The Dream of Docenting

Next month will mark the 10th anniversary of my first trip to Tucson. Restless after 11 years in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, which I strongly suspected was just a way point on my journey, a casual suggestion from a good friend led to four hours on the Internet, resulting in my "deciding" I was moving to Tucson.   Shortly after this momentous decision I brought my daughter here on a post-college graduation trip.  I suspected I might be crazy to give up my well paid, if terminally boring job, my passive solar home on an acre of forested land, and leave all my good friends to make this huge leap of faith move.  I trusted my daughter to help me figure out if I was having a mid-life crisis, or if my gut instinct to shake my life up with a whole new exciting landscape was worth the risk.  She told me she had never seen me so excited and alive and insisted I make the move.

One of our first adventures in Tucson was a visit to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, a well known, internationally respected, and much loved zoo and botanic gardens that features animals and plants found in the Sonoran desert in which it  is located.  It was late May and the saguaros were in bloom.  Strings of Gambel's quail chicks scurried after their parents.  It was warm verging on hot under the intense late spring sun.  We hadn't gotten off the entrance patio before I noticed people in white shirts and beige pants with official looking patches indicating they were docents.  I wasn't quite sure what a docent was, but I was sure that I wanted to be one.

Interpreting a magnificent raptor, the barn owl

It took me over nine years to fulfill the Desert Museum docent dream, mainly because I was working most of that time.  When I retired late in 2008, thanks to my wonderful husband (who just happened to have been my first Tucson neighbor -- another "meant to be" sign), I was dismayed to discover that the Desert Museum wouldn't hold their next docent class until the fall of 2010.  Rather than wait to become involved with docenting at the museum, I volunteered there, working as a keeper's assistant with the Interpretive Animal Collection, the animals that are used on and off the grounds (often by the docents) for education.  I spent a happy year and a half handling many of the animals in the collection -- snakes and salamanders, falcons and owls, parrots, porcupines, and pelicans -- cleaning pens and perches, preparing diets, hand feeding, and helping with the Running Wild shows.  My husband, who is still working full time, volunteers with the botany department one day a week.  There are so many fascinating volunteer opportunities at the Desert Museum.

A botanic garden

Docent classes started late in August of last year and ran to near Christmas.  We were in class two days a week, all morning and sometimes into the afternoon, being instructed by curators and other Sonoran Desert experts on staff.  Our presence was required at other times each week, researching information available on the grounds and observing the docents at work interpreting the Sonoran Desert for visitors.  There were take home quizzes that took many hours, writing our own interpretations, thousands of pages of material to absorb, a midterm and a final exam.  It was demanding and an incredible gift to learn from such experts.  Forty new docents graduated early in January, joining the ranks of nearly 200 experienced docents, many of whom had inspired me on that first visit to the Desert Museum almost a decade earlier.

A zoo

I knew that becoming a docent at one of my favorite places on Earth would be wonderful, but I didn't expect it to be as extraordinary as it is.  The docents are a fascinating group of people from all walks of life, but we have the common thread of having an almost insatiable interest in our desert environment and a desire to share what we have learned and experienced with others, hoping to influence them to value and protect this and other natural places.

The mission of the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is to inspire people to live in harmony with the natural world by fostering love, appreciation, and understanding of the Sonoran Desert.


For docents, the learning never stops.  Advanced Docent Classes are held one morning each month, nine months of the year, and all docents are expected to attend.  Docents are updated on relevant Desert Museum business and on animal and plant collections and exhibits, followed by expert presentations on everything from wild flowers to the Mexican Grey Wolf program.  There are birding (and whatever else crops up) trips once a month, and special organized docent trips to such places as The Living Desert in Palm Desert, California (more about that in a separate post) and the Galapagos Islands.  Lunch time is lively as docents consult with one another and pull down reference books to identify the wild birds, reptiles, and insects seen on the grounds.  And docents with special experiences or expertise often hold trainings for other docents.

Docent training docents

Docent sharing a passion for moths

Birding trip to southeastern Arizona to see the Sandhill Cranes at Whitewater Draw

Sometimes the socializing is taken off the grounds.  Most docents volunteer one day a week, and those groups get to know each other quite well.  Last weekend one of the Friday docents invited all the other Friday docents (and their spouses) to a barbecue and wagon ride at his ranch south of Tucson.  A huge group showed up at his place, potluck sides in hand, and had a great afternoon visiting and eating and riding in the mule pulled wagon.

