Natual Phenomena and Unnatural Acts

Natural Phenoms
We were over at our new property yesterday – boy, is it wonderful to write that – just for the exercise of walking and exploring. We had Nutmeg, of course, and let her off-leash to chase her nose. The weather was wet last weekend so the ground was holding tracks. And there were a lot of them. Found many tracks made by several animals ranging from this year’s juveniles to adults. Mule deer? Javelina? Didn’t have my tracks book so couldn’t be sure. After talking with an experienced hunter last night at a dinner party and also looking in my tracks book this morning, I’m fairly sure they were deer. But I’m still wondering. There are javelina that range the area in general, and the ground where I found a large party of tracks was just where pigs, more than deer, would likely hang out. I guess if 4 leggeds can be said to “hang out” like a bunch of teenagers at the mall.

And Nutmeg made the more interesting find. She dragged out from under a large juniper along the dry creek bed an old skull. It had no lower jaw; the spine/backbone was still attached down to about the 4th vertebra and was curved so that it was parallel to the upper jaw. Once again, my curiosity outran my knowledge. I thought it might be a javelina skull, but now after googling skulls for javelina and for mule deer, I am flummoxed. You wouldn’t think such different critters would fool so easily. Well, s’what happens to a city girl with wild-country pretentions! Had I brought the skull home with me, I wouldn’t have to rely on my memory impressions. But Nutmeg was pretty insistent this was HER bone, not mine, and I had to play Hamlet to the skull in order to keep Nutmeg from snagging it out of my hands. We finally got her distracted and I put the skull back in its resting place under the juniper. Wonder if it will still be there when I go back, having researched and better prepared to make an identification. You might wonder why I should care. MmmMMhmm (translation: verbal shrug). Just want to know who my neighbors, past and present, are.

I’ve watched a full cycle of seasons now, and with that, a full migration cycle. The sparrows so busily stripping the grasses of their seed heads back in October are gone now, replaced by juncos working over the same grasses. The spotted towhees I watched picking through the leaf litter under the scrub oaks last winter migrated to the tips of the oaks to sing their mating drive in the spring and are now moved back to the bases of the oaks, quietly to bide their time through another winter. And the canyon towhee juvenile siblings that chased through the bushes in the late summer have settled down to the serious winter business of feeding and staying warm. The phainopepla, which looks like a black cardinal to an Eastener, is back with its dripping-water call. The books say it is here all year, and breeds here, but I have not seen these in our neighborhood since the weather warmed. The brightly colored summer birds are now replaced by the flocks of western bluebirds that cheered me out my office window through last winter. Today, with the wind blowing, there were 6 or 7 bluebirds sitting in the top of a small tree, all facing into the wind. Better than a weather vane!

Unnatural Acts
I’ve noticed the distinct lack of fragrance in the air, especially early in the mornings. That particular Pepe LaPew fragrance. The striped purveyors of that distinctly acrid fragrance seem to have abandoned their normal haunts. No lingering scent of skunk when I let Nutmeg out in the morning, or pass the culverts they have called home for the last several months. We were talking with our neighbors down the corner and come to find out, someone on the next block has been poisoning the skunks. Unfortunately, this is causing collateral damage. Not only are they “saving” the neighborhood from its striped offenders, they are “saving” the neighborhood from cottontails and jackrabbits, outdoor cats and other small furry foragers. They will even “save” the neighborhood from the tree-climbing gray fox that have just been making a comeback from a rabies-caused die-off. Apparently, other neighbors have spoken with them in defense of the critters – all of them, including the striped target of the first neighbor’s ire. I gather, to no avail.

And then, our neighbor further discouraged me by tale-ing that another rabid human in the neighborhood, also with a distorted sense of self-importance, has been shooting flickers. Flickers! Those of the beautiful red-shafted wing and tail feathers. Apparently the flickers – imagine the impertinence – have been pecking on the human’s roof! Speechless – I am utterly speechless. Probably a good thing. If I were speechful at this moment, it would not be pleasant speech.

Not all humans are rabid.
The Gila will eat hikers, if hikers are not savvy and careful. We have been holding our collective breath while the NM Search and Rescue teams searched for the second missing hiker in as many weeks. This hiker was 67, not inexperienced in the terrain but prepared for only a day hike and accompanied by his black lab, Zulu. When he was reported missing after 24 hours, the SAR swung into action. They will hike the mountains through the night, they search by ATV and horseback, and they can call on air spotting support – and they are all volunteers. They searched for several days, on and off, as the almost-blizzard conditions in the Black Range permitted. Finally, after 6 days, a ranch couple riding out to check on some cattle found the man down and semi-conscious. Zulu was hugged up next to him and was probably the reason he was still alive. When the couple rode up and she dismounted to attend the man, Zulu took off. SAR came in to provide first aid and stabilize the man, who was airlifted to El Paso to the hospital and his waiting family. SAR and the local community breathed a sigh of relief and went back to their daily lives. NOT. Zulu is still out there and so volunteers and community members continue their search for the hero lab that helped save her person. Here’s the story in the Sun-News. I don’t know how long they can sustain their effort, but the effort itself speaks to what I think it means to be truly human.