Bee the Corn

I just spent two weeks in the Midwest, and although my eyes were opened to the wonders of the prairie and corn field, the internet services weren't so great. I will be replacing the deer photos recently posted to better quality versions soon.

August 16th: deer photos have been reposted.

Bump and Button

--- Button on the left background, Bump on the right background ---

This is the third in a series about summer deer families on the Dipper Ranch. Today's blog is about Bump and Button.

BUMP - this doe has a large mole-like bump on the inside of her left foreleg (see photo above). It is about 2" x 1" , dark grey, and has no antennae. She doesn't seem to scratch it or limp on that side, so I assume it is some type of harmless dermatological irregularity. Who knew deer had beauty spots? Bump has no cuts in her ears.

BUTTON - Bump is usually attended by a young buck, Button, who has 1" long antler buttons. Button has clean-margined ears and I assume he is a yearling. The 2009 Bump & Button pair may be the same doe-male fawn pair I saw frequently in the Fall of 2008. I hadn't trained myself to distinguish individual deer then, but I have observed similar feeding and bedding behavior between the years. Most young bucks disperse at about 16 months of age. I would expect Button to separate from Bump this fall during the breeding season.

--- This summer, Button has an adult-sized body, but his antlers are short. ---

The Columbian black-tailed deer of central coastal California is a subspecies of mule deer which range across large areas of the western US and Canada. The various mule deer subspecies survive in different environments and have somewhat different physical features and behavior.

Only the males carry antlers in mule deer. The velvet-covered antler bulbs appear on the top of their head every spring and may grow as much as 1 centimeter per day in the summer. The antlers stop growing and the velvet dries and is rubbed off in late August and September as the bucks prepare for the annual rut. Antlers are used for sparring between bucks, with dominant bucks getting more access to does for mating. The antlers are shed in late January or early February.

--- Last fall, a young buck, possibly Button, browsing in the farmyard ---

Yearling male mule deer with adequate diets normally have 2 points on each side of their antlers and 2-year old bucks typically have 4-point antlers on each side. Thereafter, subsequent annual growth may be more in the diameter and length of the antler and not an increase in the number of points, thus the age of a deer cannot be determined by its antler points. Nutritional conditions of the buck largely influence the growth of its antlers.

Button's antlers seem small for his age and body size. The black-tailed subspecies living in the mild climate of coastal California is generally smaller and starts its annual cycle sooner than many of the other subspecies of mule deer. Button still has another 1 to 2 months of antler growth this summer to see if he gets any divided points.

I am not sure why Bump does not have a new fawn this year. Possibly, she is a young doe which do not conceive every year, or she lost a fawn earlier in the year before bringing it out of hiding. In mule deer populations, 25 to 30% of the fawns are lost by the fall months, and 75% do not make it to their first spring (Feldhamer, et al.). Again, the nutritional level is a primary influence on deer survival.

--- Button is waving his head, but showing his size compared to Bump. ---

See also:

• Wild Mammals of North America, George A. Feldhamer, Bruce C. Thompson, and Joseph A. Chapman, editors, John Hopkins University Press, 2003.
  
• Guide to Hunting Deer in California, John Higley, California Department of Fish and Game, August 2002.

Fly & Squirt, Puck & the Bucks

--- Fly, a doe with several cuts on her right ear ---

This is the second in a series about summer deer families on the Dipper Ranch.

FLY - this doe has 2 cuts on the inside of her right ear and a small one on the outside of the same ear. She has one fawn, SQUIRT, with a stumpy nose. Squirt seems smaller than Dot 1 and Dot 2, so maybe its nose will unwrinkle with time. So far, these two families have not mixed, so I haven't been able to compare sizes directly.

--- Squirt, a single fawn, whose ears are bigger than his nose ---

In a Montana study, pregnant mule deer does carried twin fawns 55%, single fawns 44%, and triplet fawns 1% of the time on average over 12 years. Mule deer does in their first year of adulthood are more likely to carry a single fetus than twins, so perhaps Fly is a young doe. The reproductive potential of a doe is primarily influenced by her nutritional status in the year before the birth, especially in the last 2 to 3 months of pregnancy (Feldhamer, et al.).

