a characteristic translucence. They remind me of the “tree ears” we sometimes encounter in Chinese restaurant dishes, but those are actual fungi. Gelatinous lichens are unstratified or only partially so, lacking the distinct algal layer, and sometimes the firm lower and/or upper cortex found in the “typical” lichen (if there is such a thing).

They look so different when they’re dry! This one is, I believe, a species of Leptogium, with a white tomentum visible on the lower surface. Perhaps L. saturninum, but confirmation will have to await another trip. With a hand lens. For those who prefer common names, LoNA* calls this one bearded jellyskin.** (Ugh!)

In related news, gleaned from the Nature Blog Network’s blog, President Obama now has a lichen, Caloplaca obamae, named after him. Congratulations, Mr. President! This is also a great story about the citizen scientist, Kerry Knudsen, who discovered this new lichen, proving again that dedicated people can make a real contribution, if they just pay attention to what they see!

* LoNA is Lichens of North America, the coffee table book of lichens, by Brodo, Sharnoff, and Sharnoff. Highly recommended; you can visit it online, though, at Lichen.com.

** Jellyskin is the name used here for the entire genus of Leptogium, as opposed to the name “jelly lichen” given only, in this book, to species of Collema, another common jelly lichen. This is the only book I know that assigns common names to lichens; very few lichens have real common names.

Life is Metallic

  Life Photo Meme is a weekly challenge
  to post a photo of something alive that
  meets a certain criterion, giving us an
  opportunity to think outside our normal
  posting topics and, often, learn something new! Metallic, this week's prompt, is easier to find in beetles than in plants! I've always admired that color I call "bug green," that was popular in cars a few years back.

Today, we'll venture into birds, where metallic plumage is an accessible option. It turns out there are three basic techniques birds use to create the display colors we appreciate especially during breeding season each year: pigment-based colors, structural colors, and cosmetic colors. Among the pigments, carotenoids produce yellow, orange, and red (as they often do in butterflies, flowers, and, well, carrots); melanins produce browns, blacks, and grey, not too spectacular sometimes, but forming the background against which the showier colors are displayed.

Melanins are also critically involved in the production of structural colors, serving as layers in thin-film reflectors or to absorb incoherently backscattered light from reflective keratin and air matrices (Prum 1999, as cited in Shawkey & Hill, 2005). Nano-scale reflective tissues, they add, usually produce UV-blue, white or iridescent coloration.

I thought sure the Black-billed Magpie above would be happy to demonstrate, but he only looks blue. He/she posed in the sun this a.m., giving a little better show.

Because his/her normal magpie iridescence was not adequately displayed in these photos, I turned to a feather source nearer at hand, if less exciting: our mixed-breed flock of domestic poultry. Beaks, here, being a Black Australorp rooster, was willing, and iridescence, or metallic hues, does seem to be best displayed in black feathers. Even this close-up can't do justice to the structural colors created by the intricate design of feathers. George refused to come out from under the juniper to pose, but I wish you could see his iridescence, not confined to blue-green, but venturing into mahogany and rust.

Here's a Partridge Rock hen, capturing a little of the mahogany color George displays so well, along with the traditional iridescence, all against the melanin background feather pattern, somewhat more subdued.

For comparison, a Buff Orpington hen demonstrates complete lack of metallic iridescence. According to Shawkey & Hill, some carotenoid displays (notably in the American goldfinch), though pigment based, depend upon white structural tissue to achieve the brilliance we expect in their vivid yellow.

And cosmetics? As we might expect, they are substances (from oil glands or soil, e.g., iron oxides) externally applied by birds to their feathers, to boost their appearance and attractiveness to potential mates. Parrots and pigeons, among others, use this approach.

All these techniques for creating display colors in birds have a metabolic cost, and must also have an adaptive advantage as payback, without which our world would be less metallic and far more drab.

——
Shawkey, Matthew D. and Geoffrey E. Hill. 2005. Carotenoids need
structural colours to shine. Biol. Lett. 1, 121–124; doi:10.1098/rsbl.2004.0289 Published online 16 May 2005.

