About this time every year Sandra makes a pilgrimage to the east coast to visit family and friends. I am left free as a bird and usually bored stiff with nothing to do and 2 weeks to do it. This year I decided to use the time pursuing volunteer work for next summer.
Since we have been together, about 4 years now, we have shared and satisfied our wanderlust volunteering in Alaska, Nebraska, Arizona,Texas, and of course Bosque del Apache here in New Mexico where we met...but that's another story. Anyway, I decided I would use the time for a road trip up to some beautiful places we had not seen yet and mapped out a trip to Utah with stops at Zion, Bryce Canyon Lands and whatever else on the way of interest. My plan was to leave a resume with Volunteer
Coordinators at these spots for work beginning after our winter at Bosque and one month assignment at White Sands.
After delivering Sandra to the airport, I left Albuquerque headed for Grand Canyon on a beautiful sunny morning with a sky full of balloons overhead, to pay homage to what I think is the most beautiful, scenic, quiet spot I have ever been to.
Shoshone Point is an almost secret spot on the south rim. Secret because once you've seen it, you jealously want to guard it from the average tourist. Although open to the public, it probably gets 10-20 visitors a day because you have to (shudder) walk a mile through the woods to get there. But when the trees end you are standing on the edge of the world in complete silence with a thread of the Colorado river visible a mile below and the occasional Condor gliding by on a rising thermal. This is where I hope I am scattered to spend eternity. But not yet! Today I was looking for the solitude found here while still alive and breathing.
To my enormous disappointment, I met a lady on her way out who said, "must be a wedding or something goin' on, there's about 10 cars passed me by heading in". I continued on in anger ready to confront these interlopers to my private corner of the Canyon. Then ahead I saw a small trailer with the words Superstition Search and Rescue on the side. My anger turned to guilt as I figured somebody had fallen over the edge. Also there was that old spark of excitement from my years of work with the Sierra Madre Search and Rescue team back in California long ago.
As I approached the canyon it was obvious from all the ropes and pulley systems and people in harness and hard hats peering into the abyss, that some kind of rescue or recovery was in progress. It was a recovery, but not what I expected. Some bozo, or in this case group of bozos had, with great effort, carried an iron picnic table and benches weighing hundreds of pounds to the edge and pushed it about 300 feet into the canyon where it snagged on a branch. My first evil thought was I hope they didn't let go. What kind of thinking drives so called humans to this kind of act? It's not spur of the moment, they obviously planned to drag it there with no one around and, I guess, get their kicks for about 10 seconds watching it fall, meanwhile destroying the view for all future visitors.
But that's not how it played out. This dedicated group of volunteers, professionals in all aspects of mountaineering from what I could observe, drove up from southern Arizona to spend a weekend figuring how to get it back out. I talked with some of them, men and women ranging in age from 20's through 60's and recalled the pride I felt being part of such a team. Today it was a table rescue, more of a practice run. Next time it might be a child. Check out and support Mountain (and desert!) rescue teams in your area. They do good things.
Oh yeah, the rest of the trip? It started to rain, rained all the way to Bryce Canyon, spent 6 hours in freezing weather in a leaky tent, 6 more in the car trying to sleep, turned to snow, headed back (in rain) through Flagstaff skirting 3 tornadoes, and home to warm, sunny, New Mexico where I'm staying a while.

I was out at the Bosque checking our bee traps for the pollinator study we are working on when about 50 yards away under a cottonwood tree I spied a huge owl looking at me. My car was about a 1/4 mile away, it was hot and the terrain uneven and difficult, but this was a great opportunity to capture a shot of a Great Horned owl, so I slowly backed off without disturbing it and sprinted to my car (1/4 mile) to get my camera with the long lens.Returning stealthily to the scene, I could see it hadn’t moved so I slowly raised my lens and...WARNING-CHANGE BATTERIES flashed at me. Since he hadn’t moved I retraced my steps, (1/4 mile), and grabbed my spare set. Back to the scene (1/4 mile) I started taking photos as I moved ever so slowly closer. The big bird watched, frozen in it’s shady shelter.After about 10 shots without change I had enough and gave him a quiet thank you . Back at the car (1/4 mile) I couldn’t wait to see my images. I blew them up on the camera screen and....see the attached, look closely- I wish I had!