Fly is flighty. She bolts quickly, even at the sound of water running in the bathroom sink. Squirt has a hard time keeping up with her during her quick retreats, although the fawn steadily follows her path through the tall grass. One night, I saw Squirt catch up with Fly at a fence line. Fly folded her forelegs and ducked her head under the bottom strand. As Fly's long, flexible back swept low, and her rear legs folded to the ground, tiny Squirt stepped right through the bottom gap in the old fence, and caught up as the doe unfolded her body accordion-like on the other side of the wire.

--- Squirt running to catch up with Fly ---

I often see Fly and Squirt creep out of the willow thicket west of the house at dusk. When the plums were dropping, Fly would stand drooling in the orchard as she ate unripe fruit. I usually didn't see Squirt during her orchard visits. The small fawn might have been screened by the tall grass, but I think Fly tucks Squirt into a nearby stand of canyon live oaks while she wanders about.

PUCK - on occasion, I see another young buck, Puck, with velvety, unbranched antlers about 4" long. I have not detected him as part of any of the other families and have not been able to photograph him yet.

I don't see many bucks this time of year. I did see one with 3 tines on his left antler and 2 tines on the right in early July in the John Deere meadow. The does with fawns have claimed the high ground near the farmyard with more regular water and a variety of food choices, and the bucks are lower down along the forest edges.

--- Mixed deer herd in February ---

At other times of the year, the deer mingle together in mixed herds. They often browse as a herd in the early morning and evening. When the calves first arrived on the Dipper Ranch in January, the deer initially disappeared, but within a few weeks, deer and cattle were sharing the pastures. Both cattle and deer are ruminants or cud-chewers. In the first two chambers of their stomach, the fiborous cellulose of their plant food is partially broken down by symbiotic bacteria. When the ruminants bed down, they regurgitate the cud, chew and mix it with more bile, and then reswallow it to be further digested and absorbed in the other two chambers of the stomach.

Mule deer have a relatively short gut length for their body size compared to other ruminants. Thus, they tend to be selective and eat smaller volumes of food such as young, tender twig tips, leaf buds and other plant tissues which are of higher nutritional quality and easily digested. I've also noticed that deer tend to sample the outside tips of whatever is newly growing along their regular trails. Cattle, on the other hand, will eat and process large quantities of grass and don't sample as much from the woody plants. One study found that Columbian black-tailed deer eat as much as 62% newly germinated annual grasses in the winter in the oak woodland/annual grass ranges of northern California (Feldhamer, et al.). Moderate, seasonal grazing at the Dipper Ranch seems to accommodate both the deer and cattle.

---These deer exhibit the characteristic tail of the black-tailed subspecies of mule deer:

black along the entire length of its dorsal side.

In the background, cattle are chewing their cud.---

See also:

• Wild Mammals of North America, George A. Feldhamer, Bruce C. Thompson, and Joseph A. Chapman, editors, John Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Deer Pelmanism

--- Fawn chowing down on dry buckeye leaves ---

The does are bringing their fawns into the farmyard. They are drinking out of the cattle troughs and birdbaths, and eating rogue fruit falling in the old orchard. Their favorite snacks currently are the dropped leaves and flower stalks from the native California buckeye trees.

--- California buckeye tree dropping its leaves in July ---

California buckeye trees have an unusual adaptation to California's dry summer - they are summer deciduous. They drop their leaves in the summer drought period and are the first trees to bud out in the late winter. In the early spring, they are covered with large white blossoms.

--- Dot, a doe ---

I don't believe in feeding wildlife. Feeding wild animals usually leads to conflicts with humans. The fed animals may get too close to humans and start consuming landscape plants or pets not originally intended as wildlife food which usually means trouble. They may wander onto roads where they are hit and killed. The food provided by humans may be nutritionally unbalanced or only available at irregular intervals. Often, a fed wild animal is eventually a dead animal. The California Department of Fish and Game says it well, "Wild animals don't need your handouts. They need your respect."

