Bean Trees

For one-stop shopping in the Sonoran Desert, a mesquite tree is your best bet to find everything you might need, whether it be food, fuel, building supplies, medicine, rope, and yes, even diapers. These trees were so valued by traditional cultures in the southwest deserts that families claimed certain mesquite groves, or bosques, as well as especially productive individual trees, as their territory. One mature tree may produce between 40 to 100 pounds of bean pods in a good season, the basis of a healthy diet for many tribes. The pods were stored through the winter and ground into flour when needed to make cakes, porridge and sweet drinks throughout the year. For thousands of years, desert people have gathered mesquite wood for building shelters and making fires, sap for dyes, roots for fiber and leaves for medicinal tea. The diapers were made by pounding sheets of the fibrous bark into a soft cloth that would absorb any “leaks.”

The human relationship with mesquite is not quite so benevolent everywhere it grows, however. Many ranchers consider it to be a pest, since it will thrive wherever cattle roam, replacing valuable grasslands. The irony is that cattle feast on mesquite pods, and then deposit the beans in cow pies, a perfect environment for the seeds to germinate and grow.  Thus, more cattle on the range is better for mesquites. Paleontologists have deduced that cattle may be replacing the role of other large mammals that once roamed the southwest, such as camels, giant sloths and mastodons. After the Pleistocene extinctions about 10,000 years ago, mesquite bosques contracted to waterways and washes, where year round moisture and seasonal flooding ensured their success. But without passage through the guts of large mammals that travel long distances between waterways, the seeds were no longer distributed onto uplands.

Even though a healthy bosque provides shade and fodder for cattle, an aggressive campaign to eradicate mesquite in favor of grasslands ensued through the 1900’s. Combined with habitat destruction for agricultural, industrial and urban development, plus harvesting of trees for firewood and lumber, wild mesquite bosques are now considered somewhat rare.

Fortunately, the versatile bean tree has become a popular landscaping species over the past few decades, and is now grown and planted widely through the arboriculture trade. Velvet mesquite (Prosopis juliflora) is the most common in the Phoenix area, shading many parking lots and suburban tracts with their graceful, contorted stems. The return of mesquite to urban areas is also a boon to wildlife. Rabbits, coyotes, quails, javelina and deer also feed on the bean pods. Dozens of bird species nest and forage for insects in mesquite limbs. Mesquite leaf letter enriches soils with nitrogen, which, combined with shade, makes them excellent “nurse trees” for many kinds of plants. Plus, over sixty species of insects have been documented as visitors to mesquite flowers, gathering the abundant pollen and nectar to propagate their own offspring. In the spring, when long tassels of flowers dangle from the branches, a bean tree literally hums with life.  

According to the locavore food movement, which promotes the use of regionally adapted and native foods, mesquite could be the key to a more abundant and nutritive future for desert dwellers. If you are lucky to have a mesquite in your yard, you can rake up the pods to use as an alternative to mesquite wood for grilling and grind them into flour to use in baking. Here's how:

Prepare bean pods: Collect and rinse pods with clean water and dry in the sun. You can accelerate drying by putting them in the oven at the lowest temperature (~150F) for 2-4 hours. The more crispy the pods, the easier it is to grind them into flour.

Make the flour: If you want to be very traditional, get out the mano and metate or a mortar and pestel! However, you can also grind the bean pods in a blender. Just  put about 15 pods in at a time for about 30 seconds. Sift with a fine sieve and store the flour in the freezer until ready to use. Make sure you are sifting out the hard, bitter seeds.

Bake: The traditional cake or cookie was a simple mixture of flour and water, made into round flat patties and dried in the sun. To use mesquite in baking, just replace ¼ of the amount of flour called for in your recipe with finely ground mesquite meal.

Steep Tea: A sweet tea can be made by soaking some of the flour in water and then straining off the pulp….perfect to serve with cookies!

To learn more about the history and ethnobotany of mesquite, look for these books:

Gathering the Desert by Gary Paul Nabhan

Medicinal Plants of the American Southwest by Charles W. Kane

And check out this website: Desert Harvesters (www.desertharvesters.com) in Tucson hosts mesquite pod milling events every year, as well as being a resource for numerous workshops and publications on native plant foods.

Howl

If you were to choose sounds that best represent the “Wild West,” the howl of a coyote would certainly be in the top 10, if not number one on the list. Whether it’s the song of a lone coyote or the frenzied yipping of a small pack, their voice elicits strong emotions from anyone who hears them. Indeed, coyotes are some of the most admired, hated, respected, feared, romanticized and misunderstood wild animals in North America.

