Black Birds

Photos by Marty Horowitz 12/1/2014

Phainopepla, male

Black Phoebe

Fred's Finds, too

Photos by Fred Heath 11/26/2014

Fred writes:

  

I can’t believe I’ve finally seen my very first rattlesnake for the year today at Sabino. Since it is the end of November (11/26), I was giving up hope. I usually see a few every year. I can’t think of how many times someone at Sabino has told me they just saw a rattlesnake up the trail which I could not find. Today on the east side of Sabino Creek below the dam, a couple told me of a rattlesnake they had just seen a minute ago. I ran up the trail and of course never saw it.
Later, I was walking up the Creek Trail on the east side of the creek, when this lovely Black-tailed Rattlesnake slid across the trail. He crawled into a bush and dared me to come closer rattling all the time. I took several photos of him in the bush (one of which is attached), but none were particularly good (of course a rattlesnake in the bush is definitely worth two in the hand). I decided to walk a distance away to see if he might move out of the bush.
He did and I got an unobstructed shot showing his black tail clearly. He was the longest (probably 3 ½ feet long) and thickest Black-tailed Rattlesnake I've ever seen.

Another great story from Fred!

Fred's Finds

All photos by Fred Heath 11/26/2014

Fred writes:

While out today [11/26/2014] in Sabino with my wife searching for butterflies (we found an amazing [for November 26] 27 species). We could not find a Reakirt’s Blue, so I started checking the Dalea pringlei which is a known host plant .(I actually raised a few caterpillars a couple of years ago to adults to confirm that they were Reakirt’s Blues.) The only butterflies I could find nectaring on the tiny flowers were Marine Blues. For fun, I decided to look for some Reakirt’s caterpillars which are quite cryptic on the host plant. I wasn’t having much luck until I noticed this odd looking ant. Knowing that blues are sometimes tended by ants, I took a second look and saw the Reakirt’s caterpillar in the attached photos. [Click photos for larger view.]

Caterpillars of some blues and hairstreaks are myrmecophilous (a $50 word meaning they have a relationship with ants). These caterpillars have a gland which produces honeydew when stroked by the ant. This is to “bribe” the ant not to attack; further the ant repels various wasps that parasitize the caterpillars. You can see a drop of honeydew on the caterpillar (directly below the jaws of the ant) in the close-up. Although this relationship is not absolutely necessary, it has been found that caterpillars have a better survival rate where they are ant tended. Unfortunately, in some places where Argentine Ants have formed colonies (near humans as in S. California), they've pushed out the ant species that collect honeydew from insects, including aphids, and some species of blues have disappeared. Luckily, Argentine Ants don’t do too well in our hot and dry desert conditions. 

Anne says: Thanks, Fred, for this great story!

And the last rerun is about plants (of course)!

I started a series of plant rants in November 2012. This is the first one!

Thank you for continuing to read this blog! New posts start tomorrow. Hooray!

Deck out your cliff dwelling!

Check out this one from 2012!

Deck the halls with galls (Rerun)

And this one's worth another read! Everything you wanted to know about Creosote Galls!

What causes that? (rerun)

From January 2014, this post answers questions from visitors about damage to cacti.