Luna's Jacal

I couldn't resist taking a couple of hours this morning to make one last try for the Nutting's Flycatcher. But I think it either found a better place to winter, or got eaten by a predator. I wonder how savvy it is around unfamiliar predators away from its normal range.

On the way back I stopped at "Luna's Jacal." It's impressive that Gilberto Luna, who built the jacal around 1890, lived to be 108 years old. Contemplating that, I noticed he had a view of Santa Elena Canyon from his house. I think I could live that long with the great view, plus eating nothing but home grown food like he and his family surely did. (He died in 1947.)

I'm not sure how authentic the walls and roof are these days but I'm sure the floor was wet and tamped like hard adobe, then swept occasionally. The Mexicans that built my house never slept indoors, so I'm thinking this structure was more for cool food storage than for actual living space.  For one thing, it's earth-sheltered for coolness, has thick rock walls,and no windows. He had a large produce farm and keeping food cool had to be vitally important to marketing it successfully.

Having said that, in an old photo taken in the 1930's there's a bed outside under a ramada attached to the front of the house. And protruding from the roof just inside the entrance of the jacal was a stovepipe. That undoubtedly was for cooking, but would surely have added warmth. Perhaps the cooler back part, by the wall consisting of a huge boulder, was the storage area.

Besides, can you imagine how hot it would be to sleep in there if it was full of warm bodies and no breeze during sweltering summer nights? By some accounts he had 11 wives and fathered over 50 children, but that could be an exaggeration. Some of his "offspring" may have been grandchildren, or poor relatives from Mexico who weren't faring as well. 

And you gotta love the view!

A good day today

My sister-in-law visited the oasis today and right away discovered a Brown Thrasher. I hadn't seen that species here since the spring of 2006, so that was exciting. It was above 70° too, which I loved.

While I was waiting for the thrasher to come into the open for a clear shot, I photographed a Texas Antelope Squirrel AGAIN. But they're so cute I can't resist.

Lesser Goldfinches are here year-round so I seldom bother to photograph them.

CMO rainfall statistics

For those who are interested in this sort of thing, here are the rainfall totals at CMO from 1998 to present.

1998=  7.20"
1999=12.80"
2000=10.80"
2001=  5.20"
2002=  8.60"
2003=  9.85"
2004=23.25"
2005=11.50"
2006=  8.75"
2007=21.25"
2008=  9.40"
2009=12.25"
2010=13.40"
2011=  2.25"

Hauled 2 loads of water today and going to haul one or two more tomorrow.

To Santa Elena Canyon today

My plan was to go there and help birders locate the Nutting's Flycatcher and try for a shot of the flycatcher's open mouth. Sounded like a fun challenge.  

Life is what happens while you're making other plans. Whew! I tried every strategy I could think of to find that nutty bird. I'm positive I didn't miss it; it just didn't show up. Hopefully, tomorrow the birders from today, that are all going back, will find it. I can't go back tomorrow, but plan to on Thursday.

I took the Old Maverick Road to Santa Elena Canyon, as it's much shorter. However, dirt roads are slower...

...but it seems like the canyon is getting closer.

It is getting closer, isn't it?

Now why was it I agreed to drive the low-clearance town car?

I gotta be almost there, don't I? (It does look closer through my telephoto lens.)

Ah, my destination, at last.

Now the waiting game. I walked, I waited, I bushwhacked, I waited some more....

Buses loaded with teenagers came and went. Finally, I gave up the quest after the sun set behind the canyon wall. It disappeared around 3:30, I left around 5:00.

Wonderful scenery, wonderful companionship, how can I complain?

Mexican Blue Oaks

Until someone mentioned today in a previous post comment about my relict oaks, I had forgotten that I had promised to post photos of ours. I searched all my files and could only locate this photo (filed under Lucifer Hummingbird nests, would you believe?). If I can't find better ones, I'll take some in the spring. The second photo is a close-up from the first photo. There are probably a dozen of the oaks there of various sizes, the tallest being maybe 15-20,' but I'm not a good judge of height. Lucifers nest in that area.

Here they are from a greater distance.

Probable Nutting's Flycatcher

Today was an exciting day. Dale Ohl (my sister-in-law) and I rode down to Santa Elena Canyon with Kelly Bryan. We got there early. We were there hoping to find a probable Nutting's Flycatcher reported and photographed from there. Other birders had been looking unsuccessfully since daylight. Apparently, the bird doesn't forage until the sun comes out and insects become active. After about an hour of about ten people spreading out searching, I located the bird as it began foraging across from the rest rooms, one of its favorite haunts. A birder from Virginia had gone hundreds of miles out of his way just to see this bird. He just happened to be the person closest to me when I spotted the bird, so I called to him in a loud whisper that I had the bird, "get Kelly." Bless his heart, he took off in the opposite direction of his coveted sighting, without so much as a glimpse of the bird, to get Kelly. When Kelly arrived, everyone then gathered around quietly while Kelly recorded the sound. As luck would have it, after the first call Kelly's recorder broke. Not knowing that, I was stopping cars and asking people to turn off their engines so he could get quality recording. However, the flycatcher didn't vocalize again all the while we were there. That didn't prevent everyone from getting ample looks and photos.