            Unlike wolves, their larger canine cousins, coyotes have a remarkable ability to adapt to human activity. Equally at home in urban areas, agricultural regions and remote wilderness, coyotes are similar to people in many ways. Both clever opportunists and formidable predators, they are omnivorous and will eat almost anything that is made available to them. Like indigenous people of the Sonoran desert, their favorite foods include mesquite beans, cactus fruit, cottontails and quails. Unfortunately, some coyotes in rural areas have, like humans, developed a taste for lamb, beef and venison as well, and are thus perceived as serious competitors for food.

            Although there are no official population estimates, urban wildlife specialist Darren Julian of the Arizona Game and Fish Department (AZGFD) says that there are more coyotes per square mile in suburban areas of Phoenix than in the surrounding desert regions. “They are especially common near golf courses and lake communities, or in neighborhoods where there are greenbelts. These areas support a lot more prey animals, such as cottontails, doves, and small rodents,” says Julian. “There is no true drought experience in the suburbs, so there is plentiful food year round for all kinds of urban predators, which includes owls, bobcats and foxes, as well as coyotes.”

            The abundance of prey near irrigated lands, whether agricultural or suburban, makes these ideal places for coyotes to raise families. April and May is prime time for coyote pups, so both parents are hunting for three or four, rather than just themselves.  At about six months of age, pups will be out hunting on their own.

Photo by Ruth Anne Kocour

Coyotes are usually seen trotting through the neighborhood alone, but occasionally travel in family groups of up to five or six, especially in the fall when pups are still being schooled in the art of hunting. Fall and winter, from September through January, is also when they are most vocal, since there are more rowdy “teenager” coyotes, and individuals are often calling to keep track of each other.  Things are a little quieter when they are denning with young pups in spring and early summer.

            Many people fear coyotes, but the coyote has much more to fear in humans. AZGFD records show that between 30,000 and 40,000 coyotes are killed by hunters each year in Arizona alone, primarily for recreational purposes.  This is a sharp contrast with the reverse statistics, with only 2 fatal and fewer than 200 documented non-fatal attacks by coyotes towards humans in the entire United States and Canada over the past 30 years. Although coyotes do occasionally prey on small pets and livestock, those numbers are in the low hundreds each year for Arizona.

            The best way to avoid unwanted interactions with any wild animal is to not provide them with food. This means that pet food and small pets should not be left unattended outdoors, and birdseed or other food sources that attract prey species should not be made available near your home.

            Otherwise, consider yourself lucky if you see a coyote on the trail or in the neighborhood. They are part of a healthy ecosystem, helping to keep rodent populations in check and providing the bonus of a little night music.  If you can’t hear them at night out your window, you can listen to them howling on-line here: Wild Coyote Sounds 

Learn more about urban coyotes at these websites:

Arizona Game and FishDepartment 

City of Phoenix Park andRecreation Department

Project Coyote

Forecasting Spring Wildflowers

When it comes to spring wildflowers in the Sonoran desert, timing is everything.  There is a common misconception that if we get plenty of rain in the spring, wildflowers will abound. But truly eye-popping displays of desert annuals require a steady dose of winter rains beginning in November and lasting through February in order to germinate and grow a healthy crop of seedlings that will eventually flower. Lots of other factors come into play, but the records show that a cumulative rainfall of over four inches through the winter, preferably not in one giant storm, is the most reliable predictor for the abundance of spring wildflowers. This was the case for our most recent banner years, 2001 (7.07”), 2005 (7.72”) and 2008 (4.35”), when entire hillsides glowed orange with poppies, blue with lupines and valleys blazed hot pink with purple owl clover.

A decent monsoon the previous summer will help, but is less important than a consistent series of winter rains that keep the soil moist. In fact, the same banner years listed above actually had below average  (< 2”) monsoon rains the previous summer. Cooler temperatures also help keep the evaporation levels low and tender seedlings from frying in the hot sun. Even if you want wildflowers in your yard, you need to scatter the seed no later than early November and then water them weekly for the next three months if you want to see some action.  

So what’s the forecast for this year’s desert wildflowers? I'd say mild to moderately stunning. Records from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that while the 2012 monsoon season was slightly above the 100+ year average of 2.71 inches, we’ve had a relatively dry winter. The gentle rains in early December and late January only generated a cumulative rainfall of about 2.30 inches for the Phoenix region.  More rain in February and March can help, but it’s usually too little, too late. However, we should always be grateful for any amount of rain in the desert!

