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<body topmargin=0 leftmargin=0 marginheight=0 marginwidth=0> <table cellpadding=0 cellspacing=0 border=0 height="100%"><tr> <td valign="top" width=200 BGCOLOR="#003333" TEXT="#F7F7FF" background="096d4c00dduajq.gif"> <div> <TABLE BORDER="0" CELLPADDING="2" CELLSPACING="0" WIDTH="95" BORDERCOLORLIGHT="#C0C0C0" BORDERCOLORDARK="#808080" FRAME="BOX" RULES="ALL" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0" > <tR> <tD VALIGN=TOP HEIGHT= 46 WIDTH="91"><IMG BORDER="0" SRC="1x1.gif" HEIGHT="46" ALIGN="bottom" WIDTH="91" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></tD> </tR> </TABLE></div> <bR> <div> <A HREF="id28.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Dr. Terry Maxwell"><U>Dr. Terry Maxwell</U></A></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="0cc776e0.jpg" border=0 width="119" height="110" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <B>Western Spotted Skunk</B></div> <bR> <div> <IMG SRC="0a5a6a00.jpg" border=0 width="166" height="160" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <IMG SRC="0a8a9070.jpg" border=0 width="169" height="263" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> <IMG SRC="0a7a8800.jpg" border=0 width="168" height="128" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <B>Western Hog-nosed Skunk</B></div> <div> photos by Tony Gallucci</div> <bR> </td> <td valign="top" BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF" TEXT="#080000"> <div> <FONT SIZE="5" COLOR="#003333" FACE="Arial" ><B>The Best of Texas Nature Writing . . . </B></FONT>     |     <A HREF="index.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="The Best of Texas Nature Writing . . . "><U>home</U></A></div> <div> <A HREF="id141.htm" TARGET="_top" TITLE="Current Column"><U>Current Column</U></A>   |   <B>Archives</B></div> <div> Archives</div> <bR> <div> <U>NATURALLY</U><B> </B><B><U>TEXAS</U></B><FONT SIZE="7" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Dael Neu" ><B> </B></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0d712250.jpg" border=0 width="530" height="549" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <div> Nesting under a house eave, this house sparrow has chosen a </div> <div> home location typical for the species for thousands of years.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>The Never Ending War: House Sparrows And Your House</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> April 20, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      For the first few years that Ann and I lived in our present home in an old, established neighborhood of San Angelo, we tolerated the house sparrow colony on our own and adjacent property.  One or two nests were regularly occupied under the east eave of the house where utility line connections provided support.  Other pairs of the colony nested across the alley.      </div> <bR> <div>     We were a tad nervous about the bulky straw nests intermingled among all those lines, including those transmitting electricity, but complacency or rather resignation prevailed and we let them be.  Last year, I decided to end their cohabitation with us, revealing foolish ignorance of the war ahead.</div> <bR> <div>      Both of the names of this true sparrow, native to the Old World, represent truth in advertising.  House sparrows (the English name) indeed prefer nesting on houses or other buildings and erected structures and <I>Passer domesticus </I> (the Latin name) reveals their long and intimate association with man.</div> <bR> <div>      Anyway, I crawled up a ladder and with wooden sticks carefully tore down the nests.  I did this thing when the nests were being newly refurbished for the start of the nesting season (usually March at our inland latitude), and harbored no eggs.  Little did I know that this was only the opening</div> <div> skirmish.</div> <bR> <div>      Within hours, both a male and female were carrying straw to the site and by the next day a considerable beginning to a replacement nest was well established.  A little reading on the natural history of this persistently successful commensal of man would have better prepared me for the coming battles.</div> <bR> <div>      Although there is considerable geographic variation in their pair-formation behavior, in many areas house sparrows pretty much mate for life.  Unmated young males of a colony select a desirable, protected nest site, defend it and sing there in hopes of attracting a female. These nest sites become traditional  they are the focus of pair-formation and long-term pair-persistence.</div> <bR> <div>      After the completion of the nesting season, sexual urges subside and house sparrows form flocks and may move away to seasonally rich food sources  grain fields, livestock feeder lots, or, increasingly, backyard bird feeders in urban settings.  