Here’s to Spring

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The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another.
The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
Fisherman’s Luck by Henry Van Dyke

Yellow tulips. Photo: Paula Nixon

Yellow tulips.
Photo: Paula Nixon

I just returned from a short trip to California and Nevada where spring is not holding back.  In Los Angeles hibiscus, azaleas, and birds of paradise were in full bloom; mounds of scarlet bougainvillea, visible from the freeway, decorated the hillsides.  On a morning walk in Boulder City, red roses spilling over onto the sidewalk tempted me to stop.

Back in Santa Fe, the arrival of spring is more cautious.  The willows are decked out in bright green and tiny purple crocus poke their heads up out of last fall’s leaf litter, but the robins, now visiting my birdbath daily, sometimes find a layer of ice if they show up too early.  After nearly twenty springs in northern New Mexico I would be more surprised than not if it didn’t snow another time or two.

But the countdown is on.  With each passing day there is a minute or two more of sunlight. Another tree unfurls its leaves and within weeks I’ll fill the glass feeder with sugar water to welcome back the hummingbirds.

 

Western Wind

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March blew into New Mexico.

Grit in my teeth.  Tangles in my hair.  I cursed under my breath—the same feeling I had as a little girl growing up in western Kansas, but without words strong enough to push back against it.

Out running errands fighting the car door at each stop it felt like a gale, but according to the Beaufort Wind Scale  was probably only a breeze.  Moderate, fresh, or strong—no matter—it was enough to lift dirt, leaves, and litter into the air.

At eighteen (hundreds of miles from home, in the hills and trees of eastern Kansas, where they don’t know wind the way we do on the wide open plains) my freshman English class analyzed a poem about a lovesick boy.  He longed for the return of spring and his girlfriend.  Wind was the sign he was waiting for. It was a revelation, an unexpected combination—wind and romance.

But it stayed with me.  Each year, hunkered down in the house, waiting for the dust and pollen to settle I pull out the tattered textbook, filled with penciled notes, and turn to the early pages to reread the words:

Western wind, when will thou blow,
The small rain down can rain?
Christ! if my love were in my arms,
And I in my bed again!
-Anonymous (c. 1500)

 

 

 

Mexican Gray Wolf Census: The Cost of a Count

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On February 18th  U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) announced the results of its Mexican gray wolf census—the annual count of the endangered wolves living in the wild.  The number, 97, is down from last year’s 110.

Photo Credit: Mark Dumont via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Mark Dumont via Compfight cc

Each January FWS conducts its survey from the cockpits of an airplane and a helicopter. It’s the best time of year to count  wolves—they are easier to spot in the snow and their population is at its most stable, pups born the prior spring are almost grown and are running with the adults.

As part of the survey a few of the wolves are darted from the helicopter and are transported to a mobile clinic to be examined and outfitted with radio collars. In this Arizona Daily Sun story, “Anatomy of a Wolf Count,” the reporter walks us through the capture and release process.  It usually goes smoothly and within a few hours the wolf is back on its home turf.  But this year two female wolves suffered complications and died after being captured, sad news any time, but especially in a year when the population decreased significantly.  Because the count is “as of the end of the year,” both wolves are included in the total.

One of the wolves, F1340, died within minutes of being darted.  She was a three-year-old born into the Bluestem Pack in 2013, captured and collared during last year’s census without incident.

Tracking her history through monthly status reports, I discovered that F1340 began to travel away from her pack about this time last year and was spotted by the field team with a male wearing a non-functioning radio collar.  In the spring it appeared she might be expecting pups based on signals transmitted from her radio collar, indicating she was staying in one area, not traveling, probably digging a den.

By mid-summer the field team reported seeing the two adults with five pups.  The new wolf family was named the Marble Pack.  They established a territory in the northwest-central portion of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forests in the White Mountains of Arizona.

In August the field team captured and collared one of the pups, a male, and assigned him studbook number mp1440.  The next month they captured a female pup and gave her number fp1442.  Their father, the alpha male of the pack, remained unidentified.

In what should have been a routine capture operation on January 28th, the field team darted both alphas and one of the pups of the Marble Pack.  As reported above the alpha female, F1340, died quickly and unexpectedly (a necropsy conducted at FWS’ forensics lab may provide more answers about the cause of her death).  The pup, fp1442, was checked for a foot injury and released.  The alpha male, identified as M1243*, formerly of the Paradise Pack, was re-collared and released.

