growth

The evenings in Corrales are pretty magical now. As well as spectacular sights like sunsets, moon rises, and red mountains there is now the added mix layer of an aural soundscape. Critters have begun chirping, roaring, hooting, buzzing, howling, and trilling all around us.

This sight was inevitable as soon as I saw the aphids being chased by ladybugs yesterday. These are toad eggs laid in strings looped around underwater vegetation. Almost certainly wood house toads. This site is always early.

Another dead raccoon. The cycle of birth and death continues. The raccoon has learnt to coexist with humans over generations. There are many casualties to the learning process and the species as a whole is insanely evolved and successful to coexist with naked apes and their animal companions.

this ditch bank is still being created, each evening raccoons patrol the banks for tens of miles looking for...anything. They are likely scooping up migrating toads at the moment. It is interesting how the tracks keep to the wet, firm, (but vertical) mud.

The middle ditch has many irregularities in its course. These dips form isolated pools that slowly dry up. The many isolated ephemeral pools can be ideal nurseries for so many species of fish, insects, molluscs, crayfish, plants, and amphibians. They are (at the same time) ideal food sources for the raccoon.

one of the meals the raccoons have not apparently adapted to yet, are these invasive Asiatic golden clams that have been exposed in the mud layer by a fast flowing riveulet in the ditch. 

the roadside ants in wet weather will build up the entrance to their burrows into these cones, presumably to prevent water puddles from filling them up.

red harvester ants are busy extending their real estate. They are carrying small pebbles out of the nest. The gravel mounds will often get pretty extensive by the fall.

these are another type of harvester ant, with big square heads. They appear to prefer dry clay soils and are busy collecting elm seeds. Many seed pods show signs of ants cutting out the center "meat" to make it easier to carry the seeds back to the nest.

These ants are more like the ants found in the city. They are more assertive than the gentle harvesters and are definitely taking over and displacing the bigger ants. This has wiped out the horned toad lizards that relied on harvester ants as a food source.

ants are not a great food source, they usually taste bad and are mostly spindly and covered in indigestable chitin armor. But there are a lot of them. These holes in the loose dust are antlion traps laid out to catch the ant scouts. I haven't yet found the fearsome looking larva that lurk at the bottom of the cones yet.

adult antlions look and act very different than the larva. Adults look similar to this damselfly, which is itself not a dragonfly. Notice the wings lie flat along the abdomen.

This is heron poop. These patches are at regular intervals along the clear ditch but only where it is relatively quiet, with low human activity in the early mornings. Herons clearly use listening as part of their hunting strategy.

So, if you find heron poop on the ditch, turn around and look at the nearest tree that has bare branches. Chances are there will be a pair of beady eyes looking back, willing you to just move it along now.

Not every fisherman is so rude. This pair of snowy egrets are skittish, but as long as they have their space, they get right back to their spearfishing. The small fish try to hide among the twigs, with some limited success. If they go to deep water they are safer from heron, but will fall prey to predatory fish. A classic rock and a hard place.

None of these issues affect other spectators, like this duck. Both genders are amazingly well camouflaged when they hold still and just watch the world going by.

Plants need to be the opposite of camouflaged to attract insects. They advertise sugar in colors that attract their preferred pollinators. Kind of like the eye catching colors found in the supermarket sugar pop aisle.

I am a little creeped out by the flowers following the sun. I always think they must turn and look in unison at people as they walk away. A little to much thinking for a non-thinking organism.

The irises in the ditch have taken root and flowering now. Very weird flowers, bred to look showy and basically nothing else.

420 million years ago vascular plants evolved. Flowers have only been around for the last 125 million years. Between those two epochs, gymnosperms like these evergreens had to find a non-insect mating strategy. Trees today use the wind. The pollen is blown from these pollen structures to the "fruit"

Fruit looks very different today, yet these ancient pine cones are still used to release seed.

This structure is the growing end of a branch, that with surprisingly little genetic tweaking, can become a reproductive structure.

pine cones are beloved of squirrels. They are out in abundance right now, twitching their tails in defiance of snuffling dog noses.

Those squirrels are in a hurry because come near sunset they had better be hiding. There is not much the eyes of an owl hunting to feed two chicks and a mate is going to miss. A classic murder-floof.

this is a picture of one of the turkey vultures is the area that are currently hunting in a large group. They look menacing, but are completely harmless.

the coyotes are definitely daylight hunting right now. Give them their space. They are not interested in your dog....in general.

With the rabbits back in town, the coyotes are sniffing out the young coneys in their nests.

The warm weather is bringing out many fishermen. Consequently, the amount of ditch trash and detritus is increasing. Most of it will need to be removed eventually because it cannot degrade. This common carp is huge, but not what most fishermen are looking for.