Meriwether Lewis and the May Bird List

Each spring, we expect a fairly regular complement of avian arrivals and passers-by. Every now and then though, we're surprised by something vastly out of usual list of guests we've come to anticipate. Tuesday was such a day, when a bird appeared that, to my knowledge, had only visited us once before, many years ago.

There are birds that make us laugh out loud—outrageous combinations of color that somehow suggest frivolity. My first experience of a Western Tanager was like that—what can you say about a bird with so many colors?

Tuesday, I looked out to see this Lewis's Woodpecker perched above the suet feeder. He sat just long enough for me to get the camera and snap off one quick shot. Red face, glossy green-to-black back, pink sides, and a grayish-white collar. I've described him to a couple of people since, and they also seem impressed by his color, even only in description. I wish the photo did him (or her, apparently similar) justice.

I can only imagine that Meriwether Lewis was equally surprised at this bird, among the many new and surprising discoveries made on his famous trip in 1803-1806. Here's his description of this critter new to science. Originally Picus torquatus ("woodpecker with a necklace"), it is today named Melanerpes lewis, or "Lewis's black creeper."

Lewis's name also rests in a couple western wildflowers—Blue flax (Linum lewisii), and our alpine Pygmy Bitterroot (Lewisia pygmaea), a cousin of Montana's state flower of the same genus. I have a nagging suspicion there are many more plants and critters bearing his name, but they're not popping into my head. Please weigh in if you think of others!

The May Bird List (in progress)

• Chukar (exotic, has been here more than 2 weeks)
  
• American Kestrel (courting near the backyard, nesting at the neighbors')
  
• Red-tailed Hawk (soaring nearby)
  
• Golden Eagle (soaring over)
  
  
• Rock Pigeon
  
• Mourning Dove
  
• Broad-tailed Hummingbird (just back)
  
• Lewis's Woodpecker
  
• Downy Woodpecker
  
• Northern Flicker
  
• Western Scrub-Jay
  
• Black-billed Magpie
  
• American Crow
  
  
• Violet-green Swallow
  
• Black-capped Chickadee
  
• White-breasted Nuthatch (until last week; hoping he returns)
  
• American Robin
  
• European Starling
  
• Green-tailed Towhee
  
• Spotted Towhee
  
  
• American Tree Sparrow
  
• White-crowned Sparrow
  
• Dark-eyed Junco: still here, as of last week, but disappearing
  
• Black-headed Grosbeak (just back last week)
  
• Red-winged Blackbird
  
• Western Meadowlark
  
• Bullock's Oriole (just back last week)
  
  
• House Finch
  
• Pine Siskin
  
• House Sparrow
  

Can I count the Lazuli Buntings a neighbor saw a couple days ago? Guess not.

At any rate, that's about 30 species, thanks to some overlap in the season. I'll have a post coming soon on new birds from two visits to Lair o'the Bear this week, along with an assortment of wildflowers we saw there.

The Ants Go Marching

This one's for Honor an Invertebrate Day at Life Photo Meme. A bit late, just in the nick, in fact!


Spilled coffee grounds? was my first reaction when I caught this brownish residue out of the corner of my eye one morning, walking out to feed the chickens. It didn't take long to realize the error—this was life on the move. We had one of these irruptions* inside the house late last summer, possibly the same species, in a breezeway newly converted to civilization.

* An irruption is a sudden explosion in population, or sometimes a shift in presence in a given area, so this is the wrong word, but I've yet to think of a better one. The event last fall was a bit different, a true irruption of sorts, as winged ants were attempting to strike out to colonize new areas.

It wasn't long before I realized my error—this wasn't moving out, this was spring cleaning! (You needn't be surprised that I didn't recognize the phenomenon; it's rare around here!) I did manage (being close to the house) to press the Colorado quarter into duty as a scale object this time, but you'll have to click to see subtle activity along the edge of the paver in this photo.

My guess was the ants had chosen this fine day to remove fallen comrades from the nest. A long winter had, no doubt, induced a fair complement of colony mortality, and "ceremonies," however perfunctory, were in order.


