Category Archives: arizona-wildlife

Slave ants and their masters are locked in a deadly relationship

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Ants have a reputation of being industrious hard-working animals, sacrificing their own benefit for the good of the colony.

Source: phys.org

GR:  Ants are a critical component of the earth’s terrestrial ecosystems.  They consume and break down large amounts of material, they control the populations of numerous species, and they provide food for many others.  For instance, ants make up 40% of the diet of the Northern Flicker, a common Arizona bird.  Despite being small and not so visible, ants account for 15% to 25% of all animal biomass on our planet’s land surface—far more than any other animal group.  Read more.

Operation Owl: boxes help save these beautiful bellwethers of biodiversity

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A Working-based volunteer group strives to create habitats for these nocturnal birds and inspire children to help in conservation, discovers Patrick Barkham.

“These mostly nocturnal birds of prey are an enduring symbol of wisdom and mystery in our culture and children’s books. Harry Potter has triggered a renewed fascination with them. Everyone seems to love owls but there is a problem: populations, particularly of barn owls, have massively declined because of habitat loss but also partly because there are no homes for these much-loved species.

“The possibilities for inspiring schools and young people are endless: owls are a keystone species, bellwethers of biodiversity, and Operation Owl hope that sparking local interest in owls at the apex of a food chain will help people treasure prey species – voles, shrews and invertebrates – and the healthy grasslands, heathlands and woodlands on which they all depend” (Source: www.theguardian.com).

How to set up your own Operation Owl

1-IMG_2241GR:  At least three species of owls live all or part of the year around my place.  We have a Barn Owl, Northern Pygmy-Owls, and Great Horned Owls.  Last fall I installed a Barn Owl box, and I hope to have residents this summer.  Our local Barn Owl story is here.

An Australia Day post on Australian wildlife conservation

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Great discussion of European settlement’s terrible impact on nature.

Quoll

The eastern quoll is now extinct on the Australian mainland and declining in Tasmania. If we cannot save an animal as cute and charismatic as this, what hope is there for the “ugly” and “boring” species?

 

Anna MacDonald's avatarWildlifeSNPits

Today, 26th January, is Australia Day. This is Australia’s national holiday, marking the arrival on this day in 1788 of the British First Fleet at Port Jackson in New South Wales. Of course one might wonder whether the anniversary of the proclamation of British sovereignty over eastern Australia is an appropriate date to celebrate Australian unity and culture. No one can deny that indigenous Australian communities have suffered – and are still suffering – extreme hardships following the establishment of British rule on this continent, and 26th January has other names: “Invasion Day”, “Survival Day”, “Day of Mourning”… This topic is not my field of expertise so I won’t expand further, but I encourage you to learn more about different perspectives here, here, here, here, here, here and here.

What I do want to write about today is biodiversity and conservation in Australia, and the status of Australian wildlife in…

View original post 2,837 more words

Some creatures use electricity and vibrations in sex (and this can be dangerous)

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Most animals use touch, smell, hearing, taste and sight to identify and attract a mate (that goes for humans too).

Source: phys.org

This study confirms that other species suffer from one of the same sexual problems we’ve seen in our own species; male efforts to hook up can be harmful, even lethal.

Free Wildlife Notebook

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My Arizona Wildlife Notebook just won the 2014 New Mexico-Arizona Book Award.  To celebrate, here’s a free electronic copy that you can write in on your computer, tablet, e-Book reader, or phone.

Front CoverDownload the Arizona Wildlife Notebook

Learn more about the Notebook.

I used Adobe Acrobat to convert the Notebook into a form with blank spaces beneath each species name.  Please tell me how you like it.

Thank you.

Garry

Serow: Eaten to the Brink of Extinction

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The little-known Sumatran serow is hunted and traded in Peninsular Malaysia, in violation of wildlife laws.

Source: www.thestar.com.my

GR:  The ultimate selfish act:  Eat a species to extinction–not in ignorance, and not to survive, just for potential health benefits for a few wealthy humans.  Of course, eating wild animals to survive will also extinguish them.

Wildlife News from Coldwater Farm

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Coldwater Farm Wildlife

Located on the Agua Fria River in central Arizona, Coldwater Farm is a tiny, 20 acre, refuge for wildlife. Despite being in the center of the Town of Dewey-Humboldt, the Farm is an ideal wildlife habitat. It has abundant surface water supplies and patches of dense vegetation.  The Agua Fria River flows above ground through the farm, and there are three large ponds. Willow thickets and a nice grove of tall cottonwood trees fill the river’s flood plain.

