We now have our schedule for December. We are supposed to work Wednesday through Friday. On Wednesday, we are to do biology, primarily seed collection and preparation. That is what we did yesterday. Thursdays we check the quails in the flight pens, then go to Arivaca and do the hydrology measurements (and check the trails). Fridays we help Paula at the quail facility.
We went and visited the quail at the flight pens first thing this morning. Except for the small pen with chicks, they seem to be getting used to us or we are getting better with them. The chicks, which are nearly full-grown, are quite skittish and I seem to manage to flush them every time I go inside their pen. They hide out and when I get too close they flush. Unfortunately, the pens don't have soft netting on the sides to keep them from hitting the metal screening. One ended up clinging to the screen just above the entry door. I had to help him off the screen.
Aside from having to break up a half-inch of ice on all the water basins (yes, it was another morning in the teens), all was well and we finished up and headed off to Arivaca and the well measurements.
We are getting quite used to doing these. I measure and Ellen takes the notes (readable notes as opposed to what I would do), so it went relatively quickly. We ran into quite a few visitors to the Cienega this week, eighteen in all including a dozen from the Green Valley RV Resort, a 55+ RV park. They have a hiking group that goes out twice a week and this week it was a trip to Arivaca Cienega. Like other visitors we've met there, the primary question is about the lack of water. The cienega is pretty dry on the surface, with only a little water in the creek that passes through it. Many of these folks have been wintering here for years and are surprised at how dry it has become.
We had to hurry back to the refuge as we had been asked to staff the visitor center in the afternoon. Hence our half-normal Wednesday.
Dan was at a local workshop on "gabions" today and Chuck and Betty were off doing one of there snake presentations. Gabions are basically wire baskets full of rocks used as retaining walls. The Altar Valley Conservation Alliance is a local group of ranchers and other local residents (including the refuge) who are working to maintain and improve the landscape and habitat of the valley (the refuge is in Altar Valley). Most are interested in improving it to maintain a productive ranching and farming environment. Those goals are consistent with those of the refuge, as a good grassland is as important for the ranchers as the quail.
The purpose of this meeting was to explore the use of gabions in the washes to improve erosion control. It doesn't rain here much, about 15 inches per year, but they have a summer monsoon season with local, but often violent, thunderstorms. These storms cause flash flooding in the washes and serious erosion. The hope is to use gabions, which are fairly inexpensive, to retard the runoff allowing the washes to silt up and the water to percolate into the ground. Evidently, before ranching took hold in the Altar Valley, there were very few washes. It was only after the land was overgrazed and the grasses no longer held the soil in place that erosion started.
We got to meet many of the attendees at the workshop when we returned to the visitor center since the refuge was hosting a lunch and we were invited. Once lunch was over and the workshop moved on to one of the local ranches, it was a rather quiet afternoon. The only visitors were a couple form Canada who had ridden in on a BMW 1200GS. They were camping at the RV park in Arivaca and riding the refuge dirt roads and having a fine time. Sigh ... we were pea green with envy.
Photos (Quail)
No comments:
Post a Comment