News From the Wilds

5enses • 10

5enses January 2020

5ensesmag.com

News from the Wilds

by Ty Fitzmorris

Mayflies (order Ephemeroptera) only live for a couple of hours as wingedadults, andcan be seen emerging during warm January days

in the Mogollon Highlands is when the long J anuary quiet ofwinter reaches its coldest and snowiest.

Storms bluster and howl, pushing plants and animals to the limits oftheir endurance. The frigid days, however, are often interspersed with sunny, cold days that skitter with bursts ofbird and mammal activity. Every plant and animal has a set ofstrategies for making it through this time ofscant resources and dangerous temperatures. Pregnant female black bears hibernate in underground dens. Bobcats, coyotes and deer grow thicker coats and subtly reroute blood flow away from their skin and extremities. Ground squirrels, chipmunks and beavers settle into the well-stocked dens that they’ve been provisioning for months.

Insects and herbaceous plants have evolved so that only their eggs and seeds overwinter. Trees decrease photosynthesis, by either dropping leaves or insulating them with thicker coatings, and alter their chemistry by increasing lipid content and membrane permeability to reduce risk offrost and freeze damage. Often these adaptations, both physiological and behavioral, are remarkably complex.

But the glimmers ofthe coming spring continue as well. Some animals are “planting their seeds” for the coming year, including the black bears and river otters, both ofwhich give birth this month. Many ofour wind-pollinated trees are in flower during this time, when the broad leaves ofdeciduous trees have been dropped, and this allows windborne pollen to reach farther without as many obstacles. Unfortunately the many species ofjuniper in our area are among this group, making the next several months the peak allergy season for humans (and some other animals) in the Mogollon Highlands.

With its snowfalls and floods, January is one ofthe best times ofthe year to study the activity ofmammals, by examining their tracks in fresh snow and floodswept riverine sand. Not only does this season present us with the best tracking substrates, but mammals are particularly active during the breaks between storms, as they search actively for food, so a small area ofpristine snow or mud can yield amazing tracks and fascinating stories. Look especially for intersecting trails of different animals, and signs ofpredators tracking prey. We are lucky to live in a part ofNorth America where activity in the wilds never goes completely silent, and the stories ofour animal neighbors are abundant.

January is an idealtime to look for tracks, like those left by this foraging raccoon.

Ty Fitzmorris is an itinerant and often distractible naturalist who lives in Prescott

and is the Curator ofInsects at the new Natural History Institute at Prescott College.

Reach him at Ty@PeregrineBookCompany.com with questions or comments.

5enses January 2020

5ensesmag.com

High Mountains

• Snow covers the high mountains and melts slowly, trickling through the soil to recharge the large underground lakes we call aquifers. Aquifers recharge at extraordinarily low rates, however, and typically only from this type ofgradual melting. Snow will cling to the north sides ofthe mountains for many months, feeding our rivers and aquifers through the spring.

• Black bears give birth, usually to two blind cubs. Cubs will stay denned with their mother for several more months, and forage with her through the next year before establishing territories oftheir own.

Example: Spruce Mountain Loop, Trail #307

Ponderosa Pine Forests

Riparian Areas

• River otters give birth in riverside dens, while beavers begin their mating season nestled in their lodges.

• Arizona alders (Alnus oblongifolia) begin flowering. These beautiful trees don’t typically cause allergies, though they may slightly exacerbate those caused by junipers. Notice that the alders bear two different designs of flower — small, round, cone-like growths, and long, pendant droops.

The cones are the female flowers, which capture the pollen from the long male flowers. Some types ofcone actually manipulate air currents around them, pulling pollen inward in small whirling vortexes, and this is more easily accomplished when other trees don’t have leaves to get in the way ofthe windborne pollen.

• January storms knock migrating waterfowl from the sky, and they will often settle in lakes to wait for clearer weather. Exotic species brought into our area in this way include tundra swan, Ross’s goose, blue goose, snow goose, common loon and, extremely rarely, the small, uncommon Brant and the larger greater white-fronted goose.

