Howdy folks! Somehow we have managed to fly through July already. Part of that fly-by was thanks to a pretty busy month here at Intrigued. Intrigued’s 4th celebration, Brad and Jan out in the field and there were several running events packed in there; Jan’s St. Jude run, my failure at Cry My a River and as of last Saturday, our 20th consecutive running of the Bix7 up in the Quad Cities. Admittedly, wasn’t so sure how the Bix would go based on my previous performance in the heat and Bix is traditionally an oven of a race being deep in July. Fortunately, temps stayed Midwestern mild in mid to high 80s for the actual race and all went well, very well actually (temps did go back up to normal post race). A great way to wrap up my road race career, it is all trails from this point on! While I get a bit of recovery in, Brad is going to bring us an adventure from another steamy location.
Take it away Brad…
Jan and I have the Annual Parks Pass, allowing us unfettered access to all of the nation’s national parks, forests, monuments, etc. We’ve purchased one each year since we retired and have more than paid for the pass with savings on park entrance fees several times over. When we had the opportunity to visit another National Park, we jumped at the chance to pile on the savings. If you don’t have your Annual Parks Pass by now . . . well . . . you know who you are.
The desert around Las Vegas is just that; a desert. We shook it up a bit by visiting the largest reservoir in the US, or even in North America: Lake Mead. For those keeping score at home, Lake Powell has more surface area, but Lake Mead holds more water. Both are suffering from extended drought conditions and increased demand for water. Kids don’t let the water keep running when you brush your teeth. After leaving the visitor center, we headed towards the Wetland Trail in Lake Mead National Recreation Area.
A few minutes into our hike along a ridge, I spotted something flitting in and out of a hole in the side of a cliff. A swallow was my first thought, but being 50-75 yards away, all I got was a small brown smudge on the sensor near the middle of the photo
Look closely and you’ll see the tiny image of the bird near a hole where the rock changes from gravelly aggregate to red-striated sandstone. Did you see it? Good.
This wetland trail area looks a bit like a capital letter “X”. The parking lot is near the top with the trail running along a ridge down the middle of the top half of the X. The marshy area is down the left leg of the X. The right side of the X was completely dry, even when it met the other side near the middle of the X. The trail along the peak of the ridge was mostly loose gravel. Several signs stated that this trail was not maintained and to hike at our own risk. The top part of the trail was OK. But as we neared the junction of the X and began the descent, I was very aware I was carrying a 9 lb. camera because the swinging weight was affecting my footing. Jan must have had a harder time of it. I imagined I was hiking on a non-stick surface covered in loose marbles. We descended the loose gravel switchbacks to the bottom of the wash ending up by the running water (left side of the X). Jan headed upstream along the marshy area and I wandered downstream a bit. At the bottom of the trail the right side of the X connected with our ravine then branched off again. This other ravine was probably the one I had seen from above early on.
As I wandered into the other ravine (right side of the X near the center), I saw a branch sticking out of dried mud. I think it was the remains of a tree that had been washed down the ravine during the biblical rains from Hurricane Hilary the prior summer. This was the same storm system that left standing water in Badwater Basin at Death Valley (future story).
A little brown smudge landed on the end of the branch. Naturally, I started clicking away. The smudge was still a bit far for a good photo, so I walked slowly until the bird began to fill the frame.
Hit the jump to find out what that smudge was…
This “brown smudge” was a Northern Rough-winged Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis) and was soon joined by a second one. These are tiny little birds, a bit larger than a hummingbird, but smaller than a Martin. In other words, small sparrow sized. Oh, and a +1 for us.
I heard gravel crunching behind me and turned to see what it was. It was Jan coming to see where I went. I gave the universal sign for “birds on a branch sticking out of the mud” and she started taking photos, too. We were standing a few feet apart, so the photos had a nice parallax thing happening.
Northern Rough-winged Swallows (or NRWS) are often found near water and nest in burrows or crevices in rock faces. The two sides of the X trail met both requirements: water for bugs and dry cliff faces for nesting. They are not above using an opening in a gutter or a wall or a bridge for their nesting. We saw these favoring a small opening in the rock face. A pair will raise 4-8 eggs per brood once per year. Incubation takes 16-17 days, and the nestlings are sponge off of mom and dad a further 17-22 days.
