A Day on the Mountain

Mt. San Jacinto is the mountain that looms above Palm Springs. It has a huge vertical drop- the summit is at 10,834'. The elevation of downtown Palm Springs is about 500 feet. For several years now, Leon and I have hiked partway up the mountain during our visits. We have wanted to hike up to the upper terminal of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway, however it's a long and steep hike, and we have always turned back partway up.

This year we decided to get an early start and really try to get to the tram. The trail begins right at the end of Ramone Road, about half a mile from where we were staying. It's not very long- only about 8 miles to the tram. We have easily gone that distance on other day hikes, however this trail involves an 8,000 foot elevation gain.

Leon at the trailhead

Looking fresh at 7:30 AM

We left the hotel just after 7. Michael opted to spend the day poolside, so it was just Leon and me this time out.

The views of Palm Springs were spectacular

The trail begins in desert and quickly rises high above the city. We were treated to spectacular views throughout the day. It was sunny and beautifully warm at the lower elevations. Probably due to the lateness of he season, I saw very few insects. I did manage to get a photo of a pretty beetle and a variegated meadowhawk dragonfly.

Cool beetle

Variegated Meadowhawk (Sympetrum corruptum)

The climb gives a beautiful lesson in the alpine life zones of southern California. Desert gives way to the shrubby scrub land known as chaparral. This is an ecosystem that I have less familiarity with. I always find it disorienting when I'm someplace where I don't know the names of even the common, conspicuous plants.

Chaparral

Up in the chaparral zone the views are amazing

Eventually, trees begin appearing. The hike ends in ponderosa pine forest at the tram station. The air up here is thin. Between the elevation and the prolonged exertion of hiking we were really wiped when we got to the tram at about 4 in the afternoon. I have few photos of the end of the hike. What really amazes me is that after the tram ride down, we still had the energy to go out to dinner with Michael and a couple of other guys that we had met at the resort. I guess we were hungry.

Trees!
I think I would have died if I had known that there was still
nearly 2 hours of hiking in front of us here

Side benefits of the hike: I have restarted my running program, run more than 15 miles each week , and dropped 8 pounds since this hike. Michael wants us to repeat this (with him) next year, and I want to be in better shape for it.

Autumn in the Desert

It's hard to believe that I've been back from California for 2 1/2 week already. Nearly every November, Leon and I head out to the desert east of San Diego and Los Angeles. Palm Springs is our base of operations. This year we were joined by our friend Michael. For the first weekend, we were also joined by UrSpo and his partner who drove over from Phoenix.

Indian Palm Canyon

The five of us did a delightful hike in the Indian Palm Canyons. It was fun to introduce Michael to the palm oasis ecosystem, and to go for yet another hike with Urspo and his partner. I also enjoyed all the dragonflies that we saw that day. We also had fun watching all the hummingbirds up at the trading post.

Bluet (Enallagma sp.)

Hummingbird

On Monday, after the Spos had returned to Phoenix, we visited Painted Canyon in the Mecca Hills. Although I brought my camera, I left the memory card in the computer back at the resort. As a result, i enjoyed lugging a useless camera up the canyon and back. The photography on Tuesday was much better at Joshua Tree.

Michael with Joshua Trees

Cute Ground Squirrel

Leon at the crest of the hike

We really enjoyed introducing Michael to some of our favorite desert spots. I'll save the rest of our adventures, including a major mountain hike, for further postings.

Moonrise at Joshua Tree

On the Futility of Questing for Migrating Dragons

I'm back from Mexico. We didn't see any dragonfly migration, however the trip was not wholly unsuccessful. I think that we returned with a much better idea of what it will take to learn more about the phenomenon as it occurs in Mexico.

Monday was a challenging day. We began early in some wetlands about 20 miles north of the city of Veracruz. That's just about where Hurricane Karl made landfall a month ago, and there was still lots of damage visible. We saw fewer dragonflies than butterflies. Normally that would be fine by me, except that this time around I was being paid to find migrating dragonflies and wasn't having much luck. I was particularly enjoying seeing other species in the same genus as the Silver-spotted Skipper. I also found some tiger beetles. I'm pretty sure that they were Western Red-bellied Tigers (Cicindela sedecimpunctata) a species that's very common in the western US.

