trees

The link between birds and trees is obvious. Birds nest in trees. Trees use birds to spread seeds. This is the concept of mutualism. But it depends of the bird species.

 

More than half of all bird species are built for perching in tree branches, these are the passerines. Birds of open plains (ostriches), deserts(roadrunner) or wetlands (canada geese) do not benefit from woodlands. Many anthropologists believe wings first evolved to allow small dinosaurs to hop higher into the trees.

In the bosque of Corrales the tree cover is very dense, with a canopy layer of cottonwoods and elms, a midstory of New Mexico and Russian Olive, and a ground cover of Russian thistle and tall grasses. The irrigation canals give small birds a lot of water's edge with cover so they can stay well protected. Easy access to water is a common need for most birds in North America. Human agriculture provides a patchwork of open spaces for a wide variety of different habitats for those birds that are generalists, like pigeons and sparrows.

Most of the small birds that thrive around humans are adapted to a wide variety of food sources. Many, like this sparrow, can hunt small insects and also eat seeds.

Other birds feed on those birds. This small raptor hunts mostly voles that thrive in tunnels along the ditch edges, but it seems to like a wide variety of prey, from birds to grasshoppers. It is an American Kestrel.

Canada geese come to Corrales specifically for the closely mowed fields used by farmers and team sports. Here, the soccer fields in the center of Corrales village are being used by Canada geese who are getting ready to return north for nesting. There are other wild geese that are less tolerant of human presence, like snow geese, and they stay further south in the refuges like Valle del Oro, Bosque del Apache, and other wildfowl areas

This is a new nest made by a small passerine. Nesting season is not until April, officially, but not all birds got that memo. This actually a pretty big issue among those who care about the bosque, and often sets the tree managers against wildlife enthusiasts. Other wildland recreational users such as cyclists, equestrians and dog-walkers seem to look on with amusement. The weird kind of pretzel mind games this can lead to are shown in this link about California environmental law.

The winter is the best time to care for trees, especially pruning. There is a minimum of photosynthesis, the sap is not rising in the trees and most insects, fungi and bacteria will not take advantage of easy access to the vulnerable heartwood. For the arborist, when looking at a tree without the leaves, it is easier to see the issues with a tree's structure. It helps that there are also fewer bird nests affected by the activities of chainsaws, falling limbs, and heavy equipment. 

The ice on these two trees on a snowy morning shows where the water vapor is escaping. The precesne of ice shows that is these two trees, water is being transpired, and means the trees are growing, even in the middle of frozen winter.

 

In many areas where the Russian Olive grows in thick forests, many groups (likely recreational forest users) will prune the larger limbs back for better trail access. This creates many problems, but the worst is how the tree grows back (I'll get into that later). The big limb trail obstructing is gone (orange wood at middle left of picture), but the tree now quickly sprouts a thicket of smaller shoots (smooth silvery bark), summer or winter.

The specific gravity of wet wood is 1.5. Meaning it weights 50% more than the equivalent volume of water. Anyone who has tried to move a full horse trough knows this means even a short tree is virtually impossible to drag anywhere, even without pokey bits and ground obstacles. So the fallen or cut wood mostly has to be left in the bosque. Downed wood is great habitat, also ready-made barriers to illegal trails, but a fire hazard. Also, that wood has enormous value, that is needed to be recouped and allow people to make a living from wood. This important because people only preserve what has value to them, and nothing has better value than a livelihood. Many people in New Mexico make their living from removing trees.

 

There is a huge argument over what constitutes an "invasive" tree. And the fight is not trivial; if no-one can decide how to manage a forest, how can it be managed? We can't even figure out WHO should manage a forest. There are just too many stakeholders with conflicting interests. This stump is a Russian olive tree. A fire hazard and invasive tree crowding out the the taller cottonwoods to some. An invaluable source of food and shelter to many birds to others. Neither argument stands up to close scrutiny however, because both points of view are sort of correct, and also flawed on a fundamental level. Stumps like this are not possible to remove on any practical level, and poisoning them has all sorts of confounding issues. Chopping a tree down is easy, but takes some co-ordination, timing, and a lot of luck for the entities who have the clearance and machines to do it.

