table

 The weird thing about Nature is how it keeps teaching. The Scuzzy ditch is dry, right? No, and here is why that is important....

This is a few days ago, where the ditch was dry, the tadpoles were dead in the last few pools left, and dusty. What you are looking at is gopher holes being made in the formerly wet ditch bed. The water table was at least 2-3feet below this level, because otherwise the gophers would be drowning.

Today, the same area has a pool. The tadpoles are still dead, but the area has some incredible young catfish who somehow managed to survive (probably in those gopher holes). There has not been any new water from the clear ditch, and no-one is bringing fish into these areas. 

Many birds are attracted this the scant water, from ducks, to heron and kingfishers.

    Even now, this dynamic system is adapting and the animals that living there are changing too. Incidentally, watch out for mosquitoes, there are no bats, dragonflies, or tadpoles to control their populations in standing water. This is a rare case where the mosquito swamp moniker might be true....until Halloween, when the temps will drop further.

The dry/wet mud is a great nursery for small plants such as grasses and elm, the meadow plants that are early colonizer specialists. The warm temperatures are allowing a longer growing season for these little guys, if they just can find the comfortable range of moisture, temperature, and shade.

The winter fall is usually hard on the insects the most. Moths go into a torpor on the house walls and are easy to photograph in the early morning. Most of them are one of a few furry species that can tolerate the cold.

However, the high altitude of New Mexico (about a mile high) means the thin atmosphere warms fast in the abundant sunshine, allowing turtles and beetle to bask and get up to working temperature quickly after a cold night. A dark color helps.