Gila Descending by M.H. Salmon

Having visited southwestern New Mexico in May and hiked several day trips around the Gila Wilderness, I looked forward with anticipation to reading Gila Descending, an account of Silver City, NM resident M.H. Salmon's trip by foot and canoe down most of the length of the Gila River in New Mexico and Arizona. In the end, I was a bit disappointed. I didn't much like the author as he portrayed himself. He's a self-described "houndsman" and coyote hunter, and he never lets you forget it. I have no problem with hunting for meat or to maintain an ecological balance, but M.H. Salmon clearly loves to pursue and kill coyotes (whose pelts he does sell, at least). Nevertheless, his love of hunting was a turn-off for me.

I also disliked his writing style. He informs his readers that he writes for outdoors magazines, so clearly he is able to sell his writing, but I found his style to be affectedly "down-homey"; it didn't ring true to me.

It was also irresponsible of him to bring a cat along with him on this trip. The cat could easily have wandered off, and in one instance, the cat nearly drowned when the canoe capsized with the cat leashed to the struts. But, like nearly everything else in the author's life (according to irritating little hints dropped throughout), he had a truly ambivalent relationship with the cat.

Salmon is not good at describing the landscape and the countryside. I did not come away from the book with a clear, well-developed picture of the rugged landscape of the upper Gila.

Though Salmon reports that the Gila disappears well short of its historic mouth at the Colorado River, he ends his trip before he reaches the de facto "end" of the river. I kept waiting for him to discuss the river's demise in the irrigated deserts of Arizona, but he didn't.

The book, divided into three sections, would benefit from more maps. There is one map of the entire Gila drainage at the beginning of the book, but a more detailed map of each of the individual sections would have been a welcome addition.

While I have gone into great detail about why I was disappointed by the book, it was by no means a waste of time. His trip was interesting and depicted with enough sense of adventure that I'd like to try it myself some time. Furthermore, the author's heart is certainly in the right place when it comes to enjoying and defending the Gila in particular and wilderness in general. So, all in all, the book's a good--but not a great--read.

Straddling the Continental Divide: Western New Mexico (May 2009) VII

Gila River at TNC's Gila River Preserve (View upstream toward Gila Wilderness)

A Banner Day for Birds

Wednesday morning, May 20, after breakfast we headed northwest from Silver City to explore The Nature Conservancy's Gila River Farm Preserve just outside the hamlet of Gila, NM, on a guided tour with Mike, TNC's premier birder in New Mexico. This section of the Gila is just outside the border of the Gila Wilderness, and by this point the river has emerged from the mountains and has begun to flow through low hills in a broad valley.

Gila Wilderness as viewed upstream from the Gila River at TNC's Gila River Farm Preserve

Once our caravan arrived at the preserve, Mike gave us an overview and orientation, and then walked us over to an irrigation canal to give us an introduction to water rights in New Mexico. He explained that water rights must be used or that they will be rescinded and reallocated. He also explained that The Nature Conservancy is in the forefront of making the case that maintenance and restoration of natural ecosystems is a legitimate use of water rights (cf., consumptive agricultural use), but that such use was not yet approved. Therefore, TNC partially uses the water rights that came along with the farm that it bought to create the preserve to encourage the development of wetland habitat at the low ends of existing agricultural fields and to recharge groundwater.

After the water rights primer, we spent most of the morning birding on the irrigation canal bank, in an artificial pond, and in the riparian corridor along the Gila River. This two-hour birding trip may have yielded more species per hour than any other birding venue I have ever enjoyed. What follows is a list of all the birds we encountered, including several new "life-listers" (indicated with an asterisk) for this Eastern birder.

• Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos)
• Turkey Vulture (Cathartes aura)
  
• Common Black-Hawk (Buteogallus anthracinus)--rare, pair on a nest
  
• Red-tailed Hawk (Buteo jamaicensis)
• American Kestrel (Falco sparverius)
  
• Mourning Dove (Zenaida macroura)
  
• Eurasian Collared-Dove (Streptopelia decaocto) *
  
• Killdeer (Charadrius vociferus)
  
• Great Horned Owl (Bubo virginianus)
• Northern (Red-shafted) Flicker (Colaptes auratus)
  
• Ladder-backed Woodpecker (Picoides scalaris) *
  
• Western Wood-Pewee (Contopus sordidulus)
• Cordilleran Flycatcher (Empidonax occidentalis) *
  
