Fall Bird Migrations: Where do all the birds go?

From grade school we are taught that birds fly south for the winter to where it is warmer and north for the summer to where it is cooler.  Of course this is true but is obviously over simplified.  Birds don't just go south or north, they actually go to specific locations.  Scientists and bird watchers have tracked the migratory movement of birds in an effort to answer the question: where do birds actually go?  By tagging birds at their breeding grounds and then tracking the tagged birds as they migrate scientists were able to answer the question.  Watch the following video to see where birds go after they migrate south from Alaska for the winter.  It is amazing how Alaska has such a huge concentration of breeding birds in the summer that populate so much of the world as they migrate south.  This leaves us with very good reason to protect Alaska bird breeding grounds in order to protect many bird populations throughout the world.  It is also interesting that not all birds actually migrated south in the study, some actually migrated north from Alaska.  I suppose they migrated north across the North Pole so they could migrate south on the other side of the world. 

The colored dots in the video represent locations where birds originating in Alaska were found as the migrated.

Bringing back the Wooly Mammoth

The last known population of Wooly Mammoths went extinct about 4,000 years ago.  The last population existed on Wrangel Island off the coast of Siberia.  Wooly Mammoths were extremely elephant like in both size and shape.  The big differences though between the two lies in their adaptation to climate.  Modern day elephants are adapted to the tropics.  Wooly Mammoths had fur similar to yaks and a thick layer of fat to help hold in heat.  Mammoths also had smaller ears which helped them hold heat in better.  These adaptations are of course why the mammoth lived in the icy tundra and thrived during the ice age.  As the world warmed, bringing the ice age to an end, suitable habitat and areas of food shrunk significantly for the mammoth.  The warming climate along with increased human hunting pressure at the end of the ice age led to the extinction of this huge mammal. 

Even though the mammoth has been extinct for 4,000 years now, scientists are working to clone one back to life again.  The process is simple in theory.  Scientists must first find a living mammoth cell and extract the nucleus.  The nucleus of a modern day elephant embryo must be removed and replaced with the mammoth nucleus.  Then, this embryo must be impregnated into an elephant mother.  If the embryo survives, a baby mammoth will be born to the mother elephant.  All of these processes are well known and have been successfully carried out, but never for wooly mammoths.  In practice however, this process appears nearly impossible.  The first step of finding living mammoth cells is what makes this so difficult.  But once living cells are found, the rest of the process would be relatively simple.

The preference of mammoths for icy cold habitats is what makes this entire process possible in theory.  As mammoths died in the frozen tundra, there is the very likely possibility their bodies would have frozen very quickly, thus preserving living cells in a frozen state.  Indeed, many frozen specimens of ancient mammoths have been found.  Not a single living cell in these frozen specimens has been found though and the probability of a cell surviving thousands of years even in a frozen state isn't very high.  It is still possible though.  And just the fact that it is possible makes at least a few people want to try.  Just think how awesome it would be to go visit a living wooly mammoth at the zoo.  Or see a wooly mammoth performance when the circus comes to town.  OK, that's sort of silly but just think...

Post Summer 2012 Sonoran Desert Monsoon Season Photos

The high humidity and rain from monsoon season seems to be gone from the Sonoran Desert this year.  There is always a chance that it can come back, but as far as monsoon seasons go, this year was a good one.  The vast majority of the Sonoran Desert received more than the normal amount of rain and cooler than normal temperatures over a two and a half month period.  This had a great effect on greening the desert, wildflower blooms, an explosion in bugs, and increased wildlife activity and reproductive success.  Below I have shared a number of photos I took on a recent hiking trip the day after the last rainstorm we received. 

A leafed out ocotillo. 

Not sure what this catapillar is but I found thousands of these along the trail.

Butterflies are quite abundant now as a result of the rains.

Viguiera

A green desert grassland of Tobosa located near the top of the White Tank Mountains.

