A Taste of Spring at BGR#26

We're sampling spring-like weather here this week, at long last. Our third storm, threatened by forecasters last Friday night, never materialized in white form, but remnants of the second are still lying about.

But for a real taste of spring, drop in on Berry-Go-Round #26, where Sarcozona at Gravity's Rainbow has rounded up an incredible collection of botanical marvels, from pawpaws to algal balls, moss to magnolia.

Here at home, the maples are blooming, and I ought to go looking for wildflowers. Indoors, the sweet smell of waxplant (Hoya carnosa) in bloom wafted through the house last night in a vain attempt to attract some insect. Only two intricate inflorescences, but a very nice preview of things to come outdoors. The season of flowering and fruiting is coming.

Second Storm

The second spring storm of the week arrived Tuesday night, and Wednesday was another big "digging out" day.* Some days it seems like the forecasters are getting better. They pretty much hit this one on the head; it hit us just as scheduled. These spring upslopes (see below) must be easy for them.

Tuesday was a fine spring day, warm and sunny, til about 4:30 p.m. when the air got fuzzy. An hour later a full-on blizzard was in effect, sideways snow and all. Stomping out to lock up the chickens was great fun!


Wednesday morning, it was quite lovely, for those who don't have to be anywhere. (As almost everything was closed, that meant most of us.) We have a foot (30cm), give or take, but by 8:30 a.m. (above), paths were shoveled, feeders were filled, suet was hung by the ash tree with care, and the birds were well content.

The first bird to arrive was the BIG one... "Hey, I put that out there for the other birds!"

The siskins were at their acrobatic best early on, even before we refilled the "upside down" feeder. Fuller feeders means fuller perches, and sometimes a waiting line forms nearby. Patience rarely prevails; they're so feisty jostling for spots that it's almost impossible not to catch them in the air!

Even the juncos were lively and quick! I always worry they'll disappear without a fare-thee-well one of these days. But the Last Junco isn't just yet.

What's the story with "upslope" storms?
This time of year, each low pressure system that crosses Colorado creates a huge counter-clockwise vortex of moving air. Here's Colorado, a giant postage stamp of a state with a swath of high mountains running through the center.


This low, Tuesday night, circled the whole state. It scooped up moisture from the Texas/Gulf end at the south and threw it up against the Front Range, right about here at Denver latitude. Meanwhile, nice cold air just happened to be moving down into the state from Wyoming and north-abouts.

And BAM! Here we are, digging out from under stuff that weighs at least 20 pounds per shovelful! By mid-day, sun was out and roads were clear. The piles will last a while longer...

*Blogger wouldn't cooperate with the longer post I worked on most of the day yesterday, so this is an abbreviated (and less immediate) version. Title refers to the 9 inches of snow I missed over the weekend, all of which was gone by the time I returned Sunday afternoon. Here's this morning's updated view.

Dark o' the Morning

Just last week at this hour it was bright and the chickens were already out romping in the sunshine.

Oh well, must be we're saving daylight at the other end of the day!

Have a Happy St. Patrick's Day (but remember the snakes)!

A Little Birdwatching, Creekside

Let's have another round of "spot the dipper," shall we? I finally started walking on the creek trail again last week, and one of the winter highlights is sure to be dippers, or Water Ouzels, that frequent these lower stretches in the winter. This little guy was the only one I saw on my brief hike last Tuesday, but the next day they seemed to be everywhere! And what fun they are to watch, as they plunge into the icy waters to hunt. This one even stepped out on the nearby ice floe for a bit, but I missed that shot.

In and out of the water, over and over again, he's gobbling up the larvae of next summer's trout food—stone flies, caddis flies, mayflies, and who-knows-what else? All near-frozen treats, but he doesn't seem to mind.

We previously visited with dippers more than a year ago; stop in there for more on these delightful birds.

There were a few other birds out enjoying our spring weather, as I was. A Nuthatch, white-faced, escaped my attempts to capture it with the camera, but this little Downy Woodpecker posed politely while searching for her next meal.

Valentines for Plant Lovers (BGR #25)

Valentine’s Day normally passes without a blip around here, but this year was outstanding! As beautiful heart-shaped boxes arrived in my inbox for Berry-Go-Round this month, I was reminded that botanical carnivals are like a box of chocolates: You never know what you’re going to get, but it’s bound to be delicious! I did a little very tasty research, and I can confidently report that you’ll find plenty of good eatin’, er, reading here for our February edition. It's highly caloric, though—you just might not want to consume the whole thing in one sitting.