This behavior is called necrophoric (from roots for dead and carrying) and is, like most events in the life of an ant or an entire colony, mediated by chemicals. If you smell like a dead ant, you are presumed to be a corpse and can expect to be treated accordingly. In fact, according to the researchers, "It was soon established that bits of paper treated with acetone extracts of Pogonomyrmex [ harvester ant] corpses were treated just like intact corpses" by worker ants. Separation of components of the extract later revealed (again through "behavioral assay," that is the workers' response to test chemicals) that long-chain fatty acids, in particular oleic acid, were the critical substances.

According to Hölldobler and Wilson:
"The transport of dead nestmates is one of the most conspicuous and stereotyped patterns of behavior exhibited by ants. ... Thus the worker ants appear to recognize corpses on the basis of a limited array of chemical breakdown products. They are, moreover, very "narrow-minded" on the subject. Almost any object possessing an otherwise inoffensive odor is treated as a corpse when daubed with oleic acid."

Even live worker ants were carried to the refuse pile "unprotesting" after being treated with oleic acid. "After being deposited, they clean themselves and return to the nest." And the penalty for inadequate cleaning is... you guessed it! Another trip to the refuse pile. A whole new concept of the living dead. Perhaps I should have saved this post for Halloween.

Sure enough, the next morning, the pavers were littered with broken, immobile ant bodies. I failed to capture the "after" shot before morning breezes blew the departed insects away.

[Forgive my delay. The actual date of this event was April 11, 2009.]

Good Day for a Walk

What a lovely spring day! This is the kind of wet drippy days we have too few of here on the Front Range. Too bad I have to leave to report for jury duty in an hour; it's perfect for visiting the jelly lichens and beaver dam at Lair o'the Bear just up the creek.

We've had a couple of these cool days lately. The year's moisture now sits at about 4.5 inches (11 cm), and plants are finally popping. Last week's cool weather seemed to hold the wild plum in check, then a few warm days allowed them to burst forth in fragrance. We're supposed to have more warm this week, with a small prospect of another wet day or two for the weekend. I'm keeping my fingers crossed.

Mentor, verb

The dictionary insists it's a noun, but we often use it these days as a verb. This post is a little tribute to a mentor who made a huge difference in my life by inspiring, at a relatively early stage, an enthusiasm for field ecology: Dr. Paul D. Kilburn. I was a biology major in an upstate New York college when a friend suggested a summer field excursion to Colorado. We went, and four weeks later, though I didn't know it at the time, I was bound to become a Coloradoan.

Three of those weeks were spent learning the Colorado flora: identification, montane ecology, and alpine ecology at one week each. In Rocky Mountain National Park! That foundation formed my career in the 1970s and '80s, and my passion in these later decades, though sometimes rarely exercised.

But this isn't a nostalgia trip, this is to tell you what Paul has accomplished now! After ten or twelve years of struggle (through the 1990s), I got busy and abandoned our joint attempt to save an important chunk of native tallgrass prairie in the northern part of our county. But the foundation was laid, and Paul persisted. Last week he made some significant headway, almost 10 million dollars worth, toward protecting and restoring what's left of an important grassland ecosystem. Here's Paul, right, with Dave Buckner, ten years ago today, in a nice chunk of prairie that was purchased by City of Boulder Open Space and is now protected. Dave's a consultant with whom we launched a 5-year grassland study—paid for by the aggregate interests—of the native warm-season grasslands at Rocky Flats.

This photo shows the Chemist, left, and Paul, right, in July 1999 with the Developer who knows his chunk of this well preserved prairie is going to be very remunerative for him, as it is situated at the intersection of two important highways, soon to be a major beltway bringing traffic to his door—if development interests prevail. (Here we bless the economic "downturn" for breathing space.)

In 2001, Paul (far right) led this field trip to the site of a proposed oil well within the boundaries of a portion of the grassland that had been placed in a "Stewardship Trust" by the State of Colorado (which owns Section 16, a state school section). One of the uses for the $10 million will be to purchase certain mineral rights in the Rocky Flats area so that other parts of this grassland won't be turned upside down in a quest for... gravel, bluestone aggregate. Happily, most of Rocky Flats, once a weapons plant, is now a wildlife refuge, so areas inside the fence are protected from pretty much everything except mineral owners and weeds.

