Tag: animal tracks

A Snake’s Worst Nightmare, Beautiful Autumnal Creatures, and Lightning far too Close for Comfort – Again!

The snake pictured above is a black-tailed rattlesnake, Crotalus molossus. Of the nine species of rattlesnakes inhabiting Cochise County in southeastern Arizona, this one is my favorite. (If you don’t see the image, it is because you are reading this in your email. Click on the blog’s title to be redirected to my blog website for a better, more inclusive experience. Once there, simply scroll down the title page to quickly find this most recent post.) 

If snakes could talk, when asked the question “what is hell?,” they would likely answer “any place where people are.” Many people kill snakes on sight, and others run them over with vehicles – often a brutal, intentional action. If snakes have dreams, surely one of their worst nightmares would involve becoming entangled in certain types of fencing, like chicken wire or plastic mesh. A snake can slip its head through the openings in these kinds of fencing easily. The trouble comes as the reptile moves forward. As the body thickens behind the neck, there comes a point when the snake becomes trapped. Scales on snakes overlap and point backward. The wire or plastic mesh gets caught under the scales, making it impossible for the snake to back out. A long, slow death is the inevitable outcome. I have seen live and dead snakes trapped in fencing more than a few times, especially in chicken wire and in various types of plastic mesh and bird netting. The bottom line is simple: if you care about snakes, don’t use these types of fencing! Find another way.

Late this summer, a neighbor called requesting my help to free this 4-foot Sonoran whipsnake, (Masticophis bilineatus). The snake was badly entangled in some plastic mesh fencing. It took quite some time with a pair of small scissors to free the snake. This feisty whipsnake tried to bite me repeatedly during the delicate procedure.

Sonoran whipsnakes are among the desert’s most beautiful reptiles. They are capable of incredibly fast movements much like their cousins, the coachwhips. Large, capable eyes give this creature excellent long-range vision for hunting its prey and avoiding predators. These snakes are semi-arboreal, often found high in the mesquite trees, where they move with skilled grace in search of lizards and bird nests. This one had skin that felt like fine silk, remarkably smooth to the touch.

October brought this 3-foot Sonoran gopher snake to our residence. I have never seen gopher snakes as richly colored as the individuals I have encountered in this river valley. They are Arizona’s longest ophidians, (reaching lengths exceeding eight feet) and they are always more than welcome here. Few predators are more adept at capturing mice, rats, and pocket gophers, for these animals can do what most other predators cannot – they can crawl down into the rodents’ burrows.

Nowhere else have I seen box turtles as gorgeously marked as our local variety. This is an adult – some of these turtles lose their stripes, fading to a solid brown as they get older, but not this one. The species is Terapene ornata, otherwise known as the ornate box turtle.

Yet another Gila monster visited our property this year. This one was an adult measuring close to 14 inches in length. These lizards are readily identifiable as distinct individuals, for their complex markings are never the same, somewhat like our fingerprints.

The track of an opossum may be a common sight east of the Mississippi, but here it is something special. Most of the opossums in this valley are representatives of a Sierra Madrean subspecies, reaching the northern tip of their range here in SE Arizona. This distinctive footprint, along with others, appeared in the fine dust under my ramada early one morning.

Southern Arizona is among the top places in the nation for frequency of lightning strikes. Summer monsoon storms can be fierce and utterly unforgettable, particularly when they occur after dark. On the first day of September, a bolt slammed to the ground some 55 feet from where I had been seated. The bolt followed this upright support post on an open shed as it made its way downward. The carbonized streak is clearly visible on the post. The electromagnetic pulse from this strike fried our home telephone system.

Winter Images from a Wild Desert Valley and Sightings of Unusual Birds

The Middle San Pedro Valley sprawls across nearly one million acres of undeveloped, unfragmented land in southeastern Arizona. Its slopes and woodlands, bajadas and ridges have been rimed with frost every dawn under the abbreviated touch of winter’s Sun. Days are short. The land stands hushed and still with its seasonal absence of  many birds, reptiles, and other forms of life. Nonetheless, there are many good reasons to get outside and walk the land. January and February have brought a few surprises, particularly in the way of unexpected sightings of locally uncommon birds.

In late January, five purple finches began frequenting our bird feeders, thinking they were well concealed within mobs of house finches and lesser goldfinches. My wife’s sharp eyes picked them out of the crowd. In 20+ years of avian record keeping in this valley, that was the first time we had ever seen purple finches. Another species that has been sighted sparingly here during the winter months is the American robin. For reasons that remain a mystery to me, we have been inundated with robins this winter. They bring me many fond memories of their near-constant presence during past summers when I lived in the northern states.