Trailing four o'clock

Monsoon Season: Breaking the Desert Drought

About two months ago I posted on how a 4th of July storm broke a severe drought we had been experiencing throughout all of 2012 (Monsoon Season and the Drought).  As always with desert rain patterns though, you never know if the rain is going to keep coming or if a single rainfall event was just a fluke.  Fortunately, we have had a pretty good monsoon season that began with an earlier than normal large rainfall event and still seems to be going.  As of now, most of the desert surrounding Phoenix has received about three inches of rain in the past two months, which is slightly above average.  As a result of the rain and additional humidity, temperatures have actually been cooler than normal.  We of course have had our 110 degree plus days, but nothing like what we have had the past several years. 

The effects of rainfall on the desert over the past two months has been quite dramatic.  The drought had been so severe that mesquites and acacias had gone leafless which is fairly rare.  Ironwoods also were loosing many leaves and yellowing, which is extremely rare.  Other plants such as wolfberry and palo verdes were also leafless.  Creosotes were loosing leaves quickly and leaves that did remain were often brown or yellowish.  Nearly all triangle leaf bursage looked as if it were completely dead and often brittle bush was just a bush of white crispy sticks.  As you looked out across the desert in late June it appeared to be a crispy brown landscape without much life.  The rain however changed all this very quickly.  Within days of the first rain, new bright green leaves began to sprout.  The sustained rain allowed for these leaves to keep growing and for new stems to begin growing also.  Creosotes show this dramatic change quite well.  Creosotes still retain some of the old more brownish leaves from the drought period.  Directly above these brown leaves though bright green leaves are growing like crazy.  Ironwoods, palo verdes, wolfberries, mesquites, and acacias are also all full of leaves.  One thing I love about the desert after rain is all the different shades of green that color the landscape.  Each one of these plants has a slightly different shade, from the dark thick green of the ironwood, to the yellowish light green of the palo verde.  There also has been enough rain for the wolfberries and creosotes to flower.  Many wolfberries are in-fact loaded with fruit right now as a result of the rain.

All of this has had very positive effects on the wildlife.  I have noticed good populations of gambles quail as well as some healthy rabbit populations.  I am also sure many of the song birds are benefiting by the increase in berries and bugs.  The additional water and grass growth should also be having a positive effect on mule deer, hopefully increasing fawn survival.

So for now, the drought has been broken and with continued rainfall we can hopefully keep from returning back to drought conditions.  As of now, the National Weather Service is predicting the return of El Nino this fall and winter, which often means more rainfall.  A lot of weather scientists hold La Nina responsible for the drought in the Southwest over the last few years. 

Solitary Bees

Buzz -- a story of bees from Rob Sheppard on Vimeo.

Check out this great video on the solitary bee.  

Goat Man

The hiker, left, that came across "Goat Man" in the remote mountains of Utah.  Pictures the hiker took of the "Goat Man", center and right.

Below I have copied an article from the AP where a hiker came across a man dressed as a goat in the Utah wilderness.  The man was following a heard of mountain goats with this rather weird tactic.  I would really like to know from the actual "Goat Man" how effective his suit was at coming close to goats.  I would guess you could come a lot closer to the animals dressed as one of them, than if you dressed in camouflage and tried to sneak up to them.  Though humorous, this really is an interesting idea.  Native Americans used this tactic to sneak up on animals, so apparently it can be effective.  This might be a great way to study or watch wildlife up close.  It could also be very dangerous as the article describes.  


