New Year's Day

 New Year's Day is one of the few days on the calendar when the BioPark is closed to the public.  Thanksgiving and Christmas are the only others.  Of course, the keepers at the Zoo have to take care of their charges, so not much changes there.  Similarly, there's activity at the Botanic Garden:  animals at the Heritage Farm need to be fed.  Security is still there, watching the CCTV monitors and making the rounds.  Maybe the naked mole rats and some of the arthropods need daily attention.  If so, there will be Bugarium staff on site.  As always, there's a Curator on Duty, probably JT since he's the farm manager.  Tingley Beach is probably running on auto-pilot as it does for much of the year.  

With the arrival of the New Year, I look forward to the day when the COVID-19 pandemic has been beaten into submission.  Then I'll be able to resume data collection with the Nature's Notebook team out in the Cottonwood Gallery, work more diligently on plant labels and the herbarium, and get out for general docent duties.  

For those not familiar with the Garden, here's a scan of the official map.  I'll have detailed maps to accompany later explorations, but this sets the lay of the land.

Ringing Out 2020 -- Ringing In a New Year

 Whew!  The last year (and the 3 before that) has been exhausting.  It definitely shows in my total lack of blog posts in 2020.  All my energies were focused on the political side of things and running the NW Abq Political Action Group's Facebook page:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/NWABQPoliticalActionGroup.  At least because it's a closed, private group, we didn't have any issues with trolls.  Over at the Native Plants of NM FB page (https://www.facebook.com/groups/847285882110574), there's a never-ending series of bots and trolls trying to gain membership.  I suppose by joining ordinary FB groups, these bots and trolls avoid being flagged as such.

Back to why the year has been exhausting, at the top of the list has been the political malfeasance at the national level, especially the out-going administration's unmatched disregard for environmental protections.  We've lost so much--endangered species, the Paris Accords, clean air regs, mileage standards for automobiles, Bears Ears, environmental science; the list goes on and on.  Conveniently, the NY Times kept track of the environmental regulations that Trump reversed:  https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/climate/trump-environment-rollbacks.html.

Running close second, and in so many ways exacerbated by the political dysfunction in Washington, has been the pandemic.  COVID-19 has us hunkering down.  The BioPark essentially closed for the year.  True, they've had timed ticketing and strictly limited visitor quotas since July, but it's been a crippled, ineffective sort of year from my perspective.  Considering that the volunteers are overwhelmingly retired and over 65, the BioPark volunteers have been particularly impacted.  At least everyone is being granted full status for the year, no matter what their level of participation was.  

As for me, it started out normal enough with the usual Nature's Notebook phenology data collection.  But by St. Patrick's Day, it was obvious that the virus had other ideas.  

I've been able to continue with a low level of effort with plant labeling.  That's thanks to the Botanic Garden being closed to visitors on Mondays.  I can go in on a Monday afternoon and work completely alone for a few hours, mapping beds, taking inventories, picking up damaged and broken labels.  

I've also been able to do a certain amount of work from home:  proposals for a grant in support of the herbarium, label databases, and prepping for the eventual arrival of Iris-BG, the new garden inventory software system.  

Tomorrow I'll settle in with my 2021 project:  a year in the garden.  Hopefully I'll be able to get posts out every single day for a full year.  We'll see if I can manage that pace.  I suspect some daily posts will be quite short ;-)

Onward!

Bosque Evening Walk

The BioPark hosted an evening tour of the Tingley Beach bosque last night.  Along with 8 other docents, we led groups of about 8 visitors along the bosque paths.  Five of us were positioned at stations to discuss natural history topics:  owls, porcupines, coyotes, insects, and bats.  As a guide, I took my group in a 1-1/2 mile loop, dodging mosquitos and sneaking past muddy sections left over from Sunday night's showers.

There was a bit of a worry as we started our hike; a large thunderstorm was drifting south from the Jemez and was causing flash floods in Rio Rancho.  As it worked out, the storm slid off to the east and missed us.  We didn't really have that much wind.

Here one of the Zoo docents, Robert discusses owls, especially the Great Horned Owl, and how they fit into the bosque ecosystem.

Last month this area was under water from the high spring runoff.  The high water has kept many of the annuals that normally form the bosque ground cover from sprouting just yet.  As you can see in the photograph, there's a lot of bare ground beyond the trail itself. 

Sacramento Mountain Prickly Poppy

Since retiring from the Labs and picking up volunteer work at the Botanic Garden, I've been remiss in posting here.  It's time I rectified that.  Here's a cross-posting from the Native New Mexican Plants Facebook page.  There I've been putting together a monthly piece on a selected rare and/or endangered species in the state.

The native plant of the week (and endangered species of the month) that I chose for July is the Sacramento Mountain prickly poppy, Argemone pinnatisecta (G.B. Ownbey) S.D. Cervantes & C.D. Bailey.  The plant is similar to the much more common A. pleiacantha, which has already been described in the FB group as a plant of the week.  There is some discussion in the literature as to whether or not A. pinnatisecta is merely a subspecies of A. pleiacantha.  Cervantes and Bailey seem to be winning that war based on phytochemistry and DNA research, but G.B. Ownbey still gets parenthetical credit because his subspecific epithet gets promoted when subspecies are elevated to species rank.

Whatever its taxonomic status, it's interesting to reflect on what kind of speciation event would have occurred to result in the distribution of the species across its habitat.  As its name suggests, it is found in the Sacramento Mountains (Otero Co.).  There it exists in a handful of canyons on the western side of the range.  This prickly poppy prefers loose, gravelly soils of open disturbed sites; canyon bottoms and slopes, and sometimes along roadsides; 1,300-2,200 m (4,200-7,100 ft).

