Cycles

In most autumns, the Rabbitbrush and Desert Broom burst into bloom, and they are both fabulous butterfly attractants. This year, after our very light monsoon, flowers are scarce around Portal, Arizona. But last week, Noel Snyder noticed an especially fine mass of Rabbitbrush blooming along the road from Lordsburg to Silver City in New Mexico. So we have set out with our friend Dick Zweifel, retired curator from the American Museum of Natural History, to learn what butterflies might be flying.

Rabbitbrush, Chrysothamnus nauseosus (Photo by Narca)

The answer is close to being negative data! Very few butterflies are flying at all this year, even where the Rabbitbrush is in fine fettle. It's the poorest butterfly flight year in the memory of local experts. Once again we are seeing firsthand the dramatic effects that drought can have, especially in a region that receives only modest precipitation even in fairly good years.

Another example––on the nearby Peloncillo Christmas Bird Count, Brewer's Sparrow numbers went from an all-time national high count of 13,462 in 2000, to zero just four winters later. These extreme fluctuations in populations responding to drought and flood argue strongly for long-term studies of wildlife! How can we understand a population unless we investigate the full cycle of bounty and stress?

American Snout on Desert Broom, Baccharis sarothroides (Photo by Narca)

On this field day, only American Snouts are flying in good numbers. Perhaps 60 are swarming around the Desert Broom, which is interspersed with Rabbitbrush. Here is a tally of the other butterflies: Checkered White 3; Orange Sulphur 5; Southern Dogface 1; Dainty Sulphur 1; Western Pygmy Blue 1; Variegated Fritillary 1; Painted Lady 4; and Monarch 2.

Only nine species! Last year, Dick recorded 40 species of butterflies at a single patch of Rabbitbrush!

At Fred and Melly's Cabin

It's just after dawn, and the rising sun hits our outside sleeping deck. We're in the mountains of central Idaho at the home of our long-time friends, Fred and Melly Zeillemaker. Fred retired from the US Fish and Wildlife Service after a career of managing national wildlife refuges from Oregon to Hawaii to Nebraska to Alaska. He and Melly retain an undiminished enthusiasm for all things wild.

The cabin is situated next to a small stream, lush with hawthorn and cottonwood, alive with hummingbirds and quail. Volcanic rock underlying this region is fractured and jointed, and springs rise to the surface along those joints. These springs support riverine trees and shrubs like Bitter Cherry, Chokecherry, Blue Elderberry, Saskatoon Serviceberry and Mallow Ninebark. The berries in turn feed birds, Red Squirrels and Black Bears. (No more sleeping outside when the bears return to the valley!)

Central Idaho (Photo by Narca)

Away from the streams, Great Basin sage and grassland reach into stands of Douglas-fir, Ponderosa Pine and White Pine, which grow mainly on the cooler, moister north slopes of the hills. Fall has touched the land with the reds of chokecherry and the golds of bitter cherry and ninebark.

Alan & Fred check the moths (Photo by Narca)

Our first night we set up a black light over a sheet and draw in moths. Under the UV light, gray moths are transformed into shimmering silver, or gray with exquisite silvery highlights, edgings and curliques. As I study them, a bat swoops over my head, feasting on the bounty.

Wilson's Snipe (Photo by Narca)

This morning's field trip takes us up Dodson Pass and down Sheep Creek Road. American Goldfinches forage on patches of sunflowers. A Wilson's Snipe feeds at the edge of a small creek. We wind through ranch land and sage to Crane Creek Reservoir, where a few lingering Baird's Sandpipers and American Pipits work the exposed mudflats. Where cracks lace the drying mud, tiger beetles scurry.

Are we mouse-proof yet? (Photo by Narca)

Finding Refuge in Nevada

Common Ringlet at Ruby Lake NWR (Photo by Narca)

The road north brings us to another stellar oasis: Pahranagat National Wildlife Refuge. Pahranagat means "valley of shining waters" in the Paiute language. Large thermal springs feed a system of wetlands, where impoundments assure water for thousands of migratory waterfowl and other wildlife. Alan and I visited the refuge once before, when two vagrants, an immature Mississippi Kite and a Zone-tailed Hawk, surprised us. The endangered Southwestern Willow Flycatcher nests at the northern lake.

With Rich Hoyer, we work our way along the shore of the southern lake. Rabbitbrush is in full bloom amid the shadscale, and the flowers are a magnet for insects. One butterfly is new for all of us, the Mojave Sootywing. This very small skipper, barely larger than the Western Pygmy Blues, is a saltbush specialist.