As usual, the Dipper Ranch turns my former beliefs on their head. I realize the deer are attracted to the yard partially by the fruit in the orchard, especially since the fruit starts dropping just as the does are ready to bring their fawns out of hiding and introduce them to browsing. I would prefer they leave the fruit for me. I have flashing to put on the trunks of the fruit trees, and this winter, I will be installing a deer fence around my future garden. On the other hand, the fruit trees have been here a long time, maybe 50 years. For much of the last decade, the property was uninhabited by humans or neglected. These very same does probably visited these fruit trees when they were fawns, well before I took up residence in the ranch house.

--- Dot's right ear nick ---

I am trying to teach myself how to identify the deer as individuals and as families. In the next few blogs, I will introduce the local deer families. Today, I would like to introduce you to the Dot Family.

--- Dot's left hip scar ---

DOT - a doe with a black dot on her right side near the top middle of her back. On close inspection, she has a small nick at the 11:00 position on the outside of her right ear. Her left hip is preceded by a small diagonal scar pointing SSE.

--- Dot and the spots on the right side of Dot 1 and Dot 2 ---

Dot has two fawns and I am still trying to tell them apart. Unlike the adults, the fawns don't have scars to readily distinguish them. Recently, I realized not all of their spots are identically arranged, so I'm trying to memorize their individual patterns. This will only work through the summer because they lose their spots when they shed into their winter coats. For now, in the Dr. Seuss fashion, I call the fawns Dot 1 and Dot 2. I first met Dot 1 and Dot 2 in late May while cursing my brush cutter.

--- Spots on the left side of either Dot 1 or Dot 2 ---

The Dot Family visits the farmyard everyday between 6 and 9 AM and again between 6 and 9 PM. Currently, they are bedding down in the willow thicket below the Ortega corral. Dot 1 and Dot 2 are often within a few feet of each other. I think one might be the leader, foraging ahead of the other and wandering the farthest from the doe. As with all twins, the behavior of one is often attributed to the other. They are curious about noises and the cat, but will scamper away at any sudden movement towards them.

--- Spots on the left side of the other Dot ---

If you want to see fawns this time of year, I recommend you stake out a California buckeye tree that is dropping its leaves. Settle in a good viewing spot with binoculars about 1/2 hour before dusk. A deer family will likely come by to pick up the leaves that have fallen in the past day. If you are at least 30 feet away and quiet, the deer may freeze at first when you slowly move your binocular hands up to your face, but will probably go back to crunching the dry leaves if you are as still as possible. The new deer families seem to follow a daily routine, so if you spot them once, it might be a good viewing spot for much of the summer.

Next up - Bump and Button.

See also:

Columbian black-tailed deer - Odocoileus hemionus columbianus

California buckeye - Aesculus californica

A couple of hints on how I describe locations on a deer:

• For hour designations or compass directions (11:00 or SSE), imagine the center of the clock or compass is the center of the deer's body as you look at it. Eleven o'clock is to your upper left. SSE stands for south-southeast on a compass or generally to your lower right.


• When referencing the deer's right or left side, it is from the animal's perspective, not the viewer's. Thus, if I say left foreleg, it is the front leg on the left side of the deer, however, if you are facing the deer, that leg will actually be on your right.

Pelmanism is the memory game, also called Concentration, in which you turn up cards and try to match related sets.

Sock Weeding

Here is a new technique for weeding. Wake up, look out the window at fawns. Run outside in your pajamas and socks with the camera. Sneak around behind tree trunks. Take lots of photos. Walk back inside for breakfast. Wait, first clean all the bur clover seeds off your socks and dispose. Repeat until the fawns lose their spots.

I have been hearing your weed frustrations. The weeds are going to seed and you have been working hard for months. It is too early in the summer to get a hint of the fall, and spring is far away. Please note that it is almost August. Next year in August, see if you feel the same way.

---hawk feather ---

It's okay. You are making progress, this is just the time of year when weeds and their seeds look the worst. Remember the tips from the Thistle Strategy: pick a small initial treatment area and repeatedly visit and groom that area before you expand to a new area.




<--- famous comma bird (or maybe an acorn woodpecker)




Take a break and enjoy the birds that are flying high up. They have been watching your bent back for weeks. Bend the other direction and watch the birds for awhile. I am not sure what is going on in the sky these days, but I am finding individual feathers everywhere. It is too early for the pre-migration molt. Maybe the juveniles are excitedly flapping through their first few thermal lessons. Maybe the parents are stressed about feeding the second batch of summer nestlings.