 

The most remarkable aspect of a Russian olive, to me, is that they are indestructible. Here, the new growth has thrust up again from the stump. This growth is controlled by a complex chemistry. But it boils down to a basic premise that has been used in other countries (Britain) to control forests in a less destructive way. In the short version, if you cut the top off a plant, it grows sideways (bushy)

But push a tree sideways....and it grows...upwards. As a former trails maintenance volunteer in England, I have seen this growth pattern before. 

It's a hedgerow. 

A hedgerow is an environment used in the eastern states of the US and Europe to mark boundaries. In Derbyshire, where I went to school, they used double hedges as boundary markers instead of barbed wire. But hedgerows are mostly a way of working with the environment and connecting with a past that goes back generations into pre-history. They are far more than a simple fence.
It isn't hard to make a hedgerow ecosystem, but the art is not something that is recognizable in the Southwestern US. No one is going to put the work into building hedges when in the SW the culture and industry practice is to quickly put up three strands of barbed wire and move on.

Another forestry practice is the creation of brush piles. In most colleges that teach forest techniques, brush piles are formed for the purpose of burning. But they are also awesome habitat, especially if they are partially covered in dirt to increase the humidity for detritivores. Firewood has some value, but wood can be so much more. Almost nobody thinks about the soil environment below their feet in the forest. Out of sight, out of mind. Trenches and holes are very useful for plants and animals to thrive but rarely thought of as important by people who like flat surfaces.

Currently, wood is piled along the bottom of the levees for removal at some future time. The costs in terms of energy, time and/or money is enormous. And there is not much money available for this kind of  haulage work. Even if there was, there would be disagreements almost immediately over the scope, goals, and purpose of the removals. The work is done as an afterthought, when other priorities have been completed.

In many area where the bosque meets the fields or gardens of people, there is a thick border of young elm trees. Often they grow too close together and sort of serve as an adhoc fence. People have a proven history of applying the right conservation measures at the wrong times, but almost ever day I look at these nascent wood lots and wonder what could be. In modern times, carbon offsets are purchased by computer server companies. The theory is that growing trees sequester carbon. . The whole market relies on growing trees, and a shaky financial system (valued at $1 billion dollars in 2021, but with unlimited growth) that sounds a lot like a cryptocurrency system. I always wonder, who is it that actually owns all these trees, whose future we fight over?

Start

The cabbage white is usually one of the first butterflies to be seen in the Spring. Their caterpillars feed on brassicas notably nastertium, conveniently enough one of the first crops to grow in a garden, often as a sacrifice crop. The mustard grasses, which are related, are one of the first "weeds" to appear, often before the frosts have finished. Cabbage whites have few predators. Firstly, because of the time of year they are around, but also because of the bitter compounds they ingest as caterpillars. Some other blogs have documented their growth very closely. Pesticides do not work well on butterflies that are already toxic and reproduce several generations in a summer, so others on the internet have become very creative using basic biology concepts. This particular insect is well studied in high school biology classes, as it is around long before school is over for summer.

The vertical, stiff tail of this northern red shafted flicker shows its woodpecker heritage. These birds use the feathers to brace against the tree bark while they hunt for bugs up and down the trunk. They feed on fruits and seeds during the winter. They forage on the ground a lot more than a typical woodpecker in the summer. Some birds, including flickers, perform a behavior called "anting" which is still unexplained.

The trail cam on the bird bath often gets more visits than a bird feeder, partly because the grey squirrels regularly clear out the feeder, and also because there are many other feeders around for the feathered fiends to go to. Flickers have their own personalities and seem to mingle quite well with the doves, with whom they share a similar interest in winter foods (fruits and seeds). This picture shows the black throat patch characteristic of the flicker plumage.

 

This flock of bluebirds seem to be a little wary of the flicker. It is lifting the bill to dribble water down that long beak into it's throat which must seem very bold to the more effete blue passerines. Kind of like a biker in a bar with a beer mug being watched by a group of college kids.

