#107 - Penang, Malaysia - Saturday, 12 Jan 2019

2 a.m. at the Hotel Equatorial on Penang Island. Time travel to the other side of the globe is exhausting but I am not going to whine about it here. Suffice it to say that I’m now 14 hours in the future from Chicago where I had spent the last few weeks before flying out of O’Hare International Airport, and I’m 16 hours ahead of Arizona where I was a month ago. 16 hours is also how long the flight to Hong Kong was. I had a 12 hour plus layover there and had hoped, optimistically I suppose, that I might leave the airport and do some night photography of Hong Kong cityscapes. That didn’t happen both from being wrecked and due to poor visibility in the notoriously air polluted country where the haze was combined with heavy fog.

i left Chicago Wednesday afternoon, arrived in Hong Kong Thursday evening and then finally arrived on Penang on Friday morning. Passing through Penang,s airport was speedy and I stepped out into heat and humidity that I hadn’t experienced since I was last in Malaysia two years ago. Heat, I know. I spend summers in the Arizona and New Mexico deserts. But the warm bath air is not something I am used to or enjoy much. A hotel shuttle never materialized, and I turned down the guys offering rides outside of the system to get an official taxi. The ride to the business hotel where I am booked for four nights was only about ten minutes. I checked in quickly to my “upgraded” room and changed out of my sweaty clothes into swim trunks and soon was submerged in the refreshing waters of the pool with a cold Tiger lager waiting.

i was the only one at the pool, which has a waterfall in front of a cove with a jacuzzi, koi pond adjacent, etc. It was odd to have the whole place to myself and the staff quickly replaced my empty Tiger glass with the first Singapore Sling of this holiday, which I later followed up with another Tiger and a steak sandwich before finally heading back to my room and crashing.

Meanwhile , a whole herd of mad Nutters from the West Country of England was en route on their own flight to join me midday tomorrow, which is actually today since it is 2 am, and, which is Saturday here. Mark Pennell’s and family and friends should be at the hotel about 24 hours after I arrived.

i said I would blog her every day, keeping a daily diary trip log during our short adventure here on Penang before our group return to Langkawi Island on Tuesday. I hope to be able to make good on that promise. I will have to type these entries on my iPad as I didn’t bring a laptop. Sadly, my MacBook Pro was knocked off a TV table by my stepdad Joel’s almost one year old miniature Dachshund “Buddy” and the monitor no longer works. I have been using an external monitor back in Chicago but obviously couldn’t travel with it. What that means besides typing on a tablet is that I won’t be processing my dslr images until I return to Chicagoland. The images I will post within my blog posts will all be iPhone snapshots and those who use Instagram and/or Facebook are invited to check out my story on both as I’ll be posted many snapshots each day. My actual Instagram feed, which duplicated on Facebook, is reserved for “fine” photography so the feed won’t change until end of the month.

BUT …. 😡 So far the functionality of this Squarespace blog is being problematic when used on the iPad. The normal way I insert photos is not working and I don’t have the patience right now to try to remedy. I was going to add a hotel view photo looking out over mountain bay and maybe a shot of the pool but I am having difficulty. Until after breakfast …

#106 - Arizona Tarantulas - a December Field Trip with Brent

Aphonopelma catalina, A. chalcodes, A. madera, A. paloma, A. parvum, and A. saguaro, with a guest appearance by A. superstitionense. All in one week; the first week of December. Seven of Arizona’s tarantula species, which sounds like a big number until you realize that sevenTEEN can be found within the borders of “The Grand Canyon State”.