--- vulture feathers have a bit of iridescence ---

--- Stellar jay ---

The feathers are such a treat. Jeweled messages cast about. Reminding us of this huge space above. Full of life that we are nurturing with our careful weeding. Or maybe weeding is just an excuse to get us outside where we can see feathers.

feathers in da' cap
(Don't forget to play)

Ghost Cow

Cow or rock?

I keep seeing the Ghost Cow, but nobody else does. Perhaps his spirit still lingers because in the seven-month grazing season on the Dipper Ranch this year, I frequently spoke of frogs, newts, snakes, thistles, even the weather, but I hardly wrote about the cattle.

I hereby take this opportunity to share photos of the Ghost Cow's brethren in the hope that the Ghost Cow will finally walk through that corral gate.

The cattle arrived in January in all colors.
Hey, there's the Ghost Cow when he was a little guy, ahhh.

Some had fancy faces.

Some had fancy rumps.

They spent most of their time grazing and drinking.

Sometimes they got up on the wrong side of the bed.

We manage the numbers and location of the cattle and the season of grazing
to increase the biodiversity of the grassland, reduce the fire hazard,
and support the region's rural agricultural heritage.

Do they know they graze in paradise?
There's the Ghost Cow on the right.

Final Note: I wrote this Ghost Cow post last night but retired before adding the photos. This morning at 6AM I woke up to a loud "wree-wree-wree" call and jumped out of bed thinking it might be the peregrine falcons reported in nearby Devil's Canyon. I stumbled outside and could hear but not see them. In between putting on boots and field pants, finding camera and binocs, stumbling over the cat, getting distracted by a Cooper's hawk, and briefly seeing 3 peregrines raptors, I saw the Ghost Cow lurking about the distant shade. In the next half hour, I caught further glimpses of the peregrines raptors, and spotted a red-shirted cowboy riding the Pasture 2 road with a steady black dot trotting beside him. The red-shirt, dog and horse rounded up the Ghost Cow and then everyone went inside as it reached 100 degrees by 10 AM. Having received their overdue attention, the cattle spirits are now at rest.

Backyard Roundup

Last week when I came home from work late, I got to watch Cowboy V round up the cattle. A man, a horse and a dog. That's all it takes to move 80 head of cattle to a corral 2 miles away and load up a trailer a few times. 'Course, it's got to be the right man, a good horse and Zip the cowdog. I think sometimes a rope is involved.

I could watch it all from my backyard at twilight. Here's the view from my lawn chair as the roundup trio pushed the herd from Pasture 1 to Pasture 2.


Once the herd was heading down the road, Cowboy V led Zip over to the fenceline where four cows were trying to slip away.

I don't know what Cowboy V said, but in a few moments, Zip had those stragglers moving, turned, and following the rest of the herd.

Wow, and that dog has licked me.

I am not a cowgirl. I am a biologist whose new assignment, among too many others, is to monitor cattle grazing on conservation land that I have the good fortune to live on. Sometimes I try to do cow things. A few weeks ago, a neighbor called to say that some of the cows were standing over his pool. I went up, found the cows, opened a nearby gate, walked behind them, did the chicken dance and those cows went through the gate as proper as parochial schoolchildren. It kinda went to my head.

No photos available of the chicken dance, but here's a later view from my lawn chair last week:

And as the last cow goes around the dusty bend, just before the sun settles into the the Pacific Ocean, a few rays slip through a gap in the mountain range to light up a single tree on the Dipper Ranch:


Last night, I was finally getting over a sore throat and fever, so I decided to walk up the drive to get Sunday's newspaper. It was nice to be outside and the air smelled different. Kinda in between sage, dry grass and bananas. I was pulling yellow starthistle plants on my way when I saw a big grey object move along the treeline of the lowest pasture. Was it a deer? No, I could clearly make out a doe and two fawns browsing on the other side of the same meadow and they were small and brown. Was it a cow that Cowboy V missed last week? I wasn't sure. No way I was gonna tell a cowboy he missed one of his cows unless I was sure. Maybe it was a ghost cow and I was still feeling feverish.

