May 2017 ~ Health Education

Seeing mammals other than Homo sapiens and Canis familiaris is always a treat. In southern Arizona, I have run across fifteen species of wild mammal, or at least their sign, in the past three years.

And we've ridden a couple domestic mammals, too.

Deer family: Cervidae

1. Mule deer, Odocoileus hemionus

I'm used to finding mule deer in the green forests of Washington, so the small herd I saw picking their way through cacti and mesquite outside Vail, Arizona looked rather out of place. I suppose their big ears help them radiate extra heat in this sweltering desert.

I took this photo of a mule deer doe grazing at the Nisqually Delta in Washington State. June 2, 2014.

2. Coues white-tailed deer, Odocoileus virginianus couesi

Also known as the Arizona white-tailed deer or fantail deer, the Couse white-tailed deer live in mixed oak and pine woodlands at high altitudes. We saw a few of these very small deer bounding through just such a forest in Madera Canyon during the Christmas Bird Count.

Galen and I found this lower jawbone of a white-tailed deer on National Forest land north of Tucson.

Perfectly good lawn-mowing teeth.

Squirrel family: Sciuridae

3. Harris's antelope squirrel, Ammospermophilus harrisii

Harris's antelope squirrel perching near the Tanque Verde Trail, Saguaro National Park, AZ. January 2, 2017.

4. Rock squirrel, Otospermophilus variegatus

A rock squirrel eating fruits in Madera Canyon. August 2, 2015.

5. Arizona grey squirrel, Sciurus arizonensis

6. Round-tailed ground squirrel, Xerospermophilus tereticaudus

Hannah and I found a colony of round-tailed ground squirrels in Sweetwater Wetlands Park, Tucson, AZ. August 9, 2015.

7. Black-tailed prairie dog, Cynomys ludovicianus

Black-tailed prairie dogs have a long and fascinating history in southeastern Arizona. This species was once the most abundant prairie dog in North America. Its range covered the Southwestern and Midwestern United States and extended into both Mexico and Canada. One "town" in Texas was reported to cover 25,000 square miles and house 400 million black-tailed prairie dogs.

Beginning in the early 1900's, the U.S. government initiated a systemic eradication of prairie dogs to decrease the "waste" of rodent-consumed grass and maximize beef production on rangeland. The strychnine killed off prairie dogs in over 95% of their habitat, but it didn't increase the yield of beef. Turns out, prairie dogs control mesquite growth by devouring the seedlings that sprout after a hard rain. They like treeless colonies because predators are easier to spot. Due to overgrazing and, in large part, prairie dog eradication, invading mesquite has become the primary cause of pasture degradation and declining beef production in Arizona.

Occupied habitat plummeted from a historic high of 100 million acres to a low of 364,000 in 1961. The species was extirpated from Arizona in the early 1960's, and its dependent species, including black-footed ferrets and burrowing owls, suffered alongside it. The black-footed ferret, entirely dependent on prairie dog towns, was declared extinct in the wild in 1979 until a woman's dog brought a dead ferret to her Wyoming doorstep two years later.

Black-tailed prairie dogs were released into Las Cienegas National Conservation Area in 2008 and 2009, and that is where I was lucky to watch them go about their prairie-dog business. Captive-bred black-footed ferrets have been released elsewhere in Arizona, and burrowing owls found their own way back.

The black-tailed prairie dog town at Las Cienegas. August 14, 2016.

A sentry.

A burrowing owl, just where we would expect her to be!

The corrugated black plastic pipe indicating that this prairie-dog town was a reintroduction site.

The amount of effort and money that has gone in to first poisoning and now reintroducing prairie dogs is astounding.

But we are sure glad they're back.

Rabbit family: Leporidae

8. Black-tailed jackrabbit? Lepus californicus

9. Antelope jackrabbit, Lepus alleni

10. Desert cottontail, Sylvilagus audubonii

Desert cottontail in Sweetwater Wetlands Park. August 9, 2015.