Audubon photos

Sandra and I have entered the Audubon photo contest, prizes are fabulous including a trip to the Galopagos Islands. We're not really planning on winning, but...
Looking at last year's winners was dicouraging. The quality of entries was fantastic. It's inspirational to see them and drives us to try harder. Anyway, here's 6. I won't say whose are whose since in 3 years she has achieved what has taken me around fifty (it's really the equipment!)

Sorry about the double posting of images, it"s been a long while since we used this! That's our friend Bob picking up "Sand dog" Sandra's find. The other snake is a mean one I came across. The Mtn Lion is one of 3...yes 3 that we were priveledged to see at the Bosque. This is mom. She had 2 cubs, nearly full grown with. I think it's the first time they were confirmed.Last but not least is a Great horned owl we spotted while doing our pollinator count. I am also posting my last column for the local paper on finding a babt bird and what to do then.

I FOUND A BABY BIRD, NOW WHAT?


It was another nice, cool summer morning. Sandra and I were about a block into our early morning walk up to the Tech campus. As I passed a low hanging branch on a fully leafed-out tree, in the gutter litter I saw a little rustle of movement. Stopping to investigate, to my surprise the rustle turned out to be a bundle of feathers no bigger than a ping pong ball. Almost invisible in the leaf litter and general gutter detritus, under all the downy feathers was a live little bird no more than a few days...hours? old.
Lying beside it was its less fortunate nest mate. Dead, already shriveling in the sun.
Now, our love of birds would not let us walk away from such a situation and we know enough that picking up a baby will not stop a mother from caring for it. That is an old wives tale. But what is the proper thing to do from here? The first and most logical seemed to move it out of the street and the sun. It is true that a mother will try to find the baby and continue to feed it if it has fallen from the nest. It's also true that you should try to find the nest and gently place the baby back if possible. We searched the dense foliage for a nest but were unable to find any. The decision was made to continue the walk and peek in on the way back to see if mom was able to take over. We quietly approached the scene on the way home about 45 minutes later. No change. No mom. Baby was quieter now and probably very dehydrated.
As gently as I could, I picked it up and brought it home with us.Sandra gathered grass along the way and prepared a small box with a lid and placed it inside. I made a quick trip to Walmart and bought an eyedropper (Why didn't we have one here? We do now.) and some gold fish flakes (sounded right at the time) and made an attempt to feed it while Sandra went online to glorious Google that knows the answer to everything. Typing in baby bird rescue brought up about 200,000 hits. Being big fans of Henry Thoreau, we clicked on to "Walden's Puddle Wildlife Rehabilitation Center" having no idea they were on the other side of the country in Tennesee. They had a phone, we called, got a machine, left a message and searched for more information. A short time later the phone rang. It was a nice, concerned lady calling from Tennesee who was surprised to find we were calling from New Mexico. She asked a lot of questions about the bird and the situation of finding it and gave us suggestions on how to proceed. Well, to my dismay, I found out trying to feed such a youngster was wrong and could likely kill it. Most importantly she said to prepare a suitable nest substitute from a berry container stuffed with grass and place it securely back in the tree as near as we could to where we found the bird. A plastic strawberry box from Smith's was perfect. I put the little guy/gal in and, climbing a step ladder, secured it as best I could near the spot.
The odds of all this working were pretty long, but at least if it didn't work, it would be a quiet, comfortable death. Better than a dirty gutter with all the traffic on Bullock.
My confidence was low, so we vowed to not peek and just believe in the best but after 2 weeks or so, I had to know. I climbed the tree and looked into the nest certain I would find a dehydrated little body. Guess what?...The nest was empty! No signs of trouble but a whole lot of bird poop, a good thing. We will never know what really happened, but the odds of it being found, fed and fledging are a lot better and I'm sticking with it!
thanks to Walden's Puddle and the caring person who promptly returned my call, we may likely have added a another voice to nature's chorus.
If you ever run into a similar situation, you can reach them at 615 299 9938 or if you care to make a donation, their address is PO 641, Joelton TN 37080 or just google Walden's Puddle.

I PROMISE TO KEEP UPDATES!

