To our delight we found that the Southwestern Research Station up the canyon now sells beer in their gift shop (and for cheaper than that at the always over-priced store in the community of Portal that lies at the mouth of the canyon). Along with beer runs, it was great to walk around at the station, which is where I worked on an internship in 2007 helping on a project studying hummingbird nesting biology. Besides hanging out at the campground and the research station, we also did trips up to South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon, Barfoot and Rustler Parks, East Turkey Creek, feeders at the George Walker House in the isolated community of Paradise, feeders around Portal, and a stock tank maintained as wildlife habitat out in the desert flats on the AZ/NM border. On the 2nd day we did the hike up South Fork to see the extent of the Horseshoe Fire that burned in the upper reaches of that drainage. Thankfully, the really lush parts of the drainage were untouched and the fire had only came down as far as just above a spot called Maple Camp. Even then, the burn had been low intensity, just burning up the herbaceous cover at the ground level and thinning out the smaller tree saplings (which is good in preventing more devastating fires down the road if conditions are more dry by reducing the amount of fuels that could carry a higher intensity fire).
Southwestern Research Station (SWRS):
Unusual case where an Emory oak (Quercus emoryi) seedling is growing up out of a fissure in the trunk of a large alligator juniper (Juniperus deppeana) at the Snowshed Basin trailhead, upstream from SWRS:
Rustler Park:
mushrooms at Barfoot Park:
South Fork:
Huge Arizona cypress (Cupressus arizonica) at South Fork:
Swimming hole along South Fork that we've named "Zhivago's Pool", which was the one of the favorite spots of our previous dog, Zhivago. One of my favorite places too, the pool is usually 4+ ft deep at the lowest point and sits below huge boulders and an old Arizona madrone (Arbutus arizonica) with a really widespread canopy:
Mushroom along South Fork trail:
Maple Camp area in South Fork, just below where the Horseshoe Fire burned to:
bigtooth maples (Acer grandidentatum):
Horseshoe Fire burn area, just above Maple Camp:
Burnt bigtooth maple, already regenerating new sprouts that were amazingly already 2+ ft. tall in the two months since the fire!:
Erosion on the banks of the creek downstream from the Horseshoe burn, with roots of Arizona sycamore (Platanus wrightii) heavily-exposed from flooding following the fire:
Eva enjoying herself at one of her favorite spots, East Turkey Creek (a wet dog is a happy dog):
Insect galls on Arizona white oak (Quercus arizonica) at East Turkey Creek. The galls are formed by insects injecting chemicals into the bark that causes these abnormal growth forms from plant cells. The insects then lay their eggs inside the gall, which provides nutrition and shelter while they grow.
Rainbow over the community of Portal at the mouth of Cave Creek Canyon:
The "Sky Island" mountain ranges extending from Mexico into southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico are well known for the biodiversity that they hold since habitats stretch from grasslands and desert all the way up to spruce-fir zones at the highest peaks. Birds are especially diverse in these mountains with species ranging from those typical of further south in Mexico to those common in mountains throughout the intermountain western U.S. During our trip we encountered 107 species, with highlights including Berylline Hummingbird and Short-tailed Hawk which are very rare north of the border. The hummingbird was especially cool in that it was tending to a nest just across the road from our campsite. The first couple of days she was constantly sitting while she incubated, but by midweek she was frequently off it gathering food and adding more material to the nest. We also saw a family group of Elegant Trogons in South Fork of Cave Creek Canyon, which also have a limited range within the U.S. One of the birds was a young male which, new to us, had plumage similar to adult females having a white ear patch. The only trait that identified it as a male were the patches of green forming on its back and rump.
