I Like Pigeons Because Nobody Else Does

Red bat:

California towhee:

Little Buddy this morning in bed:

Phil just sent out an email summary of our Little Paradise trip intended for distribution to our supporters. Here’s the official version of our trip, my personal account to follow:

From 16 to 22 November eight of us made an expedition to what is now the most remote and least visited of the camp sites covered by Grinnell, Swarth, Taylor , and Richardson in 1908: the middle section of Palm Canyon near Little Paradise, elevations 2400 to 3000 feet. We could not have made this trip without the generous help of the equestrian section of the Forest Service Volunteer Association, especially Mike McCann, Tom and Cathy Furth, Ray and Dena Barmore, and Ron and Sandy Korman. These folks scouted the route for us ahead of time, then took Sunday 16 November and Saturday 22 November to load our gear on their horses and guide us the nearly 5 miles from the north end of Palm Canyon Drive on Pinyon Flat down Potrero Canyon to Agua Bonita Spring, where we camped for the next week.

Please recall that one of our goals in this project is to make one of our minimum 3 surveys at each of the 1908 camp sites in winter, insofar as possible. This trip in the third week of November qualified as our first winter field trip.

In 1908 Grinnell and Swarth actually had three camp sites in the middle section of Palm Canyon , though one was an unplanned stop necessitated by the slow progress of their burros down the steep, rocky west slope of Palm Canyon . They spent from 12 to 14 and 17 to 18 June in middle Palm Canyon , so naturally our results for November 2008 differ from theirs, especially for birds. Nevertheless, our results were good and an interesting comparison in many ways.

In spite of its remoteness, middle Palm Canyon has seen considerable environmental changes over the last century. The area burned in 1994, according to Ray Barmore, and we saw many skeletons of burned, dead shrubs and juniper trees much larger than any that have resprouted over the last 14 years. The habitat is very rocky, with much of the surface covered by granite boulders. A little attention to the plants growing between the rocks reveals that many of them are chaparral species, including redshanks, yerba santa, sugarbush, Yucca whipplei, and even chamise. But the aspect of the habitat is open desert scrub, with catclaw acacia, mesquite, and multiple species of cholla. In unburned areas to the east of Palm Canyon, larger chaparral shrubs and some very large sugarbushes (one large enough to have a woodpecker nest hole in it!) persist, suggesting that before 1994 middle Palm Canyon would have rated much farther toward the chaparral end of the spectrum. As we saw at Banning, then, fire may be inducing chaparral to retreat from the fringes of its range where it can no longer sustain itself.

We were fortunate to have with us on this trip ecologist Genie Fleming, who made some formal vegetation descriptions and analyses of our study area, something we will do at each of our camp sites.

In and near the creek through Palm Canyon , native plants (including scattered cottonwood trees) were much augmented by invasive exotics: tamarisk, Bermuda grass, fountain grass, cocklebur, etc. The California Tree Frog was by far the most conspicuous vertebrate along the creek and was quite vocal at night.

We had unseasonably warm temperatures during our trip—hot in the intense midday sun, down only into the 50’s °F at night. Probably as a result reptiles were quite active, and our 8 species far exceeded herpetologist Brad Hollingsworth’s expectations. We found more species than did Grinnell and Swarth in June 1908, and the only species they found that we missed was the Baja California Collared Lizard. Some species were represented primarily or exclusively by juveniles, the adults apparently having already retreated into inactivity for the winter. The Yucca Night Lizard was a species missed entirely in 1908, undoubtedly because the technique of searching for it in clusters of dead yucca leaves was not known at the time.

Birds were sparse. As expected, Grinnell and Swarth recorded 10 species of primarily summer visitors plus 2 species of late spring migrants that we did not find on our trip. Conversely, we found 11 species of winter visitors absent in June 1908. Rather unexpected among these were one Wilson’s Snipe, foraging along the creek on 19 November, one Slate-colored Junco on 19 November (one of only two juncos seen all week), and one male Merlin, flying over our camp as we were packing up on 22 November. A big surprise was a flock of 21 Canada Geese, flying south up Palm Canyon at sunset on 21 November, only about 100 feet off the ground. They passed directly over our camp, were as startled to see us as we were to see them, then circled over a low ridge and returned back down the canyon.