"Outdoor Story" - Hair Raising Rattler Research

The "Outdoor Story" is a newspaper column Erv and I take turns writing every other week for Socorro's El Defensor Chieftain. This is my most recent! Sandra

Just like every other critter, large and small, rattlesnakes have their place and purpose on this earth. Still, they could use better PR because they often get a bad rap. From the serpent in the Garden of Eden to the asp that killed Cleopatra and in movies like “Snakes on Planes,” they are the bad guys. Little is said about their usefulness in controlling rodents and other small mammals, or the role of rattlesnake young as prey for hawks, eagles, roadrunners and even wild turkeys, as well as mammals including coyote, fox and badger.
Rattlers do warrant caution – their bite can be fatal if not treated, but they don’t seek humans and only bite us when surprised or threatened. Humans, on the other hand, have a long history of hunting and killing snakes, sometimes just for entertainment.
The Western Diamondback Rattlesnake is the largest of the Southwest desert rattlers; adults average 3.5 to 4 feet. They have a venomous snake’s characteristic flat-triangle head shape and their color ranges from gray-brown to pinkish with diamond-shaped body blotches. Their tails have distinctive bands of alternating black and white (coon-tail) that fade with age. Rattles grow segment by segment, each one a remnant of a shed skin. It’s a myth that the segments show a snake’s age; they can shed 2-3 times a year.
Diamondbacks generally hunt at night and early morning, positioning themselves to ambush passing prey. Having poor vision, they use their flicking tongue to “taste” the air by pulling chemical molecules into the Jacobs organ where they are translated into smell and used to track prey. Heat-seeking facial pits (hence the name pit viper) guide their strikes. Prey includes rodents like mice, prairie dogs and ground squirrels or the occasional bird or lizard, which they swallow whole. They can go several weeks before feeding again.
Rattlers are solitary outside of mating season and winter denning. In late Oct. they seek den sites where they burrow in quasi-hibernation with other snakes until early March. Live-born rattlesnake young are self sufficient, capable of delivering a venomous bite from the moment of birth – they only spend a few hours with their mother. It’s another myth that the young deliver more concentrated venom.
Enough background – on to the hair-raising research! In the fall of 2009 Lorraine McInnis, a UNM biology graduate student began radio tracking Western Diamondbacks at the Bosque del Apache to document their general movements and locate winter dens. She is radio-tracking 16 at the current time and hopes to track 25 individuals over a two year period. An additional 200 Diamondbacks have been tagged with microchips which can’t be radio-tracked but provide additional data.
The stimulus for Lorraine’s research was management of human/snake interaction - rattlesnakes are a safety concern in visitor areas of the refuge but she has found it an opportunity to explore aspects of rattlesnake biology that are not fully understood. Lorraine explains that any animal occupies a particular location for access to food, shelter, water and/or for breeding but snakes’ habitats and movements are also affected by daily and seasonal temperatures. “Cold blooded” reptiles externally regulate their body temperature.
The hair-raising part of all this is that each one of these 200+ snakes must be captured, examined and measured, then carefully radio-tagged and re-released to its original location. (Only those found in visitor areas are relocated elsewhere.) The radio- tagged snakes are then tracked daily no matter how remote or difficult to access. Trackers must take great care to neither disturb the snake nor get bit themselves. Erv and I have been greatly impressed by Lorraine’s skill, focus and caution working with the snakes but, as volunteer help, we always find it a hair-raising experience!
It has been shown that long distance relocation has a negative impact on a snake’s natural movements and even their survival. Lorraine’s detailed field research on Western Diamondback denning sites and normal patterns of movement will provide important information for Bosque del Apache managers to safely reduce human/snake interaction with the least impact on the snakes. Refuges are, after all, for wildlife - including rattlers!

surprise! We are still alive and well.

Okay, okay, We aren't keeping up like we should. Emails, Facebook, and oh yeah, life seem to be occupying my time. Summer is gone and no one told me. Sandra is into her 8th week with a new hip and stronger than ever. We have had a bit of travel, down to Cloudcroft, White Sands and that area, mostly to keep the motorhome in shape. It looks promising that we will be working at White Sands in Feb for a month to warm up before we go to Nebraska. The winter will be doing tours, lectures and boy scout projects at the Bosque. I hope I can twist Sandra's arm into writing more and on a regular basis,- she's much Better at this and I'm doing it on my iPad which I love, but hate the typing part...anyway if you're new here, keep checking. We are going to post our bi-weekly columns from the local paper along with photos from both.