The Marble Pack, now incomplete without its alpha female, may or may not have stayed together.

February is breeding season for Mexican wolves (they mate only once per year).  There is no way of knowing how it might have turned out, but if F1340 had survived she might now be preparing a den for a new litter.  It’s likely the yearling pups would have continued to travel with M1243, hunting, bringing food to F1340, continuing to mature—preparing to disperse, find mates, establish territories.

Even without the alpha female it’s impossible to predict the fate of the Marble Pack.   These wolves, born and raised in the wild, are resilient.  I’ve followed F1340’s original pack, the Bluestems, for years and time after time the family of wolves has survived shootings, wildfire, challenges from other wolves, encounters with livestock and humans, and probably countless other things not revealed by a radio collar or field observation.

For now all we can do is hope.

****************************************************************************************************

*According to the Mexican Wolf Recovery Program Reports #14, #15 and #16 (years 2011, 2012, and 2013, respectively) M1243 was born to the Paradise Pack in 2011.  He left his natal pack late in 2012. When his collar stopped transmitting in 2013, he was considered “fate unknown.”

To find FWS press releases, monthly monitoring reports, and annual progress reports go to The Mexican Wolf Recovery Program.  For more information and ideas for ways to take action on behalf of the wolves go to mexicanwolves.org

Raven or Crow?

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Maybe you noticed me standing in front of Albertson’s last week.  I was wearing a red coat, staring up at a large black bird.  He was perched on a light pole and his squawking caught my ear the moment I opened the car door.

As I stood watching him, trying to figure it out—raven or crow—he lowered his voice.

Have you ever run your fingers over the teeth of a pocket comb?  That’s what it sounded like—the end where the teeth are closest together.  I stood still, trying to memorize what I was hearing, until he flew off.

Identifying ravens and crows has vexed me since I began paying attention to the birds in my neighborhood.

American Crow Photo Credit: goingslo via Compfight cc

American Crow
Photo Credit: goingslo via Compfight cc

Side-by-side, the field guide points out, it’s easy.  Ravens are significantly larger than crows (24 inches long versus 17.5 inches).  But that’s not the way it works in my backyard or the parking lot.  One-by-one, at a distance, it’s challenging. This time I focused more on sound than sight..

Common Raven Photo Credit: ConspiracyofHappiness via Compfight cc

Common Raven
Photo Credit: ConspiracyofHappiness via   Compfight cc

Back at home, I read this article that discusses the differences (wing  and bill shapes, social behaviors, flight patterns) between the two corvids. It was the bird’s location that was a big tip-off—he was scoping out a grocery store and fast food parking lot.  It’s the sociable crow that is much more likely than a raven to frequent urban areas.

To confirm I listened to the  various calls for both birds at allaboutbirds.org and was certain.  American crow.  Corvus brachyrhynchos.

Just in time.  The Great Backyard Bird Count is coming up February 12th-15th.

 

The Bluestem Pack–Late 2015

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Photo Credit: Mark Dumont via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Mark Dumont via Compfight cc

El Niño arrived in northern Arizona last week.  After drenching southern California, it piled two feet of snow in the higher elevations of the White Mountains, the home range of the Bluestem Pack.

It was spring when I last posted an update on the family of lobos. Since then the field team that monitors the endangered Mexican wolf population living in the wild verified that AF1042, the alpha female of the Bluestem Pack, gave birth in April or May to a litter of  eight pups, the largest born since reintroduction began in 1998.

Over the last few months the pack has included  AF1042, five radio-collared offspring born in 2013 and 2014, and the pups of the year.  The alpha male of the pack, AM1341, lost his collar in March (it was designed to drop off when the battery got low.) He may well still be traveling with the family, but is not identified on the monthly status reports.  All of the wolves would have helped in the upbringing of the newest members, although two of the juveniles have spent time traveling on their own, perhaps preparing to disperse and join or form new packs.

Late in the summer the pack killed a calf and a cow.  From what I can tell, reading the monthly updates, a herd of cows was grazing in a summer pasture that was close to the pack’s territory.  The field team first provided a food cache to try and divert the wolves from the livestock, but after the depredations U.S. Fish and Wildlife (USFWS) issued a removal order to shoot up to two members of the pack if they killed any more cattle.