But when those breeding urges return in late winter, old mates (who still recognize each other away from the nest), that remain alive, return to the original nest site.</div> <bR> <div>      My own experiences now confirm that those old nest sites mean something special to these birds.  I tore down the second, third, and at least fourth attempts to rebuild under the eave of my house  all in the space of a few weeks.  Finally, the war was won  by me  a representative member of an equally persistent species.  But I can tell you one thing those birds did win  a healthy respect for stubbornness.</div> <bR> <div>      They will nest anywhere that people build structures.  During my childhood, Mom fought them for years in our large tin barn that housed thousands of chickens.  We thought their skin parasites (lice and mites) could be passed on to our chickens.  A colleague mutters about them nesting under his carport roof.</div> <bR> <div>      The world authority on this species and its close relatives, J. Denis Summers-Smith, relates the most extraordinary house sparrow nesting site stories.  In 1949, a pair nested on a house boat, never budging while it plied up and down the Nile River in Egypt.  Another pair nested in a sweltering hot steel factory in Wales in the British Isles.  In fact, this pair nested on what is called a coke oven ram machine.  Coke is superheated coal, used to fuel the steel making, and there is no way to imagine the</div> <div> temperatures endured by these nesting house sparrows.</div> <bR> <div>      In 1968, in Kansas, were found several house sparrow nests on oil well pump jacks.  The nests were on the structure that moves up and down  what I call  horse head and some call a "nodding donkey."  Apparently, the nests were not located out on the head end that moves through the greatest arc, but nonetheless were on a part of the machine that every 4 seconds moved up</div> <div> and down about 2 feet.  Good grief.  How do they even feed babies under those conditions?</div> <bR> <div>      My local colony pairs have not attempted to nest on my house again, but we¹ve had other wars that they have won.  I don¹t much attempt anymore to feed native birds in my yard  the house sparrows can clean out feeders within an hour.</div> <bR> <div> But following a hearty engorgement on food somewhere in the neighborhood, they still rest on my deck railing, apparently finding the setting cathartic.</div> <bR> <div>      I finished this column on Sunday night last.  Late Monday, I settled into a deck chair to render my initial sketch of the illustration you see here, fully expecting to draw an imaginary house sparrow nest in the old site.  Well, no imagination was  required  there's a new nest there.  Alas, I must soldier on.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0d5c2310.jpg" border=0 width="450" height="561" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <B>True Sparrows Are The Most Successful Birds On Earth</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> April 13, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      How does a student of birds spell success?  Surely one way is <I>Passer</I> - a genus of birds native to the Old World but now found just about all over the planet.  They belong in the bird family Passeridae – the sparrows.  Now, it’s about here that the problems begin with today’s subject.</div> <bR> <div>      My budding students of ornithology begin field study by wanting to place all small birds that are not bright blue, yellow, or red into the category of sparrow. In their defense, even professional ornithologists newly encountering small seed-eating birds, couldn’t resist calling them sparrows. Many of our New World buntings (family Emberizidae) are listed as sparrows.  And the name is</div> <div> venerable, extending back through Old English "speerwa" to the more ancient Aryan "spar", meaning to flutter.</div> <bR> <div>      But our subject today is limited to the genus <I>Passer</I> in Passeridae, the so-called true sparrows. They number about 20 species.  Among them are 13 that the authority J. Denis Summers-Smith called the "black-bibbed sparrows."  The males have black on the throat often extending to the chest or upper breast.</div> <bR> <div>      The family’s probable origin is in tropical Africa, where there is more variety found today than in any other location.  The likely ancestral habitat, and one still favored, is the edge between savannah and woodland.  They are mainly ground feeders on seeds, but are naturally tree nesters in contrast to many of our New World  bunting-sparrows that are ground nesters.</div> <bR> <div>      At least six of these black-bibbed sparrows have the habit of closely associating with the most successful species on earth – humans.  