SALT LAKE CITY AP -- A man spotted dressed in a goat suit among a herd of wild goats in the mountains of northern Utah has wildlife officials worried he could be in danger as hunting season approaches.  Phil Douglass of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources said Friday the person is doing nothing illegal, but he worries the so-called "goat man" is unaware of the dangers.
"My very first concern is the person doesn't understand the risks," Douglass said. "Who's to say what could happen."
Douglass said a man hiking Sunday along Ben Lomond peak in the mountains above Ogden, about 40 miles north of Salt Lake City, spotted the person dressed like a goat among a herd of real goats. The person provided some blurry photographs to Douglass, who said they did not appear to have been altered.
Wildlife officials now just want to talk to the man so that he is aware of the dangers. There's no telling what his intentions are, Douglass said, but it is believed he could just be an extreme wildlife enthusiast.
"People do some pretty out there things in the name of enjoying wildlife. But I've never had a report like this," Douglass said. "There's a saying we have among biologists -- You don't go far enough, you don't get the data. You go too far, you don't go home. The same is true with some wildlife enthusiasts."
Douglass said 60 permits will be issued for goat hunting season in that area, which begins in September. He worries the goat man might be accidentally shot or could be attacked by a real goat.
"They may get agitated. They're territorial. They are, after all, wild animals," he said. "This person puts on a goat suit, he changes the game. But as long as he accepts responsibility, it's not illegal."
Douglass said wildlife officials received an anonymous call Thursday from an "agitated man" after the sighting was reported in local media. The caller simply said, "Leave goat man alone. He's done nothing wrong."
"I want people to enjoy Utah's wildlife. We live in a really neat place. We have wildlife all around us," Douglass said. "We just want people to be safe."
Coty Creighton, 33, spotted the goat man Sunday during his hike. He said he came across the herd, but noticed something odd about one goat that was trailing behind the rest.
"I thought maybe it was injured," Creighton said Friday. "It just looked odd."
He said he pulled out binoculars to get a closer look at the herd about 200 yards away and was shocked. The man appeared to be acting like a goat while wearing the crudely made costume, which had fake horns and a cloth mask with cut-out eye holes, Creighton said.
"I thought, 'What is this guy doing?' " Creighton said. "He was actually on his hands and knees. He was climbing over rocks and bushes and pretty rough terrain on a steep hillside."
Creighton said the man occasionally pulled up his mask, apparently trying to navigate the rocky terrain. The man then appeared to spot Creighton.
"He just stopped in his tracks and froze," he said.
Creighton moved down the mountain and hid behind a tree, then began snapping photographs.
The goat man then put his mask back on, Creighton said, got back down on his hands and knees and scurried to catch up with the herd.
"We were the only ones around for miles," Creighton said. "It was real creepy."

Where Did All the Saber-Tooth Tigers Go?

Actual picture I took of a Saber Tooth Tiger.  I found him right after I had a nice conversation with Bigfoot.  OK, just kidding.  But really, where did all the Saber Tooth Cats go???

Where did all the Saber-Tooth Tigers go?  And while we're at it, where did all the Wholly Mammoths, Giant Sloths, and other giant mammals of the Ice Age go?  That's a good question, one that no one really knows for sure, simply because there was no one around at the time to write down what happened.  There were people around at this time would have actually observed these extinctions, they just couldn't write at that time.  The odd thing is, when these extinctions were taking place people were moving into, and expanding rapidly across the North American continent.  The obvious explanation might be that these giant mammals went extinct because of all the people moving into the continent.  However, the people were also moving into the continent because of a recent warming in the climate.  So maybe the animals went extinct because of the change in climate.  There are several explanations for these extinctions which scientists have hotly debated for decades.  Lets take a look at a few of the more prominent ones.

The most widely known explanation for the extinction of large mammals at the end of the Ice Age is over hunting by humans who recently colonized the continent.  This is a very simple explanation, humans, new to the continent simply hunted the large mammals until there where no more.  The problem with this hypothesis is that the human population was probably not dense enough to exert such a huge hunting pressure.

A second explanation is the climate change at the end of the Ice Age.  Warming caused a change in the available food for all animals.  This caused starvation of large herbivorous mammals, therefore causing the predators to starve also.

A third explanation is that when humans invaded the continent, they altered the ecosystem so that it could no longer support many large mammals.  Of course hunting played a role in this, but also as humans consumed plants, and used fire to alter the ecosystem.  As humans ate certain plants, animals had to change their food sources.  As humans burned areas with fire, say changing a forest into a grassland, only certain animals could survive.  Basically, humans altered the ecosystem in ways that changed food chains, causing some animals to die off and others to thrive.

A fourth explanation is the most complex.  It is that all three of the above played a role in the extinction of large Ice Age mammals.  Through a combination of a warming climate changing food sources for animals, hunting by humans, and human alteration of ecosystems by use of fire and harvesting of plants and animals, large mammals went extinct.  This seems to be the latest consensus of the scientific community.  Different species of animals would have gone extinct as a result of different factors.  Some may have been hunted to extinction, others died as their food source changed, and others died as their ecosystem changed.