Resident birds that Grinnell and Swarth found that we missed were the Gambel’s Quail and Oak Titmouse. We saw a flock of quail, but they all sounded like California, and all we could see well looked like California . These two closely related species mix and hybridize in this region. The titmouse could well have retreated upslope with the burning of the mature chaparral—we have certainly found it to be a species sensitive to fire in San Diego County . More or less resident birds that we found that Grinnell and Swarth missed were the kestrel, Mourning Dove, Great Horned Owl, Anna’s Hummingbird (California fuchsia was still blooming during our visit, a food source for the hummingbirds), flicker (could be a winter visitor, but we saw a nest hole in the single dead palm at Little Paradise spring), Loggerhead Shrike, raven (Dana Hogan photographed a large stick nest probably of this species on a cliff; we saw a pair nearby), Verdin (multiple nests suggest the species is resident in the area), Lesser Goldfinch, Song Sparrow (specimen collected is of the locally resident subspecies), and Rufous-crowned Sparrow. Notice that even in this remote area the appearance of some of the birds we have noticed as increased or colonists elsewhere in the San Jacinto region: Anna’s Hummingbird, Common Raven, and Rufous-crowned Sparrow. Little Paradise makes the fourth site at which we have found the Rufous-crowned Sparrow, a species apparently absent from the entire San Jacinto region in 1908.

Our mammal team enjoyed great success with the Sherman traps, which yielded a 50-60% return rate per night, far beyond the 10-20% usually expected. This success is quite the contrast to what Grinnell and Swarth experienced on 13 June 1908, when their 60 snap traps yielded only two mice. We recorded every species of mammal noted around Little Paradise by Grinnell and Swarth, except the chipmunk, which like the titmouse could have been cut back by the fire and failed to recolonize with the poor regrowth of chaparral. Now the cactus mouse and San Diego pocket mouse can be considered abundant in the area. The results of our motion-sensor cameras were disappointing, but at least they picked up a gray fox. Scat of coyote, fox, and bobcat was common, and Genie Fleming found a skull of a bobcat. Tom Myers also picked up two samples of mountain lion scat. We saw a few small bats in the evenings, but identification will have to wait until Drew Stokes analyzes the recordings the two Anabat detectors we set out may have picked up. The scat of ungulates was abundant and probably included some of the bighorn sheep as well as of the mule deer.

So it was a productive week, but we were glad to see our friends with their horses on 22 November. It took us 3 ¼ hours to make the hike out, an elevation gain of 1400 feet. Interestingly, on 18 June 1908 Grinnell and Swarth left their camp near the same place as ours at 8:15 AM, and they arrived at Asbestos Spring, about a half mile farther beyond our trailhead, at 11:15 AM. So while those two young men may have been nearly superhuman in 1908, our team did very well too. Thanks to Melody McFarland, Tom Myers, Dana Hogan, Genie Fleming, Scott Tremor, Brad Hollingsworth, and Melissa Stepek for a great trip. Everyone did a terrific job proving that we can pull this off even if it takes a week-long backpacking trip to do it. We’re especially thankful to volunteers Tom Myers (one of the sharpest-eyed biologists around) and Melody McFarland (who managed our camp, oversaw the pitfall cups, helped with bird skinning, and took the most artistic photographs). And thanks again to our equestrian friends and their noble beasts for making it all possible.

I did a gallinule (also known as a moorhen) and a western kingbird at the museum yesterday. Two weeks ago I began the process of documenting how to prepare a study specimen, but about 1/3 of the way through the process was when my camera took a crap. It was especially irritated because I was preparing a white-tailed kite, a nice sized bird that turned out very nicely.

Here’s what Phil sent out to our supporters and other interested parties after our trip last week (text only, I added the photos):

Dear San Jacinto friends and colleagues,

We found a junkyard

Last week Melody McFarland, Jim Berrian, and I spent from Monday to Wednesday, 8 to 10 September at Valle Vista (just east of Hemet at the west base of the San Jacinto Mountains ), resurveying the site Harry Swarth covered from 30 August to 5 September 1908.  Actually, the site we covered, along the wash of the San Jacinto River at the east end of Valle Vista, is about 2 miles northeast of the 1908 site, which is now covered by orange orchards and the concrete-lined channel of Bautista Creek.  We selected it as a surrogate, as it supports the only remaining alluvial scrub at the same elevation in the general area. It has been designated for conservation as open space and wildlife habitat.  It is under the jurisdiction of the Eastern Municipal Water District, and we thank Joe Lewis, Director of Engineering Services, for authorization and access to cover this site.

