More predator posts coming; animals in art

Things have been a bit busy at the Anachronism of late, but I am hoping an upcoming visit next weekend and some material from a fascinating NGO in Belize will provide an excellent opportunity to add some posts about large predator biology.

In the meantime, the weekend provided a much needed break from current contracts.  This installation of foxes invading a restaurant was done by Sandy Skoagland in 1989 and is currently on display at the Denver Art Museum.  Fun stuff.

Another interesting facet of the Denver Art Museum was the collection of Mayan art.  I had an enjoyable time linking the animal images to modern Mayan and Belizean society and biology.  It is said you can learn something about a culture by the things they choose to depict in art.

Birds seemed to be a Maya favorite along with crocodiles (hopefully more on crocodiles soon), snakes (especially rattlesnakes), crabs and peccary.   There were an interesting number of armadillo sculptures (a favorite food in Belize even today) and quite a few jaguars.  Certainly all of those creatures are still prominent features of the modern Mesoamerican landscape, either as game animals or perceived threats.  Here's an interesting depiction of a jaguar eating a woman.  Modern attacks by wild jaguars on humans are virtually unknown (although there is certainly widespread fear of jaguars).  The Classic Mayan were apparently thinking about the possibility that attacks on humans might happen, whether or not they did.

It was also especially interesting to me that depictions of fish were almost entirely lacking from the collection.  There were lobster and crab brooches...

...

...but the only representation of fish I could find were these two catfish, which are apparently part of a legend about the hero twin brothers.

I've long wondered what the typical pattern of Mayan fishing techniques and pressure was like on Placencia Lagoon. There are multiple camps of Archaic Mayans along the peninsula and a skeleton was recently discovered near Maya Beach.  Humans have been using the lagoon for thousands of years.  What does that deep history look like?  Apparently I'll need to go further afield than the Denver Art Museum to find out.

In the meantime, look for an upcoming post about an NGO in Belize that does crocodile rescues and learned an unfortunate lesson about deeply ingrained belief systems about wild and dangerous animals.

Palo Duro Canyon, Texas; 30 years after my first visit

The Texas Panhandle. Bleak. Flat. Sterile. Except for Palo Duro Canyon.

Over 30 years ago the family's old yellow station wagon pulled up to the brink of Palo Duro Canyon on the way to a vacation in Colorado.  We watched the lightning tear across the sky and hoped the tornadoes would stay at bay.

The next morning I learned a valuable lesson about listening.  Following a box canyon reaching back into the larger canyon walls, I managed to find a group of mule deer by following the sound of their hooves.  I never got a decent picture, but I was happy to get close.  It was another lesson in the rewards of paying close attention.

Yesterday I had the pleasure of returning to Palo Duro Canyon.  It was crowded for a brisk February day, but it has changed little otherwise.

One welcome change was the presence of wild turkey there now in abundance. Wild turkeys have experienced a profound recovery from near extinction levels prior to the the mid-70s.  Give them a bit of cover, water, and management they flourish in places like Palo Duro now.

This gold fronted woodpecker (Melanerpes aurifron) decided to pose nicely beside its' nest cavity long enough for a photograph.

And although there are still robins further north this time of year, I suspect these had been pushed south by the snow storm currently tearing up the high plains in Colorado and Kansas.  These, along with many others, had congregated to drink.

Notice the pile of sediment on the bank behind them...a stark reminder that canyons are really no more than huge erosion sites.  Evidence of earth moving equipment at all the stream crossings showed how mightily the park struggles to keep the sediment off their roadways.

The deer are still here.  This one seems to be a white tailed deer.  As in many state parks, this little herd has no memory of being hunted and had almost no fear of me.

I walked toward them from a far distance and they knew I was there the last 50 yards or more...much easier to photograph than the group I stalked in the mid-70s.

And even in that tiny scrap of river, there were still beaver. It is hard to imagine how they survived the drought last summer but apparently they did. There must not have been enough predators in the area to thin them out when the water was low.

