Thursday, June 5, 2008

Critters on the Trail

I was up on 1A in the Phoenix Mountain Preserve this evening and trying to thread my bike around a rock that I've cleared dozens of times. For those who are familiar with the trail, there are two spots where you have to thread the needle while making a right hand turn (westbound). I say trying, because tonight, I didn't quite make the second one, caught my chain stay on the rock and took a pretty good tumble. The bike flipped over and ended up about 20 feet below the trail. I only fell about down about 10 feet. Man, there's a lot of dry stickery little things that attach to anything and everything! Recovered the bike (minor ding) and searched for the headlight that came off. Found it about 6 feet below the bike's resting spot.

Anyway, being from the Pacific Northwest, going off trail may cause you to pick up a bramble or two, but any critters you encounter are pretty benign. Here in Phoenix, I'm not so sure about that and it got me thinking. There seem to be all sorts of critters that can do some kind of damage.

About 1/2 hour before my crash, I encountered my second rattlesnake in a week. Both snakes were about 2 feet long. I ran over the first one in the dark, hitting it with both tires almost before realizing what it was. It was in the middle of the trail, stretched out and slithering across. It really should have used the pedestrian crossing. Tonight's snake was about the same size and had just gotten off the trail when I arrived at the snake crosswalk (crosscrawl? crossslither?).

Scorpions seem to be scurrying about quite a bit, and I've spotted a few centipedes that can have a nasty bite.

On the less threatening side, there are lots of little lizards that startle and take off like a shot, spraying little scoops of sand as they go.

Seems there are a couple breeds of rabbits, several specimens I've seen are small, not particularly long legged, and a lot like wild rabbits all over the country. The other ones are probably jackalopes. I can't be sure, because every one I've sighted has apparently been a doe. Haven't seen a single one with antlers, but I understand that the bucks laze about in the rocks like male lions and only come out after the female has made the kill.

Lots of coyotes roam the preserve, and I spot at least one each week.

Birds include owls, doves and quail. I've only seen one owl in flight, when it coasted about 10 feet over my head a while after sunset. Doves are abundant and seem to like to sit in the middle of trails, and take off when startled. In the daytime, doves take off at an angle and start putting distance between themselves and the intruder as quickly as possible. At night, they seem to take off and fly straight up at least 6 feet before they angle off and away. I'd guess their night vision isn't too good and they launch straight up to avoid hitting anything. Quail are downright funny. They run away when startled and move so fast you can hardly see their legs move. Its like they have no sense of where they want to run to, changing direction seemingly a dozen times every second. I came upon a pair of adults and at least 10 chicks one evening. The chicks made the ground seem almost alive as they scurried in a hundred directions at once. Reminded me of a kindergarten playground.

So, there I was, contemplating the myriad desert species as I recovered my bike and headlight. The critters are interesting, but I doubt I've seen them all. For a moment, I had to decide if I was going to recover the bike and light, or just leave them as toys for the critters and walk home.

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