Paul's been fighting the good fight, as well as leading groups to collect native seeds for revegetation and pull invading weeds, ever since those early days. Why does he do it? I think it's so his grand-children—and yours—can enjoy sights like this! (Tallgrass prairie in fall, looking toward the foothills.)

Fall color in "turkeyfoot," big bluestem grass (Andropogon gerardii), looking across Section 16 and Boulder's Jewell Mountain Open Space.

Flicker Love

Perhaps the loudest "sign of spring" lately is provided by the Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus). Although most of our local birds have been courting, some vociferously, the Flicker takes his job seriously. We have a pair, and it seems as if there's a pair for every couple of houses in the neighborhood. Or "our" pair gets around.

Flickers conduct their courtship and territorial displays with two means of getting attention: calling and drumming. They're large birds, so they can make a lot of noise. It's tiring, I'm sure, so he needs to hit the suet feeder regularly to refuel, as he is here.

Here's a small sample of the morning wake-up call we got at 7:40 a.m. Sunday. Repeat at regular intervals for full effect. This drumming is especially impressive because it's taking place on the metal stovepipe on our roof, which means you can hear it inside as well as outside the house. Beats beating on a hollow log, he says.

I like the test thunks that precede the drumming, as if he's checking the surface for proper resonance. Here's what the 8 seconds of drumming above looks like. (You can click to see these better if you like.) Bee Lady said "it's so fast!"; looks like about 20 percussive events per second, when I zoom it in.



Part 2 of the Flicker courtship ritual is calling. Both of these noises serve to attract mates and provide territorial warnings to interlopers. I was criticized a few years back for calling bird songs noise, so you be the judge on this one. Do we want to call that a song? It looks like this:



Add that to everyone else out there advertising, and it ends up being quite a delightful spring cacophony. Especially when you begin to figure out the individual voices. Here's a taste of just two voices (Note: 4 mb file), the staccato Scrub Jay squawk over a distant Flicker call.



——
For all this, you may thank an old friend (we'll call him TrailMeister, or TM for short) who reappeared this year to chide me for not recognizing the call of a Kingfisher. (I mean, how often do I see/hear a Kingfisher? GMAB.) But I had a digi-recorder handy, so I started sending him little challenges, and... well, here we are. Now that I've figured out how to post these little clips, you can expect more of them!

In fairness, I must add that The Chemist sent me this link some weeks ago, where I went to find out what Kingfishers sound like. The Chemist recommended listening to rattlesnakes as a dog-training exercise. That's another story, but may well have reminded me that my recorder would work for other than its intended purpose.

Signs of the Season

After Saturday's steady drizzle, yesterday dawned clear and bright. At 7:40 a.m. the first Hummingbird of the season showed up, hovering where the feeder should have been, where he remembered it was last year. We jumped up from our coffee, and in minutes, it was found, filled, and back up. He (a male Broad-tailed Hummingbird) returned later to check successfully, a sure sign that spring is here.

You may be wondering what he's doing this morning, as we woke to this—another world of white. About 4 inches (10 cm) of wet snow out there.

Here's how Darling Husband started his work day.

The Flicker attacked an icy block of suet; Juncos and Towhees and Finches looked for bird seed scattered on the ground, and the Hummer stayed close to his chosen food source for the morning. Yours truly was not very successful at capturing him in pixels, but I'm posting these photos anyway, just so you know he's okay.


Between sips of sugar-water, he rested near the house on a feed bucket, or out in the branches of the ash tree, seemingly unperturbed by the snow, as long as he was fed and his feathers retained the necessary fluff-factor. Then there were two, politely sharing the only visible food in the area. No squabbles on a day like this, weather a common, if temporary, enemy.

Two hours later, white skies have lifted to reveal landscape features, sun peeks through and helps trees and bushes begin to shed heavy loads of snow, and temps climb to 10 degrees (6C) above the freezing zone. All is on its way to being well, as another of our spring cycles winds to a close.

Despite my basic faith that nature can take care of itself, I worry. Even short-lived tough times can have ill effects for some, if not for the system. But I hear the Flicker calling—and drumming—his reassurance; even he knows tough times don't last.