Rich Hoyer peruses the Rabbitbrush (Photo by Narca)

Imperceptibly, the warm Mojave Desert is grading into the cold Great Basin Desert. We begin to see Big Sage, the indicator plant for the Great Basin. Pahranagat's northern lake and campground are closed for repairs to the dam, so reluctantly we continue north toward a national wildlife refuge that is new for us, Ruby Lake.

First comes a lunch stop at the Silver Cafe in the old mining town of Pioche. Photos on the wall depict various atomic bombs exploding at the Nevada Test Site. It's hard to imagine that anyone close enough to take those photos lived for very long afterwards. At long last, closures due to lingering radiation at the test site have recently been announced.

Still pondering the long-overdue closures, we arrive at Ruby Lake NWR. Ruby Lake supports the largest nesting population of Canvasbacks in the western US. Like many western valleys with remnant wetlands, this valley was the site of a huge Pleistocene lake––Ancient Lake Franklin––about 12,000 years ago when the climate was wetter. Today more than 200 springs feed the refuge wetlands.

We don't have time for more than a short hike along a rushing, willow-lined stream, but the drive has been well worth the effort. The scenery of this isolated region is magnificent. The Ruby Mountains tower over a near-pristine valley. While we are here, a sudden plume of smoke announces the start of a prescribed burn in the Rubies, an effort to reduce the fuel load and reestablish the natural fire regime.

Our final campout on the road north is at Great Basin National Park. Now we've completely made the transition to this cold desert, which lies in the rainshadow of the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Mountains. The Great Basin is exactly that––a 200,000 square-mile region of hundreds of northwest-to-southeast trending basins and ranges, all with only internal drainage. All waters eventually evaporate or sink underground; none flow to the sea.

Wheeler Peak, at over 13,000 feet, shadows the national park. A system of about 40 caves laces the park, with Lehman Cave the best known and most developed. Fractures in the bedrock were created when the mountains uplifted, and acidic groundwater flowed along those fractures and dissolved the marble to form this cave. Some of the dissolved minerals were redeposited to form the unique, very beautiful formations of this living cave.

Aspens at Upper Lehman Campground (Photo by Narca)

We ascend to high-elevation forest of conifers and aspen, with their attendant Steller's Jays, Red-breasted Nuthatches and Townsend's Solitaires. In the dusk, the bark of aspen glows dramatically white. We fall asleep to the sound of the rushing mountain stream.

Nevada Oasis

The long drive north from Arizona to Idaho brings the perfect opportunity to revisit our favorite refuges in Nevada and to explore new ground. We pick up our friend Rich Hoyer in Tucson, and the three of us set off on a three-day camping trip through the vast, stark Nevada desert.

The Sonoran Desert grades into the Mojave as we exchange Saguaro for bristly, imposing Joshua Trees. The rainfall regime changes as well: Mojave Desert receives mainly winter rain; Sonoran Desert usually receives both winter and summer rains and is lusher.

Just a half-hour north of the glitter of Las Vegas lies a gem of an oasis: Corn Creek Field Station, a part of Desert National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge's 1.5 million acres encompass six mountain ranges, which are home to Desert Bighorn Sheep. Over the years, Alan and I have stopped at Corn Creek every chance we've had. During migration it often produces an impressive array of western migrants and eastern vagrants, such as White-eyed Vireo and Palm Warbler. Corn Creek is also a northerly nesting outpost for several typically southwestern birds, including Lucy's Warbler, Verdin and Vermilion Flycatcher.

Alan Craig & Rich Hoyer at Corn Creek (Photo by Narca)

We arrive in late afternoon, make a quick circuit of the spring-fed ponds, and set up camp not far away. (It's still possible to rough-camp here for free.) The 100-degree day cools with the setting sun, and Coyotes begin to sing. Soon the vast starfield stretches over our two tents, alone in the immensity. A glow to the south marks Las Vegas.

At dawn we're up, break camp, and return to Corn Creek. We meander along the paths through thick vegetation. Cedar Waxwings pluck fruit from the Russian Olive trees. A Red-shouldered Hawk (unusual in Nevada) swoops to a post next to a small pasture. Endangered Pahrump Poolfish fin through the ponds. We find a nice showing of western migrants––Peregrine Falcon; Willow and Gray Flycatchers; Nashville, Virginia's and MacGillivray's Warblers; Yellow-breasted Chats; Lazuli Bunting––before continuing our journey north.

Musing, as the Miles Roll By

Marble Canyon in northern Arizona (Photo by Narca)

One of the big perks of travel––of long, relaxed hours on the road––is that our minds disengage from our daily concerns, and we play, unfocused, with the elements of our experience, until suddenly there's a shift, and a new pattern or recognition emerges.