Remember: If you enjoy these sites, do leave a comment for the authors, and tell them Berry-Go-Round sent you! Links back to the carnival are also appreciated.

Ted, at Beetles in the Bush, breaks with the Valentine’s Day tradition of red roses and offers us white orchids instead. No complaints here, with his gorgeous photos of the Great Plains Ladies'-tresses orchid (Spiranthes magnicamporum), which he observed on a dolomite glade in the White River Hills of southwestern Missouri last October.

Ted also sent something extra (looks like a chocolate lollipop or tootsie roll to me), which he found at Digital Botanic Garden. This new site is well worth exploring-- I don’t think you’ll be disappointed by any of the gourmet chocolates in this box; Phil’s plant photos are all incredible.

The melt-in-your-mouth flavor of Diane’s contribution from Hill-stead’s blog belies its less-than-tempting smell, which is not what most might prefer in their holiday confections. There’s a good reason her skunk cabbage is a bit on the foetid side. Learn why, and much more, as she welcomes this early sign of spring and encourages us to get out and take a look around too.

Oh dear, a few of our chocolates seem to have gotten a little stale, and here it’s only been two weeks since Valentine’s Day. Despite being 350 million years old, Sarcozona’s contribution on Archeopteris (and Archaeopteryx!) is surprisingly rich and delectable, and includes a wonderful fossil play on words. Look for it at Gravity's Rainbow.

Phytophactor also brings us a treat that’s a bit past its expiration date, a 400-million-year-old enigmatic fossil, Prototaxites. He makes up for it by refreshing us with something fresh and flowery for Ash Wednesday. If chocolate’s not enough to nudge you out of the winter doldrums and you missed his January prescriptions for relief, his recent suggestion to visit a greenhouse may do the trick.

You could always get away from the cold and snow by trotting off to some sunny place, as John did at Kind of Curious, where he blogs about what is out there in our world and how/why we should protect it.





The valentine he sent from Hawaii tells us 11 amazing things about Haleakala silversword. It turns out that not all of Hawaii is warm and sunny, so silversword has a special trick for beating the cold.

Of course, chocolate is a specialty of Mexico, and Jeremy and Luigi at Agricultural Biodiversity share an assortment of new scientific results in the search for agricultural origins in Mexico and Italy and review how genebanks are doing in preserving crop and wild relative diversity. As long as they preserve chocolate, we'll be fine.

You won't find any additives in Emily's valentine. No seeds, no fruits, no flowers, and definitely no problem with her post on old timey fern guidebooks, just decadent dark chocolate. Ummm... and remember, dark chocolate is rich in bioflavonoids, so it's good for you too!

But maybe you'd prefer a little fruit in your chocolate (extra antioxidants, right?), and don't we all recognize those chocolate-covered cherries? As host of this edition, Sally here at Foothills Fancies takes us over to Small Wonders for her essay on getting birds to help in the garden.

It's hard to believe, after all these boxes of chocolates, that I still wasn't satisfied. I just needed to round up something a little nutty, and I found it at Watching the World Wake Up. Who but the Watcher could turn a pie-tasting contest into a botanical lesson?

Through my research, I discovered that purveyors of chocolate talk in lusciously smooth and creamy phrases, with a special vocabulary, as do wine connoisseurs. Can chocolate be a bit resinous as this hackmatack post at Blogs Monroe is? Is “oakey” just in wine, or does it come in chocolates too? If so, Ted offers us a taste of oak at Hawn State Park in Missouri, and Swampy echoes the flavor with quirky Quercus. Swampy also turned up the first dandelion of spring over at Swamp Things.

Want to get depressed so you have a reason to Eat More Chocolates? Check out not so looming Anthropocene extinctions at Conservation Bytes; it'll help you develop a craving!

A Few Final Bites

The pink and red of valentines reminded me of the colour of spring over at Rock Paper Lizard.

Jessica, at Moss Plants and More, shares a great idea with the latest moss gardening book, and gives us a most intriguing tip to visit the mosscam, where you can enjoy mosses in action.

Lindsay's series of posts (February 18-26, with closing statement on March 1) on biodiversity and sports (think Olympics, not botanical) forges more connections between plants and athletics than we might expect. See how at Botany Photo of the Day, from the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden. If you're still in a valentiney mood, check out Daniel's timely post on Rose hybrids while you're there.