Foggy Day; Mystery Bird Solved

A cool and soggy day, even the cats want to be inside, as cozily curled up as possible. Unusual but much appreciated, the fog is turning into a bit of a drizzle, and maybe even a dusting of snow on the top of the nearby mountain, invisible in today's view.

The neighbor called; two unusuals in her yard. I headed over with binocs and camera, and got a good look and an ID on this guy, probably the gallinaceous pair I saw near the mailbox on Tuesday. I was unable to capture a picture of these striking birds together.

Here's what I thought was the male, giving me the evil eye. (Sexes are pretty much identical, as far as I could tell.) Any ideas on ID?

The answer is now clear. More details later!

Man of the House

Here's the male of the species, who showed up today after I (belatedly) refilled the suet feeder. (It was only empty for a day...)

Haven't seen the female since Wednesday, but "ya can't have one without the o-o-o-ther"!



Sure hope these new visitors hang around. (C'mon, guys, the suet is restocked!)

Male has a black head; it's gray in the female. See Birds of April.

Hmm... these are nice! I'm thinking DH and I may have to swap cameras!

Oops! White-breasted Nuthatch!

A Walk in the Woods

Sorry, boss. Earth Day is a nationwide holiday, and it's on my schedule of days off. And what a lovely (irresistible spring) day it was... Bee Lady and I, along with her dog Jake, just had to get out for a walk in the woods, if only a short one. We chose O'Fallon Park for a section of "hiker-only" trail I hadn't checked out before. Driving up Bear Creek Canyon, enjoying the views, we spotted several Elk in the meadow at Lair o'the Bear, an Open Space park west of Idledale. There's a new beaver dam there, too, but we were not deterred from our destination.

Nor did the surviving snow on the ground deter us. Jake, in fact, reveled in rolling in each patch we slogged through, perhaps easing his old bones. We walked through a slumbering forest of Ponderosa Pine and Douglas-fir, yet untouched by spring, and were soon rewarded with fabulous views of the mountains to the west. The late sun made capturing the mountains a challenge, so you'll have to exercise a little imagination to see Mt. Evans in the distance here.

Looking back toward Independence Mountain provided a good view of the north-facing slopes still buried in last week's snowfall. Spring will be delayed even longer there. On our warmer side of the hill, Leafy Spurge and Dalmatian Toadflax (both invasive exotics) were already getting a head start on the natives.

There was even time for an ecology lesson. We saw several trees whose tops had been snapped off by the weight of the wettest snow of the year, so when we noticed many tips of PPine branches laying on the ground, I assumed they, too, were victims of seasonal weather-pruning.

Not so, said Bee Lady. See these bare twigs next to them? This pruning is the work of the Abert's Squirrel¹who, instead of caching pine seeds as the Chicarees (Pine Squirrels) do, nibbles on the cambium layer of selected pines. Selective like Porcupines?, I asked. [Those guys choose trees with high sugar(?) content, which are often the ones in the earliest stages of disease or insect attack. It's been reported that Porkies can recognize a sick tree long before any evidence is visible to the forester.]

Just so, said Bee Lady as she explained how the squirrels cut pine tips and select twigs behind the growing part, leaving green tassels strewn beneath the tree. She even demonstrated the cambium-munching technique, much like a person eating an ear of sweet corn. (Okay, I probably shouldn't say cambium, so much as inner bark, that is, phloem and cambium, the living parts of a tree stem. The nutrient-free wood, or xylem, is left behind.) The squirrels are selective, it turns out that ecologists just aren't quite sure what they're looking for in the target trees.²

To add to this tangled web of a story, Bee Lady says the Abert's Squirrels must munch certain fungi come June or so to maintain the necessary enzymes (or some such) to digest all that cellulose they'll be eating next winter!

Our short hike seems to have gotten too long for one post, so it's actually continued in the previous post.

——
¹Sciurus abertii, but comes in several subspecies too. Thanks to Deb for the squirrel photo link above, better than the one at Wikipedia. There's another nice page on Abert's at NatureWorks.

