For the second time in the past few years, we have been blessed with baby bobcats gathering nearby for a drink of water.  Seen outside our studio window a few days ago, two siblings were exploring and tussling with each other while Mom kept an close eye on them while resting in the shade of a nearby jojoba bush.  Seeing them represents one more reason RillitoBend is a very special neighborhood.  It has often been said that one of the pleasures of living in our neighborhood is being at home in the middle of the desert, in the middle of town.

The Bobcats in Tucson Research Project   ​(bobcatsintucson.net/) is tracking bobcat sightings and you can participate.

Do you see bobcats at your home or in your neighborhood in Tucson?
Email us details at bobcatsintucson@gmail.com 
​Please  include your name, street address, or  gps coordinates, date you last  saw bobcat and a photo of bobcat if you have one. ​

The hard work of RillitoBend neighbors, the City of Tucson Parks and Recreation Department, contractors and volunteer groups is becoming visible in our beloved Rio Vista Natural Resource Park.
 
The progress in our park was recently highlighted with a feature article in the Watershed Management Group’s quarterly publication.  Click below for their beautiful photos, and to read about their contributions to Rio Vista on the WMG website.

Our monsoon rains are demonstrating the effectiveness of the trail and landscape work funded by Prop 407.

Trail edging at the main intersections allows the rain to encourage ground cover outside the trails – and serves to discourage the gradual widening of trails that was creating big bald spots in the park.

Love our park?  Did you know that our very own RillitoBend website has both a Neighborhood News page and also a Rio Vista Park page?  Click below to learn more.

Have some of your own great photos of the neighborhood?  Share your photos at rambles@rillitobendna.org

Scientific organizations across the country have joined in studying American Kestrel populations and how they are affected by human activity. The marked decline in Kestrel populations has been under investigation for over a decade by Hawkwatch International (HWI), and our RillitoBend neighbor and Board advisor Mike Shaw has been on the job for Hawkwatch for fifteen years. 

When the pandemic somewhat stranded Mike in the Tucson area, he kept working by expanding the study area to Southeast Arizona as it was a logical addition to HWI’s mid continent study site in Utah and a smaller satellite study in northern Idaho. He now has 75 nest boxes in Southeast Arizona – and one of the first things he learned was that the boxes around Tucson were far more popular with Western Screech-Owls than Kestrels. The numbers were almost reversed from their two northern sites where Kestrels far outnumber Screech-Owl occupants. However, the boxes outside of Tucson, such as the ones in Sonoita (think cooler temps), get heavy Kestrel usage with only an occasional Screech-Owl. 

It makes sense: desert heat is rather unfriendly to diurnal, or daytime, raptors. It is too hot for their prey to be out running around, and it is too hot to chase them. Nocturnal hunters such as owls have the advantage of working the night shift at the same time mice and small mammals are most active and available. 

Despite the initial project being designed to study Kestrels, large numbers of Screech-Owls using the Arizona boxes is welcomed by HWI. They’ve been researching small, cavity nesting owls since 2016 in the Chiricahua Mountains southeast of Tucson and the urban/wilderness datasets  are great compliments to each other. In fact, HWI’s Kestrel specific study has been enlarged to include all cavity nesting raptors.  

The first nest box placed in a City of Tucson park was hung in Rio Vista Natural Resource Park. Now at least seven city and county parks have nest boxes and RillitoBend is home to over a dozen boxes scattered throughout the neighborhood. During the February-May nesting season, boxes need to be monitored every 7-10 days and available eyeballs are a critical component of the effort.

Mike would be delighted to have you join the other volunteer Community Scientists who monitor boxes in and around Tucson. Hawkwatch will train you how to do it and how to submit the data. They also welcome participation from landowners who have installed a box on their property and are willing to submit data over the same time period. For more details, you can email Mike at mshaw@hawkwatch.org.

For more information about Hawkwatch International, please see their website, Hawkwatch.org. There are several ways to support their research, and Mike (mshaw@hawkwatch.org) welcomes your questions and your support.

This spring, a small group of neighbors was invited to watch RillitoBend resident and Board advisor Mike Shaw band four Western Screech-Owl chicks from a Clay’s Alley nest box. This was the second year the adult female raised chicks in that box, confirmed by the number on her ankle bracelet. Banding the birds enables scientists to track the movements of individual birds and estimate their ages. We have had active nests in several neighbors properties for the last 3 years.

