By Bethany Holland, of Ithaca College.
We continued our boarder wildlife vegetation surveys and camera checks in the Patagonia Mountains, and sometimes we’d find fun surprises inside and outside the cameras. Within the bear box of one camera, two giant crab spiders were nestled up among three huge egg sacs! They are one of the biggest spiders in Arizona, and get their name from their ability to run quickly sideways, just like a crab.
While checking the battery and replacing the camera SD cards, we also get to flip through all of the pictures the camera has taken when it detected movement or heat. There were little skunks hopping around, gray foxes trotting by, and a few birds of prey caught midflight! Mostly, though, there were lots of Coue’s deer, a smaller subspecies of white-tailed deer.
We also began our spring surveys where we’d hike out to places SIA had labeled as potential springs and check the water flow, pH, spring type, and, my favorite, the variety of vertebrate and invertebrate life. Being a pupating entomologist myself, I was thrilled to stare into the waters of the streams and record the many snails, diving beetles, and caddisfly larva I observed. We also surveyed the terrestrial invertebrates along the spring and underneath one special rock I finally saw what I had been hoping to see all semester: a scorpion! Usually they aren’t out this time of year as it’s too dry/ cold at night, but by flipping over rocks we were able to find where this one had been hiding until the wet season.
Between all the hiking and spring surveying, we’d have a day back at our basecamp in the ghost town of Ruby, where we’d repack and sometimes make challah in our Dutch oven. After backpacking and hiking for a few days, it was nice to be able to sit and share some home-made bread together.