Wagon ride after the BBQ

Some of these volunteers have been docents at the Desert Museum for 30 years, racking up over 20,000 hours of donated time.  It is clear that many important relationships have bridged those years, and the support system for docents, especially by docents, is enormously significant to those with many years invested.  The existing docents have been so welcoming to the new docents, mentoring us formally or informally since we first became docents in training.  Docenting is an act of generosity is so many ways, to the Desert Museum itself, to its visitors, its staff, and to other docents, but the biggest gift is undoubtedly to yourself.

Youngsters

Momma dove, still sitting pretty in her "resort" nursery

We're not using the front door these days.  The front courtyard is mostly off limits due to the fearless dove that insisted on laying her eggs amongst the dove-deterrent chopsticks and balls of foil.  Any mother that determined deserves every chance to fledge her two chicks.  Here they are about six days after hatching.

There is still much that could go awry -- failure to thrive, a hungry snake or roadrunner -- but I'll keep you posted.

Celebrate Rain

Cactus wren greeting a new, rain-washed, day

There is nothing like rain in the desert, especially when it is desperately needed, and we are at a time of the year when rain, any rain, is unexpected, and therefore doubly appreciated.  A windy day yesterday seemed to hold nothing but desert dust until the smell of rain rode in though an open window.

Creosote

The smell of rain in the desert is the smell of salvation and hope.  The unique scent is primarily that given off by the resin covered leaves of the creosote bush when wet, the mildly pungent smell borne on a rain wind evokes a deep gratitude in true desert dwellers.  There's no better sleep than that accompanied by the gentle patter of rain of the roof and the steady dripping off the roof onto the parched ground, breathing in the musky scent of the creosote.  You know all the opportunistic plants and animals of the desert are putting every drop they can reach to good use.

The morning after a cleansing, nourishing rain is a cause for celebration.

Shiny clean

Goosed into growing

Things are looking up

Lovey Dovey

It's spring again, at least in the Sonoran Desert (we do jump the gun a bit), and love is in the air.  And on the ground, and on our rafters, and in our flower pots -- despite our best efforts.

Who's keeping an eye on who?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm all for love.  All the time.  It's just that when it comes to our mourning doves it's so comic and so tragic so often.

They are not the first to get into the reproduction act, not by a long shot.  The diminutive Costa's hummingbirds laid eggs weeks ago.  But the mourning doves are so clumsy and obvious about it.

While my head was turned...

First we are treated to the males humping along behind a female, any female, multiple females, in a usually vain attempt at mating.  Even when successful it is over in the blink of an eye -- the females almost don't seem to notice and barely pause in their hunt for food.  But then the paltry excuse for nest building begins...a few twigs scattered on a rafter or in a plant pot, or heaven help us, in a tree or a cactus; the merest excuse of a nest.  Last year's attempt on our sloping metal porch light cover met with a sad disaster shortly before the eggs were set to hatch.  When it comes to nest building, mourning doves are neither members of the Craftsman's Guild nor the Brain Trust.

There's a favorite nesting spot in a raised planter immediately outside our front door.  When I first spotted the tell-tale pile of twigs a few days ago I cleaned them up and inserted five chopsticks and added two balls of aluminum foil as dove deterrents to the six inch pot already containing a petunia.  Foiled again (pardon the pun), as when I next looked a dove was happily esconsed between the chopsticks, leaning on the peturnia, and gazing at her fractured reflection in the aluminum foil, all while keeping the two eggs she'd almost instantly laid warm.  We'll be using the garage door and backyard gate for the foreseeable future while mama dove hatches and raises her chicks.

Maybe it's the ambiance...

Mourning doves really are lovely birds, but as with anything there's an overabundance of, it's value decreases, at least to us.  But as my husband reminded me, without a lot of doves, we wouldn't have as many raptors.  So true.

Cooper's Hawk in search of dove

Snow Day

The rare beauty of a cloaking of snow on the Tucson Mountains

With predictions of wind and rain and snow (really?) last night, we went to bed wondering what the morning would bring.  The howling wind and lashing precipitation in the middle of the night coupled with the pacing of our nervous dog made for less than sound sleep until the wind abated before dawn.  Finally things quieted down and I awoke well after dawn to find our nearby Tucson Mountains heavily powdered with snow, a serious rarity around here.