 

Turkeys were once eliminated from the Sandia mountains but reintroduced in 2004 and are thriving by all accounts. Corrales has a small flock that is pretty well known, but these are "feral" and descended from domestic stock, at least according to local lore. Reintroduction programs are not always how people expect them. There seems to be a lot of details that can lead to unexpected results due to hybridization.

 

 Many birds in the bosque are putting on breeding plumage. Many birds handle this change to the breeding season in different ways. On this heron, you can just make out the blue skin around the eyes (lore), the long black "strings" (feathers) hanging down behind it's head, as well as some markings and extra feathers at the front of the chest. Feathers do all sorts of jobs for a bird, but breeding plumage is arguably one of the most important.

 

There are many fish eating birds that come and go in the bosque but this character is a little odd to see. The shaggy crest and hook on the narrow beak show this is not a mallard. It also acts and moves much more "flighty" than the more sedate mallards; think more race car than family sedan. It is a diving duck and is a called a common merganser. They are more commonly seen on larger lakes but are also often found in mixed company.

I originally thought the kestrels preferred the open slopes of the western sand dunes (bajada) in Corrales bu this one is not looking for a nesting site like I thought. Watching their behavior, this individual at least, was looking very closely at the new gopher holes along the edge in the interior drain along Andrews. I seen it before on the telephone lines. For such a small bird it certainly has an oversized attitude.

 

The daily bird migrations for the flocks continue, but change is in the air. The sandhill cranes and Canada geese are preparing to leave and head north. The numbers in each migrating flock are getting bigger and most evenings some groups are traveling to new places with more water that they can raise a new generation to continue the cycle. I have also noticed a sharp drop off in flock vocalizations as if their moods have become more sombre.

The recent wind and cold has released yet another flood of leaves that will have to picked up to keep family members happy with the state of the garden. Most of these piles will be playing host to crickets, beetles, and other insects soon. Just about everything smaller than a mouse relies on fallen leaves for at least part of it's basic needs of food and shelter.

Few people spend more than a few seconds in the presence of coyotes, which is a shame. I am slowly getting a mental map of the various packs in my neighborhood. The vocalizations are very complex but are basically song-dog texts that signal intent. They keep close track of their different groups, and it is possible to guess what they are after with their communications. Most seem to be adolescents trying to figure out where there is space for them to be welcomed. Where food is good (like Corrales) strangers tolerate each other pretty well, allowing easy travel up and down the river. This large adult is watching me watching her as the sub-adult is loafing in the longer grass waiting for something interesting to happen.

This hawk is being still and well hidden in the mature cottonwoods. I think it is actually worried about being mobbed by crows because it is being very still and staying hunkered down.

The robins do not seem as numerous as they were a week ago, but I have not heard about their migrations, I always assumed they stayed here year round.

I admit I have trouble identifying small yellow birds, but I'm pretty sure these are goldfinch. This is a couple, with the male on the left with the black head. The female is on the right. The bird bath is really just the location for their courtship, kind of like a singles bar.

Infrared photos are a little difficult to get a picture with, but occasionally I get a night visitor. The two feathers sticking up like ears show this is likely a screech owl as it is too small to be a great horned owl, which are the most common ones seen and heard at this time of year as they are already starting to build nests nearby.

White

 

This picture shows the wiry black occipital feathers that form part of the breeding plumage on the back of the head. Herons in large groups have a very complex range of courtship behaviors that we never get to see in Corrales. Best I can tell, during breeding season we have a few bachelors in this area. The situation would be different if we had more acres of wetland meadows. The nearest heronry I can find is near the Pecos river, in western NM.

People who visit semi-rural Corrales from the cities comment on the many of the wonderful sights here. But something that always gets commented on is the amount of feces lying around. I always chuckle at this because if they only knew the half of it... the stories of raccoon roundworm parasites, domestic dogs, the work that goes into dog poop pick up stations in the bosque preserve, the issues around horse manure and removal by municipal authorities... Everyone seems to love a good poop story and there are a lot of them. For example, coyotes and dogs are both attracted to horse droppings. This is bad, because horses and their dung can accumulate Ivermectin used for worm control, which will eventually cause many deadly symptoms in dogs, either medium sized dogs on walks, or larger dogs on farms that have access to a constant supply.