Over at Seeds Aside, Laurent tells us that Orthoptera can pollinate too.

Witch’s brooms are featured in the Annotated Flora, a collection of more than 100 columns on native plants by Ken Moore, as published in The Carrboro Citizen, a newspaper from Carrboro, North Carolina.

Wow—with history, heart-health benefits, diversity of forms, and outright deliciousness, chocolate has to be one of the world's favorite plant-based products. By now, you've probably worked up an appetite. I'd be remiss if I didn't send you over to Chocolate and Zucchini, where you can find Clothilde's cake of the same ingredients, and to the Chocolate Gourmand, where Brian will treat you to dark chocolate gelato.

That wraps up our belated summary of this year's valentines. Whew, I think I've gained five pounds! I hope you found something new to enjoy among your old favorites, and that you'll find this assortment of goodies richly rewarding and well worth those extra calories!

Confessions of a Nongardener

Anticipations of spring, for me, don't truly come with anticipations of gardening, alas. I'm a gardener-wanna-be, perhaps too lazy-daisical for the true thrill of gardening. And that's a good thing, because if I was a gardener, after 30 years of living here, I'd be an extremely frustrated individual. Or perhaps I'd have mastered this inhospitable habitat, and would be the most sought-after expert in the field of Xeriscape®* gardening. Fortunately, I am neither.

Laziness, it seems, applies not only to my approach to gardening, but to my blogging! Very soon now, a new edition of Berry-Go-Round will be posted here at Foothills Fancies. Rather than creating a new post for my contribution, I'll be recycling one of my essays that outlines what I think is a very creative approach to gardening. It's posted over on Small Wonders**, where longer stories go. Unless you're completely committed to the hard labor approach, you might want to check it out.

*Xeriscape® is a registered trademark of Denver Water, who coined the phrase in the late 1970s.^a It is, wikipedia tells us, a portmanteau^b made from "xeri" (dry) and "scape" (from landscape).

^aThe URL "xeriscape.org" now goes to "Colorado Waterwise," which wasn't delivering Xeriscape information for me earlier but seems to be fine now.

^bAs defined by Humpty Dumpty, this is when "there are two meanings packed up into one word," which happens a lot in Jabberwocky, the poem he's explaining to Alice.<sup>c

c</sup> My goodness, it's amazing the things you can find on the web!

**When I started Foothills Fancies, my hope was it would keep my writing skills exercised. Small Wonders includes essays I wrote in the mid-1990s (and was paid for, speaking of small wonders!) that represent my only real body of creative work in the world of publishing. The essay linked here for BGR is one of the few that actually got me a response from a reader—she sent me some plum seeds!

Must Be Spring Is Coming!

The hens are laying again (and the skunks are squabbling under the coop), and today I heard a flicker calling for a lost (or hoped for) love. No drumming yet, happily.

Never mind the snow that started about 2:15 this afternoon; spring is on its way. And one sign of spring is that Berry-Go-Round will be back here at Foothills Fancies next week. Please send contributions—yours or someone else's—to me at ffnaturalist. That's on gmail, which is a dot com. Or leave links to plant-related posts here in comments—by Friday February 26th, please.

THANKS!

Liver for Breakfast?

Our part in this little saga began 24 hours ago, early yesterday morning when Dog #2 brought a frozen lump of something to the door. Upon examination, it was discovered to be the remains of a pigeon, headless and bloody but largely intact. I quickly put it out of dog-reach, intending to return it, only to discover within a half-hour that its owner had already been back to look for it. I wasn’t quick enough.

The Husband is convinced that Cooper’s Hawks aren’t carrion-eaters, but we now have satisfactory, albeit anecdotal, evidence otherwise. A disappointed Cooper’s Hawk stood on the discrete pile of feathers on bloody snow that marked his kill site from the day before. I ran to fetch his prize. Our resident friend watched me from a nearby tree, well, like a hawk while I replaced his frozen instant breakfast back where he’d left it Tuesday afternoon, exactly where he clearly expected it to be.

[Warning: Moderately graphic images below. How bad can it be? I'm pretty squeamish myself.]

