Guardian

When humans invade nature by constructing buildings, playgrounds, etc, we inevitably change the habitat for the wildlife living in the area.  On a previous post, I wrote about my surveys at my work site.  Over the past years, we've had a pair of Great Horned Owls nest on our building.  We'd watch them as they nested inside a very high ledge. The owlets would fall to their deaths as they began to try and branch out.  Last year, we had a licensed rehabilitation center take them away, but for me, it was a terrible idea.  Yes we "saved" them, but at what price?  So this year we tried something different.  I recommended we keep the owlets on campus and have them placed in our Ironwood trees so that they could develop in their natural environment.  Several of the teachers had friends who did owl rescue and came to relocate the owls from the dangerously high ledge into the more secure Ironwood trees below.  The team  had the nest located near a teacher's window so that they could keep an eye on the 3 owlets.  The Principal of the school was open to this idea and spoke to the 2000 students over the intercom about helping these owlets out.  Today, 2 of the 3 owlets are out and about hanging out in the trees.....naturally!UPDATE.  All 3 owlets have successfully left the nest as of this AM!(10/5/13)  Mom and Dad are with them, but Mom has been occupied with the 3rd owlet who is much weaker than the rest.  This is normal with nesting Great Horned Owls.  Usually one or two of the strongest will survive the nest.  A laundry basket was placed into the tree and the parent owls quickly watched over their owlets. We are happy to report today that the intervention helped!  Students are excited and respectful of the owls (and also learning a lot about them!)  Owls learn to develop their eyes and legs first before learning how to fly.  

While on my survey, I noticed a pair of Pyrrhuloxias feeding near our wash.  It was a real thrill to see in person.  I heard lots of noises and found the babies quickly.

One of the jobs of our school is to watch over the wash and protect it.  Most people walk past the area and don't pay attention to all the activity happening inside and along the wash.

Tomorrow, I'll be doing another count as I walk the grounds.  There is always so much to see and it's exciting to watch Mother Nature adapt to public areas. 

I find a private place and do my reports.  I take one hour to walk the one mile perimeter of our school and count our birds.  In the process, students are educated as are other instructors on campus.  Awareness and education are key components.  If we are going to try and keep this planet a better place, we need to be aware of our actions.  And it's exciting to watch people get excited about a little bird. 

I am thankful for a wonderful administration and great group of teachers who want to make that difference.  Here my love of birds and Spanish are blending in perfectly. 

This constant evolution of age makes me smile.  I am more than one label and it's great to watch all of it come together as one.  And who doesn't love owls??:)  Maybe these owls will spark an interest for our younger generations.......

The Ironwood Tree

The Ironwood is one of the largest and longest-lived Sonoran Desert plants, reaching 45 feet in height and persisting as long as 1,500 years. During these hot days of summer, I wanted to share this very native tree to homeowners.  Recently at the Gardens, people have asked me about the Mexican Buckeye and Ironwood.  The high school I work at is called Ironwood Ridge and is surrounded by many of these slow growing trees.  Owls love to call the Ironwood their home as do many other birds.  I found this article that I thought I'd share with you from the Pima County State Files. In the spring, these trees have a lovely lavender to dark purple blossom. The bark is a solid silver grey color.  It is more commonly seen around washes and in the Oro Valley area, but they do grow in town.  Most people in the city of Tucson don't use this plant in their landscape because it's slow growing.  It is a highly recommended tree however for our residents both local and wild:)  The article is as follows....

Don't worry...you can train this as a tree and it gets about 20 to 25 feet high and around 30 feet wide. Some places report this tree as high as 45 feet.  The trees around school are pruned yearly.

"It is a single or multi-trunked evergreen tree, and displays lavender to pink flowers in May. By early summer, the pods mature. Each 2-inch pod contains one to four shiny brown seeds that are relished by many Sonoran animals, from small mammals and birds to humans. Its iron-like wood is renowned as one of the world's densest woods.

The shaded sanctuary and richer soils created by ironwoods increase plant diversity and provide benefits to wildlife. Ironwoods are too hard to provide nesting cavities for birds, but the cacti that grow beneath them provide such opportunities. Insects abound within the ironwood complex, attracting birds and reptiles. As with other legumes, the ironwood's leaf litter supplies nitrogen to the soil and its seeds provide a protein-rich resource for doves, quail, coyotes, and many small rodents.

The Ironwood tree is found only in the Sonoran Desert, in the dry locales below 2,500 feet, where freezing temperatures are uncommon. In fact the Ironwood's habitat is almost an exact match of the Sonoran Desert boundry. Ironwoods are most common in dry ephemeral washes. Ironwoods function as oases of fertile and sheltered habitat within a harsh and challenging desert landscape. As a tree becomes established, it tempers the physical environment beneath it, creating a micro-habitat with less direct sunlight, lower surface temperatures, more organic matter, higher water availability, and protection from herbivores. Because of these factors, the Ironwood tree has immense ecological value in the Sonoran Desert.

Ironwood grows taller than most trees in Sonoran desert scrub, so it serves as a great perch and roost for hawks and owls. It's dense canopy is utilized by nearly 150 bird species. Add tall ironwoods to the scrubby vegetation on some desert bajadas, and you're likely to add 63 percent more birds than creosote, cactus and bursage alone could support. The ironwood's canopies are so dense that they reduce the probability of extreme heat exposure in the summer.

Air temperatures may be 15 degrees cooler under ironwoods than in the open desert sun five feet away. Ironwood also shelters frost sensitive young saguaros, organ pipe cactus, night-blooming cereus and many other native plants growing beneath them. More than 230 plant species have been recorded starting their growth within the protective microclimate under ironwood "nurse plants." This also creates an optimum wildflower nursery which is foraged by rabbits, bighorn, and other native species.
In addition to the birds, there are 62 reptiles and amphibians, and 64 mammals that use ironwoods for forage, cover and birthing grounds. At just one site in the Silverbell Mountains, an ironwood-bursage habitat also shelters some 188 kinds of bees, 25 ant colonies, and 25 other types of insects. That adds up to an extraordinary level of biodiversity." End of article.  So there you have it....another lovely native tree to put into your Sonoran yard:) Currently they are rebounding from our severed winter freeze.  Some need to be pruned up.  The owls love the Ironwood!  We had several owlings last summer around July.  I wish I had brought my camera, but I'll remember next time. Source: http://www.pima.gov/cmo/sdcp/species/iw/illus.html