• Black Phoebe (Sayornis nigricans)
• Say's Phoebe (Sayornis saya)
• Ash-throated Flycatcher (Myiarchus cinerascens)
• Western Kingbird (Tyrannus verticalis)
  
• Cassin's Kingbird (Tyrannus vociferans)
  
• Vermilion Flycatcher (Pyrocephalus rubinus)
  
• Common Raven (Corvus corax)
• Chihuahuan Raven (Corvus cryptoleucus) *
  
• Northern Rough-winged Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis)
  
• Violet-green Swallow (Tachycineta thalassina)
  
• Barn Swallow (Hirundo rustica)
• Bewick's Wren (Thryomanes bewickii)
• European Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
• Lucy's Warbler (Vermivora luciae) *
  
• Yellow-breasted Chat (Icteria virens)
• Common Yellowthroat (Geothlypis trichas)
• Summer Tanager (Piranga rubra)
• Northern Cardinal (Cardinalis cardinalis)
• Blue Grosbeak (Guiraca caerulea) *
  
• Western Meadowlark (Sturnella neglecta)
• Red-winged Blackbird (Agelaius phoeniceus)
• Great-tailed Grackle (Quiscalus mexicanus)
• Brown-headed Cowbird (Molothrus ater)
  
• Bullock's Oriole (Icterus bullockii)
  

One thing that truck me when we finished our walk was how much of the avifauna of the grasslands and shrublands of New Mexico is comprised of flycatchers. Of the 37 species we observed that morning, nearly a quarter (eight) were flycatchers.

Gila River flowing southwest from TNC's Gila River Farm Preserve

As we were driving out of the preserve after our walk, headed for the Catwalk National Recreation Trail, we came across a huge King Snake stretched across the road. The rest of the group, which was following in cars behind us, stopped to see the snake, and then gently encouraged it to move off the road.

The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter

Over the weekend, I finished reading The Soul Thief by Charles Baxter. Baxter wrote The Feast of Love, a National Book Award nominee, so he clearly can write. In fact, many parts of this reasonably short novel (210 pages in the hardcover edition) are very, very good. But the conclusion is so muddled, confusing, and unsatisfying that, regrettably, it ultimately is not worth reading.

The novel focuses on two men, Nathaniel Mason, a Midwestern transplant attending graduate school in Buffalo, New York, and Jerome Coolberg, a cold, enigmatic, and slightly scary self-styled intellectual. Jerome develops an all-consuming interest in Nathaniel's life, going so far as to have Nathaniel's apartment burglarized and then wearing Nathaniel's purloined clothes. It looks like Jerome is trying to steal Nathaniel's soul/identity...or is he?

There's an ostensibly clever little "catch" on the third-last page of the book that's supposed to either (a) explain the foregoing 207 pages, or (b) leave the denouement open for interpretation by the reader. If Baxter's intended goal was (a), then he's not been clever or skillful enough as an author to achieve his objective; if it's (b), he's done a fine job, because there are many, many interpretations possible--all equally legitimate and all equally unsatisfying because they're so untethered to reality.

After I finished the book, my wife and I went for a walk to talk it over (she'd read it the week before). In a discussion lasting well over an hour, we could not come to an agreement on exactly what had happened--the book's that obtuse.

My initial reaction on finishing the book was that Charles Baxter was not a talented enough writer to pull off successfully what could have been an intriguing, complex, and intricate thriller about the nature of personal identity. The more I think about it, the more I'm convinced that I'm right.

Back to My Roots

I was professionally trained as an aquatic ecologist. I earned my professional degree studying the aquatic invertebrate communities inhabiting a series of six parallel streams draining off a ridge in the central Appalachian Mountains. At that time, I was especially interested in stoneflies (Plectoperans), but the position I accepted after graduate school took me to the Coastal Plain in the deep South where stoneflies are few and far between. Then, I took my current position in the urbanized Piedmont on the East Coast, and our streams are too damaged to have much of an interesting Plecopteran fauna. In short, I lost my stonefly mojo. And, because I'm basically an administrator, I lost most of the rest of my invertebrate mojo, too.

However, recently I was enlisted to help with a multifaceted stormwater research project, and the team leader knew of my background. So, I agreed to sample and identify macroinvertebrates in a stormwater treatment wetland. Last Friday, I pulled on a pair of hip waders and I ventured out into the field after years of being bound to my desk.

As I collected the samples, I noticed that I had netted some dragonfly and damselfly nymphs, micro waterstriders, backswimmers, snails, water measurers, and water boatmen, but I'll have to sort through the samples more carefully over the next few weeks and pick the bugs from the detritus--tedious work!