But he didn’t return to it. Instead the presence of our smaller flocks let me know ‘Coop’ had left the area. Came the Magpies, observing the corpse from a distance, but not approaching. Perhaps some residual avian threat lingering with the carcass kept them at bay. When I left for the day, a couple hours later, it was still untouched.

By late afternoon when I returned, the scene had changed. I first suspected the Magpies had overcome their hesitation, but something about the site suggested otherwise. The pigeon was reduced to a fist-sized red lump, consisting of a pair of feet, a dark red chunk of organ meat I took to be liver, and perhaps a piece of backbone. The feathers were now spread over a larger area, thoroughly but methodically dispersed. To me, the method suggested it wasn’t the Magpies who returned to finish this meal.

This morning I again stepped out without checking, only to see Coop flush from the carcass. Seems I have to learn to look first, so I don’t startle our guests. It no longer mattered; nothing edible remains.

I am NOT a Mouse!

Okay, I know I'm cute, I get that, but please don't think I'm a mouse. (Smelly pesty little rodent...) Au contraire, I'm a "fastidious, beautiful animal" and "hardly deserve the negative stereotype most people have" of my kind. And that's according to the Colorado expert on such things. Photo credit: National Park Service.

When The Husband called me to look at a little critter jumping in and out of the chicken feed bucket late last month, I leaped to a quick conclusion. Despite my hasty conviction that the little guy is a Woodrat, I'm open to corrections.

Historical Perspective: Back in 1877, while hunting dinosaurs near Morrison, Colorado, Arthur Lakes preferred the outdoor life:

For myself I still adhered to my tent life & adjourned every evening to my canvas dog tent pitched by the side of the stream. At last however after one or two snowstorms it became rather dismal to leave the warm stove and go out through the snow to the cold tent & so I cam in & for the first night slept on the floor but the mountain rats kept up such a racket that sleep was impossible. So I turned my tent into a swinging hammock & swung myself up into the rafters above the boys head.

In annotating this journal excerpt for a local publication, I wrote:

Bushy-tailed Woodrat (Neotoma cinerea)
Lakes' "mountain rat" is likely to be the bushy-tailed woodrat, better known as the packrat of western lore. Of some 20 species of woodrats in the west, five [six*] occur in Colorado. The other 15 species occur mostly in Mexico and Central America, where some subspecies are considered endangered.

The bushy-tailed woodrat, as its alternate name implies, is best known for its acquisitive habits. The Mexican woodrat occurs in southern Colorado and extends its range northward through our area, taking advantage of the milder microclimates provided by the hogback and adjacent foothills. The larger, more common bushy-tailed woodrat occurs well into the mountains and ranges from Alaska to Mexico. Woodrats eat a variety of plants, preferring the leaves, quantities of which are stored in crevices for winter use. Woodrats generally nest among rocky outcrops in vertical cracks, caves, or shelves, although they also use old mines and outbuildings, as Lakes discovered.

*According to my favorite mammalogist, there are six species of woodrats in this state: Mexican, gray, white-throated, eastern, desert... (I can't figure out his sixth from that article, and don't have his book handy.) Most sources I found neglected to distinguish among—or provide a scientific name for— the species, but here's a Colorado list, courtesy NatureServe:

White-throated Woodrat Neotoma albigula
Bushy-tailed Woodrat Neotoma cinerea
Eastern Woodrat Neotoma floridana
Desert Woodrat Neotoma lepida
White-toothed Woodrat Neotoma leucodon

Other sources do list a gray woodrat, the Southern Plains Woodrat (N. micropus), so that or the white-toothed may be the sixth species in Armstrong's list. I'm guessing these little guys are tough for a novice to tell apart.

Meanwhile, back to Our Story:
As you can tell from the previous post, it took several tries before we were able to capture this little fellow at all clearly (window and screen notwithstanding). Mostly my shutter finger was not quick enough. I got several nice photos of the empty bucket, though.

But as he traveled back and forth from the feed bucket to the stash many times, we were finally able to catch him going in... and out of... the bucket. He was quick!

(The feed bucket is 9.5 inches/24 cm in diameter. Armstrong says the smallest Colorado species of woodrat is 12 inches/30 cm long. Is he including the tail? I can't imagine a local rodent more than 12 inches long, except rock squirrels and marmots. Anyway, bigger than a mouse, for sure.)

We weren't the only ones appreciating the show! The cats, trapped behind glass, enjoyed it even more!