Same cottontail. Look at those HUGE ears!

New World rat family: Cricetidae

11. Woodrat species, Neotoma sp.

My friend Hannah and I found this dead woodrat at Sweetwater Wetlands Park. August 9, 2015.

Weasel family: Mustelidae

12. American badger? Taxidea taxus

My mother, Jane, found this odd-looking object in a cave near Vail, AZ while scanning with her binoculars. We debated whether it was an animal, trash, or some strange mineral formation. I took this photo with 200X zoom, and we decided it must be a rock. An hour or so later, we came back to find the object missing! Could it have been an American badger guarding a food cache?

(Speaking of which, if you haven't seen this video of a badger burying a whole cow, you are missing out.)

Could it be a badger?

An American badger photographed at Point Reyes National Seashore. Photo credit: Yathin Krishnappa.

Dog family: Canidae

13. Coyote, Canis latrans (scat only)

I was shocked to find this coyote at the Montlake Fill in the heart of Seattle, Washington, a big city! March 14, 2016.

This coyote was getting fat on fallen dates at China Ranch Date Farm, a magical oasis in the Mojave Desert near Southern Death Valley. November 14, 2016.

Skunk family: Mephitidae

14. Road-killed skunk.

Yeah, not very exciting, I know. Four species of skunk live in Arizona (striped, spotted, hooded, and hog-nosed) but the striped is the most common, and the most commonly road-killed. Rich, Galen, and I noted this one on our nocturnal drive down to California Gulch.

Peccary family: Tayassuidae

15. Javelina, Pecari tajacu

Javelinas, also known as collared peccaries, are two-foot-tall, herbivorous, hoofed mammals. They resemble pigs, but the pig family belongs to the Old World and the peccary family to the New World. They travel in family groups and have large populations in suburban Tucson and Phoenix, as well as Mexico and Central and South America.

Journal Entry January 3, 2017:

Amelia, Galen and I gathered information at Catalina State Park, bought groceries at Walmart, and made camp out a National Forest road. For dinner: rice pilaf, beans, corn tortillas, yellow bell pepper, green onions and wilted spinach. Chamomile tea and strawberries for dessert. I was reading my book while Galen played guitar and Amelia drew a map of the United States, when suddenly I heard a whirring sound in the dark. I spun around as if something had stung me because I felt eyes watching me -- and there was a javelina standing in our camp, staring at us!!! We froze and made eye contact before I shooed him away. I've heard they can be aggressive but he turned tail and trotted off, not in too much of a hurry. Galen and I slept under the stars on a tarp. It felt like home. I wonder if the javelina watched us sleep.

A javelina photographed in the Melbourne Zoo. Photo credit: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos

Over winter break I found myself in Tucson, Arizona. Flying in, I took these photos of the Central Arizona Project, a 336-mile canal diverting water from the Colorado River's Lake Havasu to the thirsty megalopolis of Phoenix and Tucson. The canal pumps water uphill using electricity from Navajo Generating Station, which is closing in 2019. For the fascinating story of water in the West, I recommend Water is for Fighting Over: and Other Myths About Water in the West by John Fleck. And for a broader overview of climate change in the Southwest, take a look at A Great Aridness by one of my favorite authors, William DeBuys.

Central Arizona Project.

The canal looks like a surgical incision in dry land, incomparable to the winding, rough-edged path of river.

First I explored Vail, a town south of the city, with my mother Jane, father Russ, and sister Lisa. Then I met up with great friends from college, the not-quite-twins Amelia and Galen, and we circumnavigated the urban zone in our study vehicle, Red Rover. We slept on tarps, cooked over a WhisperLite stove, and camped throughout Coronado National Forest. We even managed to execute a four-day backpacking excursion through Saguaro National Park, almost entirely thanks to Galen.

A panoramic view of the Rincon Mountains behind our National Forest campsite on USFS Road 35.

I will break up the journey into bite-size blog posts, but this one really gets to the core of our adventure: an entanglement among humans, the birds we love, and the cacti from which we were never far. Welcome to the Sonoran.

