This is the second and final installment of the Ruby blog.  Again, there is only text here.  I have posted 285 photos on two Facebook photo albums.  For those of you who do not have a Facebook account, see this Picasa web album, which is available to all:

The Facebook photos have captions, but the Picasa ones do not.

8/25/09

In the morning we collected more provisioners.  I fished Mineral Lake again with senko worms.  In spite of all the frogs around, these fish seldom took topwater lures.  I caught 9, including 1 of 2.5 lb.  Even small ones pulled the kayak around, but it rotated horribly.  Justin Schmidt, an old friend from Tucson, came to visit.  He put out black lights that night.  Lots of big rhinoceros beetles came, as well as big sphinx moths, a mantispid, and an embiopteran.  We ran into a medium sized western diamondback rattlesnake in the dark.

 

8/26/09

Jon and I neatened up the trailer for Chuck’s return.  Sundog had shot a couple of huge antelope jackrabbits.  We learned about the iron balls that had been used for grinding ore in the mine’s heyday.  I went on a hike w/ Jon, Sundog & Peter to some fig trees.  The figs were not ripe yet.  We picked up trash down the wetback trail on our return.  Then we droved further south and hiked to “The Spike.”  On the way, Jon nearly stepped on a tiger rattlesnake!  There were some nice saguaro cacti there.  We passed through the eye of the spike, which is supposed to be an interdimensional portal.  I was hoping to attain enlightenment, but not much significant happened.  There were many flowers & lots of vegetation.  It was not an immigrant trail, and there was no trash.  Our destination was really a patch of chiltepin bushes, which were not ripe either.  Chiltepines are the progenitor to all chile peppers.  Jon ate one right there, and indicated that it was really hot.  I passed, as I was a bit low on water.  We drove down to the Mexican border, which has a car barrier to keep people from driving across this broad, flat area.  We drove down Warsaw Gulch & up California Gulch.  It was beautiful, with lots of old mines sprinkled in.  Chuck returned.  We had venison dinner at Sundog’s—lightly barbequed backstraps.  Dang, they were good.  Jon got sick and had to lay down for awhile.

 

8/27/09

Jon left for a one-week break.  I felt tired all day.  Chuck and I collected provisioners.  We found females to match in size a sample of the Eastern species Chuck had brought back from Easton.  We ate burgers for dinner, as well as Sundog’s deer stew w/ tongue & spinal cord.  I attempted photographing bats at the hummingbird feeder for the first time.  These are nectar-feeding bats, not the insect-eating type.  The current common name is Mexican Long-tongued Bat, AKA Choeronycteris mexicana. 

 

8/28/09

I pinned out the matched pairs of females.  Chuck and I did some heating measurements to show that the wasps can cool themselves by evaporating water.  That afternoon we went to Arivaca for shopping, laundry, and internet.  We hit the folk jam session again.  There were some better players & singers this time.

 

8/29/09

We finished the heating measurements, and I set up the MIRFF (Maximum Individual Relative Flight Force) apparatus.  We did 10 males, with variable results.  We heated them up with my soldering iron.  It was hot & unpleasant work, with many technical difficulties.  We went swimming to cool off when we were done.  Chuck was bitten on the nipple by a bluegill & bled.  It was pretty funny.  I took a short bike ride.  We had hot dogs for dinner.  I took more bat photos.

 

8/30/09

We did more MIRFF measurements, this time with females.  Surprisingly, these were easier.  They behave better, even from chill coma.  Being bigger, they were hard to heat them up.  We used iron balls from the 1860 ball mill heated on propane stove and set the hot ball underneath them.  Later we added a 2” iron pipe as a chimney.  Their flights took too long, and we switched from my digital video camera to Chuck’s Canon video camera.  We discovered that the camera remote also turns on the trailer stereo.  Some visitors came today.  While we were in the trailer I saw a guy meditating naked on the dune.  Turns out it was a photo shoot.  Chuck and I went up to watch the bat emergence, but the population was down from 150,000 to maybe 1/10 that.  Most of them had migrated south already.  That night I was photographing the bird feeder bats again when a big beetle landed on my bare knee.  My thumb reflexively hit the remote shutter button and I took 9 shots of nothing.  That night I had to go to the outhouse and saw a woodrat in the first stall, so I took the second.  Normally, there was a lizard on the outside, and often a canyon wren prowling about, both probably feeding on the flies.