The first personal encounter I recall with woodrats was a sad one many years ago. A woman, startled by the appearance of this creature in her brand new foothills mansion, captured it in a glass canning jar and brought it to the museum where I worked at the time to get an ID. Without punching holes in the lid. Horrified, I told her what the freshly suffocated creature was, but was not nearly as welcoming as I would have been with most visitors. An educational opportunity lost: I suspect she never set foot in the place again!

For some time, we've known that woodrats occupied the peripheral spaces of the chicken coop. Sometimes I even see (more often, hear) them in the ceiling or under the floor when I collect eggs and count beaks each evening. Occasionally one of the cats leaves a half woodrat on the doorstep. Last week, the entire ceiling of one part of the coop collapsed, exposing a collection of mummified lilac twigs complete with leaves, chewed foam panels, nesting material, and a vast accumulation of waste material. We were on our way to a veritable packrat midden.

Yes, woodrats, aka packrats aka trade rats, particularly in the southwest, are benefactors to humankind. Their middens, one of which is pictured here, are archeological time capsules that record vegetation, climate (via pollen trapped therein), and other conditions dating back as far as 40,000 years! Being fastidious, as Armstrong says, they deposit their refuse in discrete areas, where it accumulates to form deposits that are almost geologic in scope. Cemented and preserved by crystallized urine, the mass is capable of preserving most anything in it and, thus, a boon to researchers. More on this photo.

Our woodrat continues to live under the front step, where I hope he will elude the cats, live long, and prosper. He still enjoys sunflower seeds and chicken scratch, although to date he's shown no signs of leaving us any shiny baubles in return.

More on woodrats:

Nice writeup on the Colorado species of Neotoma.

At Wikipedia (see also species pages and links)

Species of concern, on Univ. of Calif Santa Cruz campus, which has some good photos of the "stick-pile" nests they build when not living in rocky cliffs. We saw a lot of these in the deserts of Arizona.

——

Okay, it must have been a really lousy photo. I'm awarding the prize to Swampy, at Swamp 4 Me, who at least got it to the right Order (Rodentia). Thanks, everyone, for chiming in! Swampy, send me your address to claim your original historic postcard of this fabulous local spot where you can see packrat middens.

A Small Saturday Challenge

Simultaneously displaying my amazing skills as a wildlife photographer and giving you a little something to puzzle over this morning-- check out this terrific shot from last week.

Got ideas? I'll be back later with the full post, just packed with information and (yes, promise!) better photos. Oh, guess I'd better be thinking of a prize for the first correct guess, too. Hmmm...

Feeling Picked On?

At home?

Or maybe at work?

Actually, I'm fine, thanks, just couldn't resist sharing these!

Have a great weekend...

Of Vermin and Varmints

How often have you heard the two words in the title in recent decades? Not much, I hope, though I know they are still used. I'd never thought of wildlife in these terms until I moved to Arizona in grad school, and discovered "varmint hunting." Say what?

Wikipedia does an intriguing etymological job on vermin, albeit relatively citation-free, pointing out that both words have evolved from the root (verm-, meaning wormlike), which originally included mostly insect pests, to cover pests that range in size from rats to small or medium-sized predators, such as (in Arizona's predominant case) coyotes. Soon I found myself writing letters to editors (okay, one, in response to a Paul Harvey diatribe) and hanging out with HSUS types occasionally. I wanted a chance to see coyotes, alive and without holes in them. And that, in the category of "things you can see while hiking in Arizona," is putting it mildly.

"God's dog," it turns out, is persona non grata in the Southwest, where hunting is regulated not as a game animal, but in a special class for predators.* I'd say "was" but here's what the AZ Game & Fish Dept has to say on their website today:

The take of coyotes by hunters has been relatively stable during the past 10 years, about 13,000 hunters taking an average of between 30,000 and 40,000 coyotes a year. Most of these animals are taken while "varmint calling," while hunting other game, or simply as opportunities arise...[updated April 2009]

* "Predatory mammals as defined by A.R.S. 17-101 are coyotes, bobcats, foxes, and skunks. Bobcats are the only predator also classified as a furbearer with an export tag required to ship a bobcat pelt out of state.
August 1 - March 31 is open season for Bobcat and Foxes as authorized in Commission Order 13. The season for Coyote and Skunk is yearlong." [Emphasis mine.] If you like this one, you'll probably want to read their Predator Management Policy.