            The good news is that there are always wildflowers somewhere; you just have to know where to look and plug into the wildflower watch networks to learn where the weekly hot spots are.  Because rainfall varies a lot across the region, certain hills may be lusher than others, even compared to somewhere only a few miles away. Even a scant quarter inch of rain can make a big difference. In a dry year, north-facing hillsides are good places to scope out, since moisture will hang around a little longer on the shady sides of the hills. Even the north sides of large boulders and the shade of large trees will often be havens for annual wildflowers.

            Although annuals may be sparse this year, many shrubs, perennials and cacti will bloom profusely, since they don’t have to start from seed. This is a great year for desert hyacinth (Dichelostemma capitatum), a delicate perennial plant that harbors a bulb deep below the soil surface. Thousands of slender succulent stems pierced the stony soils in desert hills throughout the region by early February, and will show off lavender blooms by early March. Bright orange globe mallows are another abundant hearty perennial commonly seen along roadsides throughout the desert.  Flowering shrubs like brittlebush, wolfberry and ratany will always find energy to bloom, even if there is next to no rainfall. 

            In the Happy Valley region, you’re likely to find some brilliant patches of wildflowers in the Sonoran Preserve, east of Highway 17, just north of Jomax. Cave Creek Recreation Area north of Carefree Highway at 32^nd Street and the Pipeline Trail at Lake Pleasant are also historically floriferous.  Wherever you go, be sure to appreciate the miracle of each and every blossom. 

Snowbirds

Hermit Warbler                      photo by Richard Halliburton

Every year, the human population of the valley dramatically increases with the annual migration of "snowbirds" to southern Arizona, flocks of retirees who winter down here where it is warm and sunny and head back north between May and October to escape the insanely hot summer. Or is it that they are residents in the north during the balmy summers, and flee south to escape the blistering cold winters? Either way you look at it, they are in plenty of good company, because dozens of bird species use the same strategy of seasonal migration to up their chances of finding abundant food year round and good nesting sites when the urge to mate urge arises.

As opposed to the northern or high-altitude bioregions, where avian life is much more diverse during the summers, the Sonoran desert region hosts more winter residents. We are the south that many birds migrate to during the winter, but there are also some heat-loving summer residents that hang around here during the searing hot summer months and migrate further south during our ever so slightly chilly winters.

Some of the most common snowbirds, those that migrate to the desert for the winter, are American goldfinch, Western bluebird, and white-crowned sparrow. Waterfowl are the most abundant migratory species, seeking open water to feed in and be safe from predators, bringing us cormorants, egrets, ibis’s, and all kinds of ducks.

Quail Eggs      photo R. Halliburton

Although the best places to see birds are natural areas and open water, you need not go further than your own backyard to see dozens of species, both migratory and year-round residents. Over the years I’ve logged over thirty species that have stopped by for a visit. Local resident Richard Halliburton has been backyard birding in Stetson Hill for ten years, and has logged over 50 species, including a green heron and a hermit warbler that were migrating through. Quails love his yard so much that they laid a dozen eggs in his hedge. Richard’s secret? Homemade suet, made from a combination of lard, peanut butter, corn meal, flour and fruit.

What visits your backyard is of great interest to scientists who monitor the abundance and distribution of bird species. The 16^th annual Great Backyard Bird Count will be collecting data from citizens all over North America between February 15-18^th, and will be expanding to the entire globe for the first time this year. Like the Audubon Society’s annual Christmas Bird Count, which has been going on for over 100 years, the GBBC is an important tool to help understand what is going on with bird populations, both urban and wild. All you need to do is pay attention to the birds in your yard, or anywhere else you like, for fifteen minutes and log in your results to the GBBC website at http://www.birdsource.org/gbbc/howto.html.

You might be surprised what you see!

Green Heron                        photo by R. Halliburton

Make your own suet

In a large bowl, blend together 2 cups flour, 2 cups corn meal, 2 cups quick oats and 2 cups wild bird seed mix. In a medium pot, melt together 1 pound of lard and half cup chunky peanut butter over medium heat. Stir in 2 heaping tablespoons of berry preserves and a cup of raisens or dried cranberries. Remove from stove and blend with the dry ingredients. Press the mixture into a greased 9x9 pan and let it cool. Cut the suet into blocks and store in the frig until use.

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