All this has huge implications for our world today.  Today again we are going though a change in the climate.  Plants and animals are having to adjust what they eat and where they live as the weather warms.  Humans also are changing the landscape in very drastic ways, also causing animals and plants to change where they live.  Basically, those that are able to survive and adapt to these changes will survive.  Those that can't will die off.

Oh-ya, there is another explanation for the Saber-Tooth Tiger that a few people support.  That is, that the Saber-Tooth Tiger is still living today, probably hidden away in some remote forest cave as a pet of Bigfoot or the Lock ness Monster.  Hmmm...

A man about to be eaten by a Saber Tooth Cat.  The man has no idea what's coming.

The Science of Fishing

Bluegill.

Fishing may not seem like an extremely scientific activity, but in reality it can be extremely scientific.  When fishing you have to take into consideration the basic food chain, fish as well as bait behavior, and the local ecology.  For example, I grew up fly fishing for trout and learned a lot about all of the above.  Trout are towards the top of the food chain in a stream and mostly feed on small aquatic insects such as scuds, may flies, and caddis flies.   Every region and every stream has their own specific set of aquatic bugs.  So a basic knowledge of what types of bugs are in a certain stream will automatically give you a huge advantage towards a successful fishing trip.  You can easily identify the aquatic bugs of an area simply by picking-up rocks off the bottom of a lake or stream and seeing what bugs are crawling around on them.  Secondly, certain bugs are only active at certain times of the year and therefore fed on by fish at certain times of the year.  These bugs can be found simply by looking for what bugs are swimming around in the water or floating on top. 

A lot of fish behavior will be determined also by bug behavior as well as habitat.  I have found that in many trout streams bugs are most active during the middle part of the day and therefore trout are also most active during the middle of the day, making it the best time to fish.  Bass and bluegill though seem to be most active early in the morning or late in the evening, making those the best times to fish for these species.  As for habitat, nearly all fish like some sort of cover whether its a pile of rocks, weeds, or an over hanging bank making these the best areas to fish. 

Rainbow Trout.

But whatever you are fishing for, a little background knowledge can go a long ways.  Research and try to find out 1. what is available for the fish to eat at that time of the year (that is what lure or bait to use), 2. how is that food behaving or how can you get the fish to eat it (how to retrieve the bait or lure), 3. where should I place my lure or bait (in the current, next to the current, by a bank over hang, next to weeds...).  Looking at fishing this way make it a little more complex then just casting a worm out there and waiting.  But it can also make the whole experience a lot more educational, interesting and successful.  I definitely enjoy fishing a lot more when I look at the trip in this way.  With more fishing trips and more observations you should become more successful.  There is one additional guideline: whatever works for you use it, even if it breaks the above three guidelines.

Life of an Oak Part 1: life as an acorn

A White and Red Oak forest in Eastern Iowa.

This is the first of a four part series on the life cycle of oak trees in the eastern upland deciduous forest.

Hiking though the cathedral like upland forest normally gives us no impression of the journey those trees took to where they are today.  Towering trees give the impression of quiet permanence, as though they have always been there and always will.  This path operates on a different time frame from what we do, years or perhaps seasons as apposed to our hour and minutes.  Very very few people actually are privileged and patient enough to observe this process, let alone live long enough.  The journey from seed, to seedling, to sapling is not survived by many.  It is a long, difficult journey back to the canopy.  Each tree species has a particular preferred route from the ground to the canopy programmed into their DNA.  Any deviations from this DNA program prove fatal for the vast majority of seeds, seedlings, and saplings.  Even when everything follows pre-programmed genetic pathways, the vast majority do not survive, falling to predators or the abundance of natural hazards filling the woods.  But slowly and surely, some do survive, and some do produce seed to start the whole cycle over again.

Pin Oak leaves and acorn.