I ran back to the house and got the binocs. Nah, couldn't see anything. Must be a ghost cow. I headed back up the drive to get the newspaper. While tugging another handful of yellow starthistles, sure enough, I saw a big grey rock on the edge of the oaks. Except this rock had a swishing tail. Binoculars up - for sure it's a cow.

I left Cowboy V a message that I found another cow and it wasn't mine, so it must be his. That was supposed to be a joke. Remember, I am a biologist, not a cowgirl. I may have froglets in my kitchen, but there are no Cindy cows. Then I decided I could steer that steer up to the corral by my house. I opened the corral gate and picked up a big stick while hustling down to the bottom pasture. That steer led me all over. I even discovered an ancient cow skull in the coyote boneyard that I had never seen before. But I could not get that steer to go through the corral gate. A few hours later, after losing and finding the steer several times, I had him pinned in a pasture next to another corral but I couldn't get him in that gate either. By this time, the owls were perched on the wires watching the show. I decided this was a job best left for the professionals and headed home smelling like sage bananas. Running after that steer is still the best thing I've done all week.

Tonight, I came home from work late again but this time it was dark. I could tell by the way the gate was locked that the roundup trio had been on the property. Looks like they got their steer.

At the end of each summer, we let the ranch grasslands rest for a few months. That means I won't see any more cattle or try any more cow tricks for awhile. I will practice my chicken dance and anticipate another cowdog kiss from Zip.

A friend shared Rodney Crowell's song Earthbound today and I'm entranced by the line:
"50 years of livin' and your worst mistake's forgiven, just take time time time"

I am still trying to figure out the wisdom and humor these cowboys have from their many years of living. There are times when I can't understand what Cowboy V is saying between his chew, his accent, and his mumbling, and my city ears, my bad hearing, and my poor attention span. I still listen hard in hopes that I will pick up part of it.

The cowboy turns for one last look at the end of the trail:


Maybe he meant to leave the ghost cow for my 50th year of livin'

"My life's been so sweet, I just can't stand it,
I must admit I've made out like a bandit.
I'm Earthbound." - Rodney Crowell, Earthbound, 2003 Sony BMH

Youthful Wanderings & a Studebaker

What causes us to look up at a certain moment

or to travel in a particular direction?
Does our perception determine our trajectory and our fate?

When my college-aged son visits the Dipper Ranch, he first sleeps, or as he calls it, mandatory recharging. He was home in June after completing his sophomore year. With forty winks under his belt, he started wandering about the ranch.

One evening, he joined me on a hike to the lower end of the property to check on the cow-calf pairs. With his help, I was able to pry open the stubborn lid on the lower springbox and found it nearly dry, although both water troughs connected to it were still full. Not seeing many people on this far end of the ranch, the bulky cows pushed their mingling calves into the brush at the sight of us. Satisfied they were healthy and wily California cows, I asked my son if he wanted to continue westward to see the calf carcass that served as a plush rattlesnake throne last year. That got a definite 'yes'.

---leather on the hoof ---

We crossed a creek and ran into the cattle again. They snorted their disapproval as they trotted ahead of us on the old dirt road. Around a bend, my son asked about a wrecked car in the nearby trees that I had always ignored. We decided to investigate. It was a rusty, stripped-down sedan. The pair of 'suicide' doors on the passenger side was bent back on themselves as if the jaws-of-life had been used to pry out the occupants. We scrambled about the wreck, speculating on how it got there.


I noticed the glove compartment was marked "Land Cruiser" in raised silver lettering, but this car was too old to be a Toyota. Later that evening after an Internet search, I found that Studebaker made a Land Cruiser from 1934 to 1954 and the remnants of this vehicle look somewhat like the late 1940s models. In the mid 1800's, various Studebaker brothers built wagons in Indiana for farmers, the army and western settlers, and another brother made big money building wheelbarrows in California for gold diggers. The California brother returned to Indiana after a family religious dispute and invested his gold-derived money into the family business. Eventually the Indiana wagon factory turned to automobile production until the company went out of business in the 1960s.