 

8/31/09

Chuck and I, along with Sundog, Peter and Emil (a wildlife biologist) hiked up to Hell’s Gate and up Peck Canyon.  This place is a geological wonder.  Hell’s gate is named for the red/orange cliffs on both sides.  Some boulders had many tiny geodes embedded in the rock.  There were water erosion effects, obsidian deposits, and tinajas (oases).  We were in the streambed or alongside it most of the time.  There were many wildflowers and grasses; it was lush.  We saw mountain lion tracks, scrapes and scats.  At one point we were stopped by a Border Patrol agent, who initially thought we were wetbacks, I guess.  We retrieved Emil’s trail camera at the top of the canyon and returned.  We had a swim, and dinner was venison at at Sundog’s.  We looked at the thousands of pics on the trail cam from as far back as January.  There were Bobcats, Mountain lions, skunks (striped, hognose & hooded), fox, ringtail, coati, mouse, squirrel, Montezuma quail, acorn woodpeckers, jays, lizards, wetbacks, mules, hounds, and a man on horse.  By mules, I mean guys carrying two bales of marijuana each on their backs.  There were a couple of photos of a jaguar, Macho B, before he was accidentally snared.  He was released with a tracking collar, but got an infection, was recaptured & had to be put down.

 

9/1/09

Chuck did focal observations.  I did flight muscle ratios, data entry, read and napped.  Cut a sotol and an ocotillo for walking sticks.  I stripped the bark from the ocotillo.  I used three different knives, but it was still hard.

 

9/2/09

We did more heating experiments for evaporative cooling on males.  We had dinner at Sundog’s.  It was a stew of duck named Peep-peep who had been killed by a bobcat.  I had the idea to photograph the bats under more natural conditions, and Sundog directed me to an agave bloom near his house.  I was nearly eaten alive by mosquitoes.  What really freaked me out was the bats flying up to the camera to check it out. 

 

9/3/09

We had been noticing the kingbirds stealing cicadas from provisioning females, and I began the  prey theft study.  I sat and watched the kingbirds, taking note of when they attempted to steal.  There was a big rainstorm that afternoon, and Chuck got the idea to take a shower in it.  Jon returned in middle of this, with Chuck outside naked, and our ocotillo sticks hanging in the tree.  He said, “You guys have gone feral.”  Later I went to catch provisioning female wasps.  Near an old water tank I saw a coati mundi and ran after it.  It was straight uphill and it disappeared between the tank and an old building.  I saw a garter snake and a pair of quail.  I angled around and then saw the coati again going up hill.  I shot some pics, but it’s too bad I didn’t have the long lens on.  I hiked up to the top of the hill to an air shaft that was a real man swallower.  If you fell in, it would be 40-50 feet before you hit anything.  I continued down the other side and found an old gated mine shaft.  I ate a BBQ cicada to prove it could be done.

 

9/4/09

I observed kingbirds again, and heated a few males to boost my sample size.  I caught a few provisioners for Jon.  I saw a California Sister (butterfly) while heating wasps, and couldn’t give chase.  The same day I saw a filigree skimmer (dragonfly) too.  We ran out of water for the first time.  We bathed in the lake.  Sundog fed us venison burritos—spicy good.  He’s quite a cook.  We went to Arivaca to get groceries, water, internet, etc.  A big rain began.  We went to La Gitana Cantina for the Grasshopper Festival, but the races were already over.  We had a drink, listened to the band, and went to the coffee house just as the folk jam was wrapping up.  We drove back to Ruby on slightly flooded roads.

 

9/5/09

It was kingbirds again.  I observed 10 thefts on this day.  This phenomenon has not been documented systematically before.  Sundog shot a bunch of bullfrogs to eat.  We had bullfrog spaghetti for dinner.  Justin came with his whole family to camp.  His wife is learning the Chinese violin, which we heard beyond bed time.  Yay.

 

9/6/09

Kingbirds again.  Also, we observed five documented thefts by roadrunners.  I grabbed and stabbed diggers, shoppers & provisioners.  We went to Green Valley for supplies.  I picked up a tarantula and some horse lubber grasshopper on the way.  We ate at the Cow Palace on the way back.  Awesome.  There was a major Border Patrol operation on Ruby Road, then some wetbacks tried to wave us down further on.  We went on by.

 

9/7/09

I did more grab and stab on females.  I pinned out various bugs I had accumulated.  I helped plant trap nests.  Wasps took one in 10 minutes.  We had a dinner of hamburgers, fried cottontail rabbit, and cicada kabobs.  I did more bat photography at an agave bloom next to the road, with Jon on a NightMax night viewer to tell me when they were coming.  Results were improving.

 

9/8/09

I did kingbirds for the last time.  There were many attacks.  I looked for males, but there were none.  I visited the old cemetery, and saw a new dragonfliy.  We had a brief, midday storm.  I did the nearest neighbor method on a low burrow density site.  Surprisingly, the dispersion pattern was random.  I caught a Bicyrtes wasp with a stink bug.  I’d only read about this species before.

