The Desert Year

[yuccahead]

There have been many books that have used the course of a year as a format. Aldo Leopold's "A Sand County Almanac", Ed Abbey's "Desert Solitaire", and Joseph Wood Krutch's "The Desert Year", just to cite a few examples. So I got to thinking, "Why not start a year long thread observing and making notes about the changing flora and fauna of the region that I live in and invite others to do the same?" Call it a nature journal or diary or (finger down my throat, blecchh!) a blog.
I get out in the desert around here a lot. Whether it's an hour walk or a 3-day backpack or a weeklong river trip. I never kept notes of my observations up until this past year so hopefully this thread will encourage me and, maybe others, to do more of that and then enter them into this thread. Observations from my own backyard will also be included.
I've been debating with myself for the past few days whether to start my own blog page, or do it here on my own or do it here and invite other DUSA members to add there own posts or, frankly, whether to start this at all.
I think I'll just kind of do my own thing and if some of you want to participate, that would be great, if not, I'll just carry on as planned. If you'd like to start your own thread and do the entire year separate from this, by all means do.
I'm posting in the Plant & Animal forum because those subjects will make up the vast majority of observations. Other things like weather and temps will probably be included as they certainly affect the other two. I'm hoping for at least a once a week post, maybe more, maybe less, plus occaisonal photos. In any event, this will be over in a year.
I'm in Utah's canyon country. It would be great if other parts of the desert southwest were represented, if only to compare and contrast different regions over the course of a year. I realize this is a very large, ambitious project and I hope to keep it interesting and informative.

Krutch writes, at the beginning of "The Desert Year",
"In nature, one never really sees a thing for the first time until one has seen it for the fiftieth."
And at the end of his book,
"What I learned from my desert year was...to be more sure of all I thought was true."
That's pretty much where I'm going with this, to see the familiar in many different ways and see if they really are what I think them to be.

So, off we go, it starts today and ends a year from yesterday.

[Guz]

Great idea. Heres a link to a blog from someone with somewhat the same idea thats pretty good especially if you know the coachella valley area. http://hikeeveryday.blogspot.com/ His quest finished yesterday. If anyone can do something like this and make it interesting its You, YC! Looking forward to it.


Guz

[reptilist]

Nice idea Rick!

[yuccahead]

I hope this turns out to be a good idea, only time will tell.
Guz, that looks like an interesting site, I'll check it out a little more in depth later.
Anyway, since I'm just making this up as I go along, I've decided on about 4 locations to make several return trips to during the year. 1) Arches NP and the surrounding desert, 2) The Matheson Wetlands Preserve, owned by the Nature Conservancy, 3) The Colorado River corridor, and 4) a couple of riparian canyons, Courthouse Wash & Negro Bill Canyon, that both drain into the Colorado R. There'll be numerous other locations but these 4 will be regular stops since they are all close by and easy to access.
I'm going to try and keep a bird list and wildflower list. Since mammals are rather difficult to see I may keep a running tally of which ones and how many of each I'm lucky enough to come across. Insects, reptiles and amphibians will be listed as well, once a positive ID has been made.
I won't be limited to just live animals either. Tracks, scats, animal & bird sign, nest's, dens, kill sites, bones, skulls, feathers, etc. It will all be noted.
Keeping track of wildflowers, cactus blossoms, summer flowers, autumn flowers, shrubs, trees, days or weeks between rain storms are all part of it.
Lots to do.

[yuccahead]

I'm not really one to make New Years resolutions but this year I did make one to myself, that is, to learn about the birds in this region and, therefore, the western US. My knowledge of birds is pathetic. If it wasn't a raven or a great blue heron I was pretty much lost. So, I'm out to find my way through the bird world this year. The first step was a field guide and then several feeders and a brush pile went up in my backyard. It took a couple of days but now several varieties of finches and sparrows are daily visitors.