Wolf advocates mobilized a letter-writing campaign to protest the order, but the crisis passed without incident.  No further depredations occurred, the cows were moved out of the area, and the removal order expired.

And now it’s January, the month the field team conducts a year-end population survey.  In years past they have relied on a variety of methods to count the wolves, both collared and uncollared.  In the air they use use airplanes and helicopters to track radio-collared wolves and to visually identify and count the others.  On the ground they set up remote camera traps and travel backcountry roads and trails in vehicles and on foot looking for tracks and scat.

Once the field work is complete, the team will write their annual report and it will provide not only a count but more detailed information about each pack—information that may answer my questions about the Bluestem Pack.  How many of the eight pups survived?  Have the two dispersing juveniles found mates?  Is AM1341, the alpha male, still running with the pack?

This morning it’s cold and the snow is deep in the White Mountains.  But the sky is clear and the wolves with their heavy  coats and big feet are well-designed for winter.  The pups are almost grown.  I can picture the family of lobos weaving through a stand of pines, loping across a mountain meadow, pursuing a small herd of elk.

For more information about the Mexican gray wolf reintroduction program check out USFWS‘s website.  And to learn more about how you can help go to Lobos of the Southwest.

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year!

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Perhaps to those familiar with their ways
The sight would not have been so startling:
A deer fording the Missouri in the early afternoon.
–Kevin Cole*

Photo Credit: ahisgett via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: ahisgett via Compfight cc

I had a few of those moments in 2015:  a family of skunks scurrying down a dark, wet street; a butterfly landing on my sleeve for just a moment; a young buck drinking from the birdbath in my backyard.  Moments that made me hold my breath and stay still.

Thank you for reading my blog.  I wish you a wonderful 2016 filled with magical moments!

*Here is the link to Kevin Cole’s poem “Deer Fording the Missouri in the Early Afternoon”

 

 

 

 

A Story (with kittens) for Christmas

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The Kitten Whisperer

David Schultz as Santa 2015 Photo by Paula Nixon

David Schultz as Santa 2015
Photo by Paula Nixon

Sixty-five?  Seventy?  It’s hard to say.  David looks a little like an outlaw biker: pale yellow bandana, folded neatly and tied into a narrow headband; metallic wraparound sunglasses.  He also looks a bit like Santa Claus:  long white hair with a matching shaggy beard.   Underneath the shades is a friendly pair of blue eyes.

He worked as a grocery store manager and landscaper in California before he moved to New Mexico twenty-odd years ago.  These days he spends most of his time rescuing kittens in Santa Fe.

Over a cup of coffee he told me about a family of cats that he had recently taken in.  The three kittens, all with eye infections were easy enough to capture, but the mother had to be lured into a trap.  He doctored their eyes, fed them, and, most importantly, introduced them to the voice and hands of a kind human being.  Soon they were purring when he held them and gobbling up their mom’s canned food.  Once they were weaned and comfortable with people, the rescue group David works with put them in a foster home and posted their pictures and story on a pet adoption board.

Two of the kittens, Macky and Marco, had Siamese markings and found homes quickly, but it took longer for the third one.  Maez, named by David for the street where he and his brothers were discovered, had a fluffy black coat.  Shortly before we talked, the half-grown cat was finally adopted by a family that included two little girls.  They renamed the gangly feline with big green eyes Shadow Maez.

David looked at his digital watch, time to go.  He had set traps earlier in the day behind the Salvation Army and needed to check them.

I followed him over to the deserted, weedy parking lot.  No luck.  The towel-wrapped traps were empty, the food untouched. We saw the tail end of a cat; it paused briefly to glance over its shoulder at us before it slipped away.   A woman from the dilapidated apartment complex next door came to the chain link fence, concerned about the kittens.  David assured her they were fine.  He would keep setting and monitoring the traps until he caught them all.

We walked back to our cars and David opened the side door of his white van.  Wire racks were filled with the tools of his trade:  cans of cat food, bags of kibble, a stack of clean, folded towels.  He pulled one of the long, rectangular-shaped wire traps out to show me his invention—a piece of Masonite with a small hole, about the size of my fist, cut in it.  He uses the baffle, slipped in front of the trap door, to ensure that he catches the kittens first, leaving the mother free to care for her offspring until all of them can be captured.