 

09/09/09

I tried grab & stab on provisioners again.  I got 2 early, which was good.  We took a hike with Sundog and Peter Ragan to Prop Rock Canyon & Bartolo Canyon.  It was very beautiful.  There were many water-filled pools, wildflowers, and, unfortunately, wetback trash.  I found a backpack, but it was not good.  Sundog found a good one, more of a rucksack.  Peter carried out a huge bag of trash, and Jon a smaller one.  Incidentally, Peter appears to be a really green guy, and does cob and straw bale construction.  I almost fell on my face and nearly smashed the camera lens when the top of a rock broke off after I stepped on it.  We went off trail in the hoo doos, and had a brief, but challenging downclimb through the rocks.  Chuck sat on an agave, putting a hole in his pants and underwear.  No blood.  We were joking that he tore himself a new one.  The climax of the hike was Black Hawk Tank, a large swimming pool (tinaja) in the stream bed.  I swam and jumped off the rock.  I felt refreshed, but the 25 min hike out made me sweat again.  We jumped in the lake when we got back to camp.  We had corned beef and cabbage at Sundog’s.

 

9/10/09

I attempted some more early grab & stabs.  I missed 5 provisioners and gave up.  Chuck yelled, “Joe, I have a provisioner here.”  I said, “You wanna cookie?”  I did some later grabs & stabs.  I photographed bats at the agave again.  Some bats had flown into Sundog’s house.  He caught them with an insect net and held one so I could photograph it.  There was also a mantis outside doing exotic defensive postures that I tried to shoot.

 

9/11 

With Chuck’s help, I did the nearest neighbor method at two sites, and it was much work.  They were both random too.  I set up for the comparison of convallis & speciosus, but clouds interrupted.  We went to Arivaca for water, food, propane and internet.  Apparently, I’m on the committee to find a new VPAA, and I didn’t even know we needed one.  Sadly, we found that the laundromat had closed!  We got food at Mama’s cart & went to the folk jam session.  We gave a ride to David & Jeannette, regular visitors to Ruby, a ride in.  We caught some giant cicadas on the way.  They are about 3x the size of Tibicen parallela, the one our wasp uses.  We will send the giants to an expert for identification.

 

9/12/09

Many people were camping, including Justin; David & Jeannette.  I measured digging rate, collecting cups of wet sand.  I employed my 2000 Dodge Dakota 4WD extended cab drying oven.  I put the cups on dash and a solar fan on one window.  I left the other window open a bit.  The sand dried out quickly.  I made jackpot for dinner.

 

9/13/09

We had many visitors again, including fishermen.  They caught lots of bluegill.  I measured 5 more diggers, and caught another wasp species that hunts beetles.  I couldn’t even find this one in the book.  Sundog found an ornate box tortoise.  Arie called to tell him there was a roadkilled javelina.  He picked it up and dressed it out.  We ate it for dinner, barbequed on Manzanita.  It was delicious.  I made guacamole.  We stayed up late talking by the fire.

 

9/14/09

It took most of the morning to get two more diggers.  The numbers of females seem to be falling.  I observed no provisioners.  It was a sunny, but WINDY day.  We went to Arivaca to pick up Jon’s key, get water, food, and internet.  We caught some more giant cicadas on the way back, and were accosted by the landowner.  We had pasta fazoul and more javelina.  Still good.  Two lady friends visited Sundog. 

 

9/15

Got some early grab and stabs.  The interspecies comparison failed because of wind, I think.  I investigated burrows with a fiber optic viewer: the 1^st one had a female coming out, and she was not amused.  The third one had a toad.  I could not get more than about 10 inches down because of tunnel curvature.  Jon & Chuck dug a huge hole excavating about 12 burrows, removing about 2 cubic meters of sand.  They recorded every cell and cocoon in it.  I helped fill it back up when they were done.

 

9/16/09

It was rather cold overnight.  I got up early and collected data w/o breakfast.  I got body temperatures of females in cold, even a provisioner at 6:30, which was a miracle.  Also we did some digger evictions—they can’t fly when cold.

We did majority of packing then.  We hiked from Papago Tanks down the canyon then up to the top of a ridge where the Trenchera ruins are.  The Trenchera culture dates from 500-600 years ago.  Not much is known about them, and not many people have been to this site.  There were rock walls, potsherds, pressure flakes, and mortar & pestle.  There was one spot with a lot of potsherds, and somebody asked why they were so concentrated there.  I said, “That’s where they got married, stomped on their dishes and yelled, ‘Mazeltov!’”  Kristen, one of the visiting ladies, was stung pretty badly by harvester ants.  We saw two horned lizards and passed an opal claim on the way out.  We took our last swim in Mineral lake, then went to Green Valley for Mexican food at Manuel’s.  We saw an owl fly across the road and catch a rodent right in front of the truck.

 

9/17//09

I fished one last time in the morning, catching two bass, one on the senko, one on a topwater frog.  We finished packing, said goodbye to Sundog and hit the road, all going our separate ways.  Chuck had no problems getting trailer out, even on the washed out part of the road.  I went out on the Ajo road past Baboquivari, a really neat peak that has historical religious significance.  There was a big accident in Indio that delayed me somewhat.  I still made it to Redlands in time to meet Dave, Chris and their son Zack for sushi.