They are today true commensals with man.  Another two of them, at least occasionally, nest under the eaves of buildings.</div> <bR> <div>      One of the commensals, the house sparrow <I>(Passer domesticus),</I> was helped across the Atlantic, opening up a whole new hemisphere to the true sparrows.  But long before that event in the mid-19th century, this species was on the move.</div> <bR> <div>      Summers-Smith describes the early association between house sparrows and sedentary man and his grain crops.   He argued that from a Mediterranean ancestral home 5000 years ago, house sparrows moved north into Europe and were in the British Isles by Roman times.</div> <bR> <div>      By 1800 the species had spread east to the steppe grasslands of old Russia and to the Malay Peninsula east of India.  Whatever else you may think of them, their success at living off our bounty has been a ticket to the world.  They have even been known to colonize far northern locations too harsh in winter for their existence, by living inside buildings, such as cattle barns in Norway.</div> <bR> <div>      House sparrows seem best adapted to temperate and somewhat dry climates.  In those conditions, the species is seen more away from buildings and out some distance into the countryside.</div> <bR> <div>      But it is their resounding success at living with us that amazes.  They have been seen feeding on an observation floor of New York’s Empire State Building – 80 floors up.  They live, totally, inside many major airport terminals.  Some lived and even successfully nested 2000 feet below ground in an English coal mine where they were fed by the miners.</div> <bR> <div>      House sparrows were introduced successfully to North America in 1852 and Texas specifically in 1867 in Galveston. William Lloyd did not report them in the Concho Valley in his 1887 publication, but 20 years later, Vernon Bailey found them to be common in San Angelo, Colorado City, and Big Spring.</div> <bR> <div>      It’s not a popular thing to describe this pest bird as successful, but biological success is not constrained by niceties.  Many a bacterium functioning as an agent of disease is quite successful in any measure of that term.   And so as well is <I>Passer domesticus, </I>now perhaps the most widespread bird species on earth.</div> <bR> <div>      One of the well-known bird researchers of the lower Great Plains is Richard Johnston of  The University of Kansas.  Johnston published some 13 research papers on this reviled bird in the 1960s and 70s, some of which I want to share with you in the future.</div> <bR> <div>      But I tell you now about Dick Johnston because I have a vivid memory of the man at a science gathering a couple of decades back.  He wore a T-shirt emblazoned with an illustration of the house sparrow and labeled "Sparrow Power."</div> <bR> <div>      Johnston knows full well how to spell success.</div> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0d399490.jpg" border=0 width="409" height="585" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <B>Snowy Plovers, Old Friends, Are Back</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> April 6, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      In the last few days of March, I had my ASU ornithology class on an outing to the Gulf Coast. At least one of those young people - one reared high in the Panhandle grasslands - had never seen the ocean. That's among my thrills in taking young West Texans to the Gulf. </div> <bR> <div>      But it is a particular joy in decline. If you can believe it, the first time I took students to Port Aransas - it was about 1978 - over half of that class saw marine water for the first time. You would have thought that ferry to Mustang Island was a space ship. Anyway, my point today is about birds, not ferries or oceans. </div> <bR> <div>      For our last day of birding on this trip, we spent a lot of time at Oso Bay in Corpus Christi. As usual, it was stunning. Clouds of dowitchers, stilt sandpipers, least sandpipers, marbled godwits, and black-necked stilts whirled above the sand. All those shorebirds can be seen in lesser numbers on reservoirs in the Concho Valley, but it's the uncountable numbers of them on that organically-rich bay that make Oso so memorable. Anyway, that's really not my point either. </div> <bR> <div>      A bird that we did not see that trip, but that we did see on our first day back in San Angelo was snowy plover <I>(Charadrius alexandrinus).