All that saw the bird agree it must certainly be a Nutting's. But until the record committee rules, we can't count it. It didn't forage the same as the only other option, an Ash-throated Flycatcher (ATFL). I felt the tail looked too rufous for an ATFL, and the belly was too yellow. Not to mention that ATFLs usually vocalize (a different call note) freely. Too much brown on the top of the head and rufous on the rump for an ATFL. The jizz just wasn't the same.

 I didn't really work at taking good photos. Kelly takes better shots than I do and he was there taking lots of them. I socialized with old friends (and made new ones) more than I would have if documentation would have depended on me.

I took a few photos just because I could.

UPDATE: Eventually confirmed as a Nutting's.

More on relict trees

A reader of my previous post asked me some questions about relict trees on my property. So I thought I'd go into a little detail here. A relict tree, or group of trees, is a species that was once plentiful in a given place and is now extinct except for one specimen, or a small population of them. In that category, the dead juniper was probably the last holdout of its species due to the continuing desertification of this region. There are two other species that are still alive here, but of relict status. One is a small cluster of Mexican Blue Oak that are gone from the Big Bend area except for a couple of small stands. My patch is high on the slope above my oasis. I'll post some photos of them when I get them from my Alpine computer. I hope this drought hasn't killed them.

Interestingly, Lucifer Hummingbirds favored nesting places are cholla, high on slopes, near oaks. That's the only place where we've seen their nests on my property. I wish it wasn't such a rough climb, or I'd go up there more often. (refer to post of June 30, 2010 for nest photos)

The other relict species here is one small cluster of Faxon Yucca. Again, I hope the drought doesn't impact them. Here's a photo from today.

Mysterious tree

I decided to scan some more old photos today and came across this one taken 15 years ago. It's some kind of tree, probably juniper, that is probably way older than 100 years.

That's me sitting under the tree. Here is the same tree today. It hasn't changed much in 35 years, and probably much longer. The mystery is, how old is it, what kind of tree is it, and who hacked on it for firewood? Prehistoric foragers?

The mystery deepens. I first saw the tree around 1977-78. Then, even though I knew it was on my property, I could never relocate it again. Quite by accident, I rediscovered it 25 years later, more or less. And it's actually within sight of my house!

In the above photo the camera is looking NW. My [earth-sheltered] house is near the center, with basically just the roof showing. In the center left of the above photo you can barely make out the road snaking between the mountain and the arroyo headed toward the oasis, which appears as a dark fuzzy line on the left center of the photo.

Afterthought: Studying the photos a bit I see on the first one some unweathered wood, so I'm thinking some of the Mexicans that helped build my house probably scavenged some on the tree, but there was plenty of mesquite around, their favored wood, so doubtful they took much from it, because it's obviously a juniper of some kind. But most of the hacking activity was very weathered 35 years ago, so someone with crude tools worked on it before then. And in case you're wondering, I employed some undocumented immigrants; I didn't check IDs, but in those days it wasn't illegal to hire undocumented immigrants. I even helped a couple of them get their legal status here. Times change.

Pre-digital photos

I'm at the oasis. Got here before daylight, at 10°, took down the frozen hummingbird feeders, and put up warm ones.Was pleased to see about 6 hummers (Rufous and Anna's) today. It was so cold all day that I mostly stayed indoors and scanned some of my favorite old film bird photos.

After Christmas of 2003 in Alpine we left our Christmas lights up and the following spring a Black-chinned Hummingbird decided to nest on them. That was really cool!

In 2006, off and on, all through the month of May, the oasis had its only ever Broad-billed Hummingbird.

Here's a just-fledged, or soon to fledge, Elf Owl that apparently got pursued by my ex-neighbors' cats and got into their house. They called me and I caught it and released it at my oasis. This photo was taken in their house in 2001 inside a home-made wreath the bird managed to retreat up into.

Christmas lights, a green and red hummingbird, and wreath are the last of Christmas cheer you'll get from me this year.

My special Christmas present

During the 6 days (see posts Dec 1-6) the Violet-crowned Hummingbird was seen at the oasis very few people were able to come see it. One who was able to visit that week was Dennis Shepler. Afterwards, he made me a wonderful painting of it that is being mailed to me. Meanwhile, he gave me permission to post this photo of it here.

What a wonderful souvenir/xmas present of the rarest species documented at CMO to date (19th state record)! Thank you so much, Dennis!