From the immediate at that time, my interest shifted to the historical today. Just last month I encountered an arresting tidbit: this account of pests destroyed at a bird sanctuary in 1929-30, from Bug Girl's blog. I hope she won't mind my repeating it here for those who may have missed it.

A Disgraceful Tally

You really should click to enlarge this—it gives you an idea of the real abundance and variety of wildlife, even into the early decades of the last century, if so much can be destroyed on one small 700-acre preserve. (Note, however, that the take of most every group was down substantially the second year.) I've no doubt the taking of 174 snakes and 58 owls necessitated the killing of the 2,644 mice!

"Such birds and animals as were poisoned have not been included in these totals." Gee, that's good to know.

I quite agree, Bug Girl—things have changed, thank goodness! Else we couldn't have enjoyed last week's Cooper's hawk without fears, so close to "civilization," for his life.

——
In related news, on March 6th Dyana Furmansky, author of Hawk of Mercy, a biography of Rosalie Edge, will discuss her book. In the early 20th century, Edge earned the title "Nature's hellcat" by campaigning against such prejudicial practices on the part of conservationists who protected sport species (think ducks) at the expense of hawks and snapping turtles. Details here, and a great story on Edge by the author here.

Note: Illustrations, from a collection I did years ago, are copyright S.L. White and not to be used without permission, as are photographs. Thanks!

Two for The Watcher

Sometimes the work of a fellow blogger so moves us we simply must comment. Other times, it may trigger something that's too involved for the mere comments field on the subject post. Such has been the case lately for me. A couple of The Watcher's recent posts triggered memories of a favorite author, Loren Eiseley. I've no idea whether The Watcher reads or has ever read Eiseley, but I want to share a couple tidbits of Eiseley's work with you.

Inspired by The Watcher’s post of December 30th on why birds are “God’s favorite children”, I wanted to contribute another reason—they OWN the planet.

It happens every spring and nobody seems to take any notice at all. There are no congressional investigations, no cross-examinations of witnesses before television, no one hurls himself out of a window. Nevertheless, it happens every spring and there is no doubt that it smacks of sheer communism. I refer to the expropriation and reassignment of land in these states and the incredible way in which even city properties fall victim to it. Yesterday morning I could hear conversations about it just outside my window, and somebody over my rooftop was expropriating in at least half-mile sections. … The whole thing smacks of subversion and disrespect for the laws of private property. It may well merit an investigation. It should begin by a thorough and painstaking investigation of the birds.

—Loren Eiseley, from The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley (K. Heuer, ed.)

I suspect he was under the influence of the McCarthy hearings when he wrote that one, don't you? Perhaps that explains why this vignette was (I believe) never published. Fellow Eiseley fan Gary Raham (see below) suspects Eiseley would not have wanted the unfinished material in his notebooks to see light, but such is often the fate of the illustrious. I only regret that I can't share the incredible sketches of The Lost Notebooks with you as well. If you're a follower of Eiseley's work, you need to see this book!

Inspired by The Watcher’s post of January 18th, in which he waxes poetic about exozoochory (we love that word!), here's Eiseley’s own eloquent testimony on seed dispersal:

When I climb I almost always carry seeds with me in my pocket. Often I like to carry sunflower seeds, or an acorn, or any queer “sticktight” that has a way of gripping fur or boot tops as if it had a deliberate eye on the Himalayas and meant to use the intelligence of others to arrive at them. More than one lost mountaineer lying dead at the bottom of a crevasse has proved that his sole achievement in life was to inch some plant a half-mile further toward the moon. His body may have been scarcely cold before that illicit transported seed had been getting a foothold beneath him on a patch of stony ground or writhing its way into a firm engagement with the elements on the moisture of his life’s blood. I have carried such seeds up the sheer walls of mesas and I have never had illusions that I was any different to them than a grizzly’s back or a puma’s paw.

—Loren Eiseley, from The Lost Notebooks of Loren Eiseley (K. Heuer, ed.), though I suspect this one may have been published in an essay somewhere

Leaving aside his disregard for the evils of introducing plants where plant dictators (like FF) think they don’t belong, I’ve always appreciated Eiseley’s writing for its poetic combination of science, introspection, observation, and outright nature mysticism. It’s an appreciation I share with one of my research enthusiasms, Paul B. Sears, who wrote in a review of Eiseley’s The Mind as Nature:

It is well that we are increasingly respectful of quantitative method and its results. But this respect should never blind us to the fact that no man [or other living thing] is a mere statistic. There is an essential place, not least in science, for those precisely individual accounts, too often lightly—even scornfully—dismissed as “anecdotal.”