It was good to be back in the field, though.

When I looked at the images that my assistant took of me, I noticed that (1) I desperately needed a haircut (which I got over the weekend), and (2) my Carhart work dungarees are cut too generously to flatter my butt. Vanity.

Green Heron (Butorides virescens)

While we were sampling, a Green Heron (Butorides virescens) alighted in a dead tree adjacent to the wetland. I'm sure it wanted to come down to eat, and we were delaying its lunch.

Straddling the Continental Divide: Western New Mexico, May 2009 (VI)

Indian rock art from a cliff face near Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

A Short Detour

I'm reading Edward Abbey's The Journey Home: Some Words In Defense of the American West. It's a collection of essays and short memoirs published in 1977. In the first memoir, "Hallelujah on the Bum," Abbey recounts his introduction to the West during a three-month hitchhiking and train-hopping circuit of the West when he was 17 years old in 1944. Here's his description of passing through New Mexico aboard a railroad boxcar:

Brightest New Mexico. The sharp, red cliffs of Gallup. Mesas and mountains in the distance. Lava beds baking under the sun. Old volcanoes. Indian villages, cornfields, antique adobe churches, children splashing in a stream, an enchanted mesa. And over all a golden light, a golden stillness, a sweet but awesome loneliness--one old white horse browsing on a slope miles away from any sign of man; no fences; one solitary windmill standing in a grove of junipers, cowpaths radiating toward the horizon; a single cottonwood tree, green as life, in the hot red sand of a dry riverbed.

Gila Cliff Dwellings

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

From The Nature Conservancy's Mimbres Preserve, we drove north on NM 35 to its intersection with NM 15, then north on NM 15 to its terminus at Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument. Though the drive was only about 30 miles, it took us 1-1/2 hours because the road is tortuous and simply can't be driven fast. Besides, it was very scenic and there was no reason to hurry.

As we approached the Visitors' Center, the sky became increasingly dark and we heard rumbles of thunder. We went into the Visitors Center, where we got oriented, bought some postcards, and a tiny bowl painted with Mimbres-inspired artwork created by a contemporary Arizona artist.

We left the Visitors' Center and got back in the car for the 1-mile drive to the trailhead for the cliff dwellings. As we were driving, the heavens opened up. We got to the trailhead parking lot and waited in the car for the rain to slack off--a good 30 minute wait before we were confident that the worst had passed. The trailhead is located on the east bank of the Middle Fork Gila River at the end of a suspension bridge over the river. We paid our admission fee and crossed the bridge into the mouth of Cliff Dweller Canyon. The trail rose slowly up through the lush canyon, winding through riparian vegetation alongside a beautiful mountain brook, and then emerged onto rocks just below the caves containing the cliff dwellings.

There were several volunteer docents stationed throughout the dwellings, but visitors were allowed to wander freely through the partially restored and stabilized ruins. The structures were much the same as we had seen at Chaco Canyon, except that these ruins were located in protective caves high above the canyon floor, which added an additional element of intrigue to the site.

View of the Gila Cliff Dwellings and Cliff Dweller Canyon from the trail leading up to the cliff dwellings


View of a portion of the Gila Cliff Dwellings looking up Cliff Dweller Canyon into the adjacent Gila Wilderness

A ladder leading down from the Gila Cliff Dwellings.

The route through the dwellings requires the use of this ladder.

The Middle Fork Gila River looking south (downstream)

Late Summer Meadows and More

I had a chance to take a mid-morning walk in my local natural area this morning (August 4, 2009). The Joe-Pye-Weed (Eupatorium fistulosum) was in full riotous bloom, and New York Ironweed (Vernonia noveboracensis) and the first goldenrod (Solidago spp.) flowers were beginning to show color.

I caught the image of a Tiger Swallowtail (Pterourus glaucus) male alighting on one of the Joe-Pye-Weed flowers, along with a honeybee.

Crossing from the meadow into the adjacent dark, cool, moist forest, I noticed this ironwood or hornbeam (Carpinus caroliniana) growing just inside the edge. At first, the tree's angular form struck me as very Oriental, but I don't think that this image conveys the same feel I had in the woods; nevertheless, I still like it.
As I emerged from the woods back into the meadow, I came across these Tiger Swallowtails in copula. The female is above, the male hanging below. The pair soon took flight, with the female doing all the heavy lifting and the male tagging along for the ride (of course).