Mike says the best time to band chicks is at about 20-24 days after hatching. He climbed the ladder, blocked off the front door, then opened the back door and removed the adult female first. After weighing and measuring her and recording her leg band number, he passed her to Estelle and Mike returned to the box to retrieve the four chicks.

He weighed and measured each chick, then measured their leg and attached a band. In owls, the legs and feet grow fastest and are adult-sized by 20 days of age, so there is no worry in attaching a band that is just right in size. All the data is recorded in his field journal. He returned the family to their box safely, then tended to the scratches on his own hands and arms!

Eventually, with enough urban nest boxes and volunteers, Mike will be able to identify second and third generation nesting birds. The Western Screech-Owls of Tucson will then contribute data to a Hawkwatch project taking place in the Chiricahuas that is examining populations of owls living in four different environments (wildland, urban, commercial, and agricultural).

For more information about Hawkwatch International, please see their website, Hawkwatch.org. There are several ways to support their research, and Mike (mshaw@hawkwatch.org) welcomes your questions and your support.

Watch for the next blog post, Raptor Rapture.  Learn about Mike Shaw's research and the southeast Arizona Hawkwatch International nest box studies.

READ MORE ABOUT THE WESTERN SCREECH OWL

Article by Melanie Campbell-Carter
Photos by Melanie Campbell-Carter and Mike Shaw

The Western Screech-Owl male starts off the breeding season by courting a female. He calls to her, then brings her gifts and tasty treats. If she is sufficiently impressed with the goodies, she will consent to take a tour of his territory. The male will have a territory that not only includes good hunting but also a safe cavity or nest box for the family home. If she finds it all acceptable, then they will mate.

Females incubate 2-4 eggs (occasionally 5) for 30 days inside the nest box (or natural cavity). If there is space for both adults, the whole family lives together. If not, the male will find a bachelor pad nearby while the female stays with the chicks. Both parents hunt and feed the chicks after they hatch.

When the chicks are about 30 days old, they are ready to leave the nest and learn to fly. If you see an owl chick on the ground in the spring, THAT’S OKAY. That is what they do – they fall out of the cavity to the ground, and you can be certain that the parents are very close by. If you think the chick is in imminent danger due to domestic pets in the vicinity, you can try to gently lift it to a tree branch. There is NO need to call wildlife rescue. 

Chick mortality is rather high no matter whether they live in town or out in the wild, because of this 24-hour period when the chick is out of the nest but not yet flying. Within 24 hours, most chicks have figured out how to flap their wings and stay close to their parents. Chicks are fed by the adults for about thirty days, while they learn how to hunt and find their own food. At that point, they are sent out into the world to find their own territories – hasta la vista, babies! The adults remain in their home territory until the next breeding season, and they mate again.

Western Screech-Owls prey on small animals like mice, birds, and lizards. In our area, their main predator is the Cooper’s hawk. Other predators include larger owls like the Great Horned Owl. Near roadways, the Screech-Owl can be killed by motor vehicles. Rodenticide (poison bait) is a notorious killer of raptors. If a raptor eats a mouse or rat that has ingested poison, the bird may also die from the poison. Please use other means to manage rodents on your property.

Many of you are probably aware of various plants that are considered invasive. Some are an annoyance if you want to preserve a mostly Sonoran Desert flora, but some are also dangerous.  The following are ones that have been identified in the neighborhood and need to be removed.  Remember that they are invasive because they spread so easily.  So they need to be removed once they are identified to keep them from spreading. Everyone needs to do their part!  While many plants can be sprayed with herbicides, physical removal ensures that seeds will not spread.  Wear gloves, bag all plants carefully and put in trash barrels.  Make sure you are not spreading seeds on your clothes and shoes.

The plants we are most concerned with are Stinknet, Maltese Thistle,  Buffelgrass, Cheat Grass, and Red Brome.  Below are ways to identify and remove safely.

STINKNET - also called Globe Chamomille - (Oncosiphon piluliferum)
​

​Stinknet can cause respiratory or skin allergic reactions. Wear gloves, long sleeves and long pants when pulling the weeds.