Before noon most of the snow was gone, but the frenzied activity of the birds gave credence to the freeze predicted for tonight.

A male Gila woodpecker topping off at the suet block

A male Costa's hummingbird busy defending this feeder

After the catastrophic freeze a few weeks ago, three nights with temps in the high teens and low 20's, we figure what was going to suffer from serious cold will have already done it and will likely not bother to cover much tonight.  What doesn't survive we'll do without (simplify, simplify, simplify), or replace with plants that can survive temperatures in the mid-teens.

At least we had good weather for a wonderful and long-overdue visit with my daughter and son-in-law recently.  Tucson is like a third home to them, the San Francisco area being their first, so they were not interested in playing tourist every day, though we still got some of that in.  The Desert Museum is always a must, especially when your hosts volunteer there -- one as a docent and the other volunteer with the botany department.  Then we also managed The Cup Cafe at Hotel Congress for breakfast, Tohono Chul Botanic Gardens and lunch at the Tea Room there, and lot and lots of walking the hills of the Tucson Mountains, be they snow covered or not.

Trailside in Sweetwater Preserve, Tucson Mountain foothills

Mother and child reunion hike

In the shade of a saguaro older that
his great-great-grandparents

The early afternoon sleeting has just stopped and once we get past tonight it looks to be highs in the 70s and 80s.  Bring it!

The Big Chill

When the weather cools to that perfect high of around 70, we start seeing hot air balloons more frequently, early in the mornings when the atmosphere is cool enough for their warmed balloon interiors to make a difference and provide the essential lift.

Chilly morning hot air ride

Tucson gets about 20 nights of freezing temperatures a year, usually a glancing blow of a few hours just below 32 degrees.  The first one usually occurs right around Thanksgiving, so we were right on schedule.  Problem was, it was predicted to be a hard freeze -- 24 degrees.  It was time to deter the Big Chill.

Out came the styrofoam cups, insulating caps for columnar cacti.  Out came the paper bags, ditto.  Out came the plastic picnic tablecloths with the fuzzy underside (important), old beach towels and coverlets.
We even used a few baseball caps for our larger cactus "heads".

One of my very favorite plants in our backyard is the chuparosa.  It begins flowering in November and flowers all winter long, its tubular orange flowers providing nectar for our year-round Anna's and Costa's hummingbirds along with the nectar robbing mustard headed perpetual motion verdins.  We have a few of these magic winter plants, but my favorite is right outside the dining room window and is the size of a Volkswagen beetle.  I was determined to save this plant from freezing -- it wouldn't kill it but would literally nip it in the bud, likely nixing any more flowers for almost a year.  Several years ago we had a freeze in the high teens and the chuparosa looked like it had been freeze-dried.  We cut it back to medicine ball size in the spring and it bounced back, but I wanted a natural food source for our hummers.

I took every large plastic tablecloth I had, plus some old towels and a bedspread, draped them over the chuparosa and clothes-pinned them together.  We put a trouble light under the cover and kept it lit all night.  It looked like The Blob was having an eerie picnic in the back yard.  Out of appropriate covering, the two rows of green beans we'd been nursing along in our feeble winter vegetable garden would have to fend for themselves.

By night

By day

We saw hummingbirds zipping under the cover at first light, the sugar water in their feeders frozen solid. As I uncovered the chuparosa today, a Costa's hummingbird flashed his royal purple gorget at me, whether in thanks for saving his favorite winter plant or to urge me to get out of the way, I'll never know.

Success!  At least for Round One...

The hummers' food survived.  The green beans -- not so much -- but I can get great ones, cheap, at Costco.  Our flashy hummingbird winter companions?  Priceless.

If You are Thinking This is a Bird Deterrent...

...you'd be wrong.


Not more than a few hours after carefully sowing our seeds in nice straight rows, plant stakes in place with names and planting date, we went out to finish the watering job Mother Nature had started.  Our lovely garden, well mulched with an even coat of alfalfa hay, had big gouged out areas, hay tossed aside, spots in the amended soil -- amended with steer manure -- showing dark and moist.


As this area is inside our block walls, the culprit couldn't be a rogue javelina, mule deer, or bobcat.  No birds around are big enough, or interested enough, to so seriously mar the new garden.  No children here to run amuck.  

The real culprit

The string and tin foil solution?  So far so good.