• Groups, up to 200-strong, ofadolescent and non-breeding ravens forage together in the backcountry. Ravens are unusual among the birds in that they form clear dominance hierarchies and sometimes even hunt in packs with both other ravens and other species, prompting Bernd Example: Sycamore Basin Trail in Sycamore Canyon Wilderness, USFS Trail #63 Heinrich, a prominent raven researcher, to label them “wolf-birds.”

• Great horned owls finish nest-building and lay eggs.

Deserts/Chaparral • Northern goshawks, the rarest in North America oftheir group of • Packrats ( Neotoma spp.) begin their mating season. Packrat nests can be hawks (Accipitridae), stop over in our region for barely over a month extremely old, with some continuously inhabited for as long as 50,000 before heading back north. These larger cousins to the Cooper’s hawk years.

These species have been instrumental in reconstructing climate are generally denizens ofthe deep wilds, but can be seen across the and vegetation patterns over the last 15,000 years, according to the Mogollon Highlands during this time. research ofThomas Van Devender from the Arizona-Sonora Desert • Ponderosas continue “weeping” excess water out oftheir branch-tips.

Museum.

He discovered that some packrat nests in the Sonoran Desert, This cold-adaptation reduces the risk ofdangerous ice-crystal formation when excavated, revealed needles ofponderosa pine and other conifers, in the tree’s tissue, creating a gentle “rain” oftiny droplets ofsap. suggesting the large-scale migration ofplant communities upslope.

Example: Schoolhouse Gulch Trail, #67 • Desert mistletoe (Phoradendron californicum), a parasite ofacacias, mesquites, palo verdes and buckthorns, bears its red-white fruit. These fruits are eaten by many species ofbirds, but primarily by Phainopeplas (a Pine-OakWoodlands relative ofthe flycatchers). The berries cannot be easily defecated, so the • Williamson’s sapsuckers begin the migration to their summering birds must rub themselves on branches, thereby distributing the fruit to grounds to the north. These woodpeckers make holes in the bark of its preferred germination site, where it can grow into the tissue ofits ponderosa pines and other conifers, and wait for insects, mainly ants, to host. Healthy trees can reject mistletoes by growing bark around the be drawn to the sap. Many species ofoverwintering insects, such as the infestation site, but unhealthy trees can host hundreds ofmistletoe mourning cloak butterflies (Nymphalis antiopa), rely on these “sap-wells” individuals. during the coldest months for crucial nourishment.

Example: Agua Fria National Monument • Javelina conclude their mating season, which began in late November.

Example: Little Granite Mountain Trail, #37

Pinyon-Juniper Woodlands

• Bobcats begin their mating season.

• Our many species ofjuniper begin flowering now, aggravating the allergies ofhumans and nonhumans alike.

• Gray fox begin their mating season, which will last till March.

Example: Tin Trough Trail, #308

Grasslands

• Mixed-species flocks ofsparrows, including Brewer’s, sage, Lincoln’s, chipping, savannah, white-crowned and black-throated, forage together for grass seeds and insect eggs, larvae and pupae. Over the next two to three months some ofthese species will begin migrating back to their summer breeding grounds to the north, some going as far as Alaska.

Example: Mint Wash Trail, #345

Skyward

• 3rd: The Quadrantid meteor shower will be at its peak after midnight.

This mild-mannered shower will be exceptionally visible this evening due to the dark skies ofthe nearly new Moon. The Quadrantids can produce up to 40 meteors per hour, appearing to radiate from the constellation Bootes.

• 10th: Full Moon at 12:23pm • 24th: New Moon at 2:44pm • 28th: Conjunction ofthe Moon and Venus Astronomical Highlight: The brightest stars in the night sky are visible in winter. The totem ofwinter stars is the constellation Orion, containing two ofthe sky’s brightest stars, Rigel and Betelgeuse. Orion is followed through the sky by his hunting dogs, Canis Major, whose brightest star, Sirius, is the single brightest star visible from Earth, and Canis Minor, whose brightest, Procyon, is the seventh-brightest. Look also for Capella (in Auriga), Castor and Pollux (in Gemini) and Aldebaran (in Taurus), which together form the Winter Hexagon.

11•5enses

A briefsurvey ofwhat's happening in the wilds