²According to Marc Snyder, 1992, "The phloem of target trees had significantly higher concentrations of nonstructural carbohydrates and sodium, and significantly lower concentrations of iron and mercury, than the phloem of matched nontarget trees. Oleoresin characteristics associated with selective herbivory were unaffected by simulated herbivory over 2 yr, supporting existing evidence that these characteristics are under strong genetic control. Because herbivory is associated with these host traits and results in dramatic reductions in host fitness, Abert's squirrels are probably important agents of natural selection in host ponderosa pine populations." Yum! Nonstructural carbohydrates!

On the other hand, Pedersen and Welch (1984) found that "Protein and other nutrients did not differ significantly between feed and nonfeed trees. However, both outer and inner bark were easier to remove from the woody portion of the feed tree twigs than those twigs collected from nonfeed trees. Therefore, due to the lack of differences in monoterpenoid and nutrient content between feed and nonfeed trees, we attributed the use of certain trees for use as feed trees to the ease of peeling and separating outer from inner bark."

Elk in Velvet--and a Surprise

Our Earth Day hike (see following post, actually written first) brought us a few other delights of discovery, mostly on the return trip. Stomping through one of the wet snow patches, I noticed some tracks that didn't belong to us or the dog. Puzzled, intrigued, and grateful we hadn't obliterated them on the way out, we searched for some clear enough to photograph. Here they are, once again without a scale object other than a few Doug-fir needles, but they would have looked nice with one of my Colorado quarters I keep forgetting to bring.

The tracks were too big for the squirrels we had been discussing, too small for a dog and not-quite-right for raccoon, we thought, though there was some resemblance. In the snow, they looked almost like an infant's handprint, except for distinct claw marks. Bee Lady decided on a Pine Marten, and I quite liked that conclusion. It could, of course, been some other small weasel, but we relished the thought of this little guy watching us from a tree while we looked for him.

The Pine Marten or American Marten (Martes americana) is the largest weasel we're likely to see in these parts, Fishers being pretty rare, and Wolverines almost nonexistent. Apparently secure in Colorado and several other western states, the Marten is imperiled or vulnerable in Utah, New Mexico, Nevada, California, and Oregon, as well as in most of the northeast. Its broad range, though, makes it globally secure thanks to abundant populations in Canada. (See Distribution map at NatureServe.org.)

Check out the photo—pretty cute, huh? (U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.) I shouldn't feel too bad about never having seen one—my source says "even people who live in marten habitat may seldom see them." Darling Husband did see one on a hike in the mountains a few years ago. Ours was probably watching from the treetops as we headed back down the trail.

Here are the photos DH took, June 2007, near the trailhead to Gray's and Torrey's Peaks. Brightening to get his face to show up washed out the old snow behind him; not as perfect a pose as the one above. Click to get a better view of him.

Also a rear view, in typical weasel observation pose, to show off his shape. These guys are about the size of a small housecat.

We'd somehow overlooked a couple signs of spring on the way out. First, I spotted this Mountain Candytuft (Thlaspi alpestre), a delicate spring mustard that is easy to miss, usually occurring by itself, scattered along the trail. We saw only this one.

Next up was the one we'd been looking for: the Mountain Ball Cactus (Pediocactus simpsonii). It's a dramatic plant, especially when in flower, but very capable of hiding in plain sight among the rocks and lichens. Often where there's one of these beauties, there will be more, but again, we saw only one blooming.

Still with me? If so, you're probably wondering about those Elk by now. We found them again, in a meadow a little further downstream, and took a quick detour for a better look. Five or six, mostly bulls (maybe all bulls, some just too young to show antlers), in the picnic area along the trail.

They are just beginning to regrow their annual racks, now just fuzzy protrusions from their foreheads as they grazed. Again, without scale, it's hard to convey how BIG these guys are! Almost 5 feet (1.5 m) at the shoulder, and weighing in the neighborhood of 700 pounds (320 kg), they are twice as heavy as Mule Deer (though they easily look three times!). Somehow, though they're around daily in the mountains west of home, it's still always exciting to see them (at least for those of us who don't have them munching on our landscaping).

So, in all, a great day on our little part of the Earth!