On this road trip from Idaho to Arizona, I'm watching the landscape unfold. We move from the coniferous forests of montane central Idaho, through the sagebrush and basin-and-range topography of the Great Basin, into the vivid and spectacular canyon country of southern Utah and northern Arizona, and finally return to the giant Saguaro of the Sonoran Desert. As the landscape unfolds, my mind drifts.

We are, all of us, rooted in the archetypes of our heritage. In Australia, I was struck by the ways in which Anglo Australians celebrate the settling of that continent by British criminals and cast-offs, who found within themselves the necessary fortitude and courage to start new lives. Similarly, for many North Americans, a pioneer ethic and ethos resonate. Think of the changes that have swept through our two countries since their founding.

Consider the publishing trade. During the 1800s, my great grandfather, Charles M. Boynton, was editor of a newspaper in Hamilton, Texas. The typewriter was invented during his lifetime. What a boon this machine was to the newspaper trade, and now it is seldom used. In contrast, my young grandson will never know a pre-computer, pre-internet world.

After the typewriter came the linotype machine. When I had a summer job at a publishing company in Denver, the noisy old linotype machines were still in use, although the company was starting to phase in offset presses. Each linotype operator sat before his or her machine, typing, and the metal letters fell into place in the line of type, and slugs of lead alloy separated word from word and line from line––all accompanied by tremendous racket. When a proofreader discovered a mistake in a galley, we had to run downstairs and arrest the plate before more printing was done. The offending "a" or "t" had to be pried out of the page and replaced with the correct letter, a far more labor-intensive procedure than is hitting a delete key today!

These workaday changes have paralleled changes in the landscape. C.M. Boynton knew a world where Bison still roamed areas of Texas, when unbelievably vast flocks of Passenger Pigeons took days to fly past a homestead, when Carolina Parakeets still munched cockleburs back East, and where bunch grasses in southern Arizona swept the bellies of horses.

I rue the impossibility of holding these ancestral experiences and perceptions alive in our minds. They would give us a benchmark to comprehend just how much change we've brought to the planet. They would give us deeper motivation for restoring lost ecological processes, for reclaiming watersheds, for maintaining viable populations of species, and for ensuring that a network of corridors exists, so that plants and animals can migrate to suitable conditions as global climate change digs in. I don't want my grandson (or any other young person) to have to witness the extinction of wildness from the land he knows.

Several organizations are striving to put wildlife corridors in place. Check out the work being done in the US by Grand Canyon Wildlands Council, The Wildlands Network (formerly the Wildlands Project), The Rewilding Institute, and Defenders of Wildlife. In the western US, a coalition of respected conservation organizations is promoting the Spine of the Continent Initiative to connect wild lands from Alaska's Brooks Range to Mexico's Sierra Madre Occidental.

Similarly, Australians are working to create the massive Alps-to-Atherton conservation corridor, which will span 2800 kilometers along the eastern rim of that continent.

Now there is a vision for the future!

South Hills Crossbills

South Hills Crossbill male (Rather poor photo by Narca)

Dr. Craig Benkman, who gave the banquet keynote talk at Western Field Ornithologists' annual meeting in Boise, has researched the habits and vocalizations of Red Crossbills for years. His work is helping to untangle the confusing crossbill complex. Just how many species of Red Crossbill are there? What distinguishes them? Are we seeing an example of evolving species, and at what point are they sufficiently distinct to be considered separate species?

Benkman recently proposed a new crossbill species: the South Hills Crossbill, a sedentary species known from the South Hills and Albion Mountains of southern Idaho. For more information on his publications and research, go to his website:

www.uwyo.edu/benkman

Here is the gist of his talk:

Red Crossbills in North America are divided into 9 or 10 "types," first recognized by Jeff Groth. Each type has corresponding calls, songs, and seed preferences. These types specialize in foraging on particular species of conifer seeds, and the grooved palates of their bills match perfectly the size of the seeds they eat.

"Type 1" lives in the eastern US and only rarely feeds on hard pines like Ponderosa.
"Type 2" feeds mainly on Ponderosa Pine.
"Type 3" feeds on the small seeds of Western Hemlock.
"Type 4" specializes on the thin seeds of Douglas-fir and is small-billed.
"Type 5" eats the seeds of Lodgepole Pine.
"Type 6" feeds on seeds of pines from the Sierra Madre and southwestern Sky Islands, and is large-billed.
"Type 7" is probably a generalist.
"Type 8" specializes on seeds of Black Spruce.
"Type 9" is the South Hills Crossbill, a specialist on Lodgepole Pine.
"Type 10" has been proposed by Ken Irwin; it specializes on coastal Sitka Spruce.

