How To Know You're in the 21st Century

And now it's time for something completely different. Every now and then, I come across something that makes me pause, maybe get goosebumps, and maybe even say something profound such as "duuuuuuuuude". A few good examples would be the sequencing of the human genome (happy DNA day on April 20th!), pushing the frontiers of particle physics with the Large Hadron Collider, or merging the boundaries of technology and art to create wonders...

But perhaps the best indicator I live in a new century: The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia

761 planets and counting (image courtesy of NASA/JPL). These are just the confirmed results; Kepler has another 2,321 candidates in the queue and that number will keep climbing. Considering Kepler's field of view is just the right wing of Cygnus, the number of planets awaiting discovery is, umm, astronomical.

What is perplexing is that despite the overwhelming success of Kepler discovering new worlds is that there appears to be no follow up missions. A delay might be explained by the James Webb Telescope going way over-budget and its launched delayed almost a decade. There were some difficult technological challenges with Darwin and the Terrestrial Planet Finder, but aside from JWT, NASA does not have any big exploration missions on the books. It looks like there is finally planning for a successor to Hubble called ATLAST, but it likely will not launch until 2030! Ouch! Perhaps that is being realistic, but it sure is a far cry from the Apollo-type mandates.

One ray of hope is shining from the ESA, who is proposing a follow-up mission to Kepler called PLATO. It will scan about 250,000 stars, so about 10 times the results from Kepler. It is not expected to launch until 2018. I suppose patience is a virtue, since by the time we can actually study these new found worlds we will have discovered over 20,000 of them!

Bees & Birds

Calm down; there's still 5 more days to log your Great Backyard Bird Counts (although the observations must be for dates Feb 17-20th). Almost 100,000 lists have been submitted for this year, which is a record setting pace. It's always fun for a bird nerd to peruse the past results, and this year's interesting bird is the Snowy Owl with a record number of observations. I had read in December from several sources that this winter was likely going to have an unusual irruption of Snowy Owls, which might be due to a predator-prey oscillation. A great example is it is the first time a Snowy Owl was ever seen in Hawaii, and there was even one spotted near my winter foraging grounds in Texas!

Our GBBC list was not the best this year, since we didn't record some of our regular visitors over the weekend (downy and red-bellied woodpeckers, and white-throated sparrows have often made our list). My favorite was going to a nearby pond by the library where we counted over 70 Lesser Scaup! We also saw some American Widgeons hiding among the Mallards, and like the Scaup, will be migrating north soon. Since central Texas experienced record drought over the summer, I was concerned how this might impact migratory bird populations. I don't know how accurately the GBBS counts can be used to track population counts from year to year, but it was comforting to see the species counts were at least very similar so far.

Oh, and speaking of migrating north for the summer, so are we. I'm going for a 3-peat season at MEVE!

One of the activities I'm excited about this year is studying how some of the rare plants produce viable seeds. I had read a book called The Forgotten Pollinators and one of the topics about the Allee Effect made me consider if it could be the reason behind the inexplicable range of Schmoll's Milkvetch. Schmoll's Milkvetch is an endemic for the park, and grows only on a few mesa tops. There seems nothing particularly special about its habitat requirements, which made me wonder if the fruits are not viable due to lack of proper pollination. If so, is the lack of pollinators because there are too few plants left to support the pollinators? We hope to do a few experiments and determine if Schmoll's requires a pollinator to cross-fertilize the plants. If it does, it would be interesting to find out who it is (or was), and if the pollinator needs protection along with the rare plants. There could be other reasons for the limited range, but this research has never been done for Schmoll's, or any of our rare plants for that matter, so enlightenment awaits! Stay tuned for more exciting details!!!

As if anticipating my research, our Yellow jessamine-trumpet vine flowered like crazy and attracted a bunch of these pretty green-metallic halictid bees in the photo. Extra credit to anyone who identifies them.

Migrations

It was great having a few weeks off to enjoy the changing of the seasons in the mountains. The aspen trees turned their glorious gold, the oaks and serviceberry turned into ruddish browns, and soon the peaks had dustings of snow. We went on little hikes to scenic Spud Lake and the ghost town of Ironton. A longer overnight hike took us to Blaine Basin at the foot of Mount Sneffels, which had really neat examples of glacial moraines still actively eroding, along with a couple of waterfalls to explore.