A Little More on Elk

By the final years of the 19th century, when the frontier was not only closed but almost sterilized, Elk had become so rare from overhunting that their conservation became an important effort in the early 1900s. When the bison preserve at Genesee Park was established in 1914 (with bison imported from Yellowstone Park), a couple dozen Elk were brought along to form the nucleus of the herd that still resides there.

The irony is that, 95 years later, the captive herd is well outnumbered by wild Elk (like the ones pictured above) in the foothills west of Denver. Today the species is not only back from the brink of extinction, but so numerous that it is one of the Rockies' most popular game animals with hunters. Elk have even overpopulated habitat in Rocky Mountain National Park to the extent that culling has again become necessary there. An Elk Vegetation Management Plan guided removal that started in February and took about 33 elk (out of 100 planned), all cows. A bit of fertility control is also being tried out on the remaining herd. The program has been controversial, as the following articles show.

Elk culling to begin
First animals taken
Wolves are the better answer
Estes Park residents disagree on culling plan

It's Earth Day!

Finally, Earth Day and Spring seem to be arriving simultaneously! Thirty-nine years later, it seems we don't hear enough about Earth Day, which should certainly be (along with Buy-Nothing Day, the Friday after Thanksgiving) our most significant—and transformative—holiday.

I still remember that first Earth Day, when we thought picking up garbage was a significant way to celebrate. The world, or at least this state-side portion of it, has indeed been transformed since then, so subtly we often fail to realize it. Although it seems we can never do enough, let's look at a few things that have changed for the better since 1970, signs of the times, at how full our collective glass really is.

Litter: once ubiquitous on major highways; drivers were warned of the consequences of throwing refuse out car windows. $500 fines, rarely enforceable, have been replaced by Adopt-a-Highway signs, and volunteers help keep our scenery looking more scenic and less trashed than in 1970.

Endangered species: yes, and more of them than ever, but the Bald Eagle, our national symbol, is no longer among them. Neither is the Peregrine Falcon, the American Alligator, the Gray Wolf, or the Grizzly Bear. Whooping Cranes, Desert Pupfish, California Condors, and Black-footed Ferrets have not disappeared as predicted, thanks to strenuous measures by many people. Your children don't even remember DDT or the spray trucks of summer, implicated in many of those declines.

However, 51 species have been delisted, and not all of them are charismatic megafauna. Delisting always makes me nervous; guess I'm naturally suspicious. Here's the scoop, in case you were wondering. Of those 51 species, 25 have been delisted because of recovery. Seventeen have been delisted because the "original data [were] in error." Unfortunately, the remaining nine have been delisted by reason of the fact that they've gone extinct. How many of us can name even one of them? (See Requiem, below.)

Habitat protection: although still committed to resource extraction, most land-management agencies at least acknowledge and evaluate the consequences of their actions. We have, thanks to many nongovernmental organizations as well, more protected habitat nationwide than we did in 1970, and we can't have wildlife and wild plant diversity without habitat.

Air and water quality: places where city sewage flows freely into local streams and industries spew poisons into the air unregulated are no longer a daily experience in most communities.

For all that remains to be done, we are fortunate here in the U.S. that significant progress has been made. But it is not cause to rest. For each item in the list, there is bad news somewhere, and we don't need to look far to find it.

——
Requiem (with date delisted): Guam Broadbill (2/24/04); Longjaw Cisco (9/2/83); Amistad Gambusia (12/4/87); Mariana Mallard (2/23/04); Sampson's Pearlymussel (1/9/84); Blue Pike (9/2/83); Tecopa Pupfish (1/15/82); Santa Barbara Song Sparrow (10/12/83); Dusky Seaside Sparrow (12/12/90).

The Birds of April

Once again, I'm launching a new feature here at FF. Given my track record, I just know I shouldn't say that!

This time, it's a monthly compilation of visiting and resident birds. This is that transitional shoulder-season, when winter friends will disappear without a fare-thee-well, and returning guests show up to delight and amuse us. Any day now, the Hummingbirds. We must be prepared!