---chrome and twigs ---

Post-WW II Land Cruisers had a reputation as luxury vehicles, and although most parts had been salvaged off this wreck, remnants covering the interior door panels appear to be leather with a crocodile-like texture. What is the story behind this car? I remembered a tidbit Paul Ortega, former ranch caretaker, reported in a currently unpublished interview with the South Skyline Association. He said thousands of men would congregate at the Shriners' summer retreat along Pescadero Creek, "[A] big shindig", he called it, "No women allowed". The Islam Temple Shrine of San Francisco owned land adjacent to the Dipper Ranch from 1924 to 1945 before they sold it to the state for what eventually became Portola State Park.

--- leather and twigs ---

Were a couple of Shriner boys driving back from a celebratory evening at the camp in their well-appointed automobile and didn't see a curve on the country road? Present-day drivers still occasionally miss a curve on Alpine Road and fly over the Dipper Ranch. The last vehicle left drag marks on the hillside where the tow truck had to haul it up twice (cable broke the first time). And what decays near the foot of this same hillside? The Studebaker wreck and the carcass mentioned above where a calf appeared to fall to his death last year. The dates and the geology sorta line up.

--- leather shortly after death ---

We continued down the road to the final resting place of calf-2008. By now, fifteen months later, the bones and bits of hide are widely scattered by the ranch scavengers. Some were cracked and split by coyotes, bobcats and vultures, and others have delicate scrapings on their edges from rodents reclaiming the calcium.

---bones dissolving in stomachs and soil ---

Twilight had arrived and we decided to leave this haunted place and hike home for a barbecue dinner. As we traveled homeward, we watched the ranch's changing of the guard. Deer were coming out of hiding to browse in the open pastures. Several of the does had one or two fawns following them. When a doe is steadily moving towards a destination, her fawns follow exactly behind her, sometimes falling behind but nevertheless tracking her same route. While her shoulders and rump clear the grasstops when she bounds, their ear tips are just visible at the apogee of their tiny leaps. When she stops to browse, the newest fawns tuck in tight by her side and select whatever looks like what she is eating. The older but still spotted fawns will wander a bit farther in their nibbling. If they are twins, they tend to stick together or maybe one is the leader.

When the ambulatory fawns hear or see something new, they stand stock still and stare. If the object of their obsession is loud or moves quickly, they bolt, seemingly any direction, and take cover, sometimes becoming separated from the rest of the family. A fawn came out of the willows towards me last week as I was closing the gate near the house. I had flushed a doe earlier as I drove down the driveway. I guess the fawn thought my subsequent quiet walk back up to the gate sounded more like animal than noisy human. As he cleared the tall grass and abandoned farm implements at the road edge, he gave me a few seconds of stunned stare, then bolted back into the willows when I murmured "Good evening." On my way back to the house, I heard a large deer crashing hurriedly through the orchard with two small silhouettes bouncing behind her, the family reunited.

While watching deer, I never see them give each other a warning when danger or a disturbance is suspected. One deer may look up from browsing, scan the view shed, swivel its ears, determine a threat and then bound away without a stomp or any gesture I can detect as a warning to its fellows. Any panicked motion by one deer sets the rest instantly in flight, often scattering several directions. No discussion, no evaluation, just departure. The fawns have to flee-fend for themselves at these times. I can't make sense of it, but I need more deer observation time to figure out what deer see and why they head one direction or another. With eyes in the center of my head, instead of the side, maybe I will never figure it out.

I spend a lot of time wandering the ranch and interpreting the stories behind the natural phenomena. I am curious about the human history, but too dull-minded to notice it. Ranch visitors tend to look and travel in different directions than I do, and so we get a chance to be history and landscape detectives.

With all my wild speculation about the Studebaker wreck, I do need to address one other possibility. A former long-term tenant of the property made his living by grading and other work-for-hire with his large collection of earth-moving equipment. He also made money grazing various properties and probably in many other ways as is typical of country folk. He could have acquired the Studebaker wreck, stripped its finery for resale, and left the carcass in this shady remote spot. Nevertheless, I see what I see, it's still haunted to me.

--- not my fate . . . today ---

See Also:

For information on the Studebaker business:

• More Than They Promised, Thomas E. Bonsall, 2002, Stanford University Press.
  
• Studebaker Museum