You might think that Mt. Sneffels and the surrounding public lands in its shadow was included in the Mount Sneffels Wilderness, but you'd be wrong. The exciting news is that there is pending legislation before congress to be reviewed on November 10th to expand it by 22,000 acres to include the mountain! Please pester your favorite politician to make it happen, since it is an uncontested no-brainer of a designation; the only industry impacted, recreation, has grandfathered exemptions to continue heli-skiing and the hardrock races.


As Aldo Leopold eloquently said, "the opportunity to see geese is more important than television, and the chance to find a pasque-flower is a right as inalienable as free speech."


We made one last trip up to The Meadows to visit George before the snows set in. We're glad we did, since the upper elevations were soon socked in with snow. Wolf Creek Pass got over 36" and the ski valley had its earliest open season ever on October 8th. Since I hadn't been skiing since Snoqualmie a few years back (on its latest open day ever, May 25th), we had to check it out. The snow was great, but they only had enough staff to run 3 lifts. Whoa, I needed the practice!


Then it was time to pack up and drive the long, lonely road home.

End of the Season

One of the wonderful aspects of working at Mesa Verde is the opportunity to make casual discoveries while walking about. Last year, it was a parrot figurine we found at Yucca House that piqued the interest of the archeologists. This year we were surveying the only known population of Acer grandidentatum (big-toothed maple) to exist in Colorado, which only grow along the north escarpment in the park. The terrain is really steep in places, so it's some of the least explored, and this is when I stumbled across Squirrel-Bear. I call him that, because the body looks like a bear to me, but the long tail makes me think of a squirrel. The archies were interested in him too, so they picked him up and brought it back to the lab for scrutiny. Surface finds like this, especially without the context of an ancient ruin nearby, can be tricky to date, but squirrel-bear was unique enough to that it was important to investigate. Looking under magnification, it became clear that the quartzite was worked by steel tools, and therefore historic. While it's not 100% conclusive, it was probably a Navajo fetish, since near the area was an old hogan and sweat lodge. Alas, probably not cool enough to go on display in the new visitor center, but it made me keep my eyes open.

The past few weeks of work went by very quickly, as they always seem to do. We headed into areas of the park I had never visited before, which is always a treat. One of the archeologists had spotted Ulmus pumila (Siberian Elms) growing in an ancient kiva on Battleship Rock. The kiva was one of the largest I had seen, although mostly buried under sand and shrubs. It was an interesting place to be, mostly since the archie escorting me was kind enough to take the time to explain all that I was seeing. After that, I spent a week with the Lake Mead EPMT team chasing weeds and dodging lightning bolts.


One of the biologists had placed a wildlife camera at one of the springs and got a series of amazing images of these pumas. I had seen a few paw prints and drag marks, but I'd never seen a mountain lion before... and still haven't... but I'm certain they've been watching me.

On my 2nd to last day, they needed someone to rotate onto a wildlife surveying shift... in a helicopter! My crew-boss graciously asked them to let me go, since I had been whining about missing a helicopter flight last year (2 of my crew last year were flown to a fire). This was my first time on a 'copter, so wasn't sure what to expect, so I popped some Dramamine and waited for the shift. My job was simple; look out the window for wildlife, call out anything interesting, waypoint it, and writedown the location, sex, and count.

The 'copter took off, turned, and started flying towards the south-east corner of the park to begin a series of North-South running transects. We were flying low, but also somewhat slow, to give us a chance to survey. It was really awesome flying over canyons... the same canyons that would take a half day long slog of a hike and were were just into the breezing blue like it was nothing but a walk in the park. The eastern mesa ends in a series of cliffs and steep slopes down to the river, so the 1st transect was fun topography... oh, there's an ancient ruin... I wonder why no sagebrush grows there... hey, is that an eeellllllkkkkk!?!?!? The co-pilot had just pointed out a herd of elk and before I knew it, the pilot had spun the copter and begun a dive at the same time, spiraling in close to allow the biologists a chance to photograph them. The first spiral-dive really caught me unawares, and I was suddenly glad for the dramamine as I fumbled with the GPS unit and tried to listen in on the counts. After I knew what to expect, it wasn't so scary, but there were certainly IMAX-like scenes of ridges and cliffs looming before us, especially along the north escarpments. The coolest thing was watching the pilot maneuver the 'copter broadsides down a canyon for survey photography-- it was really unnatural to look out the front when the motion was sideways with a pronounced yaw.