Saguaro, icon of the Sonoran Desert where Brent and I spent the first week of December

Full disclosure: the Aphonopelma superstitionense specimens (both male and female) were collected by someone else in advance of our arrival, which allowed Brent Hendrixson and I to only briefly search for this species before concentrating our efforts elsewhere. Three other species were either not targets at all or only of secondary interest. A. chalcodes is Arizona’s most ubiquitous tarantula, widely ranging across the state south of the Colorado river. This species wasn’t of interest. We saw some open burrows but left them alone. Most had been plugged up as this species becomes dormant in late fall and winter and doesn’t resume activity until spring. Brent found one small specimen while flipping rocks in the Santa Catalina Mountains. We did make a trip to an area near the Pinaleño Mountains for A. parvum, in a desert grassland where it is active and breeds in the fall after the syntopic A. gabeli and A. vorhiesi found in the same area become dormant after their late spring and summer breeding seasons, but we were also drawn to the area by a desire to search the nearby mountain range as well. In October Brent had stayed with me in Cave Creek Canyon and we had found A. parvum in the desert grassland near Portal, AZ then and didn’t need to see it again, but just wanted to see if the population between Willcox and Safford was still active the first week of December. Finally, A. madera was another species that wasn’t a goal of this field trip as it has been encountered a number of times previously, but we decided to hike in the Santa Ritas and were just curious if males were still to be found. It was a pretty chilly morning during our ascent of Old Baldy Trail, but the sun was warming Madera Canyon when we were done with our hike so we drove the paved roads and finally I saw one male on the road as we were exiting the canyon. 

So what determined what the target species were? Well, Brent has now disclosed via a social media teaser the project he has been working on so I guess I can reveal it here. He has been seeking and photographing specimens to produce a comprehensive field guide to the scorpions and tarantulas of the United States featuring his own high quality isolated-on-white portraits of each species. Even species he has found and photographed over the years have been sought again over the past couple in order to re-photograph with new gear and technique. Readers of this blog know he already had visited me a few times earlier in the year (see #96, #102) and this early December trip before I headed to Chicago/Malaysia for the winter was to complete his 2018 search for United States tarantulas and scorpions. Our two primary targets were two elusive, difficult to find species: Aphonopelma catalina and A. saguaro. America’s smallest tarantula, A. paloma, became a secondary target as I wanted to see it at the species’ type locality near Maricopa, between Phoenix and Tucson.

After storing my Wheelhouse at Rusty’s north of Rodeo, NM, I drove to Phoenix and spent Friday night in a hotel near the airport. Saturday morning I picked up Brent and we hiked a trail in a canyon where A. superstitionense lives. We didn’t find the species active that day or locate any burrows, but as I wrote above a friend of Brent’s who lives in Mesa had already found him both males and females a few weeks earlier, and they were from the same canyon. So that night we picked up those specimens before enjoying a nice Thai dinner. Sunday we moved from Phoenix southeast to Tucson and detoured to the A. paloma site near Maricopa along the way.

Type locality, Aphonopelma paloma. This sandy soil is very difficult to dig in. This desert is primarily vegetated with shrubs like creosote bush and triangle-leaf bursage with some brittlebush or desert-thorn. The short trees in the image are paloverde, and although not seen in this photo the area also has sparse cacti including fishhook barrel cactus and saguaro.

Burrow, Aphonopelma paloma. This is a classic A. paloma burrow with a crescent-shaped pile of excavated sandy soil to one side of the perfectly round burrow opening. The smallest species in the United States, this one-inch long tarantula lives in burrows the diameter of a pea. The tiny tunnels can be complex and deep and the composition of the earth also makes it very difficult to extract these spiders.

Adult female, Aphonopelma paloma, Pinal County, Arizona. Legspan the diameter of a quarter.

The Paloma species group of Aphonopelma is unique in its miniaturization. Comprised of a dozen species that live among larger species, but not among other “mini tarantulas”, the seven Arizona representatives are A. paloma plus A. mareki, A. parvum, A. phasmus, A. prenticei, A. saguaro, and A. superstitionense. For the most part they breed in the autumn after the active periods of the larger tarantulas in the area are coming to an end. With the above female A. paloma “in the bag”, Brent and I next turned our sights on A. saguaro.