—Paul B. Sears, 1963, The Exception is the Rule, American Scholar 32(2):321-322.

Foothills Fancies, you’ve perhaps noticed, is all about anecdotal! Though far less eloquently than Loren Eiseley, who by the way is the topic of an upcoming talk here in the area (and wasn't that a smooth seque):

Wednesday, Jan. 27, 7:00 p.m., "Fireside Chat" sponsored by the Friends of Dinosaur Ridge: “Loren Eiseley – A Poet Wearing the Fox Skins of a Scientist,” by Gary Raham; Dinosaur Ridge Visitor Center, 16831 W. Alameda Parkway, Morrison.

Loren Eiseley (1907-1977) wrote for Harper's Magazine and Atlantic Monthly, penned best selling books, both non-fiction and poetry, but also served as Provost and Benjamin Franklin Professor of Anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1960, his The Firmament of Time only lost out to the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich for the National Book Award. As a graduate student he discovered a Folsom Point embedded in the vertebra of the extinct Bison antiquus at the Lindenmeier site north of Fort Collins. Yet he struggled his entire career to find the balance between the objective pursuit of science and exercising his ability to explain and dramatize science with the written word. He felt awe contemplating deep time and man's place in the natural world. This event is not recommended for children.

Note: Illustrations, from a collection I did years ago, are copyright S.L. White and not to be used without permission, as are photographs. Thanks!

Hawk Week

Beginning with Monday's Redtail-magpie episode, the week has focused on hawks. Wednesday morning, another magpie fit drew me out to look at the same elm, and I was rewarded with a view of a Cooper's Hawk hopping from the ground to a low branch of the magpie tree with what I hope was a starling in hand.

The easy pickings around our feeders usually draw immatures, so we're having some trouble being certain, from quick looks, whether we're seeing Cooper's or Sharp-shins at times. (See what you think: photo left from this morning.) Telltale signs, best seen in the adult, would be the squarish head, roundish tail, and less streaked breast of the Cooper's, all relative and dependent on getting a good look. And of course, larger size—but that too is proving to be hard to judge except at the extremes. Males can be quite a bit smaller than females in accipiters, causing the three species (Goshawk being the third) to overlap in size.

Yesterday morning, for example, a hawk I took to be Sharp-shinned (and, one hopes, our familiar Artemis) was the first bird out, and her presence kept the others hungry and on guard for a brief time just after dawn. The magpies went into vociferous hawk-mode in the afternoon, showing us what we thought was Cooper's again. Having a resident colony of pie-birds is proving an aid to observation!

Photo credits for this morning's good look go to The Husband. Finally, someone who's not camera-shy: She/he sat in the Russian-olive for a full half hour, while the light changed from rosy to standard Colorado-bright.

My slide show idea didn't work as well as I'd hoped, so scroll below for an almost animated sequence. Looking right, left, and down—where's breakfast! First four around 8:45 in early light; last four around 9:15 a.m.

Cooper's Hawk Accipiter cooperii (finally! A bird sci name that makes sense!)

Consulting our old friends Niedrach & Rockwell (1939), I find this:

Cooper's Hawk.       Accipiter cooperi (Bonaparte)
   Field Marks. Length 15-17.5 inches; similar to sharp-shinned hawk but larger; end of tail rounded instead of straight.
   Summer resident, not common; more numerous during migration. Upper Sonoran through Canadian Zone; most common in Transition.

   Owing to its characteristic habit of perching close to the trunk of densely foliaged trees, this species is inconspicuous. It is seldom seen any distance from tree growth. A few pairs nest regularly on the table-land south of Denver, where, in June 1937, Bailey and Niedrach secured photographs of adults and young in their nest among the scrub oaks; others build in the evergreens near Bergen Park and south of Idaho Springs. Cooper's hawks are very fast upon the wing, and as they are not particularly shy, are often observed over the city. A few winter, but the majority leave for the south by the last of October, and do not return until early April. This hawk is a large edition of the sharp-shin and because of its size, takes much larger game. Near habitations it is a persistent poultry-killer, and consequently has aroused the animosity of farmers.

The latter, if true, should have me fearful for the chickens!