Mule Deer Visits

1-IMG_2203Last July, I wrote about two fawns that visited my back yard three days after they were born (see the post here).  Mule Deer became regular visitors last winter.  They are particularly pleased with the black sunflower seeds the birds miss.

The fawns just came again, and this time another pair of twins joined them. The photo shows one of them. I think the kid looks good for four months.

Barn Owl Box

Yesterday I finished setting up a nest box for the Barn Owls that live here. I’ve know the owls were here for about 10 years now. Last winter, wind blew down the best roosting tree, and the owls have lived in less protective trees. That’s when I decided to put up a nest box.

Barn Owls are unique in many ways. They tolerate humans, and in return for permission to sleep in barns and other buildings, they control the local mouse population. Wise farmers use Barn Owls, not mousetraps. Read the two earlier posts about the Coldwater Farm Barn Owls here, and the windstorm disaster here.

1-IMG_2241The nest box is about 12 feet above the ground.  My telescoping pipe plan would have put it at 16 feet, but the wind happened to be gusting to 30 MPH, and was creating too strong a sway.  Don’t want the owls to get seasick (or the pole to bend).  I bought the box from the Barn Owl Box company.  The box is white, intended to be installed in full sun, but I chose a shady spot and decided to paint the shell flat green.

The box is visible from my back door.  If I pay attention in the evenings, I hope to see owls coming and going now and then.

Other Coldwater Farm Wildlife News

1-DSCN0729Quail are trying to make a permanent home here.  They began stopping by three years ago, but the flock didn’t began sticking around until last winter.

The annual return of wild ducks to the ponds is going well.  Mallards, Ring Necks, and American Wigeon so far.  I started throwing out a little corn when I take this old dog down for his daily swim.

1-IMG_2237-001A hawk has stayed around the house for two months now.  This week he/she dropped onto the lawn and began eating grasshoppers.  We have a good late supply this year.  I guess they are easier to catch than the songbirds and gophers that the other hawks choose.  The hawk is about 22 inches.  If you recognize the species, please let me know.

The Second American Revolution Is Brewing in Oregon

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Materialism Dominating World Governments

GR:  The materialism that is dominating world governments is destroying the health of Earth ecosystems.  I believe this is because Human limitations make it impossible for members of our species to see beyond our fears and appetites. A close inspection of all the political candidates for whom I can vote in the next election shows that they will all continue the same blind materialism.  Of personal concern to me, none of them is interested in protecting natural landscapes and wildlife.  Others are reaching the same conclusion.  Why vote we ask when no group we can elect will improve our government.  Even those who are not yet concerned about wild plants and animals are feeling the loss of the natural world, and they are realizing that the quality of their and their children’s lives is fading. It is gratifying and evokes a glimmer of hope to learn about responses such as the one described in this post.

The following is from truth-out.org.

In Oregon, the capture of local government by the timber industry results in the destruction of the natural world and the poisoning of the populace, but a Josephine County ballot initiative would ban tree spraying by corporations and government entities.

Source: www.truth-out.org

Parrots Over Puerto Rico: An Illustrated Children’s Book Celebrating the Spirit of Conservation

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GR:  Will the Puerto Rican parrot survive?  It is the only remaining native parrot in Puerto Rico.  Parrots of the region began disappearing in the 1700’s due to logging, farming, and pet collecting.  The species’ prospects have improved, but the World Conservation Union still lists it as critically endangered. In 2012, there were only 58–80 individuals in the wild and 300 individuals in captivity. Considering the numbers that persist, I wondered if conservation efforts over the past 40 years have done enough.

This blog post from Brain Pickings describes the species’ step back from the brink of extinction.

“Most children’s books are full of animals — as protagonists, as pets, as age-old standbys in fairy tales and alphabet primers alike. But, as Jon Mooallem poignantly observed in his bittersweet love letter to wildlife, by the time each generation of children grows up, countless species of animals that roamed Earth during their childhood have gone extinct — today, scientists estimate that one species ceases to exist every twenty minutes. Perhaps whatever chance we have of reversing this tragedy lies in translating our children’s inherent love of animal characters into a tangible grown-up love of animal species, the kind of love that protects them from growing extinct, preserves their natural habitat, and honors the complex dynamics of ecosystems.”

Source: www.brainpickings.org