From the NM Rare Plants website, A. pinnatisecta is described as a robust, herbaceous perennial, with 3-12 branching stems, 0.5-1.5 m tall; leaves blue-green, 10-15 cm long, divided, the sinuses broad and square, margins, midribs, and veins armored with stout yellow spines; stem and leaf latex white (vs yellow-orange in A. pleiacantha); flowers large and showy; sepals 2-3, caducous [falling off after opening, ed.], prickly, each with a subterminal horn; petals 6, white, 3-4 cm long, 8-9 cm wide; stamens numerous, anthers yellow; capsule with many fine spines, none branched; seeds round, black, 2.5 mm in diameter. Flowers May to August.

The number of plants was about 1,300 in the late 1980s, but appears to have declined in recent years. The reasons are unknown; it is speculated plant establishment is very episodic. This rare species appears to be secondary successional, which means it comes into a newly disturbed area after the initial weedy species have had their fling.

You don't have to drive to Alamogordo and hike up one of the 10 rugged canyons where it lives to see this rare plant.  It's being grown at the Albuquerque BioPark Botanic Garden for display, public education, research, and conservation of the wild populations.  The photos shown here were taken there just a few weeks ago.  They are still be blooming as we go to press.  They can be found in a large bed on the southeast side of the Heritage Farm between the cider barn and the farm house behind an iris planting and a split rail fence.

#nmnpotw #nmrpotm

Summertime

It's officially summer with the days getting shorter, although you'd be hard put to notice.  ABQ is hot, dry, sunny... day after day.  The humidity is slowly coming up and we've had little showers to tease us about the coming monsoon.  Here's the proverbial Eight-inch Rain, the drops 8 inches apart.

I've been busy at the BioPark, as a docent and a phenology program volunteer and as a temporary employee.  For the past 6 months I've been a "Plant Identification Specialist."  I've mastered the label engraving machine and placed over 360 labels in the garden.  This week I'm over at the Zoo placing labels in some areas that have been upgraded courtesy of a PNM grant for Zoo landscaping.

In other matters, Jeff White zipped through town on his way back to Chandler from Los Alamos.  Kent and I tagged along and we used Jeff's truck to get high into the Mount Taylor backwoods.  It's an area I've long overlooked.  Very similar to the Jemez (after all, it is an extinct volcano), the hike was very pleasant through ponderosa and aspen.  There wasn't much in the way of views, partially due to the smoke and haze from the North Fire down by Socorro.  By the time we got our bearings sorted out and up to the ridgeline, a thunderstorm was on top of us.  We wisely retreated to Grants for pizza.

La Mosca Lookout from the saddle between it and Mount Taylor

Summer is Winding Down

When I last posted here, Tanabata was nearing.  Since then, the festival of the sheep herder and the weaver has passed at the Bot. Garden.  Two more evening walks have taken place and the Bon Festival had over 80 candle-lit boats floating on the pond.  Music from Breaking Blues could be heard drifting over the entire garden and the turnout was huge.

It's been a busy summer with the completion of my shadowing requirements (apparently I was the first in my class to do so) and the twice monthly phenology study in the Cottonwood Gallery.  There was a volunteers appreciation dinner at the Zoo, which Caro and I attended.

I've added a few more photo spheres to Google Maps, but that was just before they restructured Google Views with it's convenient interface.  Now I'm not sure what the situation will be for 360° photos.

The home garden has been doing well, although the small patches of grass we have are suffering in some areas.  I think we'll re-sod instead of putting in flagstone... this year.  Eventually, we'll want to relocate the sprinkler heads and reduce the amount of turf we have.  The herbs and spices continue to be our best bet.  The peach tree gave us a great crop (thank you, Internet, for teaching me how to thin the fruit) and there is a bounty of pesto in the freezer.

Meanwhile, the seasons turn and daylilies have given way to crepe myrtles, the night heron at the Japanese Garden pond has raised a fine young offspring, and the roses in the High Desert Rose Garden continue to strengthen.  We've got an autographed copy of Judith Phillips' new book now (Growing the Southwest Garden) and are pleased to learn that she's struggling to work with North Valley clay soils, too.

July Already

May and June have come and gone without an update.  It's been a busy time with National Public Gardens Day on May 8th followed immediately by the Annual Mother's Day Bonsai Show that weekend. 

Ginkgo group planting

Club bonsai stand for Shohin, Mame and Komono

I've been knocking off my shadowing requirements for my docent's work.  There was a tour for the ABQ Newcomers Club.  Two Mondays a month have me out in the Cottonwood Gallery for the Nature's Notebook phenology study.  I generally stay longer doing "general grounds" docent duty. 

Chinese pistache in the entry courtyard

Crabapple by the Heritage Farm

In June I gave two tours of the Sasebo Japanese Garden to Camp BioPark groups.  The High Desert Rose Garden opened to much fanfare despite the young plantings.  It's very nice to have facilities at that end of the garden.  Also, there's now a direct path to the Sasebo instead of the detour through the Heritage Farm. 

Peonies in May

There was also the first of three Night Walks in the Garden during June.  I was meant to second the tour, but one guide was late and I ended up with my own group. 

Also in June, Trudy took to laying eggs in the garden beneath my window one evening.  In the morning the nest was empty and she wasn't seen for 5 days.  While doing maintenance on the roof, I found her empty shell.  She had been killed and taken up there by a raccoon.  She's buried beneath the Buddha under the pinon tree, where she often burrowed.  To ease the sorrow, we do have four of her hatchlings that turned up this spring.  They are safely in a terrarium and growing steadily.  We've begun protecting Terrance and Ten-ten with a raccoon-repellent spray around the yard. 

Next on the Botanic Garden calendar will be that Tanabata Festival.  Poems and wishes on special papers will be set adrift on Tuesday the 7th.