This visit was focused on birds and invertebrates; intensive surveys of mammals and reptiles will come on a subsequent visit when more of our team is able to participate.  But we wanted one survey to correspond in time as closely as possible to the time of Harry Swarth’s visit in 1908.  Like Harry Swarth, we experienced the “blistering heat” of which he complained (what do you expect in Hemet in late summer?!), but at least we did not endure the dust storms that afflicted him in 1908. 

Mockingbird

Ken Weaver also covered the site on the morning of 9 August 2008, and his results are tabulated with last week’s in the attached spreadsheet.

The Valle Vista site is interesting because it originally hosted a subset of what I am calling the “Aguanga fauna.”  That is, species of characteristically desert

green lynx spider

distribution that have an isolated population on the west side of the mountains, centered at Aguanga just north of Temecula Creek in south-central Riverside County.  Of birds these include (among others not reported from Valle Vista) the Ladder-backed Woodpecker and Black-throated Sparrow, of mammals the White-tailed Antelope Squirrel, and of reptiles the Zebra-tailed Lizard and Long-nosed Leopard Lizard.  Because the 1908 expedition did not extend south to Aguanga this biogeographically interesting region has gone underappreciated over the last century, and it has been questioned whether the birds were resident in the area or just postbreeding dispersers.  Ken Weaver has been studying the Aguanga region and is finalizing a paper on the area’s birds.

Our striking finding at Valle Vista for 2008 is that none of the “Aguanga fauna” may still survive at Valle Vista.  We hope to find some on future visits, but the Ladder-backed Woodpecker, Black-throated Sparrow, Zebra-tailed Lizard, and

Western toad

White-tailed Antelope Squirrel, at least, should have been seen easily in 4 days if present.  In 1908 Harry Swarth commented on the importance of cactus fruit, noting that the four antelope squirrels he collected were stained inside and out with juice of the fruit.  In 2008, prickly pear cacti were sparse, low, and not looking very healthy; I saw only one fruit, already nearly dried up.  So an important component of the ecosystem may no longer be functioning.  The decline of cactus undoubtedly contributed to the disappearance of the Cactus Wren too.  Similarly, Harry Swarth commented on yucca pods as a food source in 1908; in 2008 yuccas too (both schidigera and whipplei) were few and unimpressive, lacking fruit.

Bewick's wren

A couple of other characteristically arid-country species were barely present in 2008. In 1908, the California Gnatcatcher “was one of the most abundant species” at Valle Vista; in 2008, Ken Weaver found just one on 9 August and we found none from 8 to 10 September. In 1908 Brewer’s Sparrow was “fairly common,” with 3 specimens collected; in 2008 I saw just a single individual each on 9 and 10 September.  It’s not clear in what role Brewer’s Sparrow occurs at this site; most likely it is just a migrant, but a few years ago Bob McKernan found it nesting not far away at Winchester.

cucumber beetle

The message seems to be that when enough species are extirpated from a site interesting biogeographic patterns can be threatened with extirpation as well.  And in spite of the desertification of the climate, it is the seemingly desert-adapted species that have suffered the most in this case. Ken Weaver reports that all the species of the “Aguanga fauna” now missing at Valle Vista still survive at Aguanga, highlighting the conservation importance of that area.

On the plus side, we saw 35 species of birds Harry Swarth missed in 1908, more than doubling the list for Valle Vista.  Among these are many of the usual suspects, the Red-shouldered Hawk, Anna’s Hummingbird, Nuttall’s Woodpecker, Black Phoebe, Cassin’s Kingbird, American Crow, and Common Raven, not to mention the introduced House Sparrow, European Starling, Domestic Pigeon, and Eurasian Collared Dove.  In some cases local conditions at the site clearly contributed: the proliferation of the tree tobacco is providing nectar for 3 species of hummingbirds in 2008; Harry Swarth noted no hummingbirds at Valle Vista in 1908.  The percolation basins in the floodplain, dry in late summer, are grown up now with thickets of sunflowers, providing a bonanza of seeds for the American and Lesser Goldfinches; Harry Swarth noted no goldfinches at Valle Vista in 1908.

