Migrants and Residents

#11 Name five full-time resident and five part-time resident birds in your area.


A red-tail hawk family nesting in a saguaro, one of our full-time residents

Everyone loves to deride the "snowbirds" of Arizona, the masses of retirees who winter down here where it is warm, heading north between May and October to escape the insanely hot summer. Or is it that they are residents in the north during the balmy summers, and flee south to escape the blistering cold winters? Either way you look at it, they are in plenty of good company, because hundreds of bird species use the same strategy of seasonal migration to up their chances of finding decent food year round and good nesting sites when the urge to mate urge arises. As opposed to the northern or high-altitude bio-regions where avian life is much more diverse during the summers, the Sonoran desert region hosts more winter residents. We are the south that many birds migrate to during the winter, especially for a lot of ducks and other birds seeking open water. But there are some masochistic summer resident birds that hang around here during the searing hot summer months and migrate further south during our ever so slightly chilly winters. I know of no humans who would choose such a lifestyle!

Then there are those, both birds and humans, who tough out the entire year wherever they happen to be, adapting either to the blistering heat or freezing cold, and maybe even enjoying it. I have to say that my true nature is as a winter adapted bird. I would be very happy as a chickadee, snowy owl, or ptarmigan. But here I am among the cactus wrens, roadrunners and Harris hawks that thrive in a year-round summer climate.

Off the top of my head here's my five plus five:

some Full-time/Permanent Residents:
Cactus Wren, the Arizona State bird
Roadrunner
Gamble's Quail
Verdin
Phainopepla

some Part-timers:
Black-chinned Hummingbird-summer residents
Common Nighthawk-summer resident
White-crowned Sparrow, winter resident
American Goldfinch-winter resident
Western Bluebird-winter resident

Mud Dauber Mom

We recently observed a mud dauber wasp building her nest on our back patio. She was busy early in the morning building the last of nine cells, each of which will eventually hatch out a new wasp. I read in our Field Guide to North American Insects that in order to provide for her young, Momma Mud Dauber stuffs each cell with up to a dozen spiders. We are thrilled, because our back patio has been a refuge for black widows. The last one I spotted had spun a web right next to the door. But since the mud dauber built her nest, I haven't seen any black widows! To me, this is a great alternative to pesticides.

When we first saw her, she had just started the last cell. Within an hour, she had built it up and was ready to cap it off. Now we wait for the next generation to emerge.

Urban Trees

#10 Name five trees in your area? Are any of them native?

One of the things I've come to appreciate about Phoenix is the enormous diversity of trees growing in the city. Though the surrounding desert is mostly lacking in trees, except along watercourses, the well-irrigated urban landscape supports a lush forested landscape of trees from all all over the world. There is even a Department of Urban Forestry for the City of Phoenix that promotes planting trees in the city.

My favorite five around here are:

Desert Willow: This one is native to the Sonoran Desert, growing along washes all the way from Grand Canyon down the Colorado River drainage to the southeast corner where Arizona borders Mexico. They are not willows at all, but have long slender leaves like many willows. Unlike true willows, which are mostly wind pollinated, Desert Willows have huge showy orchid-like flowers that attract many types of pollinators. They are in full bloom all summer long, from April through October, defying the stifling heat and periods of drought that send many desert plants into dormancy.



Jacaranda: This is a tropical relative of the Desert Willow that is imported from Brazil. Huge clusters of extravagant bright purple flowers contrast with elegant white trunks and bright green fern-like leaves. These thirsty trees are not exactly a great choice for desert landscaping, but there are many of them established especially in older parts of the city and they are gorgeous in bloom!



Ironwood: A hearty native famous for very dense wood, ironwood is another spectacular bloomer. These ones burst into a cloud of pale violet about now, and are so pretty in the early morning light. I haven't succeeded in capturing the ethereal quality of flowering ironwoods on film or microchip, but this is sort of what they look like.




Sycamore: In canyons and along the big rivers, sycamores are the giants of the native desert trees. Some of the older ones have trunks up to 3 feet in diameter! These are one native you don't see so much in landscaping, but I'm not sure why. I think they need a little more shade than is available in the city to do really well. This picture was taken along the Upper Salt River. The great white trunks are silouetted in the desert side canyon, survivors of the early days of the Salt River Project, which removed most of the great cottonwoods and sycamores along the river because they "used too much water."


Washington Palm: I love these guys. And they are native! There are a few wild remnant populations in the state, but now they are more abundant in city than in the wild. One of the coolest things about palm trees is that they are most resilient in the high winds of monsoon season. Last fall when we had a huge storm that brought down huge old pines and eucalyptus trees all over downtown Phoenix, the palms just laughed and remained standing. I love the way they look with their skirts, but people are obsessive about shaving them off in the city because they don't like the fact that birds and rats like to nest in them.

Shadows

#9 On what day of the year are shadows the shortest where you live?

The June solstice, usually on June 21st in the Western hemisphere, is the day when shadows are shortest here in Phoenix, but this can vary slightly depending on the calendar year. If we lived in the Southern hemisphere, we would observe the shortest shadows on the December solstice, December 21st. As the sun rises higher in the sky and the days become longer, and warmer (the forecast for Phoenix is 104 F on Friday this week!), the shadows become shorter. A good shade tree is a blessing.

The path of the sun, or ecliptic, is the basis for many ceremonial observances in all cultures. June weddings (in Euro-centric cultures like ours) were originally celebrated around the solstice, symbolic of ancient pagan observances of this celestial event as the marriage of the God and Goddess, or Heaven and Earth, a union that creates the fruits of harvest. I wonder if December is a popular time for weddings in South America and South Africa for similar reasons?