The Mighty Oak and Vulnerable Acorn
Mighty oaks are revered in every culture they are found as symbols of strength, royalty, high rank, endurance, and even deity.  It is easy to see why when gazing upon a mature oak tree, and it is easy to forget this oak was once an acorn among thousands or millions of similar acorns.  Life as an acorn is quite simple, growing on the mother oak for a year or two, depending on the species, and then making the short quick journey from mother to ground.  This fall is quick and easy but the return is long and difficult, exceedingly few survive.  Once on the ground the acorn finds itself in a rather non-ideal location under its mothers canopy.  Shade from the mother plant can limit growth of young oaks and competition of roots between the plants can end up hurting both mother and child, but primarily child.  So what's an acorn to do?  It can't roll itself to another location and its too heavy blow in the wind.  At the same time often 90 or more percent of these acorns will become infected by insects, bacteria, or fungi, causing them to rot long before they ever have the chance to germinate.  On top of that, deer, turkey, chipmunks, squirrels, and birds of all types literally flock to oak trees each fall, gorging themselves on calorie rich acorns in preparation for winter.  From a practical standpoint none survive this magnet like attraction to acorns.  Literally, searching a forest floor the following spring or even a few months after the initial fall, likely not a single viable acorn will be found.  The food source is simply too valuable for wildlife to leave alone.

The Blessing and Curse of Predators
But with the curse of wildlife gorging themselves comes deliverance.  While deer and turkey consume acorns as soon as they find them, this is not true of all wildlife.  Chipmunks, squirrels, and certain types of birds gather and hide huge numbers of acorns in caches to get them through winter.  Squirrel and oaks seem to be particularly fond of each other.  Squirrels sneak around under oak trees hiding from predators, searching out acorns.  Often acorns hidden under foliage are the first to be gathered.  Foliage that hides acorns also hides squirrels from hawks flying overhead, thus oddly, hidden acorns are not hidden at all from seed loving rodents.   But as squirrels eat they also gather and hide many acorns by burying then in secret locations for winter feasting.  Oddly, Red Oaks appear to encourage both eating and caching of acorns by squirrels at the same time.  Top portions of Red Oak acorns are sweeter while bottom portions have higher proportions of bitter tannins.  Squirrels will bite in, eat the top portions, but leave the bottom behind.  Interestingly, these bottom portions contains the embryo, and even without a top portion the seed can easily germinate and grow, so both oak and squirrel have their nut and eat it too.  Cached acorns are often buried in location away from trees and in open areas ideal for oak seedling growth.  The often forgotten caches later germinate, potentially growing into trees.

Bluejay, picture from allaboutbirds.org

Acorn Snobs
Bluejays and oaks also have a particularly close relationship.  These loud and aggressive birds are like snobbish connoisseurs of the acorn world.  Nothing gets in the way of a Bluejays acorns, and if something does the bird lets it be known loud and clear.  Depending on their mood, nothing is too big for the Bluejay to squawk at or try and chase off.  These birds are quite opinionated, and quite entertaining to watch, as long as you are not the one they are squawking opinions at.  Jays are excessively efficient at what they are designed to do, which is gather and cache large seeds.  Jays have the ability of gather nearly all acorns fallen from a tree within days, without the help of other wildlife.  And true to their connoisseur title, only the best, most viable acorns are gathered.  Jays examine, peck, shake, and weigh acorns in their beaks.  Acorns meeting their high standards are then stored temporarily in their expandable esophagus.  Several acorns can be stored this way and transported quickly to distant locations for caching.

The Bluejay cache is the ideal location for acorns.  High quality seed, buried in the dirt, hidden from predators, in areas away from other trees, like any master gardener would do it.  Most caches will be relocated by the jay and eaten during winter, but many will be forgotten or simply not used.  Some oaks such as the white, prevent their acorns from being eaten by germinating within days of being cached.  Others survive the winter hoping they are lost or not needed by the jay to get through the winter.  Come spring however, the acorns readily germinate, potentially expanding the oak forest.  Very few acorns actually get to the stage of germination, and of the few that do germinate most don't continue much past seedling stage.  Life as an acorn is passive and easy, if survived.  No real work is ever done by the seed.  But with germination begins the work as the tiny oak begins its climb back to the canopy.