This past week my parents went out to Jacques Marsh in Pinetop-Lakeside to look for a Tundra Swan that had been reported there. They lucked out and my dad was able to get a few photos of it. This was a new species for them and is a rare winter visitor to the region (I've only seen it twice so far over the years: two birds at Lake Mary near Flagstaff and one at Nutrioso Lake in the White Mountains). Here's their bird:
Snow along Christopher Creek near the campground, below the Mogollon Rim:
At Christopher Creek campground, the snow had melted enough in some spots to look for fossils. It's funny that in the few decades my family has been coming here, we had never noticed the fossils until a few months ago. Now we're finding them everywhere. Here is a fossil my mom discovered that, after looking at some fossil books, we think is a "rudist" (a primitive, extinct mollusk that lived in the somewhere between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods, 65-200 million years ago):
Some other fossils we found, which may include graptolites (Phylum Hemichordata), anemones/corals (Phylum Cnidaria), crinoids (Phylum Echinodermata), and possibly a cephalopod (Phylum Mollusca). However, these are just guesses:
Back in January my mom and I went out to the Little Colorado River near Woodruff (~10 miles southeast of Holbrook) to search for a pair of Sandhill Cranes that had been reported there. While we had no luck with those birds, we did see some cool scenery along the river canyon, some petroglyphs, and lots of petrified wood. It's intriguing trying to figure out what these ancient drawings are depicting:
Here are a few shots of the canyon walls. In the first picture the plant in the foreground is of the Ephedra genus which belongs to the group of plants called "gymnosperms", which also includes the conifers, cycads, and ginkgo. Until recently, ephedra was used in medicines until negative health effects were being observed. The plant lacks leaves, but has the ability to photosynthesize through chlorophyll pigments contained in the stems:
Before the game on Superbowl Sunday, we went down for a short hike along a tributary of Tonto Creek below the Rim. In one patch of snow/ice we found some fallen bigtooth maple (Acer grandidentatum) and Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii) leaves that had sunken into the snow as it was melting, leaving the shape of the leaf around it in the snow:
Arizona sycamore (Platanus wrightii) leaf glowing in the sunlight. These leaves are huge (sometimes larger than a dinner plate):
It was surprising to see that some of the arroyo willows (Salix lasiolepis) were starting to break bud with some of the catkins appearing. Despite the warmer temperatures that had been occurring around that time, it was still getting pretty damn cold at night (20's or teens). The fatter buds on this plant suggest it is an arroyo willow instead of similar species.
One of my favorite oak trees along Tonto Creek, perched atop a large boulder. The oak is one of the evergreen species, either Arizona white oak (Quercus arizonica) or netleaf oak (Q. rugosa). Both species occur in that stretch and having not looked up close at this particular individual, I'm not sure which. An awesome tree nonetheless (nevermind the nerd talk):
A couple more Tonto Creek area shots:
At my family's place in Heber, we have been seeing an irruption of Pine Siskins in the yard, usually ranging from 75-150 individuals at any given time. Today during the snow storm my parents said they had an enormous swarm of 250-300 siskins hitting the feeders at once! Here is a photo I took a while ago showing some foraging below the thistle sock feeders:
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