Fallen fruit attracts coyotes as well. The scat coyotes drop at along marking trails is almost exclusively apple right now. The yellow/brown color is very different than the dark/brown, stinky, and slimy scat of domestic dogs (pick up after your pets)

Birds feeding on fish usually drop liquid splashes of white near to their roost spots. Most birds defecate right as they take off, to reduce weight. Another species of heron is called a "shitepoke" because they defecate when disturbed in long grass. The name got changed by the time the reference made it into "Hamlet", according to Wikipedia.

It is kind of rare to find a heron still fishing in the morning, as they are pretty easily disturbed by people's activities. However, they do not restrict their activities to fishing. Great heron are famous for hunting almost anything they can swallow.

Some of the small white pebbles in the dirt near Meadowlark and Andrews Lane is actually the regurgitated meal of an owl. The long incisor in the top and bottom right of this picture are the classic signs of gopher. They are one of the most common prey items in owl diets.

This pile of gold fur confused me for a while. I'm pretty sure now that it was a gopher as some point in the past.

Its hard to say what killed this gopher, but there are many ways people have tried (and failed). It's a bit concerning to be finding so many signs of dead gopher around. There is also a definite increase in pest control companies in Corrales willing to take people's money for an essentially never-ending problem. Given how much the ecosystem relies on these rodents I sincerely hope someone isn't poisoning these animals. It can be terrifying to watch a normally mild mannered gardener, equestrian, or wildlife manager go from rational human, into a snarling predator when talking about being defeated by a furry pair of orange teeth. The pest control companies should know better, but everyone knows we are under pretty strong pressure in these times to produce results. When poisons are used, it is just too easy to not do things correctly. Home owners often try to save a buck and some time by doing things themselves. Most people in the pest control business that I have met love animals far more than their customers. I suspect this one was caught by a domestic cat based on all the marks on the belly

The gophers and horse owners are pretty well known to not get along. Horse owners are also known for not being much into compromises when it comes to risks to their expensive horses but they are usually level-headed for the sake of getting along with their neighbors. Their blogs are friendlier to read than those of most hunters, definitely. Still, Corrales is known as the horse capital of New Mexico, so this issue can be contentious here. The burrowing efficiency comes from these teeth, which excavate dirt much faster than the more usual forelimbs used by other animals such as badgers and prairie dogs. The animals are actually pretty antisocial and deliver a nasty bite if handled. Many traditional practices, like flood irrigation normally keep them away from farms. As modern methods like drip irrigation become more common, the familiar story human versus animal conflicts fought to a stalemate will become more pronounced. My money is still on the gophers strategies, at least at this point.

Glean

The basics of the food chain begin with plants and insects. The MASSIVE amount of dead tree trunks in the bosque provide idea spots for looking in on the insect communities that are beginning to stir in the undergrowth. The largest cut trunks have great moisture and retain perfect microclimates for many species such as wood louse, and spiders

This crab spider species is beautiful and had the typical wide stance of this genus. Not terribly active, they are ambush hunters that prefer to hide in the shadows.

This big specimen is some sort of wolf spider. This large genus has many species in it, some of which grow big enough to hunt tarantulas. Those large eyes in the front show how important vision is to these very active, predatory hunters as they forage in the evenings.

The odd looking woodlouse spider, the only red spider I know of around here. You can see the long, delicate, curved fangs that are designed to reach over the shell of a wood-louse's armor and pierce into the soft underbelly.

 

 Centipedes need high levels of moisture and are often found near white fungus threads (mycelium). Just under the antennae are the two front legs (on the left side of the picture) that have been converted into venomous "fangs." Their scary reputation seems rather overblown to me, but I still wouldn't handle one.

 

 Typically, these Say's bugs, or "squash bugs" are found in the trees or on plants, but during the winter they are hidden under wood piles. They have a foul odor when handled, and pretty well armored, so they do not have much to fear from all the other creatures they encounter.

 In places, the leaf litter is dense and moist. These places hide many insects. Here I found a small box elder bug. The correct term is a nymph, which is a smaller adult insect.