Recent rains have put a bit of a dent in recent drought conditions. The local reservoirs are still low but the soil is moist and the river was high.

The thing I remember most about Palo Duro was the geologic candy-cane striping of red and white. Red permian soil alternates with layers of gypsum. Some of it formed broad bold bands...

...and some of it was laid in smaller, finer stripes.

The Jocelyn is fond of textures so I suppose I took this picture for her sake. It seems the ripples of the water have forced themselves into the rock here. These are the same red colors that enter the Red River that flows through my home town of Shreveport. The same red clay and rock eroding away and filling the flood plains downstream.

 It was good to visit the site of an old memory again. I hope the next trip does not have to wait another 30 years.

Evolving

The Anachronism is evolving.

Gain and loss and hope and fear are never so close to the surface as in the midst of transition.  Change  reminds of the importance of an essential core.  Values.  Purpose.  Direction.

There is an idea out there that evolution improves life.  That it perfects.  This is a misconception.  Evolution merely allows survival.  Underlying realities never change.  Biology merely arranges itself around the physics.

A good friend recently commented that sweeping change in their lives has led them to throw out their values.  Yet they still choose generosity over envy, and kindness over competition.  They care about others and give of themselves.   Perhaps they have become disillusioned with certain people, institutions, and behavioral expectations.  Some bridges may have been burned.  But expectations aren't values.  My friend has adapted to change.  Their values are intact.

New contracts in education and new kinds of certification work are diversifying the portfolio and bringing with it the mixed blessing of travel.  Roadside breaks looking for fossils have been productive and it has been good to see old friends and family.

Change is coming.  Values remain.

 
 

Day before the snow hits: Prairie dogs and something new

Snow is falling in Denver today.  Before it hit, I took an afternoon at Roxborough to see how the animals were faring and preparing.  A quick swing through the Sharptail Open Area revealed the prairie dogs were out in force.

None of them seemed especially pleased to see me slow down and photograph them.  The alarm callers raised quite a racket.
 

Even the rabbits interspersed among the burrows lit out for their holes and just about everyone seemed prepared to duck and cover.  Given that there were no prairie dogs on the side of the road where there were cattle, it's pretty clear these guys periodically have reasons to watch their backs.

Inside the park, the mule deer were scattered and hard to find.  This pair wandered casually across a road as joggers and traffic came by.

This mouse seems to be weaving a rather drunken path home.  Perhaps he was out celebrating that the coyotes had given up on the crusted snow and left them alone?

...and high on a ridgetop this track appeared.  Much smaller than the normal mountain lions in the park, it also doesn't seem quite right for a canid.  A yearling mountain lion, perhaps?  For now I'm witholding judgment.   Having had a chance to reflect and compare this appears to be a very large coyote print. It does seem odd there were no deer here.  They have been in this spot every time I've been through so far this winter.  Were they scared out and scattered?  The park rangers have photographic evidence that a breeding pair lives inside the park.  Perhaps they were successful this year?

I still haven't found mule deer kills and I still have no direct visual contact with the cats.

We'll see what the future brings.  

Roxborough wildlife: sun and snow and dogs and cats

Last night dropped about three inches of snow and made for a great hike at Roxborough State Park today.  In a three mile hike we found three different sets of mountain lion tracks (that may have been  from a single active cat), multiple coyotes and mule deer.  Warm days immediately after a snow are turning out to be the best times to find wildlife.

The track above was a favorite as you can see where the mountain lion pressed that little twig down into the ground with it's paw.

The mule deer were concentrated in the Window Valley.

 The coyotes were in the plains, standing in high grass pressed down by the snow.  Presumably they were looking for mice and rodents.

 Even the scrub jays were willing to pose.

The animal tracks were everywhere.  I can't wait to see what we find next.