It was a terrific way to end the season; now if only I could fly home instead of drive. I won't be leaving for a little longer, since watching the aspens turn color and seeing the first major snowfalls are great incentives to stick around and I have the free time to soak it in. Meanwhile, is anyone interested in a not-so-gently-used alarm clock?

Equinox

It's about time to post an update before the clamor of blog readers impatient for the next post becomes too much to bear.

It's the final week of my season here at The Rock. I've finally managed to explore some new areas of the Verde, such as Park Mesa, Battleship Rock, south Long Mesa, and south Prater Ridge. I've learned a little more about archeology and a lot more about plants. Projects are winding down, with our Long Term Post Fire Monitoring study complete, rare plant surveys completed, and most of our major re-vegetation projects finished.

On the weekends, we've revisited a few nice sites, such as Ice Lakes, and explored new areas, such as Owen's Basin, Crater Lake and Cajon Canyon. The weather has been fairly stormy this past month, with a chance of thunderstorms each day that keeps us on our toes. We've been rained on every hike, even when traveling into the normally dry canyons of Utah.

Now it's time for the Philosopher's Corner: What's the deal with exotic species?

There is a difference between non-native and invasive, and it related to the amount of damage the species is expected to cause. In the case of managing a natural area, damage is often to the biodiversity and function of the ecosystem. A non-native species may exist in a natural habitat and not cause undue damage, or perhaps even enhance the stablility of the ecosystem, such as the african violet or european honeybees. But a species that works to unbalance an ecosystem can destroy the biodiversity or even change the fundemental nature of the ecosystem.

Good examples of this type of damage can be found in Cheatgrass in western states, or the Paperbark tree deliberately introduced into the Everglades. In the case of Cheatgrass, it acts as a fast-growing annual that dies back in the summer. Aside from it's ability to crowd out native annual plants, the potentially more nefarios problem with this growth pattern is it creates a catatrophic flash-fuel type into ecosystems not adapted to frequent wildfires. Mesa Verde National Park has old growth Pinyon-Juniper woodland with the only surviving relic stands of Bigtooth Maple trees in the state. There are many species of endemic plants such as the Cliff Palace Milkvetch and Mesa Verde Stickseed. The presence of cheatgrass has resulted in wildfires being both more frequent, more intense, and having the ability to spread across terrain. Over the past 30 years since cheatgrass has appeared in the park, fires have destroyed almost 50% of the old growth forests and cheatgrass is more prevalent. Thus cheatgrass passes the first two tests of a noxious weed for management decisions here: does it impact the ecosystem? is it's trend increasingly problematic?

The Paperbark tree was intentionally introduced into Florida as a fast growing tree that could lower water tables and there make land available to agriculture. It worked extremely well... too well, since it escaped the private lands it was introduced on and spread across the state. Lowering the watertable to a wetland and shading out understory plants is obviously a game-changing problem for most of what makes a swamp a swamp. Both the structure (watertable) and the composition (species composition) are changing and biodiversity decreases.

So these two examples pass the test of being noxious within the parameters of a given ecological community (a biome), and get branded as invasive. Before a land-manager decides to start tackling such a problem, there's a lot more decisions to be made first. How much of the management area is currently disrupted, what charactertics are resulting in the spread, and what difficulties would there be in treatment? For now, nobody has determined a good technique to halt the spread of cheatgrass. The paperbark is fortunately a difference story, perhaps as a lesson that "the bigger they are, the harder they fall", and managers in Florida have found effective ways to control its impact.

Some invasives are likely here to stay, such as russian thistle. Trying to eradicate it would be like a game of whack-a-mole across an entire landscape. Other invasives are specific to smaller regions, such as Australian Pines in the Florida Keys, and managers have a decent chance at eradicating it from the landscape.