To me the most interesting addition among birds was the Rufous-crowned Sparrow.  Along with Snow Creek and Banning, Valle Vista makes the third site at which we have found this sedentary species missed completely in 1908.  Yet Harry Swarth found and collected them less than two weeks after leaving Valle Vista, in the Santa Ana Mountains on the opposite side of the San Jacinto Plain.  I suspect that the species has spread, aided at least by fires in the San Gorgonio Pass.

We were disappointed by the low diversity of reptiles, especially as Jim Berrian is an experienced herpetologist.  But I hope you enjoy Melody McFarland’s photo of the Red Diamond Rattlesnake, a species missed at Valle Vista in 1908.  The site is riddled by abundant rodent burrows, so it is likely to be interesting when our mammalogists are able to work here.  The seasonal flow of the San Jacinto River leaves dried mud, especially in the percolation basins, that is great for prints, so a tracker better than I should be able to identify from them species beyond the raccoon that I could confirm.  In any case, we look forward to future visits to this site, important as the only 1908 site at a low elevation at the west base of the San Jacinto Mountains.

honeybee

Thanks very much again to Joe Lewis for authorizing us, to Karin Cleary-Rose for her advice in this area and suggesting the site we covered as a logical surrogate site, to Ken Weaver for his help and knowledge of this area, and to Melody and Jim for their help in the field.

The Valle Vista trip was our last of the summer; the next will be to Little Paradise in Palm Canyon in the third week of November, beginning our winter surveys.

Thanks for your interest in our study.

I’ll get right to the point:

Crotalus ruber - Red Diamond Rattlesnake

This was the highlight of the trip for me. We’ve spent a lot of time hiking in desert areas for the last year and have not found a rattlesnake, to my great disappointment. Our trip this week to Valle Vista resulted in not one, but two excellent sightings. I found the individul pictured above sheltering himself from the blistering sun inside someone else’s burrow. He posed for a few minutes before retreating to the bowels of the burrow.

This morning Jim and I were photographing insects and spiders in an area filled with shrubbery and sunflowers when he suddenly yelled that there was another snake directly in front of him. This time we got the full show – hissing, rattling and strike position:

Crotalus ruber - Red Diamond Rattlesnake

This animal did everything in its power to avoid us and unless we did something idiotic, we were in no danger of being bitten. If you want to read an account and see some seriously gnarly pictures of what happens to people who get bit by rattlesnakes, check this out.  Seeing these snakes really makes a person think a little bit more about where they step and what they grab.

I got a lot of good shots on the trip. But I’m tired and will post more later on.

This snake was beautiful

A tarantula:

and a leaf-nosed bat:

We started Sinbad on pehnobarbitol and were told that “he should have about a two week adjustment period” in which time he might be lethargic or otherwise show symptoms of drug use, but after that he’ll be fine. So we started giving him the drugs and waited for him to pass out into a stuporous haze. Nothing happened. He runs around here with his usual vigor and purpose with no ill-effects. I was loathe to give them to him since I’d hate to see anything dampen his spirits but we couldn’t allow the seizures to continue. He’s so cheerful and lively and I want it to stay that way.  Hopefully it’s a high enough dose to suppress the seizures.

Lake Hemet bird photos:

California mouse

The museum’s mammal people, Scott and Dana, as well as bat dude Drew, were instrumental particpants in the expedition. The desert is home to a variety of rodents, but I didn’t get many photos of them since I was busy with my own work. Some of the animals captured were wood rats, kangaroo rats and a variety of mice. They put bait and cameras out for mountains lions, but unfortunately none were seen.

With the proper equipment, there’s a whole ‘nother world to explore at night. Well, and without it. On Wednesday night I was awoken by the distinct sound of raccoons purring. I looked out my tent’s window and saw five babies clinging to the tree about 5 feet from where I was sitting. Adorable. Their mother called to them from a distance and they scrambled away, presumably to have their little arses kicked for getting so close to the humans. We also had a skunk haul ass through camp with Dana and I in hot pursuit trying desperately to snap photos with uncooperative cameras. It wasn’t so dark, however, that we couldn’t see his tail held high, so we didn’t get that close.