So why is Type 9 distinct? Only in a small area of southern Idaho does Lodgepole Pine grow in the absence of tree squirrels. Squirrels harvest pine nuts very efficiently, and begin their feeding at the top of the cone, unlike crossbills. Where squirrels feed on pines, they drive the evolution of pine cone structure. These pine cones have developed thicker protective bracts, especially at the tops of the cones. Squirrels harvest whole cones early in the fall, and cache them for winter, making the seeds unavailable to crossbills. Because crossbills must forage on seeds remaining on the tree, their food supply is more erratic where squirrels share the habitat, and those crossbills must become nomads when they run out of food.

Tree squirrels have never managed to cross the surrounding expanses of sage to reach the Lodgepole Pines of the South Hills, and pine cones here do not show the adaptations to squirrel predation found in Lodgepole Pine from other areas. Without squirrels, the supply of pine cones is more reliable, and these crossbills can afford to be sedentary. South Hills Crossbills have evolved large bills to deal with the pine cones, as well as distinctive calls. Researchers have found a very low frequency of hybridization between South Hills Crossbills and other types, which occasionally occur here as well. Indeed the proposed name for this proposed species is Loxia sinesciuris, which translates as the crossbill without squirrels.

In addition to Dr. Benkman's talk, Nathan Pieplow ably moderated the sound identification panel, both of which prepared us very well for Sunday's field trip to the South Hills to look for the crossbills. Sound ID panelist Rich Hoyer described the Type 9 call as "DYUP." That phrase I could remember. If you would like to hear crossbill calls, go to this website and click on the arrow next to each entry's name:

www.xeno-canto.org/browse.php?query=red+crossbill

You can also find more information on calls at Nathan Pieplow's website, www.earbirding.com.

Sunday morning we set out very early in vans, eventually winding our way up into the South Hills of Sawtooth National Forest. No sooner had we arrived at an upper campground near Porcupine Springs, than "Type 9" South Hills Crossbills flew into the Lodgepole Pines next to the parking area, DYUP-ing as they came. For an hour or more, small groups of crossbills arrived and departed, giving everyone exceptionally good views. Yes!!

If this split is accepted by the American Ornithologists Union, Idaho will have gained an endemic bird species.

Idaho Bird Observatory

Sage meets conifers on Lucky Peak (Photo by Narca)

At the Western Field Ornithologists' annual meeting, Alan and I join an all-day field trip to the bird banding station run by Idaho Bird Observatory, a research institution under the auspices of Boise State University. The station is perched atop Lucky Peak, about 2500 feet above Boise. IBO director Greg Kaltenecker hosts us.

The dirt road winds up the mountainside, through sage steppe habitat that shifts into Douglas-fir near the top. Along the ecotone between conifers and sage grows a band of fruit-laden shrubs and trees, mostly chokecherry and bitter cherry. (I taste one––yes, it's well-named!) These cherries attract hundreds of migrant songbirds. Today Western Tanagers outnumber the other species. An out-of-place Chestnut-sided Warbler spotted by Ron Martin adds spice to the morning.

The banding operation is really three separate efforts: in one area, songbirds, hummingbirds and woodpeckers have been banded for about 13 years; on a nearby promontory a hawk-banding operation has been underway for about 15 years; and a nighttime owl-banding operation was begun in 1999.

The banding station is exceedingly well-placed. Not only does it lie amid the cherries, but Lucky Peak is a jumping-off point for migrants moving south from the mountains of central Idaho. It's the southernmost peak on the Boise Ridge, and beyond it lies the desert of the Great Basin. Migrant hawks use the thermals generated along the ridge, and songbirds eat berries and insects, fueling up for the next stage of their journey. So thousands of migrants concentrate atop Lucky Peak.

Greg Kaltenecker and Alan Craig at mistnet (Photo by Narca)

Jay Carlisle and his enthusiastic interns conduct the songbird banding. Net lanes run through the cherry trees, and a small building houses the banding station itself. We join the banders on their rounds of the nets and admire the warblers, thrushes and grosbeaks as they are processed, then released to resume their journey.

About noon we climb to the hilltop and join the hawkwatch. During the next 4 hours, about 70 raptors stream past, including 2 Golden Eagles and an Osprey, along with the more common species. Accipiters are the most numerous. Below our perch, researchers at the hawk-banding station run a series of traps for capturing raptors. During the afternoon, they capture and band 13 Cooper's Hawks, Sharp-shinned Hawks, and American Kestrels.

Cooper's Hawk at banding station (Photo by Narca)

Banding programs run from mid July through October, and visitors are welcome. Check the IBO website for details: www.idahobirdobservatory.org. Their blog also details the species and numbers of individuals captured during the past couple of field seasons. In 2008 a big highlight was an immature Gyrfalcon!

You can find more photos from our day on Lucky Peak in my photo gallery.