One of my favorite exhibits about the ecliptic, besides the cool archaeological monuments like Stone Henge and some rock art in the southwest, is a contemporary design at the North Mountain Visitor Center in Phoenix. Although I've been aware of the ecliptic and observed the equinox and solstice dates for decades, this exhibit really enlightened my understanding of the dramatic variation in where the sun rises and sets over the year. Seeing this on paper is not the same as standing in the middle of the exhibit and feeling it.

Another fun exhibit or artwork on this theme is a human sun dial at Life Lab near the UCSC campus in Santa Cruz, California. When you stand in the middle of the circle, your shadow points to the solar time of day. I've got some ideas to create a pebble mosaic like this when I have a big enough yard to accommodate one.

Archaeoastronomy, or "the study of how people have understood the phenomena in the sky, how they used phenomena in the sky and what role the sky played in their cultures" is fascinating to me. I wonder how our modern urban cultural myths might change, or have been changed, as we've become less and less tuned to the sun, moon and stars in our daily (or nightly) lives And how would it feel if we returned to judging the time of day by the length and direction of our shadows, rather than using a clock?

First Grade Wisdom

I've been reading Deepak Chopra's book "Life After Death" this week, which explores the idea of consciousness and death from various perspectives. There are more questions than answers on this subject, so it is an area ripe for discussion. So, just to make conversation on the way to school this morning I asked my 7-year-old son, Orion: "Why do you think people are afraid to die?" Orion thought about this for a moment, and said, "Well, I don't know, but I do know that the reason people die is to make room for more people, because if no one died, this would be a very crowded world!"
So true.

And here is Orion, who also says that he is not afraid to die, because he really enjoys living. Eating strawberries and chocolate is his version of heaven!

Growing Season

A more successful and much larger garden than mine at The Farm at South Mountain. This photo was taken in late September.

#8 How long is the growing season where you live?

Growing food in Phoenix is a year round affair, as long as you have water, which, thanks to humongous water projects by CAP (Central Arizona Project canals) and SRP (Salt River Project reservoirs), we have been conditioned to believe we have an abundant supply of. With no significant frost, an attentive gardener can nurture veggies right through the winter solstice here. Diligent growers can also plant and harvest two seasons of annual crops, starting in August and January, according to "Desert Gardening for Beginners" by Cromell, Guy and Bradley. Most gardeners in the area take a break during the hot summer months, from June through August, to let themselves and their land restore themselves.

Timing is everything, as with most anything we do, but especially when it comes to gardening. Last year I attempted to grow squash from seed starting in October, which is way off, since these are one plant that wilts at any hint of frost. Although rare, frost does happen for a few early morning hours during December and January most years, and one morning hovering around 30F is all it takes to put an end to a hearty thirty-foot squash vine. Had I consulted the handy gardening calendar in the above mentioned text, I would have learned that planting in any month between January and July will work for squash to grow to fruit, but forget it after August. I also would have escaped the tragedies of my spring planting of frost tolerant lettuce, kale, broccoli and spinach, which all prefer the fall growing season beginning in August.

So now I'm keeping it very simple, and planted six zucchini transplants yesterday. The book says seeds should go in no later than mid-April, so I'm crossing my fingers that the month old seedlings will be okay. Since the cats have become accustomed to using the fallow garden beds as a "powder room," each plant is protected with a vine cage. I estimate that we will be blessed with an abundant supply of zucchini within a couple of months. We also have a potted herb garden with spearmint, basil, oregano, sage and rosemary to season it with. And a strawberry plant that, if we are lucky, will produce a few succulent snacks by late summer. But that one isn't even listed in the desert gardening book, so we and our suppliers, Home Depot, may be hopelessly optimistic. Thank goodness Safeway is less than a mile away!

Breathing

A good day looking north from the top of Deem Hills

On the long list of things we take for granted that I've mused upon in this blog, including water, waste management services, and food supply, I probably think more about breathing than anything. On the two mornings a week that I hike to the top of Thunderbird Mountain with my faithful hiking partner, Caroline, we are able to take a 360 degree survey of our air shed at 6:00 a.m.

Some mornings, especially after a light rain coupled with wind, the view to the south is blessedly clear enough to see the silhouettes of downtown Phoenix's skyscrapers. All around, layers upon layers of desert hills circle the city. Early morning light gilds the green urban landscape. I feel good about taking a deep breath. Other mornings, we gaze out in horror at the brown smog that has settled in the valley, obscuring silhouettes, dimming distant hills and casting a ghastly haze over everything. What we see is what we are breathing, and this cannot be escaped.

A scary day looking north from the top of South Mountain

According to a recent study published by the American Lung Association in their State of the Air Report (http://www.stateoftheair.org/), Phoenix, Arizona is the 9th most polluted city in the U.S., with over 100 days a year declared "unhealthy" to breathe. This is mostly from ozone, the low level smog that is created from burning fossil fuels, although many locals want to believe it is "just dust." Ground level ozone is produced when nitrous oxides combine with atmospheric oxygen in the presence of sunlight. Cars are the largest emitters of the nitrous oxides, which is why large urban areas tend to have the highest levels of this type of ozone.

I experienced the toxic effects of ozone this winter when I had a chronic cough that was not associated with any infection. My doctor prescribed an inhaler loaded with steroids to reduce the inflammation, and the condition abated within a month. But I can't help wondering what long-term effects are going on deep in my lungs. I have never smoked cigarettes, but that may not matter. Just breathing in Phoenix may create similar effects!

What can be done? This is another one of those "Tragedy of the Commons" issues that requires a cooperative effort to solve. Less driving. More walking and biking. More fuel efficient vehicles. The cumulative effects of each of our miniscule efforts does matter. So now that I'm finished writing this, I will ride my bike, rather than drive, to the grocery store to buy the organic milk and free range eggs that I need to make dinner tonight!