Karl's Calling Card

Broken Silverdrop (Epargyreus exadeus)

Mexican Tiger Beetle! (Westerm Red-bellied?)

As we were headed off to the next site, I expanded my Spanish vocabulary. Elisa's car began making a dreadful noise and I learned the words freno (brake) and grúa (tow truck). We made it as far as the city of Cardél where we watched a river of migrating raptors from the roof of the big hotel, then had lunch downstairs in the coffee shop. Celeste and I then took the bus back to Xalapa and got some work done at the hotel there while Elisa had her car tended to. Fortunately the car problem was minor (a stone stuck in a wheel assembly). Unfortunately we lost a whole afternoon of field time.

Tuesday we went to an organic farm near the mountain town of Coatepec. There were plenty of dragonflies in the artificial pond, but little species diversity and no migratory activity. Some of the Mexican dragonflies are stunningly beautiful.

Hercules Skimmer (Libellula hercules) at the organic farm

There were lots of butterflies like this Blomfild's Beauty (Smyrna blomfildi)
on rotting fruit at the farm

Glasswing (Episcada salvinia)

Wednesday it was back to the dunes at Cansaburro. Thew weather was marginal, which probably put a stop to any migratory activity. Once again we saw lots of butterflies. Mexico has some amazing and beautiful skippers.

Blue-studded Skipper (Sostrata bifasciata)

Fantastic Skipper (Vettius fantasos)

Thursday was the last day of field work. We were hosted by Eduardo, who is also an employee of Pronatura. We visited the ecological field station at La Mancha, and later wandered along a dirt road where Eduardo sometimes takes visitors bird watching. We saw some very cool dragonflies at the bird watching site, but once again saw no migration activity.

Tropical Dasher (Microthyria sp.) at the field station

It's too bad that our visit did not coincide with obvious dragonfly migration activity. On the other hand, I met a bunch of new colleagues with whom I genuinely enjoyed spending time. I saw a beautiful part of the world and got to photograph lots of species of insects that I have never seen before. I believe that we learned a lot about what it will take to better study dragonfly migration, and look forward to presenting our results in December at a meeting that will take place in Austin, Texas.

Veracruz: Here There Be Dragons

Pico de Orizaba- the view from my hotel window

Saludos de Mexico. I'm in the city of Xalapa in Veracruz. I'm working with the US Forest Service, the Xerces Society and Pronatura to try to figure out how we can include dragonflies in the USFS international migration program. We are visiting a bunch of sites, collecting data and identifying species. The Pronatura folks would also like some butterfly identification for a site that they own, so I'm helping with that as well.

Big-spiked Gemmed Satyr (Cyllopsis pephredo)

Anna's Eighty Eight (Diaethera anna)

I'm staying in the city of Xalapa, and working with my colleagues Elisa who lives in Xalapa and works for Pronatura and Celeste, who lives in Portland and works for the Xerces Society. The afternoon that we arrived, Celeste and I visited the Museo de Anthropologia, then went for a walk in a preserved woodland remnant right in Xalapa. We got some nice butterfly photos.

Welcoming committee at the dune refuge

Large Dune Complex

On Monday we went to a preserve right on the coast. It's a complex of dunes and coastal wetands. Xalapa is famous for its raptor migrations, and we worked out of a Pronatura raptor banding blind. We got to watch some of the ornithologists at work.

Banding a Sharp-shinned Hawk

We've gotten to see lots of cool species of dragonflies, but have yet to encounter migratory swarms. With luck, we'll see some of that before the week is out. Meanwhile, both the dragonfly and butterfly species diversity have been outstanding.

Roseate Skimmer (Orthemis ferruginea)

Malachite (Siproeta stelenes)

Dusted Spurwing (Antigonus erosus)

IBCM Part 3

Last week, I was part of the third installment of the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management Workshop. This one was held at Fairchild Botanical Gardens in Miami (the previous two were held at the Todedo Zoo last July, and at the Florida Museum of Natural History in October).