The new year found the canyon country with about 10 inches of snow on the ground, leftover from storms around Christmas. Here it is the 14th of January and the snow is still there. Highs have yet to get above freezing and lows are single digits. The Colorado River has frozen from bank to bank in many places and the backroads and trails are deep in snow and hard to negotiate. It's been an unusal winter thus far.
I've been spending a lot of time at the wetlands along the river. It's very close to home and has a great variety of animals and birds. There is a one mile boardwalk trail that loops through a wooded area with spur trails to the river and to a viewing blind.
Viewing blind

The snow makes it easy to see tracks and everytime I come here there are more, fresh muledeer tracks but so far no sightings. I'm able to ID 1 or 2 birds with every visit. I'm seeing magpies, robins, spotted towhees, Northern flickers, Hairy woodpeckers and juncos. The Coopers hawk makes it home here and I've seen several bird kill sites that can probably be attributed to it.
Feather pile at a kill site

I've made a couple of trips out to the desert but the deep snow makes hiking difficult. Tracks are easy to find and some of the animals moving around in the snow and bone chilling cold are bobcats, coyote, cottontails, antelope ground squirrels and mice.
Mouse trail

Spotting birds at the wetlands is easy compared to viewing any mammals. Other than a lucky, brief glimpse of a gray rock squirrel, I've come up empty. A couple of days ago I got out to the blind a little earlier than I had been. I brought the binoculars to my eyes to start scanning the distant meadows. As if I knew what I was doing, I found myself staring into a big eared face that was watching me, probably since I arrived.. After a time she decided I was harmless and continued on her way. Three more muledeer followed.

Bird ID total is 21

[reptilist]

I've a similar goal regarding birds too. I've always felt under informed about them....
I am excited to have a two weekend birding class coming up in a few days!

[yuccahead]

A class would be great. I'm just winging it, so to speak.
This has been a really helpful website -

http://www.allaboutbirds.org/NetCommuni ... ng20090917

The four ID videos helped a lot. The search info on each bird with a recording of their song or call is great. I can sit at my computer and search the site for birds I'm looking at through my window.

[Jerry Feldner]

Another source you can and should explore is the Cornell Lab of Ornithology website ( http://www.birds.cornell.edu/ ). I admire you for your willingness to do such a project and to learn about birds. Also, the more local Audubon Societies may also have websites if you look for them. GL in your endeavor. I can't wait for next year.

[yuccahead]

. I admire you for your willingness to do such a project and to learn about birds.

Thanks for the encouraging words Jerry. Actually, the sight I linked to above is a part of the the Cornell Lab site you linked to. It's a very informative and well done site.

[yuccahead]

We had a variety of weather changes around canyon country in the last two weeks. The 8" of snow that I thought would never go away finally melted in just a day or two.
Snow melt in the Sand Flats

I've returned to the wetlands on the banks of the Colorado River many times and I see subtle changes almost daily. As the snow began to soften and melt a lot of different tracks appeared one morning. I followed a grey fox down the trail and saw raccoon tracks cross over. Later, a bobcat walked along the boardwalk for a time before heading into the brush. In the same area that I had seen a rock squirrel a couple of weeks earlier were fresh tracks, probably from the same animal.
Rock squirrel track

On one of the warmer days I went walking up at the Sand Flats in an area of rock ledges, perfect habitat for neotoma or pack rats. It wasn't long until I started seeing a midden or two but this feeding area was pretty interesting. Hundreds of nuts were gathered under a small overhang all opened by pack rats.

After the snow melted I was able to walk through the wetlands quietly for a few days, however, it was not to last. Another snow storm left 6" on the ground and I was once again crunching through the icy, snowy trail, each step sounding like the exagerated crunch of an old potato chip commercial. Somehow I was still able to see the muledeer quartet and get a photo before scaring them off.

Several days of cold, foggy, overcast weather followed the snowstorm.

I was only able to add three more positive ID's to my bird list, the Black Capped Chickadee, Canada Goose and the Western Scrubjay. The birds I see almost daily are the Robin, Magpie, Raven, Junco, Spotted Towhee, Northern Flicker and the Hairy Woodpecker.
Hairy Woodpecker

This morning I was treated to a little avian drama as I watched two magpies harass a Northern Harrier in a tree in the wetlands. They would perch on either side of the harrier then hop to branches closer and closer til the harrier moved to the other side of the tree. This happened several times and three times the harrier took off chasing one of the magpies around the canopy of the tree. Finally the harrier had had enough and took off.