Develop

 Spring is a big change, the first of the plants have begun to transform the landscape and the whole color of the world alters from browns and greys into reds and greens. The changes are partly predictable year on year. But with each annual cycle, deeper changes also continue over time since biology began.

Western tansy mustard is a native annual plant that specializes in rapid growth on bare clay soils. The family Brassica is very important economically. It contains many other vegetables developed through selective breeding. This particular plant is classified as a therophyte and survives hot, dry conditions as a seed, lots of them that right now carpet anywhere there is dry and disturbed.

This is a plant called purple mustard or cross-flower and is in the same family as western tansy. It is an introduced species, but the family is amazingly tough and adaptable. Plants that have many common names usually are found over a wide area and all mustard plants seem to have many names. Cruciferous plants like these are readily domesticated and have been developed into everything from turnips, radishes, cabbages and brussels sprout.

 

Botany is confusing, and made worse by the conflicting needs of biologists, gardeners, and farmers. This plant (Sisymbrium iri) is also a mustard plant, colloquially known as a cruciferous plant, in the Brassica family. The common name "london rocket" is crazy in that a single reference from 2010 suggests a physician from 1666 found them in London. The name "rocket" is an anglicized version of the latin name that encompasses several, unrelated species of mustard. While botany is uniquely crazy, the real world of biology can be just as odd. This plant was never designed to survive in hot deserts, but by virtue of being an annual was uniquely adapted to flourish in the fleeting spring conditions and then hide in the soil as an impervious, tiny seed.

This dock species pops up in the ditches in the early spring, Unlike the mustards, this amaranth family plant is a perennial which means it lives for more than 2 years and does not grow wood. This distinction is rather arbitrary. The root-stock survives underground during the winter and roots store energy reserves in the form of carbohydrates. Bitter tannins protect this storehouse from browsers such as underground voles.

 

 I think this is a globe mallow. This plant is a cornerstone of the insects that come once the frost threat have passed and the minimum temperatures stay above 40 degrees. The dry, center stalk is the remnant of last year's growth.

This plant has the common name of summer cypress.As genomic science advances, the scientific name of this plant has also changed. It is often called kochia locally. In the summer and early fall, these plants will dominate and spread seeds by forming tumbleweeds, although there are other plants that also have that same name.

This insect is actually introduced from Japan. It has since traveled widely by thriving in greenhouses and living in plant pots sold in stores across the world.

Botany is a relatively calm discipline. Mobile organisms have a much more abrupt life. This is a young assassin bug. It uses a needle proboscis to suck juices from the insect prey it hunts in the new leaf growth that is just beginning in the Siberian elms.

Night time in the bosque is certainly a lot more active that it would seem to those of us who snooze through the night. The flat molars show a lot of wear and suggests an old beaver. This rodent is one of the favored prey items of mountain lions. It would almost certainly be too much for a coyote to handle, unless it was very unlucky.

Sunsets are always spectacular as the low sun colors the Sandias pink, red, and golden for a few minutes each evening. The clouds have not yet delivered any moisture, but they still provide a blanket to keep the warmth of the earth from bleeding out into the vastness of outer space.

As coyotes interact with humans more and more, interactions are going to get more intense. This one, however is most likely trying to find that beaver carcass in a crowd of dog walkers and not, quite ready to give ground.

All the fresh green growth has encouraged rabbits to nibble the new leaves, while the gophers seek out the new roots below. Both types of activities draw the attention of predators such as this red tailed hawk.

Beavers and water rats live together into a small community based around the dam of sticks that are used to build a still pond. The bigger beavers do the actual work of engineering the dam, but the musk rats act as daytime eyes and ears. They also trim cattails and provide housekeeping duties while not competing with the shy beaver's food sources.

Porcupines rely on their sharp quills and inaccessible heights of old trees for protection. They are numerous in the bosque but very spread out and they tend to avoid busy areas. They do not draw attention to themselves much and their dense fur coats break up their distinguishing facial features, which are very small in any case.

Birds are ridiculously the opposite to mammals, they flash bright colors and often have loud calls and exaggerated movements that draw attention. Wood ducks epitomize this excess of stimulus, which is odd given how much they try to avoid attention when not in breeding season.

Red wing blackbirds are spreading in the Corrales region as the cattails spread. The two species are linked closely. The distinctive calls have begun to fill the mornings as the males ward off each other and entice the females.

unlike the wood ducks, the towhee is never surreptitious or silent. Like other birds, it also has that crazy red eye as it searches for food in the forest floor.

Western bluebirds are common now and many have begun to create nests in old buildings that dot the Corrales landscape most birds have begun their various breeding rituals, which are impressively varied.

This whip tail was enticed outside by the warm temperatures. It probably was paralyzed by lower temperatures and died. Sometimes changes can come too quickly for a chance to adapt, but the species will become very numerous as the heat of summer allows them to spread out once more over the ground. New Mexico whiptails like this are all female, not requiring a separate gender. This parthenogenesis is exemplified by this species and can be found in organisms that need to spread quickly to take advantage of resources of space and insects. Aphids also have this ability. Just one more strategy of animals and plants that surprise and provoke wonder of the natural world we live in.