We left the Maricopa - Casa Grande area and checked into the Tucson hotel where we’d spend the next five nights. Just down the road was a Whole Foods Market where we’d get most of our meals and it had a bar where we enjoyed a few beers Sunday night with more over the course of our stay. Monday morning we met up with Paul & Karla, a husband and wife from the Wickenburg, Arizona area that Brent had known previously. They wanted to hike and search for tarantulas with us and they were waiting for us at Bear Canyon west of the Santa Catalina Mountains when we arrived. This is where we would search for Aphonopelma saguaro. We were fortunate to come across a couple of burrows right along the trail and Brent persevered to dig among roots and rocks for quite some time to extract a tiny adult female. Later after a nice hike Paul tried his hand at digging another on our return trek. While he was at it Brent went down the trail in search of a male and as I started to follow and saw him approaching I witnessed him look down and give me the thumbs up. Right there at his feet along a little stream was the only male we would see.

Aphonopelma saguaro, female (top) and male, Bear Canyon, Pima County, Arizona

After lunch Paul & Karla also joined Brent and I for a trip into the Santa Catalina Mountains where we drove up to nearly mile-high elevation, parked and climbed a mountain trail in search of the endemic Aphonopelma catalina. We had little expectations going in of finding the cryptic burrows of females in the rugged and rocky mountain terrain, but were hoping to come across males wandering the trail ascending the Sky Island. On the climb up we found a male at almost exactly one mile above sea level (5267 ft at 2:42 pm), saw nothing else as we pushed on for a couple more miles and then found another male in a hole in the trail descending the trail two hours later within a couple hundred feet of the first male. Searching the area near the males did not result in finding any female burrows and we later said goodbye to Paul & Karla and ended up at Whole Foods for dinner.

Tuesday was our Madera Canyon visit and Wednesday the trip out toward the Pinaleños and the nearby A. parvum site. Each night Brent and I had been trying to catch sunset photos without the sky cooperating, but on Wednesday night we made our third attempt at Catalina State Park and were able to catch a colorful Sonoran Desert dusk on the Nature Trail Loop.

Sunburst at Catalina State Park

Pink Sunset at Catalina State Park

On Thursday we returned to the Santa Catalina Mountains to search the area where the two male Aphonopelma catalina had been found on Monday afternoon. They had been encountered so close to each other and the area was along a flat stretch of trail with extensive grassy and rocky areas where females must occur. Other than the desert grasses the vegetation was mostly limited to sparse bushes and the occasional small emory oak tree. Rain had been forecast for the latter half of our week and we had been fortunate so far, but Thursday there was an 80% chance of precipitation predicted for the afternoon so we were up the trail early and searched with some sense of urgency. I’ve blogged and published about A. chiricahua, another Sky Island endemic, and people ask why these spiders are so elusive or difficult to find. There are a number of reasons including steep and rugged terrain with heavy cover and cryptic burrows that may be atypical (e.g., beneath cover, not perfectly round, not covered or accompanied by silk). Brent focused on flipping rocks and searching near them while I used my walking stick to move the tall grasses to look for burrows that might be hidden from view. Beneath the numerous rocks, Brent found a four-inch Southwestern Black-headed Snake (Tantilla hobartsmithi), a scorpion (Superstitionia donensis), a young A. chalcodes tarantula, and even a mouse, but neither of us found what we were looking for. I found some holes that were promising enough to pour some water into but saw nothing and started second-guessing myself, wondering if some I dismissed as rodent holes might actually be tarantula burrows. The skies were threatening and after an exhaustive search of the area we decided to move up the trail. We hadn’t gone far before I found the day’s only male on top of a large boulder and Brent looked a few feet below it and saw a hole. It wasn’t instantly recognizable as a classic tarantula burrow but there was a clump of silk outside it that Brent called “crusty”. We actually wondered whether it could have been this male’s retreat before maturity. Brent got his digging gear out and went to work on it even if we were still doubtful. The ground was very rocky and he immediately had difficulty excavating around the tunnel. We thought that a huge rock might make proceeding impossible, but after removing several large rocks beneath a larger one, Brent could scrape away at the exposed earth and perhaps five minutes later said he saw legs. It would have been so easy to give up on this hole. At discovery it looked questionable and during digging it seemed improbable that the terrain was even workable. The first glimpse of the forelegs had us believing it was a young spider so we were extra surprised when it finally came into view and we knew we had an adult female Aphonopelma catalina, a spider we doubted would see.

Aphonopelma catalina, female, Santa Catalina Mountains, Pima County, Arizona

Aphonopelma catalina, male #1, Santa Catalina Mountains, Pima County, Arizona

Our early start to try to find our spider before rain washed out the rest of our week meant that we had achieved success by 10 a.m. As it turned out, the rain didn’t fall until after dark, but we didn’t know that yet. We just knew that we had exceeded our expectations for the week and had found all of our targets. We went to Whole Foods for lunch and then realizing that the afternoon might be dry decided to hike into nearby Pima Canyon. Each day of the week we had hiked 6-10 miles and it was great to get one more beautiful Sonoran Desert experience before I would head to Chicago and Brent would return to Mississippi.

Friday we checked out of our Tucson hotel and moved back to Phoenix in preparation for Brent’s early Saturday morning flight. We decided to return to the A. paloma type locality site as during our first visit we didn’t find any males. We were more interested in knowing whether they were still active than collecting or photographing. What we discovered is that the female burrows we had found six days earlier were now plugged and again we saw no males. We had caught them right at the end of their season. And so it was also the end of the season for us. We returned to Phoenix and again found a Thai restaurant for dinner and before dawn Saturday morning I dropped Brent off at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. I then drove four hours back to Portal to pick up my parrot Jesse. She had been kindly cared for by my friend Carol while I was off chasing hairy spiders. Then I drove a few hours east to overnight in Las Cruces, New Mexico. This morning I drove 570 miles from Las Cruces to Elk City, Oklahoma. I have 1000 more miles to Chicago …

#105 - Happy December

5 a.m. Hotel near Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. I left Cave Creek Canyon for the winter yesterday at dawn. Rain was falling and the surrounding peaks had a beautiful dusting of snow.

One week ago was my last day hosting at the VIC. I was happy that I had the most visitors and highest merchandise sales of the month during my final shift. It has been such a pleasure to share my passion for the area and wildlife with birders, hikers, campers and others who are fortunate to enjoy the breathtaking beauty of the Chiricahua Mountains. My final day numbers had already eclipsed those of the previous days of the months before 3 p.m. rolled around and a surprise party for me inflated the visitor count. The entire Friends of Cave Creek Canyon [FoCCC] board plus spouses and other friends turned up to give me a wonderful farewell and thank me for my service. It only took the arrival of the first six or seven before it dawned on me that something was up. I was presented with the 2018 Volunteer of the Year award and paid registration for next year’s Biology of Pitvipers 3 Conference, and Vice President and VIC Manager Mike Williams proclaimed me “the best volunteer” they have had. Bob & Sheri Ashley, owners of the Chiricahua Desert Museum and Eco Publishing, who also serve on the board, gave me a signed Tell Hicks print of three Brachypelma tarantulas. Then two dozen people or more, including a few volunteers from the VIC and Forest Service, had cake and milled about as other visitors continued to arrive and I went from celebration to information.

For over seven months I lived and worked and played in the northeastern Chiricahuas and there will only be a three month break before my return. 2018 was full of amazing experiences, many of which were recounted here. I am grateful to FoCCC for the opportunity, and it was very kind of them to acknowledge my efforts as they did. I look forward to my 2019 adventures in Cave Creek Canyon and continuing to play a role in the FoCCC mission of “inspiring appreciation & understanding of the beauty, biodiversity & legacy of Cave Creek Canyon”. Friends of Cave Creek Canyon is non-profit all-volunteer organization that was chartered in 2011 by passionate residents of the Portal, Arizona and Rodeo, New Mexico community, and has individual, family and business members from all over who contribute to FoCCC efforts in this enchanting canyon.

As I prepared my Wheelhouse for winter storage over the past week, the U.S. Forest Service brought three horses and six mules to the corral where I was camped for over six months. The mules must have had draft horse dams as they are huge! I enjoyed watching them graze on the hillside before I left. Thursday I brought my parrot Jesse to stay with Carol who is in charge of the FoCCC educational outreach and is introducing students to the wonders of Cave Creek Canyon. Jesse will stay with Carol for eight days or so while I am in the Phoenix and Tucson areas with Brent Hendrixson who arrives at the airport here in Phoenix this morning.

Friday morning I woke in the pre-dawn dark to rain and once the sun rose I saw that the higher peaks surrounding me had been dusted with snow. I had no choice but to put on my rain jacket and load my truck and hitch up the Wheelhouse. It was just after 7 a.m. when I pulled out of the canyon for the year and headed to breakfast at the Rodeo Cafe. Then I dropped the RV off at Rusty’s RV Ranch for 90 days of storage and headed to Phoenix by way of Tucson.

So here I sit in a Phoenix hotel before sunrise. I will be in hotel rooms for the next ten nights as Brent & I search for late fall-winter breeding tarantulas before I drop him back at PHX on December 8 and make my way back to Chicagoland via a return to Portal to pickup Jesse and then Las Cruces, NM, Elk City, OK and Rolla, MO. December 11 I expect I will be dining at my favorite sushi restaurant in South Barrington, Illinois with Joel and wearing my North Face parka.

All the best, MJ

#104 - November Surprises

Sonoran Gopher Snake, young of the year

For four nights I left the cold water in my Wheelhouse kitchen dripping. Overnight lows, typically at about 4 a.m., were below freezing. The coldest day it got down to 20ºF at my Corral, and was just over 14 a couple of miles up canyon (500’ in elevation) at SWRS.

A few of the days the temperature barely got above 50 in early afternoon and I realized that maybe I wouldn’t see another live snake in 2017.

I was less concerned about tarantulas. I knew that Brent and I are spending the first week of December between Phoenix and Tucson and I know we will scare some up.

Sadly, the last snake I had seen was a young of the year Sonoran Gopher Snake (Pituophis catenifer affinis) that had just been struck by a vehicle. Nothing is worse in herping than coming across a snake writhing and twisting, disfigured by a wheel. It was eight days ago. Before the big cold spell.

So, yesterday, as I drove north on Highway 80 returning from shopping in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, it was a surprise to see a snake stretched across my lane. The temperature was in the low-60s, with the sun bright in the San Simon Valley. The first snake I saw appeared to be about two-and-a-half feet long. I had the cruise control set at 70 mph and it took a minute to come to a stop off the shoulder in high desert grass. As I ran back south on the highway, the snake vanished, which reinforced my suspicion that it had been a Sonoran Whipsnake (Masticophis bilineatus) . They don’t stick around to play.

Ten minutes later I had just passed Apache, Arizona and the Geronimo Surrenders Monument. Apache sits along the highway where the road runs east towards the pretty much inaccessible Skeleton Canyon in the Peloncillo Mountains and the view on the left is the highest peaks of the Chiricahuas. There along the road is a tiny country school where the few local children are bussed for class.

I did a double-take even at speed at a clump in the middle of the southbound lane. A vehicle had just passed and an early thought was whether it could be something dead-on-road, but I also thought it might be rope or some sort of tie-down strap as it was in a coil, not out-stretched like most snakes are. I reversed my truck along the shoulder until I came even with the ‘clump’ and still wasn’t sure it was organic. But as soon as I stepped out onto the highway a young-of-the-year Sonoran Gopher turned towards me. As I bent over to scoop it up, I was greeted with the typical Pituophis bluff-hissing strike and soon had it entwined in my warm fingers.

I have observed countless gopher snakes this season and, unfortunately, close to half were dead-on-road. That has been particularly true of the past couple months as the paved roads in southeastern Arizona and bootheel New Mexico sure take their toll on these amazing snakes. They are beautiful and so beneficial. Fortunately, it also seems like they are fecund.

Then today I had a tarantula surprise. I was doing maintenance around the RV and camp when the guy who runs the VIC stopped by the Corral. I opened my gate and he pulled his ATV in for a chat. Some time during our conversation I looked down beneath the front of the Wheelhouse and saw a very small mature male tarantula walking along, plenty warm in the midday’s sixty degrees. But I still had to wonder where it was before dawn while my sink water was still dripping to prevent freezing.

#103 - November

I didn’t think I’d be blogging from Cave Creek Canyon in November. When I signed on to be a host at the Visitor Information Center my end date wasn’t clear, but I hoped they’d let me stay through August. Here I am; until November 30.

New hosts have come and gone and there are two ‘host units’ here now besides me. They will be staffing the VIC six days a week. After training one of them this past weekend, I now only am scheduled for Saturdays in November. Three more shifts. The last on November 24.

Yesterday I spent some time ‘weed whacking’ around the other host RV sites. It was clear and sunny. The temperature reached 77ºF. Sunset is around 5:20 pm right now and the temperature starts to drop quickly around 4 pm, but we are treated to warm days. Mornings are crisp, even close to freezing, but this past week has been absolutely lovely. Bluebird skies, wonderful afternoons.

Last night I did my laundry at Cave Creek Ranch. It’s been so nice having big commercial machines at my disposal, and at no charge too. CCR is owned by the president of Friends of Cave Creek Canyon and he graciously gives VIC hosts a place for mail, package delivery and laundry. They ask that we wait until 4 pm when their housekeeping staff has gone for the day to launder our clothes. That is also the time that Laura (who also volunteers at the VIC) or one of the other ladies that runs their office feeds alfalfa pellets to the resident Coue’s White-tailed Deer. Last night I counted 21 in the pen where they pour the pellets onto the ground. I got there just before feeding time and a few of the incredibly tame deer tried to follow me into the laundry room as it is next door to the room where they know their food is stored. Almost always at the same time there is a coati and a skunk or two milling around the feeders. As my clothes soak and spin I sit and watch all the amazing wildlife that has become accustomed to life at the Ranch. The laundry room is also where my mail and packages are placed after arriving at the Ranch and I sort through it with camera in hand. The silly White-nosed Coati seen here put on quite the show for the two couples sitting on the porch watching the critters with me. Laura was working in the office and she came out just as a flock of White-winged Doves fled the scene. It got quiet and no birds were around. That means predator and she had noticed a hawk fly into the large trees that shade the primary feeding area where this coati was. It flew off to a tree beyond the pen where the deer were feeding and I trained my long lens on it. To be honest, I am not certain whether it is a Cooper’s or Sharp-shinned Hawk, although Cooper’s are more common in Cave Creek Canyon. Both are smallish with long tails that allow them to soar and maneuver through the trees in pursuit of their (primarily) bird prey. They are very similar in appearance and this one appears to be a juvenile male. The Cooper’s Hawk is larger, but that is subjective and there is size overlap, but it also has a more ‘blockish’ head and longer, somewhat rounded tail. In flight, this raptor’s tail looked squared off, but very long so I have posted these images to iNaturalist hoping someone will have a strong opinion. I’ll update this section if there is a consensus on iNat one way or the other. I called it a Cooper’s to Laura and the guests, but I am actually leaning more toward Sharp-shinned.

[EDIT: The consensus among the ‘experts’ on iNat was Cooper’s]

I have a room booked in Phoenix for November 30 so I have three weeks left of this year’s Chiricahua Mountain odyssey. After picking up Brent Hendrixson at the airport the first day of December, he and I will search for a few tarantulas between Phoenix and Tucson, returning to Phoenix the night before he departs on December 8. Then I will take a scenic route back to Chicago, hoping to find fall color, waterfalls or other landscape subjects. By mid-December I will be watching Chicago Blackhawks games with Joel and seeing how the new head coach they announced yesterday fares with the roster and the past few year’s disappointment after winning three Stanley Cups in the previous handful of seasons.

My Days Until app tells me that there are now 63 days until I depart for Malaysia via Hong Kong. I FaceTimed with Mark a couple days ago and both of us will be counting down the winter days until we share a cold Tiger lager at Hotel Equatorial in Penang. But first I must brave the Chicago chill for what will be about three weeks. I’ll keep busy with doctor, new eyeglasses, and the sorts of things you can’t do when you spend seven months in the wilderness. I am also busy writing. I have been typing my experiences from a life of snakes and spiders and considering releasing a memoir. I think I may even have a novel in me. At the very least, I can come up with another article for the British Tarantula Society. Aphonopelma chiricahua revisited?

On the subject of writing, during my overseas travels in January I intend to blog at least once a day. I will do my trip journal here for any interested readers to follow.

Until next time, MJ