Shot of female Berylline Hummingbird on her nest via digiscoping (putting camera up to ocular piece of spotting scope):
Elegant Trogon (adult male) high up in a Chihuahua pine (Pinus leiophylla) in South Fork:
Elegant Trogon (juvenile male) in South Fork:
Painted Redstart in Stewart Campground:
Yellow-eyed Junco (a.k.a "Zombie-eyed Junco") along trail to Barfoot Lookout:
Buff-breasted Flycatcher at Snowshed Basin trailhead upstream from SWRS. This species' range barely extends into the U.S. currently, with the only reliable place to find them being the Chiricahua or Huachuca Mountains:
Gambel's Quail family in Portal (hard to tell in the photo with the poor lighting, but possibly Gambel's X Scaled hybrids, which have been found in Portal before since the ranges of both species overlap here):
Great Blue Heron at Willow Tank, an artificial pond out in the flats on the AZ/NM border maintained for wildlife:
Acorn Woodpecker family in Stewart Campground:
Baby cliff chipmunk that we found injured in Stewart Campground. At first it looked like it was in shock and then the next day it appeared that its back legs were probably broken as it pathetically crawled around nibbling at bark and grass, so maybe it fell out of a tree (?). We saw the chipmunk in the same spot for a couple of days and then it was gone after that, so it probably got picked off and headed up to the big sky island in the sky:
Yarrow's spiny-lizard, missing part of its tail:
Large congregation of toads and frogs in ephemeral pool next to Willow Tank. During the monsoon season, tons of spadefoot toads and others emerge from the ground to breed in these ponds created by recent rainfall. In 2007 when I worked at SWRS, I went out with some of the herpetologists to collect these guys and there were thousands of adults and offspring covering the roads (it was impossible to drive the roads and not run over hundreds of them, sounding like popcorn popping as the tires crushed them).
Probably the coolest wildlife experience during the trip was finding tens of thousands of ladybugs congregating around the Barfoot Lookout. Almost all of the shrubs (mostly oaks and chokecherries) were covered in a sea of orange from all of the bugs. We're not sure if it was breeding activity or migration.
During the trip we only heard one owl on the first night, a Whiskered Screech-Owl, which was not too surprising considering most breeding activity had long-since been over by then. Despite this, we did have some nocturnal entertainment with all of the insects gathering around the tent/ramada we put over our picnic table (attracted to the propane lantern we had inside it). Ironically, we set this ramada up to keep bugs out while we were cooking; this backfired as there was a massive breeding event of some kind of annoying small brown fly that all got inside of the structure. The best insects were a couple of shiny emerald-green junebugs (one that had vertical silver lines going down its back). A type of underwing moth also showed up that had a pattern similar to an evil jack-o-lantern face on its wings. Along with the insects, after we turned the lights out before we retired to the tent we had an unbelievable view of the stars, with the silhouettes of the canyon's cliffs outlining them (a few shooting stars too). This is definitely one of the best places for stargazing, being far away from the light pollution of cities.
shining leaf chafer:
underwing moth species:
unidentified beetle species:
sphinx moth pollinating an evening-primrose (Oenothera sp.):
weevil species:
tiger beetle species:
Wildflowers were also in abundance throughout the mountains. One species that seemed to be everywhere was scarlet bouvardia, which times its peak blooming time during the period when hummingbirds are migrating through in large numbers in order to increase pollination potential. The flowers and hummingbirds have co-evolved in a mutual relationship where the flowers provide nectar for the hummingbirds (gives them energy for their high metabolism and the long-distance migration) and in return the hummingbirds inadvertently transfer pollen from flower to flower which enables sexual reproduction within the plants (formation of seeds).
scarlet bouvardia (Bouvarida glaberrima) in Stewart Campground:
purple locoweed (Oxytropis lambertii) near Onion Saddle:
Mexican silene, or catchfly (Silene laciniata) along old logging road below Barfoot Park:
western wallflower (Erysimum capitatum) along trail to Barfoot Lookout:
unidentified verbena, or vervain species (Verbena sp.) near Onion Saddle:
red cinquefoil (Potentilla thurberi) in South Fork:
As always, a great place to get away from it all and experience raw nature in a spectacular setting.
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