Here is more information on Stinknet:

• University of Arizona Cooperative Extension
• Sonoran Desert Cooperative Weed Management Area
• Arizona Daily Star 

MALTESE STAR-THISTLE - (Centaurea melitensis) 

More information:
- Sonoran Desert Cooperative Weed Management Area

BUFFELGRASS - (Cenchrus ciliaris) 

More Information:

• Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum

FOXTAIL - (Hordeum sp.?) Please note that we have not had a botanist identify the plants that are in the neighborhood.  There are several grasses that produce seed heads that look like foxtails and they are all dangerous for pets, especially dogs.

More Information:

• Northern Arizona Invasive Plants

CHEATGRASS - (Bromus tectorum) also called Downy Brome

More Information:

• Northern Arizona Invasive Plants

Red Brome - (Bromus madritensis ssp. rubens) also called foxtail cress

More Information:

• California Invasive Plant Council

Note: Images of invasive plants are from the references.

Here are some closeups of these plants

The sour clover is also abundant this year. Clovers and Alfalfas are grown as livestock feed for their nutritional value.  They are legumes, plants that collaborate with bacteria in their roots to fix nitrogen.  They enrich the soil so less fertilizer is necessary when growing crops.  In times before modern agriculture they were used in crop 'rotations' to fertilize the soil between growing other crops. 

They are particularly attractive to the many bees in the area.

Many plants in the desert are legumes. A related plant native to Arizona is 'soft prairie clover' (Dalea mollissima)

While these plants are not native, and they tend to outcompete the native plants, they are not a serious threat and can be managed with selective weeding. There are plants that are invasive and a threat to humans and other animals and the next blog will highlight those.

Original Title

​Looking up at the beautiful dusk sky these hot hot summer evenings (about 7:30pm) there are the flitting little critters, dashing here and there.  These are the bats of summer, here in Tucson. Mexican free-tailed bats are the "jets" of the bat world. They are very fast flyers.

​The most numerous species is probably the Mexican free-tail bat (Tadarida brasiliensis), but there are about 18 different species seen in Tucson in the summer. (Melanie Bucci, curator  UArizona Museum of Natural History).

There is an enormous colony of bats that live under the Campbell Street bridge, in our neighborhood.  From now until mid September or October.  Each and every night they ‘flow’ out from under the bridge towards the sunset and head out for a meal of insects.  It is WONDERFUL to stand on the path by the Rillito River path and the Campbell Street bridge, just by Trader Joe’s and watch them ‘flow’ out from under the bridge.  The sun is usually just gone down past the horizon and out they come!  Hundreds, thousands!!

​This is a spectacular piece of summer fun and wonder in Tucson.  Don’t miss it!

​​The Popcorn-flower can first be seen the beginning of January in the Rio Vista Natural Resource Park. The leaves, which look a bit fuzzy, come out of the base in a radial pattern parallel to the ground. 

​In the next stage, the leaves start to grow upward and the plant puts out shoots with tiny white  flowers.  The quarter in the middle picture gives a sense of scale.

​Press a plant on a piece of paper and the dye from the roots, stems and leaves will come off on the paper.
 
The dye is in a class of chemicals called napthoquinones.  Napthoquinones occur in several Borages as well as in other plant families, and are commonly used as dyes in fabric and cosmetics.  Napthoquinones also have antimicrobial activity. (See 'READ MORE' below)

​Information on Plagiobothrys from several plant databases:

SWbiodiversitity.org (SEINet)
Southwest Desert Flora
Wildflower Search
Southeastern Arizona Wildflowers and Plants
San Diego State University - this has pictures of the seeds (nutlets)
Wayne's World - good pictures of nutlets and comparison with another plant called 'popcorn'

Here are some of the other Borages that also come up in Spring with the Plagiobothrys in the Rio Vista Park.
On the far left is Amsinckia, in the middle, Cryptantha, and on the far right, Lappula. 

More information on the Borages in the Southwestern United States is in Higgins, 1979
​

I would like to thank the members of the RillitoBend Rambles Blog team (Mary Bird, Melanie Campbell-Carter, Estelle Stern-Eilers, and Vicky Stromee) for reviews and edits to the text.  All photographs are by the author.

I have been working on a plant blog but after this morning's snow, I just had to photograph the snow - a beautiful and somewhat rare event for us.

This is just inside the Labyrinth entrance to the Rio Vista Natural Resource Park.  You can see the Santa Catalinas in the background with snow all the way down the slopes.

Photos courtesy of Melanie Campbell-Carter

Photos courtesy of Estelle Stern-Eilers

By Susan Andersen

Mostly, but, not ALL kidding aside, there is a critter that you may encounter right here in our Rillito Bend Neighborhood that fall under this description!