Pacific Northwest Holidays Outdoors: Rainfest 2011

The trip to the Puget Sound area to see The Jocelyn and The Brother's family for Christmas was phenomenally good.  Despite the almost constant rain and the scarcity of vistas like the one of the Olympic Mountain Range above, we were able to get outside a bit.  Special thanks to The Jocelyn for some of these pictures, to The Jocelyn's Father and Mother for the use of his telephoto lens and for their warm hospitality, to The Son for being willing to travel with The Daughter across country over the holidays, to the Brother and his family for being such gracious hosts.

With the rain coming almost continually, the outings into the woods had to come in short hikes during the slow periods.  Burfoot Park in Olympia has a nice stand of Douglas Fir and Western Cedar against far southern Puget Sound.  These mushrooms were enjoying the moisture.

The first trip into the park we encountered what appears to be a sooty grouse.  Not often encountered in Burfoot, this one was relatively easy to photograph.  As with most of the camera work here, a little more light would have been welcome.



A visit to MacLean Creek south of Olympia took us to the wetlands.  A first trial of the 300mm telephoto lens was a bit challenging in terms of finding the correct plane of focus, but a few of the shots there turned out reasonably well.  The mallards were thick and slow enough to photograph.  The winter wrens that were attracted by the recorded calls on The Jocelyn Dads's Ipod were a bit too quick.



The chum salmon run in the creek was pretty easy to find as well.  The live run had lasted into mid-December.  The carcasses were well on their way back into the food chain.  Marine nutrients from sea run salmon are important drivers for coastal rivers like MacLean Creek.

The daughter had been promised bald eagles on this trip and it was not hard to deliver.  They were just about everywhere and at Nisqually Delta we were able to find a juvenile close enought to photograph and some adults that were impressive through the spotting scope. 

This great blue heron let us get close enough for a nice series of photos.



The daughter's main christmas present was a microscope which, frankly, kicked ass.  Maybe I'll be done playing with it some time next year and she can have a turn. 

Seriously.  We got serveral sincere "wows" out of her and I think the scientific fires are stoked.  We'll do more with this soon.

Of course, cool things under the scope require cool collecting trips.  A local dock near Olympia was replete with cool creatures stuck to the pilings.

...including the fearsome 12 armed starfish.

And the delightfully crimson but otherwise feckless arrow crab, along with sea anemone, moon jelly fish (looking EXACTLY like the ones in Belize) and a cluster of edible mussels....bearing all sorts of bizarre little creatures from rotifers to diatoms to I'm not sure exactly what in the spaces between their shells.

After the dip into Olympia it was off to Seattle, complete with a very soggy trip into Olympic National Park in the pouring rain.  If you are going to experience the Olympic Peninsula, the pouring rain is probably the most authentic way to do that (given that it has about 60 days of sunshine per year), but it was quite a soggy ride.  Hot chocolate on the ferry from Bremerton to Seattle warmed away the last damp corners before descending on The Brother's home.   

Once in Seattle we all managed to take in the Seattle Aquarium, including the mini-fish hatchery and fish ladder leading down into the waterfront.  The Chinook salmon smolts above were just about primed for their descent to the sea, but we didn't get to watch their release.  

We did, however, get to see the giant octopus clambering around it's cylindrical (and therefore relatively unphotographable) tank.   Very impressive, as were the sea otters the large Pacific Northwest tank in the lobby. 

\

After that we were off to Skonomish Pass and the snow park there.  There is little snow immediately around Puget Sound, but the surrounding mountains get more than their share.  Which of course is great fodder for...

...snowball fights....

....sledding...

...and snow structures.

Pacific Northwest Washout

The holiday trip to Seattle and Olympia was quite a pleasure but as often happens in the Pacific Northwest, the rain was out in force.  I'll post a more detailed account of some of the outdoor activities there soon.  In the meantime, the picture above from Olympic National Park should provide an adequate illustration of why there was no fishing.