The pipe in the lower right corner is the microphone portion of the Anabat device

Anyway, back to the night and equipment…there’s a device called an Anabat which you can see in the photo. It’s an extremely sensitive device that records ultrasonic bat calls during designated intervals. Its memory card is removed the following day and downloaded onto a computer that then shows sonograms of any bat sounds it captured. Each bat has a distinctive sound pattern, so you can determine what species are present by analyzing its respective sonogram.

Another method for surveying bats is mist netting. A fine net is placed in a location that bats frequent and, if you’re lucky, they fly into it instead of up and over as many of them are wont to do. I’ve seen a lot of bats, but never up close like this. They are seriously impressive animals. The museum is in posession of a night vision monocular and I made the grave error of looking through it. I’ve been sort of wanting one for awhile, but that thing made me salivate. It was incredible. Like green daylight. Now I can add that to my lengthy Lust List of Expensive Devices and Gadgetry.

Weighed, measured and released, hopefully without being bitten.

 

Big brown bat. Check out those teeth

wood rat. cute

I’m having a hell of an annoying time trying to find a decent set-up for this blog that will accommodate tables and photos. If you don’t have your browser window maximized, the photos will be all bunched up. I bought textbooks for the Pattern Making and French classes that I’m taking next week. Imagine the look on my face upon discovering that the French textbook cost $182. Unbelievable. Enough bitching…

In addition to being camp cook, I handled invertebrate collection by means of pitfall trap. Pitfall trap equates to nothing more than plastic cup sunk in a hole in the ground. It’s a cheap and convenient way to sample an area for neat creepy crawlies and other ground-dwelling creatures. A pitfall trap can be any size including five-gallon buckets that yield some really impressive animals like larger lizards and mammals. In this case we used plastic cups that someone scored from a convenience store.

Upon arrival on Monday we dug twenty holes in four different sites and inserted cups for a total of 80 traps. Each trap was checked every morning and representative animals assessed. The 1908 expedition didn’t bother with invertebrates so we don’t have any comparison data. I am hoping that on the next trip I’ll be able to do a little more with collection methods.

In addition to insects, we trapped scorpions, spiders and lizards. We were hoping for a shrew in one of the sites, but there are either no shrews or they’re too smart to blunder into our traps.

A ubiquitous beetle that we found in great numbers is this:

Eleodes in defensive posture

a darkling beetle of the family Tenebrionidae, species Eleodes. These beetles are found in desert settings throughout the western part of the US and are active most often at dusk and dawn. One would think that this crepuscular habit of foraging would be to their great disadvantage – a jet black beetle against a light-colored sandy background is quite conspicuous to the keen eyes of nocturnal predators.

When this beetle is disturbed, it assumes the defensive rear-up posture that you see pictured above and readies itself to unleash a rank cocktail of offensive chemicals. It’s foul-smelling and irritating defensive fluid is highly effective against most attackers, especially ants, and is composed of 1,4-benzoquinones, several hydrocarbons and caprylic acid. What is all this stuff, you ask. It doesn’t matter, but trust me when I say you don’t want to know. It positively reeks.

This species is capable of only a mild sting

Meet Fulgora laternaria, aka, the peanut headed bug:

Here are a couple of beautiful animals from the museum. I never go without my camera. There’s no telling what’s going to be on the lab table when I walk in.

A buprestid beetle:

lined june beetle:

scorpion:

The photo on the left is a shot of some beautiful green bees, I am not sure of the species. But check out the photo below. This is an interesting animal. It’s called a Solfugid, by bug people, wind scorpion, sun spider or camel spider by others, even though it is neither a spider nor a scorpion. This one was found in Balboa Park:

It is an arachnid, however, but in its own classification.  They’re non-venomous, but the larger species can inflict a painful bite. This specimen was small, maybe an inch long. Solfugids vary in size and you might have seen photos of a very large species from Iraq that was flying around in an email a couple of years ago:

I spent the day at the museum taking photos of bees: