August 20 - Pipe Springs

I woke in the wee hours to the soft hooot, hoot-hoot of a distant owl, drifted back to sleep and woke again around 4:30 a.m. to the yipping of coyotes.  The Great Horned Owl was still hooting.

At about 5:30, the Ravens were up and moving, checking all the campsites for morsels, so I figured it was time to get up & see what was going on in the world.

Break of dawn over the Grand Canyon

I walked over to the Watchtower and viewpoint, and returned, doing a bit of early morning birding.

Built in 1932

The sky was fairly clear and calm this morning, and the vistas were breathtaking.

The birds awakened with the sun, and there was a bit of color and sound to cheer me on my walk.

Turkey Vulture catching the morning thermals

Western Bluebird

Rock Wren

Chipping Sparrow in the Juniper

Hermit Warbler

I noted that the grass here obviously hadn't been grazed or burned for many years.  As a bunchgrass plant grows, it will use up all the nutrients in the center of the plant, which will then die, leaving only the outer ring of roots to provide food and water for the grass.

Grama Grass, Bouteloua sp.

A few other folks arrived to take in the quiet majesty of the morning sun over the Grand Canyon.

By 8 a.m., the tourists began arriving by the busload, changing the mood of the place, so I returned to the campground, packed up the tent, and headed toward home.

It really is a Grand canyon!

Crossing the Colorado River at Page, I headed north and west, stopping at Pipe Springs National Monument.

Park Ranger Autumn Gillard gave a tour of the “Windsor Castle” at 1 p.m., and I was her only customer.  The "Castle" was built by the Mormons as a Tithing Ranch, smack over the spring.  This ensured that they had water in case of raids by the Utes or Navajo, but certainly deprived the Paiutes of their water supply!

Autumn was a member of the Kaibab Band of Paiute Indians, and I enjoyed her perspective on the history of the site, from the First Peoples to the Paiutes, the Mormons and the Park Service.

After I took the tour, I did a bit of birding around the headquarters.  It was pretty warm by now, and bird activity was pretty slow, but there was some activity near the springs.

Almost too hot, even for Ravens . . .

As you looked south, the ground was flat and defined by desert vegetation.  High-desert grasses once covered the range around the monument as far as the eye could see.

Beginning in the 1860s, thousands of sheep and cattle were put on the range to take advantage of this sea of grass, with feral horses causing as much or more damage.  The overgrazing, combined with the paucity of rain and snow, weakened the resiliency of the fragile desert environment and altered the grasslands for the worse.  A 10-year wet period ended by the 1870s and the heavy grazing was too much for the range.

The grass went away, and was replaced with sagebrush, rabbitbrush, and tumbleweeds.  The Monument has established a parcel of native plants, as a relic of the ocean of grass that once filled the Arizona Strip.

Leaving the Monument, I continued driving toward home, ending up at the Bristlecone Motel in Ely, Nevada for the night.

“On a global basis…the two great destroyers of biodiversity are, first habitat destruction and, second, invasion by exotic species”

   E. O. Wilson

Black-throated Gray Warbler

Grand Canyon Desert View eBird Checklist is Here  

Pipe Spring Natl. Monument eBird Checklist is Here  

The Brown-headed Cowbird (immature shown here) is a Native Species, but it doesn't get much love.