Northern Rough-winged Swallows usually feed over water by grabbing small insects mid-air or, even more daring, right off the surface of the water. Good thing the dry ravine was close to the wet ravine for handy snacking.
Their territory covers the entire United States, southern Canada and part of Central America. I’ve not seen these at home, and will need to pay more attention in the future. Not much opportunity to see them in the middle of corn country though.
One of their behaviors is to perch on an exposed branch to preen. At least half of a checkmark on that one because we found them perched on an exposed branch, but no preening action. Maybe they were paying attention to the paparazzi taking photos. They did oblige by shifting their gaze and position on the exposed branch. When viewed face on it looks like they have old timey glasses on, at least I thought so.
Northern Rough-winged Swallows are common, but the overall population has declined slightly since 1970. Don’t worry too much because the global breeding population is still estimated to be about 18 million birds.
As Jan and I were happily taking photos of the swallows, it sounded like a group of 100 people cavalcading down the ravine. The swallows were looking to be a bit antsy. The first of the hoard of people (two actually in total) came around the corner. All of a sudden, the Swallows hear the same cacophony that we did (more details below) and flew the coop, so to speak.
We still had our cameras pointed at an empty branch, but the hikers didn’t really care. It turned out to be only two college-age women. Both were talking loudly and both were video chatting multiple friends at the same time. That’s why it sounded like many more people earlier. Neither was really dressed for hiking (flip-flops are a craptastic choice for rocky loose gravel). Not once did they look up or apologize for scaring away the birds. (remember the trio from Townsend’s Solitaire here) Luckily, we already had hundreds of photos of the cute little swallows.
Thank you for reading. If you want to see more Northern Rough-winged Swallow photos, please visit here.
Credits
Thanks again to Jan and Allyson (with Associate editor Elfie below) for proofreading and editing. Thanks to Jan for some of the photos in this article.
Rest of the story
Once the Swallows flew off, Jan and I hiked out of the ravine. There was only one other car in the parking lot which must have belonged to the women “hiking” below. It was a Porsche 911; a rental (agency stickers were all over it). I could tell by then the driver must have been oblivious to her surroundings because she parked right over a very large rock. By this time, the suspension had relaxed itself and the front of the car, near the front radiator underneath, had settled on top of this very large rock, or root of all evil. They would NOT be able to free themselves from the rock without leaving some of the car’s hardware behind. If they were very lucky, the car was equipped with skid guards and would just take off the bumper cover as they drove backwards. Karma is harsh mistress. We know from our flat tire experience earlier this trip, not many auto clubs will come into the parks to fix a flat. And the ones that do will probably charge hefty fees for towing. We witnessed this once while on vacation on the Big Island of Hawaii. You can drive to the top of Mauna Kea (nearly 14,000 feet above sea level) volcano but only if you have a 4WD vehicle. This means the vehicle is primarily rear-wheel drive but has the aid of the front wheels pulling up the loose gravel drive to the top. The road to 9,000 feet is paved, but from 9,000 feet to about 13,000 feet is gravel. Going up usually isn’t the problem, it’s coming back down. Rear-wheel drive cars can use the rear wheels to help slow down the vehicle (engine braking using engine/transmission combination) while still retaining steering ability. AWD cars are primarily front-wheel drive with rear wheels assisting. AWD cars lose their ability to steer if you try to slow down using engine braking and the front tires break loose, which is precisely what happened to a FWD (only front wheels pulling the car going up, or engine braking going down) rental car that bypassed the safety checkpoint on the way up. They had begun to slide when the front wheels lost traction when trying to slow down. Into the side of the mountain, they went. Lucky for them, they slid into the mountain instead of away from it and over the edge of the road downhill. We stopped at the visitor center to let them know they had a car in trouble. Someone else had reported it because they saw it happen. I asked how much towing would be and they told us a few thousand dollars. In cash. The visitor center people also told us the first question the towing company asks when you call and tell them where you are stuck is, “Do you own your house?” We had safely descended the volcano/mountain in our 4WD SUV and saw a tow truck driving towards us. It was one of those from the 1950’s with dual stacks belching smoke. As it approached at a leisurely pace, we could see the driver clearly through the large cab windows. He had on overalls, only one shoulder strap was fastened, and was chewing on the remains of a cigar stub smiling ear to ear.
That’s how we know the tow for the 911 mentioned earlier would be expensive.
Life Intrigued 