Spring has Sprung - Desert Bloom

While temperatures have been plenty warm since we arrived the first of April at Bitter Lake National Wildlife Refuge (Roswell, New Mexico), desert life has been a little hard to come by.  But in recent days here in the middle of May things are starting to emerge.

One of the duties of volunteers at the refuge are to water the vegetation "islands" in the visitor center parking lot and around the building.  These islands are made up of native, hardy desert plants but a lack of measurable rain for the past eight months is even a little much for them so we are hand watering every week or so.  This little bit of moisture has made a difference, we are getting blooms here at the visitor center.

Claret Cup Cactus

Ocotillo

Butterflies and hummingbirds come in for these Ocotillo blooms.

We had not been near an ocotillo since our volunteer days at Big Bend National Park in 2013/14.  We had almost forgotten how extraordinary the transformation from what looked like dead, brown "rain sticks" to green and white-striped branches topped with clumps of orange blooms that call in butterflies and hummingbirds from afar.

I don't know what this cactus is but it burst with blooms.  The buds took days to develop but once they started opening up, it was only minutes before the cactus was covered over by blooms.  And it is a good thing I took the picture when I did because they were very short-lived.  They were completely gone by the end of the next day.













The Desert Willows are doing very well on their own.  We have noticed these trees blooming all around the area.  It would seem that the bees are particularly fond of these blooms as they can be seen all around these trees but ignoring the cactus flowers at the base of the tree.

Desert Willow and local pollinator.

Desert bloomers are not the only ones showing a little color lately.  This refuge is big on things that fly and over the course of all four seasons it sees a tremendous variety of winged animals.  Even though we grew up in a similar semi-arid environment, we were to the east and north of Bitter Lake and on the edge of the central flyway.  Bitter Lake NWR is smack in the middle of the flyway and all the birds know this is a good place to rest and refuel.

Yellow Headed Blackbird.
Our first time to see one of these.

 Our RV pad, which is near the old visitor center/admin building that is now home to the biology group, is a favored habitat for the non-wading birds in the refuge.  We have year-round residents, a covey of 10 scaled quail that are visible almost all day long, scratching around in the brush or getting water from the weather station's evaporation tank.  These guys are comical to watch.  The covey travels loosely together with pairs staying closer together.

Scaled Quail (aka Blue Quail)

You can see the pecking order at work when they come together under the bird feeder.  There is always one bigger bird that decides who gets access to the best spot and works hard at being sure the other birds keep their distance.  But the most comical part is when they are on the move.  They stand so erect, with their necks stretched straight up and their little cotton crest standing out.  They run from one spot to the next, legs moving furiously but bodies gliding as they zig-zag through the brush.

We've had a mass of beautiful purple flowers growing all around us since arriving.  They have recently matured and become big enough that one could see there was a uniqueness to their stem shape.  We clipped a few stems and brought them inside to research what it was.  It didn't take long before we discovered it was called Scorpion Weed.  The distinctive curl at the end of its stems giving rise to its name.  But much to our surprise we also learned that the weed had an oil with properties similar to that of poison oak.  The oil does not affect as many people as poison oak does and for those that do react to it, it is a milder rash, but it is still a rash.  We took those clipping outside post haste and washed thoroughly.  We'll just enjoy them from a safe distance from now on.

This next specimen, a Bullocks Oriole, was very difficult to photograph.  It was a very nervous feeder.  He only made an appearance at the feeder (suet cake only) for a few seconds a couple of times a day for about a week and then he was gone.  The picture below was a matter of having the camera setting on the table that looked out onto the feeder and doing a very quick point-and-shoot through heavily tinted glass.

Bullock's Oriole

On the other hand, this guy below is the opposite of nervous.  We call him our lounge rabbit.  He just eases up to the RV pad, picks out a tasty clump of grass, sometimes right at our feet, and kicks back for a leisurely meal.

Once he is done with his munching he will find a comfortable spot nearby, lay down, front paws stretched out in front, rear end like he's sitting side-saddle and there he'll stay for the better part of an hour.

If it weren't for the wind this place would be awesome.  But we do have wind, and plenty of it.  Now, as spring nears its end the heat is kicking in.  We've already spent five days at a time with temperatures in the mid and upper 90's, broke 100 deg a half dozen times.  It won't be long that we will have long stretches of days well above 100.  That's the desert for you, we knew about it coming in and it is everything we remember.