Flash

 

As the eagle was killed by the arrow winged with his own feather, so the hand of the world is wounded by its own skill.

Helen Keller

The bosque is an amazing jewel. Loaded with birds, protected from development, and carefully balancing the disparate needs of recreation, safety, access, and conservation. While I often and loudly complaint that most users do not see the best of the bosque I am also amazed how many people we can squeeze into such a small space and keep everyone happy. Being a victim of success is an odd outcome for a nature preserve.

 

 Because the bald eagle is our national bird, we know quite a bit about the biology and habits. But I'll bet that not many people know about the efforts by Zuni Pueblo to maintain a group of 20 or so non releasable individuals. Eagle feathers are a rare treasure, and theirs is the only facility raising eagles with cultural significance in the US. This individual was watching a small flock of gulls, hoping one of them had a large fish that it could steal.

People like to give a bad rap to this eagle for being a thief. Still, it is a noble bird. I like this shot because it highlights the fearsome hooked claws that give them a fantastic fish gripping ability. Eagles don't live in New Mexico but many have flown through this year on their way to breeding grounds. We also see ospreys, who, surprisingly, have nested here in the past.

The killdeer is a strange plover species that often wanders along the edges of the river looking for opportunistic sources of food. It has a very nervous affect, which you would expect from a defenseless bird which just about everything will hunt, from seagulls to domestic dogs.

For a small duck, the bill on the shoveller species definitely stands out. I think this is a female but the males can look similar when in non breeding plumage. That large bill allows these ducks to strain small aquatic insect larvae from the water more effectively than the more generalist mallards.

I think these are ring billed gulls. If you look close, you can see the ring on their square profile bills that are a target for juveniles at feeding time. They are attracted to the rich bounty of the landfills of Rio Rancho, but like to roost in the middle of the day on the river. This behavior likely reduces the space competition with the common ravens. These gulls don't seem to feed on fish, much to the dismay of the eagle that hopes to snatch those. Those trips up and down the bajada form part of the complex web of nutrient cycling of the riparian habitat.

Fish, birds, and water form a complex web of interconnections that no one understands at the local level. This applies double to birds that are capable of traveling the length and breadth of the United States. This blue heron is showing the plumage feathers that are two very thin feathers on the back of the head. It is odd that in an area with all the required needs for breeding, this bird does not have any established heronries that I have found. In other areas, such as Colorado, this indicates disturbance, especially by people on watercraft. While the animal is common overall, there is some debate as to whether the populations are decreasing in the Southwest.

Common mergansers are a fish eating diving duck that I saw near to the roosting seagulls. They don't eat trash and I noticed the small flock of these distinctive birds moved on after only a few days.

Woodpeckers are a typical bird using its feeding method to also create nesting sites. Their drumming on dead wood is both a type of communication, method of locating insects, way to catch insects, and also create nest cavities. Multitasking doesn't come close to describing their skills with dead wood.

Humans use wood for food and shelter, but not in the same way other animals do. This is a southwestern subterranean termite and there are at least ten species of them. The type of caste that reproduces is called "alates". These are not ants, and very few species damage houses. On warm, moist days the winged, fecund members of the colony form a swarm and spread out after mating to form new colonies that mostly feed on tree roots is moist soil.

This rather large leaf-hopper is a Texananus species. They are known for being vectors of plant diseases. This is bad news in monocultures like those found on huge mid-western farms, but parasites in general are excellent at promoting diversity and encouraging resilience in places with a variety of interconnected forests ecosystems. These insects have adapted their lifestyles to human farming practices and will never be eradicated by pesticides.

No one seems really sure what this plant eating beetle is, but with so many species, that isn't surprising. 25% of all species on earth are a beetle, (many of the rest are wasp species) and there are many more yet to be discovered.

Family Cecidomyiidae. This is one of the numerous gall midge species. Many important farm crops become damaged because of an overactive defense reaction to an insect's attack. Other, wild plants produce galls as a way to limit the insect's spread. This interaction between plant and insect evolution is completely under studied when compared to other areas of insect and plant biology. For example, we  don't know why these insects are one of the few animals capable of producing carotenoids. But we do know they used a set of genes from a fungus that was spliced into their own DNA to be able to do it.

