The Realm of Albatrosses

What is it about oceanic islands that exerts such a siren call? What comprises the allure of farflung bits of volcanic rock and mounds of sand ringed by coral reefs, where seabirds nest in clamorous multitudes?

To name just one marvel, the flight of albatrosses takes my breath away.

Buller's Albatross south of New Zealand (Photo by Narca)

Albatrosses occupy my thoughts, as I gaze over a sea of Chihuahuan Desert, preparing for next spring's WINGS tours to Hawaii and Midway Atoll. To place ourselves in the albatross's world, we must shift our mindset drastically, from the upland's rhyolitic cliffs and coniferous forest, from grassland and desert scrub stretching to the blue-gray horizon. We must enter a waterworld driven by wind and temperature to form currents, convergences, and plankton blooms.

Earth's vast oceans can be grouped, at the roughest scale, into the cold, productive polar waters at high latitudes both north and south, separated by the warm waters of the tropics, where winds falter then die for weeks on end, becalming sailing ships and albatrosses alike. The great albatrosses must have wind.

They also must have food, abundant only in certain regions of the ocean where currents and upwellings create the right conditions for plankton and the food web it supports. Albatrosses also must have nesting grounds, and within the vast oceans, protected islands suitable for nesting are scarce indeed.

Warm seas form a barrier for many oceanic organisms that is as great a challenge as the Himalaya and the Amazon River pose for land-based creatures. On rare occasions an albatross may cross that warm-ocean barrier, but for the most part northern and southern albatrosses have followed their own evolutionary paths. In part due to the immense size of the Southern Ocean––more than 10 times as large as the North Pacific––many more species of albatross soar in southern seas.

Here in northern seas we have three species: the Laysan, the Black-footed, and the endangered Short-tailed Albatross. The Hawaiian Islands are prime nesting grounds for the Laysan and Black-footeds, and among the 18 Hawaiian Islands, Midway Atoll's stupendous colony of nesting albatrosses eclipses all the others.

Satellite tracking of Midway's Laysan Albatrosses has revealed that they shuttle continually between the Hawaiian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska, flying as far as 500 km a day between their nesting islands and their foraging waters, where they find squid to feed their chicks.

In addition to the albatross nesting extravaganza, Midway Atoll has hosted one or two wintering Short-tailed Albatrosses in recent years. A former victim of the feather trade, the Short-tailed population was reduced to only 50 individuals, but is recovering with protection and now numbers over 2300 birds.

In 1912 Robert Cushman Murphy, the great seabird biologist, wrote, "I now belong to a higher cult of mortals, for I have seen the albatross!"

Whiskered Screech-Owl

A year ago on the Atascosa Highlands Christmas Bird Count south of Tucson, Alan and I encountered a little Whiskered Screech-Owl at its day roost. The owlet perched at the entrance to its roost cavity, comfortably soaking up the sunshine on that wintry day. A brief Morse code call and its yellowish bill confirmed its identity.

Yesterday that image of the basking owl, shimmering in my awareness for the past year, finally made it to paper. Here's the beguiling little raptor, rendered in watercolor and gouache.

Whiskered Screech-Owl by Narca

Whiskered Screech-Owls are common within their limited habitat in the southwestern Sky Islands. Their abundance in the Chiricahua Mountains helps to boost that area's density of nesting raptors to a dizzying level. Helen Snyder has investigated nesting raptors around Portal and the Chiricahuas for years, and found that when owls are included with the hawks, eagles and falcons, the density of nesting raptors in Cave Creek Canyon far exceeds that known for any other location in North America. The next closest is the Snake River Birds of Prey Area in southern Idaho, and it boasts less than 1/4 of the density of raptors found in Cave Creek Canyon. Helen and others are encouraging the US Forest Service to give Cave Creek Canyon a special designation that recognizes its unique importance to raptors and further protects the region from oddball threats that occasionally arise.

If you will be in southern Arizona in early January and would like to join Christmas Bird Counts for these areas, you can contact the compiler for the count that interests you. For Atascosa Highlands on Sunday January 3, email Rich Hoyer (calliope@theriver.com). For Portal on Saturday January 2, email Jackie Lewis (winjac12@vtc.net). Counts for Portal and the nearby Peloncillo Mountains are run back-to-back, and many people spend the weekend attending both counts. For the Peloncillo Mountains count on January 3, please contact Alan Craig (narca@vtc.net). Yes––the dates for Atascosa Highlands and Peloncillo Mountains do conflict!

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!