We Saw A Bunch Of Stuff At The Walls Of Jericho Yesterday

Yesterday we made our last regularly scheduled collection of telescope shiners at the Walls of Jericho. It was a warm, sunny day. The late summer flowers were out in force: iron weed, cardinal flowers, Joe Pye weed, all of the unknowable asters (to me at least). And the iron weed and Joe Pye weed were drawing more butterflies than I've seen for a while. Walking into a dense patch of iron weed or Joe Pye weed would flush a cloud of butterflies, including Monarchs (see below). We heard a pileated woodpecker calling, and heard the deep drumming sound they make when working on a tree. And we saw a trio of redtail hawks apparently cooperatively hunting: one of them would come down low and fast over the iron weed at the treeline, trying to flush prey, while the other two circled overhead and seemed to wait for something good to run. And, of course, we saw several large flocks of turkeys largely comprised of juveniles. So everything was pumped up along Hurricane Creek. I realized that much of this was possible because much of the pasture that had been kept mowed for cow grazing until recently is now being allowed to grow in, which means lots of iron weed and Joe Pye weed especially. The land is allowed to go its own way, and the short term result is a bumper crop of butterflies. I approve!

Our fish trip was successful, we captured 38 telescopes with little trouble. I'm sure that they're past breeding, but I'm curious to see what their length/weight relationship works out as.

Below is a caterpillar that fell in the back of the truck and somehow stung Loren a few times. I have no idea what it is. Do you?

The following shot is a view of the central meadow at the Walls property, with the ridge in the backgroud marking the northern lip of the canyon leading to the springs at the Walls of Jericho proper. The darker purple flowers are iron weed, the lighter pink is Joe Pye weed.

The following is my prize shot for the day, a handheld zoom shot of a monarch on a Joe Pye flower spike. I assume the monarchs are on their way south, or will be soon.

And, here's what the creek looked like yesterday. This site is the pool upstream from an old ford. We usually don't catch many telescope shiners in this pool but yesterday it was easy with our 12-foot seine. This spot was a good foot (30 cm) deeper in February and March.