Infraorder Bibionomorpha is the group of insects just above gall midges in the taxanomic hierarchy. This insect has larva that eat decaying plant matter and fungi instead of producing galls. These are some of the first insects to appear in the early spring and support a huge food pyramid of mind goggling complexity involving hundreds of other species, such as small insect eating birds, raptors, and mammals.

Oxypoda is a species of Rove beetle, found in the soil and on fungi all over the world. Not much is known about them. People aren't sure if they do actually eat fungi, or when the larva pupate into adults. Insects that live in the decaying leaf litter often are able to survive thought the winter as fungi are resilient to cold or dark weather.

Diamesa is a small non biting midge in the bloodworm family. Bloodworms often thrive in oxygen poor water such as those found in water saturated bogs and drainage ditches.

 

 Crickets will migrate into houses in the winter. They don't like the dry conditions found inside but they appreciate the warmth and they are omnivores that can eat a little of just about anything. They aren't singing yet as the temperatures are much too cold to be trying to attract other crickets.

Rumex is a group of plants found in marshy areas and are the sole food source for the ruddy copper butterfly. While the plant is used widely as both food and medicine by people it certainly isn't at any risk of over harvesting. Just like the Yerba mansa, the actual knowledge of foraging is shrouded in myth and chicanery.

Birds are famously nest producers and their use of plants for this purpose is impressive. Some of the passerine birds have begun to build nests. The larger birds tend to re-use old nest sites, and often use nest building aptitude as a part of their courtship rituals.

There is always debate whether porcupines are trying to camouflage themselves as an abandoned nest, or if the likeness is just incidental. Right now the porcupines are congregating in common areas, attracted by the new buds being produced by the trees and the many areas available for snoozing and feeding.

Porcupines actually need a variety of trees to survive. They feed on the thin bark of Russian olive and elms, but they also need old growth cottonwoods to sleep in during the day and swales of coyote willows or New Mexico olive to hide in during their foraging.

The area of the river near to the Biopark is being cleared to reduce the fire danger to nearby structures. Each year the city crowds more into the areas around the river and the riparian habitat is being lost. Without varied tree cover, there are no animals that are going to be able to live here. The only animals you see now are bike riders and dog walkers. The winter is bad because there is no shelter for anything larger than a mouse, but in the summer there is no plant material to hold the moisture and the dust blows over barren soils.

 

It is sad that we are more able to agree on destroying nature, than we are on learning why it needs to be saved. A day's work with a bobcat and a couple of people can produce a pile of sawdust and another pile of logs. But if people change their minds about forest management, it will take more than twenty years for the bosque to regrow those trees.

 

 Of course, this is not to say that the forest doesn't have engineers constantly working on it. This irrigation ditch has been dammed by a beaver and the sediment is slowly filling it in. One day, if left alone, this area will become a meadow. But as it slowly transitions, it supports a succession of different ecosystems, each with their different relationships and roles to play. Even the diversity of wet and dry areas improves the variety of places animals can call home. In a patchwork of ecosystems the boundaries are always areas that are most productive.

 

Beaver used to be plentiful, but they are coming back and have learnt a trick or two in the meantime. They have adapted to changing conditions and learnt to avoid humans and their activities. Where the river is channelized, they dig burrows instead of building stick dams. But they still like to fell trees, as much as a chew toy as a way to reach tall branches.

 

 When the fruit trees at Wagner's farm are pruned, animals move in to investigate. Sandhill cranes like to feed on fallen apples. 25% of an apple harvest that is used to press juice in the fall is waste. This material, termed pomace is often left in the fields for the wildlife. The skunks, porcupines, cranes, and coyotes clear it up with relish.

The Corrales bosque is a hard place to enforce laws, so the local emergency services have to be creative. But no amount of surveillance is ever able to replace the support and vigilance of the local population. Those who visit do not always follow the rules, but the majority do appreciate the preserve as a treasure. Generations of people have lived and thrived in Corrales without the need for any exclusions. But as the threats from outside the community continue to mount in number and risk, it requires everyone to realize we have a treasure here worth thinking about and protecting better.