New Mexico – Page 14 – a curious nature

Winter Botany Study, Part 8: A Hint of Green? Hop Tree

With lots of sunny skies and temperatures in the mid-60s, spring must be around the corner. It’s been like waiting for a pot of pasta water to boil though!

Hiking up into our favorite side canyon in the Copper Trail system, brought us to one of my favorite ”trees” that I’ve been monitoring for several years; the Hop Tree (aka wafer ash). More like a big shrub rather than a tree, this particular plant is snuggled against a protective hillside just west of a beautiful rockfall. The cool and moist rocky setting seems to be just perfect for the hop tree and about 20 nearby relatives to flourish year after year. Last year at this time the buds were beginning to swell. Yesterday (March 26th) there was only a hint of green.

Escapito #1 Focus Study: The Ballad of Goatheads Galore

I remember all too well our brief stay at Percha Dam State Park, and the little drama our dog, Luna, experienced while we were searching high and low for the elusive rufous-backed robin. Our birding naturally took us down sandy trails beneath the cottonwood gallery lining the Rio Grande River. Disappointed we never did see the robin, we were relieved when we got Luna back to BagoBago. Whew ……. I vowed to cement the memory in my mind by composing a ballad of her experience! Read on for the full story.

Travel Journal, Escapito #1, 2022: Exploring Southern NM

March 14-18, 2022

New Mexico, our home state, is a wonderful state to explore, and this little 5 day Escapito lived up to expectations. Over 650 miles round-trip, from central NM south and then east, we visited 3 new-to-us state parks, and revisited one of our favorite Bureau of Land Management campgrounds. Our main objective was to find migrating birds; those coming north from south of the border to breed in the US, and those that overwintered along the Rio Grande River corridor and are heading way north to Canada and Alaska. We found some beautiful birds while exploring some very rugged country to within 12 miles of the Mexican border.

With my travel journal in hand, I was able to capture a few pages of images and notes from the week.

Winter Botany Study, Part 7: Mystery Nest

While we continue to get much needed moisture (snow) on our mountain, we continue to enjoy hiking the dry foothills of Albuquerque’s Open Spaces. The 2,000 foot drop in elevation is nudging spring along faster down there too. Already wormwood and globe mallow are sending up leaves from their perennial roots. While bending over to admire these soft fuzzy new leaves unfolding beneath the smooth sumac grove, I noticed that just inches away from my ear what appeared to be an old paper wasp nest! eeeeeeyikes! I hope no one saw me leap about 5 feet sideways!

After my heart slowed a bit, and with an audible sigh of relief at not being swarmed by angry wasps, I realized I had ”leapt” to a mistaken conclusion. Not a wasp nest at all, but a beautifully woven bird’s nest tucked securely in the fork of several sumac branches.

But what bird built this nest?

Winter Botany Study, Part 6: Hygroscopic Earthstars

While anxiously looking for signs of spring, I was rummaging about under a scrub live oak yesterday just to see if that somewhat warm and protected site was harboring anything green. No luck, yet! But what I did find was small woody star sitting on top of the duff. Instantly I knew what it was (or so I thought). Always curious, the “star” made the trip home where I began poking and prodding and perusing the internet and my collection of mushroom field guides. Prepared to confirm my belief that this was the woody husk of a Puffball, after a few hours research I discovered how wrong I was. How the old adage, close is only good in horseshoes, is very true and that jumping to conclusions is often misleading. Oh really? puffball fungi don’t have woody husks! Time to geek out, again!

Dispatches From New Mexico: Lazy R Welding

One of my favorite bumper stickers is, ”I chose the road less traveled. Now where the hell am I?” This reminds me a lot of what it’s like traveling about rural New Mexico. It’s always beautifully remote, ghostly quiet except for the sound of pointlessly spinning vanes of a long-abandoned windmill, and you never know what you’ll find around the next bend in the road.

So there we were navigating the back roads to Quarai …….

Visiting Quarai, Salinas Pueblos/Missions National Monument

New Mexico is such a culturally and historically rich state. Combine this with gorgeous scenery and outrageously blue skies, and you have the perfect ingredients for fun and educational day trips.

We woke to a sunny day and decided to hit the road less travelled. Our destination was only a few hours south of home, following along an old trade route called the Salt Missions Trail. Winding rural roads took us through Spanish settlements and villages of stone and adobe, mostly old and crumbling, as we paralleled the eastern flank of the Manzanita and Manzano Mountains in central NM.

Great Backyard Bird Count, February 18-21, 2022

A good friend and birding enthusiast turned me on to this event, that’s apparently been going on for the past 24 years. How did I not know about the annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) until now! A really fun count, formally tallying all of our winter bird visitors to our back yard in central New Mexico.

Winter Botany Study, Part 5a: Kentucky Coffeetree

What a wonderful find in Albuquerque! While waiting for Roy to visit his doctor, Luna and I set off on a neighborhood walk within sight of the Balloon Fiesta park. We watched as 6 hot air balloons played in the early morning air currents, which caused me to look up. And there, right next to the sidewalk was a peculiar looking tree loaded with seed pods. I knew immediately the pods belonged to the legume family, but they were bigger than any I’d seen before. Big, big pods, clattering in the morning breeze, and luckily a handful within reach. So curious about this peculiar somewhat stumpy looking tree with grey bark flaking away from the main trunk like fat book pages, I grabbed half a dozen while Luna looked bored. But I was anything but bored. Time to geek out!

Visiting el Malpais National Monument

One of our favorite day trips is to el Malpais National Monument. Winter is the perfect time of year to hike the sandstone bluffs and lava fields without danger of cooking doggie paws (hiking black lava in summer can be deadly). The skies are New Mexico outrageous blue, the views are vast and incredible, and we always have a wildlife encounter or two. One year we enjoyed watching a huge herd of elk crossing the highway, along with a surprise black bear showing at one of the trailheads! Today, February 12, pinyon jays seemed to be our only wildlife discovery. But these noisy and very social birds are always a treat.