If you look closely in the soft, sandy soil, often at the base of the mesquite trees along Cactus Boulevard in the “Rain Garden”, you will often see small cone-shaped holes.  They can be solitary or grouped together, as may as 10 or more.  As the name implies- they eat ants.

The ANTLION is an insect in the family Myrmeleontidae, a group of about 2,000 species found throughout the warmer regions of the world.  The larva make the sand pits to catch their ant prey.  The larvae are the longest living stage lasting about 2 years.  In comparison, the adults live about 4 weeks, or long enough to mate and lay eggs.

The Antlion trap is an engineering marvel.  It takes some time to build to the appropriate specifications for the sand type.  You can find a description of the process in READ MORE section below.

​Adult antlions are much bigger than the larvae and often called lacewings. 

For more information and a couple of videos on trap building

Wikipedia entry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antlion

Encyclopedia Britannica
​https://www.britannica.com/animal/antlion#/media/1/28710/118648
​
The Arizona Antlion - Brachynemurus sackeni
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1993603/bgimage
There is also the Tucson antlion - Chaetoleon
https://bugguide.net/node/view/1600067/bgimage

Another couple of blog posts that are kind of fun
https://justineschluntz.com/2016/11/17/whats-hole-episode-5/   
https://oldblockwriter.blogspot.com/2018/02/ant-lions.html

Iowa State University
https://hortnews.extension.iastate.edu/antlions-and-doodlebugs  

Ohio State University
https://bygl.osu.edu/node/1693

Videos
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWq-5g_OCjI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1_-XRi05Ps

​I live in the Winterhaven Village Townhomes, between Country Club and Cactus Blvd, North of Prince.  Our white-walled compound has been softened with the drought tolerant plantings along Cactus and Prince, so pretty.

We are deep into winter now, but not too long ago while it was still warm, I came back from a walk down Cactus with a purloined piece of the wild milkweed vine.   I planted it in my back yard and it took off up the wall.

​Within 1 1/2 hours the beautiful chrysalis with gold sparkly trim had been formed.

​2 days later there was the newly emerged Monarch Butterfly, fat bodied, crumpled wings, crimped antennae.  It wriggled and stretched and slowly expanded it wings.

Fun Fact

• ​Monarch butterflies communicate with scents and colors. The males attract females to mate by releasing chemicals from scent glands on the hind wings. Monarchs signal to other animals that they are poisonous by having bright orange wings. The bright colors serve as a warning that predators should attack at their own risk. (National Wildlife Foundation website)

More Information on Monarchs

World Wildlife 
www.worldwildlife.org/species/monarch-butterfly

National Wildlife Foundation
​www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Invertebrates/Monarch-Butterfly

Monarch Butterfly Life
monarchbutterflylifecycle.com/blogs/raise/male-or-female-monarch-butterfly-pictures

Sonoran Moonglow
22" X 16", acrylic on paper
© 2021, Melanie Campbell-Carter
​Photo by Prull Photography

​​One of the goals of the neighborhood association is to improve the aesthetics and livability of our everyday surroundings. (our VISIONS).  To that end, several roadsides have been planted and are tended with the volunteer help of many neighbors. 

​2. Lucie's Garden: One of the first enhancement projects was Lucie’s Garden just north of the Winterhaven Village Townhomes gate on Cactus Blvd.  3. Linear Garden on Cactus: The area between the Winterhaven Village gate and Prince was planted in the effort to soften the look of the wall.  The varieties of plants are amazing, and today the plants are well-established without supplemental watering.

​​4. Friday Cat's Memorial Rain Garden: Across the street is a little oasis being developed around the mesquites. 

​​5. Rain Garden: During the 2021 monsoon season, a profusion of plants appeared on their own outside of Rancho Morado on Cactus and we dubbed it the “Rain Garden”.   The City donated boulders and rocks that the neighborhood volunteers placed for traffic control and rainwater harvesting.  

​7. Cactus/Allen Intersection: The night blooming cereus at the N/E and S/W corners are some special surprises at this intersection (plus some at the roundabout!). And in ponds that appear during the monsoon rains, one can see spadefoots!

This is just the start. 
If you would like to help spread the word on the glorious abundance around us,
​send an email to Rambles@rillitobendna.org
Happy Rambling!