Before we said goodbye David pointed out his new personalized license plate.  It reads:  CATRESQ.

I wrote this story about David a couple of years ago when I was working with Felines and Friends.  I caught up with him earlier this month at Petco where he was doing Santa pet photos. During a lull he filled me in on the details of his  most recent rescue kittens—Sheldon, Selver, and Saleena.  The three, tired out from playing, were snuggled down together in a fleece bed in the nearby adoption room.  By now I hope each one has found the perfect forever home, just in time for Christmas! 

 

 

Winter Solstice 2015

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Another year has passed and tonight at 9:48 (Mountain Time) winter will arrive.

Photo Credit: VicWJ via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: VicWJ via Compfight cc

Now Winter Nights Enlarge
by Thomas Campion

Now winter nights enlarge
The number of their hours;
And clouds their storms discharge
Upon the airy towers.
Let now the chimneys blaze
And cups o’erflow with wine,
Let well-turned words amaze
With harmony divine.
Now yellow waxen lights
Shall wait on honey love
While youthful revels, masques, and courtly sights
Sleep’s leaden spells remove.

This time doth well dispense
With lovers’ long discourse;
Much speech hath some defense,
Though beauty no remorse.
All do not all things well;
Some measures comely tread,
Some knotted riddles tell,
Some poems smoothly read.
The summer hath his joys,
And winter his delights;
Though love and all his pleasures are but toys,
They shorten tedious nights.

Healing Waters and a Meteor Shower

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The last week of autumn in Santa Fe has been snowy and cold, cold, cold.

On Sunday Dave and I escaped with a brief road trip to southern New Mexico. After a morning spent shoveling snow we took off late in the afternoon.   We sped south on I25 first passing Sevilleta National Wildlife Refuge, home to a small population of Mexican gray wolves preparing for life in the wild, and then Bosque del Apache, another wildlife refuge where wintering sandhill cranes were likely hunkered down for the night.  By the time we crossed into Sierra County, the waxing crescent moon had sunk below the horizon.

Sierra Grande Lodge Photo By: Paula Nixon

Sierra Grande Lodge
Photo By: Paula Nixon

Just a little over three hours after pulling out of our driveway we arrived at the Sierra Grande Lodge in Truth or Consequences.  The charming old hotel  sits on a  natural geothermal spring that “flows out of a rift along the Rio Grande that appeared more than 50 million years ago” according to the Sierra County website.

Wasting no time, we sank into the 107 degree water in the lodge’s outdoor tub and turned our eyes skyward pointing out constellations to each other.  December’s Geminid meteor shower was soon to be at its peak.

An hour and a couple of shooting stars later we climbed out, sore muscles soothed—refreshed and relaxed.

By the time we returned to Santa Fe Monday night, the next snow storm had blown in, palm trees and steaming, mineral-filled water a fading memory.

 

 

 

Refuge

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Calm, no wind—the tumbleweeds were at rest, gathered around the signposts, stacked against the fence.

Quiet, until a flock of honking Canada geese—fifty or sixty—came in for a landing.

I walked on a dirt road that bisected an alfalfa field toward a small clutch of tall gray cranes.   They foraged for grain and insects, strolling away from me on gangly legs, always preserving the same distance between us.  Realizing I was as close as I was going to get, I stopped and watched them through my binoculars.  It was my first long look at a sandhill crane, red crowned with rusty splotches on its wings.

Photo Credit: Enid H. W. via Compfight cc

Photo Credit: Enid H. W. via Compfight cc

I visited Valle de Oro last week, the day after the brutal attack in San Bernardino. I had a list of errands to run,  but made the wildlife refuge, five miles south of Albuquerque, my first stop.

This newly created urban refuge used to be a dairy farm—almost 600 acres, west of Interstate 25 along the Rio Grande.   A haying operation is still in progress, but plans are underway to restore native grasses and create wetlands.  The birds aren’t waiting for the rehabilitation—one morning this week on its Facebook page Valle de Oro reported a count of 2600 Canada geese, 200 sandhill cranes, and one Ross’s goose.

I stayed as long as I could, finally pulled myself away feeling a little less uneasy about going to the gas station, the post office, the mall.