Straddling the Continental Divide: Western New Mexico, May 2009 (V)

The Nature Conservancy's Bear Mountain Lodge, Silver City, NM

Bear Mountain Lodge
Sunday, May 17, we spent the entire day driving from our bed-and-breakfast at Thoreau, New Mexico south to Silver City--a pleasant and scenic but long seven-hour drive. Our route took us back east on I-40 to Grants, then south on NM 117 through El Malpais National Monument, south on NM 36 to Quemado (don't blink), south on NM 32 to Reserve, and then finally south on US 180 to Silver City. We arrived in Silver City, drove around town to get our bearings, and then headed four miles north of town to The Nature Conservancy's Bear Mountain Lodge, a small bed-and-breakfast hotel on 165 acres bequeathed to The Nature Conservancy and operated as a center to proselytize TNC's mission. Since we're already firmly committed to conservation, we didn't need much convincing to sing with the choir. Bear Mountain Lodge opened in the early 1900s as a boy's school, then was converted into a resort. When the resort failed, the buildings fell into disrepair, but were rescued by a couple from the East Coast who renovated them, expanded the rooms, and re-opened the resort. By the time the wife was aging and trying to find a buyer for the resort, it had become renowned for its proximity to great birding and outdoor venues in the Gila Wilderness, so she donated it to The Nature Conservancy. The lodge is fabulous. We stayed in a four-unit "outbuilding" called "Myra's Retreat" (formerly the resort's laundry). The main lodge also has 10 rooms, a dining hall, a comfortable lobby with fireplaces and easy chairs, and a "resource room" with books, maps, and local information. Our room had a king-size bed, an easy chair, a wardrobe, and a view out onto the garden where birds came to bathe in the artificial stream and pond. The room was decorated in very tasteful and understated Southwestern style, with artwork provided by a downtown gallery.

The lodge used to serve dinner (on June 1, 2009, dinner service ended), and we ate breakfast and dinner at the lodge every day. The food was exceptional--all the more reason to lament that dinner is no longer available. After dinner the first evening, we still had plenty of sunlight left, so we took a walk on one of the trails through the property, stopping at a high point to take a picture of the lodge in the background. The lodge sits in an area the was formerly native grassland, but fire suppression has allowed the pinon-juniper forest that cloaks the surrounding hills to begin to march down to the grassy flatlands. TNC is gradually beginning to control the encroaching trees, but it's a big job--especially if each tree has to be treated individually.

Bear Mountain Lodge in encroaching pinon-juniper forest

The Mimbres Preserve
One of the benefits of staying at Bear Mountain Lodge is that TNC offers free guided walks of their preserves. On Monday morning, we accompanied one of the volunteers guides to the Mimbres Preserve (actually a group of several preserved parcels strung along the Mimbres River) about 45 minutes east of Silver City.

The Mimbres is a small but beautiful stream. In the Mid-Atlantic, we'd call it a creek or a run, but in the desert Southwest, it's a river. The Mimbres has no natural mouth and never has; once it leaves the foothills of the mountains, it just flows across desert until it peters out in the middle of nowhere. But here in the hills, it is a fine desert stream with a great riparian corridor. We parked at the preserve parking lot at a farm with an old wooden barn and walked down the slope to the shade and coolness of the streamside gallery forest. Birdsong was everywhere once we entered the woods.

Old barn at The Nature Conservancy's Mimbres Preserve

A cholla at the edge of the riparian zone
The Nature Conservancy's Mimbres Preserve

We used steppingstones and a few unsteady boards to cross the river (which was no more than ankle deep anyway), and then found an old military road-cum-trail that parallels the river. We walked upstream a few thousand feet, enjoying views of the river and birding throughout. Then we turned around and retraced our steps to a point in the trail where we could climb a knoll to survey the surrounding landscape. Our guide told us that the top of the knoll used to be the site of a Mimbres Indian village (pre-dating the Anasazi), and that occasionally pottery shards were found by cautious observers, but we saw no evidence of buildings other than some rocks.

We came down off the knoll and skirted a broad meadow bordered with seep wetlands full of endangered frogs. Then, as we were circling back to the stream crossing, we had a chance to see Blue Grosbeaks and, even more exciting for me, Yellow-breasted Chats (Icteria virens), nesting in the shrubs in the middle of the meadow. These chats were life-listers for us.

Mimbres River at The Nature Conservancy's Mimbres Preserve

Mimbres River at The Nature Conservancy's (TNC) Mimbres Preserve
TNC encourages such logjams to diversity habitat and provide structure

After we returned to our car, we headed for Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument--the next post.