As far as worrying about what "natural" is seems less of a problem for most land managers. Biodiversity and ecosystem integrity are the goals, and ironically some of our ecosystems benefit from manmade disturbances. It is well documented that most prairies, especially in eastern states, were maintained by fires set by Indians. Trying to put a tallgrass prairie in a bubble where no humans can maintain the landscape would likely result over time of it growing into a forest, which is called succession. These are biomes that require an occasional "reset" to maintain themselves or they slowly fade into something different. Of course, even the best intentioned researcher can create a disaster, such as the accidental introduction and spread of chytrid fungus into a nature reserve. Considering that many protected natural areas were created in response to a rare species, spending time and effort to counter threats such as invasives to their existence is certainly resources well spent.

Recommended reading: "And No Birds Sing: A True Ecological Thriller set in a Tropical Paradise"

Mesa Verde and the Monsoons

It's midsummer, and that means "monsoon" rains in the southern rockies. They are welcome for the rain they bring to keep the flowers and grasses growing, but they also are needed for keeping the heat down. The anasazi stylized the thunderhead clouds that is represented in many of their pottery and kiva paintings, so it's keeping the faith in the four-corners to appreciate them... even when it cancels your hiking plans.

Most of the storms are isolated and fast moving, just enough to make you run for cover and dampen the ground, but every now and then the mountains seem to grab hold of the clouds and not let go. In mid July, we had a storm at Mesa Verde where they recorded 1,850 ground strikes in a few hours. The bolts started a dozen small fires, and the sharp lookouts had spotted most of them. The following day the fire crews worked at full tilt, sending crews out to each blaze and using a helicopter to assist in finding new fires. Low winds and high humidity made it easy to snuff them out.

Despite the bad weather, we have been getting stuff done. We completed some surveys of the Schmoll's milkvetch (Astragalus schmolliae) along a portion of Chapin mesa, hiking past a ruined watchtower and cliff dwellings. We released a few more batches of Trichosirocalus horridus to feast upon the musk thistle. Long term monitoring plots of the burn areas are also being established; so far we've completed 25 of 100 that need to be done for sampling.

The weather also gave us enough breaks to go climb Wilson Peak and hike along Hope Lake. The wildflowers are going full bore in the alpine areas, where most of the snow is now gone. Elephant's Head, Castilleja rhexifolia, Monk's Hood, Delphinium, Bistort, Columbines, and many others are all blooming. Pikas scamper along the rock slides, harvesting grasses and drying them in little cute haystacks before storing them in their burrows for the long winter. Snow still persists along the north faces and other areas protected from the sun, but it is melting fast.

Goodbye George

This is George T. Mouser; cat, companion, and fuzz factory.

born: circa 1993
died: July 23, 2011


George was as friendly of a cat as you could ever hope to meet. I found him in an animal shelter in Texas 18 years ago, and he'd been purring ever since. If you ever found a cloud sailing overhead with a touch of grey, that was probably motes of his cat fur that have been circumnavigating the globe for the past decade.

There's so many memories he gave us, like the time he came home pink (still a mystery), the time he summoned satan to scare away an opossum, the time he bawled like an evinrude outboard gettin bogged down in the mud (and was so mournful I had to stop the car to tell him he was a good boy), the time I patrolled my neighborhood until 3:30am to bring him in before a huge storm to find him up on a roof, and that he never once tried to hurt anybody -- including the many vets that poked & prodded him painfully, and being the best nap kitty in the world.

George began slowing down past Sunday evening. By Tuesday evening, it was clear he needed to see a vet. He was in Complete Renal Failure, and despite several days in the hospital, there wasn't anything that could be done to help him. He rallied a few times and tried so very hard to eat and drink for us, but since he could barely walk, losing energy, and in discomfort, we agreed it was time to let him rest.

We found a nice place to bury him in the mountains, close to heaven in a shaded grove with wildflowers blooming all around. If you ever find yourself in a field so beautiful and find a ring of small stones, say "hi" to George and tell him we can't wait to see him again.

We miss you George, rest in peace.