It was fun going back to Fairchild after just a month. I saw more Atala butterflies this time than I did in February, however my February photo is better that what I managed to get this time around. On the other hand, I got a much better shot of the caterpillar this time, and managed to find a pupa to photograph.

Atala larva (Eumaeus atala)

Atala pupa (Eumaeus atala)

There were huge numbers of Needham's skimmers (Libellula needhami) in the gardens.

Needham's skimmers (Libellula needhami)

The focus of this session was originally to have been on propagating plants, and we had a couple of really wonderful hands-on sessions from some of Fairchild's very knowledgeable staff. In response to participant needs and some newly-emerging information, this session also highlighted disease and prevention issues. Last summer, a new paper described unanticipated implications for conservation efforts that can arise out of infection with a very strange bacterial pathogen called Wolbachia, and I was asked to give a presentation on it. I enjoyed that a lot, because it was a very challenging talk to put together, and it was well received.

We had a field trip day on Tuesday that included stops: Bahia Honda and Big Pine Key. I had visited both of these spots a month earlier. It was fun to see them a bit further into the spring season.

Vincent and I on Bahia Honda

The weather was much nicer this time around than it had been in February, however the earlier cold weather had taken a toll. We were looking for two endangered species, the Miami blue and Bartram's hairstreak, and saw neither of them. At Bahia Honda, I did get a photo of Martial's hairstreak, which is an uncommon species. The cassius blue is not uncommon, but I was happy with the quality of my picture.

Martial's Hairstreak (Strymon martialis)

Cassius Blue

At Big Pine Key, the group met with one of the site managers and then spit up for some exploration to look for Bartram's hairstreak. As we were splitting into smaller groups, Jaret suggested that some people tag along with me as I know Big Pine Key (somewhat true) and could help with plant identification (Yikes- so NOT true. I only know about a dozen species from that ecosystem). Still, it wasn't a disaster. We got to have fun and I got to see the imperiled Florida duskywing.

Butterfly Conservationists at Big Pine Key

Florida Duskywing (Erynnis brunnea)

I really enjoyed the conference a lot. At the same time I'm happy for a bit of a pause in my travels. My next trip will not happen until June, when Part 4 of the conference will take place at the Oregon Zoo in Portland.

Return to Florida

Yeeps, I haven't even finished blogging about my last trip to Florida and I'm back down here again. I'm here for part 3 of the Imperiled Butterfly Conservation and Management workshop.

I started out with the trip by meeting a fellow blogger named Tony. Kathie will find this particularly amusing- yes, this is your brother-in-law. We went for a delightful nature walk at Hugh Taylor Birch Park State Park in Ft. Lauderdale and went out for a couple of drinks together. A charming and delightful man. We wanted to take a photo to post and forgot to do so. Ah, well,

I'm pleased to say that the weather has been far nicer so far than it was a few weeks back. I came down a couple of days early in the hopes of getting in some better entomology than I managed in February. Although it has been better, the bugs are still suffering the aftereffects of a very cold winter. In February, I was at Fackahatchee Strand State Park over near Naples and managed to get photos of a caterpillar of the Little Metalmark (Calephelis virginiensis). It's a very close relative of the Swamp Metalmark, and my photos are the first of the caterpillar to be posted on BugGuide.

Little Metalmark (Calephelis virginiensis) Caterpillar

This time around I wwanted a picture of the adult. I succeeded- after a fashion. I'm not thrilled with the quality.

Little Metalmark (Calephelis virginiensis)

Some of the other butterflies were more photogenic. I especially liked the shot that I got of the Twin-spot Skipper.

Twinspot Skipper (Oligoria maculata)

Dragonflies were also putting in an appearance. There weren't huge numbers, but a few posed for me.

Forktail Damselfly (Ischnura sp.)

Halloween Pennant (Celathemis eponina)

Ther were even a few vertebrates that posed for us. Yeah, cute cute, blah blah blah.

Green Treefrog (Hylas cinerea)

Over by Naples I connected up with other blogging friends- the Thingfishes! We went on an unsuccessful expedition for tiger beetles we had a great seafood dinner. It has been a very enjoyable trip so far.

Blogging friends (Thingfish sp.)