There is a pretty surprising variety of fungi slowly breaking down the wood. These white threads are the actual fungal bodies and occur in the woods, leaves, and soil of a forest. During the breeding season (usually periods of high temperatures and humidity) they will produce spore fruiting bodies that most people identify as "mushrooms"

Many other things under rotting wood can look like fungus. This is a nest brood chamber of a woodlouse spider. The female is guarding a white fibrous mass on the right that is the egg sac. The whole chamber is silk lined to reduced chances of predators or parasites getting to the eggs of the next generation.

Millipedes have 4 legs per body segment, as compared to the centipede's 2. There are many other differences; this insect is a vegetarian and uses a foul odor and a tough shell to deter most predators.

 

 The world of the termite is a lot more complex and fascinating than the pest control companies would like to suggest. Firstly, west of the Mississippi, termites are unlikely to be chewing on your house (blame the fungi instead). Some forms live in old wood, and others prefer the earth. Both forms like high moisture not usually found in human constructions. These soft bodied insects actually use a bacteria in their gut to digest the wood. They begin to form black, winged forms in the spring to spread new colonies.

 

 

This is usually called a generic "white grub" and prominately printed on the side of lawn pesticide concoctions bought at the hardware store. It is the pupa of a beetle (scarab genus). They live underground and eat plant roots, which is why lawn people are offended by their existence. The actual beetle form (probably a darkling beetle) is called the imago.

In some areas, noticeably around tall trees with heavy timber below them, there are large colonies of field crickets. They seem to prefer the edges of bare, dry soil under the largest logs. I was surprised to find they dug tunnels through the dirt and appear to form colonies.

 

This invertebrate is identified as a three lined slug, they seem common under logs that have been thrown into the water filled ditches right now

As long as the water is clear, there are many plants that appear to have no problem growing underwater. Grasses and some forbs are thriving in the shallows. The duck flocks tend to browse them away and make the water too muddy for the plants to get sunlight where the water stationary. I wonder why this stretch of water does not form duckweed?

Patches of the bosque have a covering of Yerba Mansa that thrived during the 2019 bosque flooding we had. This is mullein, that comes up a little later on in moist, but well drained loamy soils.

The mosses from the fall season have mostly vanished, but a few lichen are growing in the shaded areas of good canopy cover. This is a common yellow genus, called "sunburst lichen" that grows on old logs that have lost their bark.

 

 The crows continue to roost in the bosque, facing the setting sun as they squabble over...who know's what? I lump all their activities in the evening under the generic term "flexing". The crows that have paired up, have mostly left to build nests and preform their own courtship behaviors.

The standard white winged dove are showing the blue around the eye that shows they are also getting ready to court. They spend a lot of time on the ground foraging right now as they fatten up to look good for the early summer.

I think this is a mountain bluebird, but my computer app. also suggested a jay. It certainly had an unusual call, sounding like small hands slapping a wet fish.

I have been so used to seeing mallards and teals around Corrales that I had to look again to notice the extra long beak on this northern shoveller at the Tingely ponds. Right now there is a wide variety of water birds there, enjoying the extra wing room only open and still water can provide. It appeared to be feeding on cattails seeds on the surface of the water.

 

This porcupine is resting in a New Mexico olive grove nest to the river. The branches have a shiny, smooth covering of bark and some has been nibbled on by this rodent. The hairstyle on it's head looks awesome
 

I can't tell what animal this fur came from. There is actually a patch of skin under it. so this is the long gone remains of some sort of prey. I can't begin to imagine what creature it used to be, but it was out on the levee trail, so at some point a coyote was likely involved.

 

The full moon at night is showing off. Even with some clouds there is a bright moonlit night that is usually a sign that the predators of the night are not going to be successful. Those animals usually prefer cloudy, windy, and dark nights to be able to get the closest to whatever it is they are trying to catch.

A view of the moon in the evening. It often seems like the moon is a lot less predictable than the sun's path across the sky.. The moon often seems to pop up out of nowhere and comes up at different places over the mountain. And unlike the sun, it's presence does not necessarily define when it is night, or day.