Speaking of thrushes, another bird that I had never seen in the valley before has arrived to grace the nearby riverbottom woodlands this winter – a Townsend’s solitaire. A friend and neighbor, Tom Talbott, first sighted one about a week ago in the forests along the river not far from our home. Tom  is a highly skilled birder and a masterful wildlife photographer. A few days later, walking the same reaches of the river, a friend and I also saw a solitaire. News has been spreading of numerous sightings of this species in areas just a few dozen miles to the north.

A Townsend’s solitaire perches quietly in branches overhanging the channel of the San Pedro River. These elegant thrushes are common residents of timberline forests high in the mountains of western Montana, where I would meet them again and again as I led groups of hikers during the summer months. Their songs are unique and unforgettably angelic, like no other bird I have known. Photo courtesy of Tom Talbott.

Not far from the solitaire, we found this great horned owl snoozing within the branches of a Fremont cottonwood. These owls are remarkably capable predators whose list of possible food items exceeds that of any other North American owl. Among the creatures that great horned owls have been known to prey upon include insects, amphibians, various reptiles, mice, rabbits, domestic cats, small dogs, ducks, skunks, and even porcupines.

Mid-January brought us over an inch of rain in the valley floor during one winter storm. Rainfall amounts were much higher in the nearby Galiuro Mountains, resulting in a strong winter flow for Hot Springs Wash. Such flows during the winter months are rare.

The rain enabled millions of dormant London rocket (Sisymbrium irio) seeds to sprout, providing a new source of food for wildlife while greening the floor of this mesquite bosque with the glowing color of new life.

Large numbers of these small white puffballs erupted from the ground under mesquite trees after the rain. Fungi are becoming known as some of the most important organisms on the planet. The mycorrhizal filaments of many species of fungi form mutually beneficial associations with tree roots, for example. No forest on Earth can exist without such subsurface fungal alliances.

A hooded skunk wandered under my ramada one night, leaving its signature behind in the form of these tracks made in fine, dusty soil. Note the track pattern as the animal was walking at normal speed.

A closer look at the skunk’s footprints. Even though skunks are plantigrade mammals, the heels on their back feet often do not register in their tracks, as seen here. (The hind foot is to the left, front foot to the right.)

I discovered this torpid spiny lizard spending the winter brumating underneath a plastic tub that had been set outdoors on the ground. The lizard was found at ground level, not dug in below the frost line. Temperatures here routinely dip into the teens every winter. I was taught that reptiles must spend winters below the frost line, because otherwise they would freeze and die. I have also seen a pair of diamondback rattlesnakes spending the winter under a board in an open barn. Apparently, what I was taught cannot be correct – it seems clear that these reptiles can endure a fairly substantial amount of freezing.

A HOPEFUL NEW YEAR, WINTER IN THE SAN PEDRO VALLEY, AND AN ARTIST’S VIVID EXPRESSION OF THE RIVER

The promise of coming  vaccinations, a new president, and the start of a new year have me full of hope… a state of mind that had faded considerably during 2020, a year marked by tragedy, social division, societal unrest, and a steadily worsening global pandemic. 

Here in the Middle San Pedro Valley, the season of winter is at hand, although the use of a term like “winter” in a place like this is a stretch of the word. The coldest temperature I have ever experienced here was only 8°F., and snow rarely falls in the valley floor. The image above was taken on a winter morning when a rare  blanket of fog had smothered the riverbottom forest with its cool, moist embrace. Fog is almost as rare as snow here. When fog does occur, it is a very transient affair, for desert fog most often dissipates into invisibility very quickly as the day warms.

A full moon casts its light on a stand of winter saguaros.

A few years ago, five inches of fresh snow fell overnight, gracing our bosque with a mantle of gleaming, sparkling white. I could not resist taking an early morning walk in order to read the very best of nature’s newspapers, for the goings on of every bird and mammal were written plainly in the snow. I encountered fresh tracks of various songbirds, quail, coyotes, a raccoon, mule deer, javelina, mice, cottontails, jackrabbits, and more. Following a set of roadrunner tracks (they are quite distinctive) I came across a sight I had never seen before: a roadrunner perched in a snow-covered mesquite tree.

I met with this well-chilled roadrunner perched in a velvet mesquite tree on a snow-graced morning.

Nature has forever been a source of inspiration for artists. There are scenes along the San Pedro River that could captivate any artist’s mind. Last month, an unforgettable gift arrived in our mail, an original painting crafted by none other than my brother, Rick. He and I had spent some time hiking in the riverbottom woodlands one fine spring day, when the river was alive with color and light. We stopped for a break at one of my favorite spots, a place that left its mark in my brother’s memory. Rick captured the essence of that place beautifully in this painting. What a gift!

“San Pedro Reverie,” by Rick Waldt.