We have some newcomers this month, some "never befores" to report, like the one in this photo. And I'd never thought to take the camera to the mailbox with me, but would that I had today! I'll probably never see again this never-before bird, nor ever be sure of its identity.

April is not over, that we know. But here's the list so far... let's expect a few more before the month is out! Most were at the feeders; a few obvious ones (Vultures and Eagles, for example) were not. Never-befores (only one this month) are in blue.

• Turkey Vulture (soaring over; 9 of them circling on the thermals this evening as I write)
  
• Sharp-shinned Hawk: just this morning
  
• Cooper's Hawk
  
• American Kestrel (courting near the backyard, nesting at the neighbors')
  
• Red-tailed Hawk (soaring nearby)
  
• Golden Eagle (soaring nearby)
  
  
• Rock Pigeon
  
• Mourning Dove
  
• Northern Flicker
  
• Steller's Jay
  
• Western Scrub-Jay
  
• Black-billed Magpie
  
• American Crow
  
  
• Black-capped Chickadee
  
• White-breasted Nuthatch
  
• American Robin
  
• European Starling
  
• Spotted Towhee
  
  
• American Tree Sparrow
  
• White-crowned Sparrow
  
• Dark-eyed Junco: still here, by the dozens
  
• Red-winged Blackbird
  
• Western Meadowlark
  
  
• House Finch
  
• Pine Siskin
  
• Lesser Goldfinch
  
• House Sparrow
  

That's 27 total, and the migrants haven't even arrived yet! Links go to those whose photos have been previously posted.

The White-breasted Nuthatch was unexpected, not having popped in before. (She's acrobatic, but not as much as Blogger would have you believe. Gravity still prevails, even here. If anyone can tell me why Blogger occasionally does this or how to overcome it, I'd be grateful.) She has become a regular, at least for now, checking the suet feeder periodically over the past week. That distinguishes from her cousin, the Red-breasted Nuthatch, who showed up just once back in May 2008.

As with other suet-lovers, these Nuthatches are insectivores and cavity-nesters. Their young are almost totally dependent on animal foods. They also, according to Erhlich et al., sometimes join mixed-species flocks, which can confer feeding advantages as well as protection from predators.

There are a few more I'd like to mention, seen or heard in the immediate area (that is, the area seen in the "views from home" photos). These are the Canyon Wren I heard among the cliffs of Red Rocks yesterday, one of the few bird songs I recognize. (We're working on that; more to report soon.) And last night, wonder of wonders, a new sound in the dark. Husband, then Friends, had reported this, but last night, I heard it, all by myself. Outside in the dark, a sound like a cross between a coyote and a goose... barking overhead, the migrating Sandhill Cranes!

And the mailbox bird? Something gallinaceous. The best I can come up with is Sharp-tailed Grouse, two of them, just meandering along the road. Gone, of course, by the time I returned with binocs and camera.

A joyous Spring, indeed! (I'd better go buy suet!)

——
Erhlich, Paul R., David S. Dobkin, and Darryl Wheye. 1988. The Birder's Handbook: A Field Guide to the Natural History of North American Birds. Simon & Schuster. 785 p. (an encyclopedic complement to your identification guides)

The Road to Hell

I have so much to blog about! Watcher-like, I'd even made a plan, a list of things to cover here at Foothills Fancies. And yet, that prickly pear cordial sat up here all month, embarrassing me by its continued top-o'-the-blog presence when there are spring storms to cover (another foot of white stuff last Friday that I missed almost completely), an entire round-trip across Colorado, Earth Day tomorrow and my wistful plan to cover Good Earth stuff all month... sigh. Time has not been on my side of late.

And now, thanks to a snowy April putting us back on track for annual moisture (and then some!), green and growing things will be bursting out of the ground faster than I can record them. Hallelujah, it's April, and spring is really here this time! (I'm convinced, anyway, what with it hitting almost 80 today, 27C.)

Coming Attractions: Well, we've got Flicker Love, The Bird List (yes, I've finally started keeping track, sort of), Trophy Hunting, geological discoveries, the Windshield Survey of Colorado (with a little bit of Utah thrown in), and more, much more.

Expect wonders! What else can I say on a fine spring day?