The painted table at a coffee shop near the University of Arizona.

Humans

A cholla skeleton is worth contemplating.

The Madera Canyon Christmas Bird Count took Jane and I into snowy territory.

An alligator juniper, huge and scaly, in Madera Canyon.

Snow in Arizona? Jane and I were underprepared.

Amelia the rock-hopper.

Family friends and supermodels Remy and Camlin tolerated my photography.

Our botany field camp: Red Rover, Galen, and I photographed by Mother Amelia.

Sometimes humans love cacti.

Birds

Phainopepla, a snazzy bird with a snazzy name.

Mourning dove, a bird whose sound reminds me of Walla Walla, New York, and Tucson all at once.

A house finch female.

Her red-tinged male.

A black-throated sparrow at dusk in Sabino Canyon.

Black-tailed (or blue-grey?) gnatcatcher.

Gila woodpecker on saguaro.

Male Gambel's quail in the Desert Botanical Garden of Phoenix.

Red-naped sapsucker.

Male gilded flicker on saguaro. Notice the brown cap and red malar.

Bridled titmouse.

Northern mockingbird on a saguaro.

Black-chinned sparrow.

Galen and I were very lucky to go camping and birding with a friend-of-a-friend, the accomplished birder and professional Wings guide, Rich Hoyer. Check out his blog, Birdernaturalist. We picked him up at his house with enough daylight to admire his lovely garden of vegetables, native plants, bird feeders, and (like any good Tucson yard) hard-packed dirt. Galen, Rich, and I headed two hours south to camp on US Forest Service land at California Gulch, near the US-Mexico border.

It was a trip for flycatchers, so I'll start with some background on them. The flycatcher family, Tyrannidae, is the largest family of birds. It contains more than 400 species native to North and South America. The most common genera of flycatchers in the US are:

Empidonax. Many familiar flycatchers are small, grey birds of this genus, including Willow, Alder, Least, Hammond's, and Pacific-Slope Flycatchers. They are best distinguished by voice, or the type of tree in which they prefer to sit!

Myiarchus. These flycatchers are larger and more colorful. Their ranges tend to be more southern than many Empidonax. The common US species (Ash-Throated, Great-Crested, and Dusky-Capped Flycatchers) have a faded yellow belly, rufous tail, and grey cap.

Contopus. These birds are the pewees: small, charcoal-grey flycatchers that like to vocalize and catch insects from high, dead branches. If you have ever walked in the woods of Washington State and heard a clear, descending, "Peeeeeeew!" it was probably a Western Wood Pewee declaring his presence. Look around, because you won't want to miss his jaunty crest. This genus also includes the Olive-Sided Flycatcher with his classy grey vest.

Tyrannus. These birds are the Kingbirds, and they are called tyrants in Latin for their aggressive, territorial behavior. Most have long, pointed wings and broad beaks. They include the Western, Eastern, and Tropical Kingbirds.

Ash-throated flycatcher, a member of the genus Myiarchus.

Ash-throated flycatcher.

When Rich, Galen, and I woke up the next morning, we set out with a mission: to find the lone Nutting's Flycatcher that had been sighted recently in this valley. We had a promising start when we found a different Myiarchus species, the Ash-Throated Flycatcher pictured above. Nutting's and Ash-Throated look very similar, so it was great to get a search image right away.

After a few hours, we came upon our target, the Nutting's Flycatcher!

Nutting's flycatcher from behind.

Nutting's flycatcher from the side.

Not only was this individual a lifer for me (the first sighting of this species in my life), but it was only the seventh record of a Nutting's Flycatcher in the United States. This individual had been sighted several times over the past week, so we were not stumbling upon it out of the blue, but it was still amazing to realize how rarely this bird is sighted north of the border.

If you want to read Rich's account of the day, and his expert tips for telling Ash-Throated and Nutting's Flycatchers apart, read his blog post here.