</I> It can, of course, be seen coastally in Texas, but its presence out here on these dusty plains has always been special to me. </div> <bR> <div>      It was all I could do to get the students to pay attention to the other species hurrying, probing, and sifting along the shore of O. C. Fisher Lake at San Angelo State Park. They were completely taken with those little white plovers. </div> <bR> <div>      Plovers live in the same habitats as sandpipers, but they exploit those same areas in different ways. Plovers are visual hunters of invertebrates (mostly insects), whereas just about all sandpipers are tactile probers that insert the bill into sand or mud and feel for prey. That's not a plover thing to do. </div> <bR> <div>      Snowies, like all plovers I know, have the peculiar, jerky run and peck way of foraging. It sort of gives them a wind-up toy appearance. Their large head and eyes contribute to the image. </div> <bR> <div>      Our snowy plover occurs on every continent, and has a long list of English names, including Kentish plover, Peruvian plover, and Ceylonese plover. Some authorities refer to it as the sandplover, to which you can put the same modifiers such as snowy sandplover. </div> <bR> <div>      The prolific author Paul Johnsgard pointed out that this plover is usually found along seacoasts but can be seen in limited numbers inland on "sandy riverbanks, saline flats, and barren reservoir shorelines." Concho Valley snowy plover habitat falls into that barren reservoir shoreline slot. That's not a particularly pleasant feature out here in these drought years, but more often than not our reservoirs seem to be receding and making snowy plover habitat. </div> <bR> <div>      O. C. Fisher Lake was built by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers when I was a child in the early 50s. Since those blue jean and black tennis shoe days, I have seen this little plover species nest on its shores just about every year. If they're there, you can't miss them. </div> <bR> <div>      In their breeding season, males divide up the mud flats into hotly defended territories. I know that I'm a biologist and not supposed to give in to emotional images, but there are few more enjoyable scenes in nature than a collection of small white wind-up toys running back and forth chasing each other. It's serious business for them, but it will lighten up your day. </div> <bR> <div>      Snowy plovers are in trouble in some regions. In our modern world, many beaches are increasingly occupied by people and their vehicles. It seems that it's all we can do to allow these little plovers a few sections of coastal sand to continue what they need to survive. </div> <bR> <div>      Our inland plovers, by contrast seem less disturbed - fishermen and sunbathers care little for mudflats. It may not be Oso Bay, but the snowy plovers, pretty much undisturbed, are fighting it out for territories on the mud flats among the half-buried beer cans. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Black-chinned Hummingbirds Return</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> March 30, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <div>       </div> <div>     </div> <div>    The Hopi, who regard them as Kachina spirits, call them "Tocha", and they have returned to the Concho Valley as well as most of western Texas by now. They are, of course, hummingbirds. In particular, out here on the western Edwards Plateau and Rolling Plains, they are black-chinned hummingbirds <I>(Archilochus alexandri)</I>. </div> <bR> <div>      I spoke recently with Joann Brown of the famous Hummer House in Christoval, and there the black-chins were back by about March 8. Cindy Burkhalter, whose family feeds great numbers of hummers along Dove Creek reports that the hummers returned about two weeks back. </div> <bR> <div>      My assessment is that you may now be a little behind the time if you don't already have your hummingbird feeders out. It may well be that you'll attract them to your feeders whenever you get them out, but it is now, when black-chins are returning, that they establish territories. You're more likely to get them early and keep them for several months if your feeders are out soon. </div> <bR> <div>      The black-chinned hummingbird seems to be the forgotten one in the national scope of hummingbird passion. The ruby-throated hummingbird is the only hummer that nests in the eastern half of our continent, so it deservedly gets most of the press and affection over that way. </div> <bR> <div>      Rare, mostly tropical species - admittedly spectacular birds - draw oohs and aahs in the Texas Hill Country and Trans-Pecos Mountains. There, reports of such exotically-named feathered gems as green-breasted mangos, green violet-ears, Lucifer hummingbirds, and violet-crowned hummingbirds draw the attention of enthusiasts. </div> <bR> <div>      But I would beg your indulgence now to consider our black-chinned hummingbird. I assure you that its familiarity should not lead to indifference. </div> <bR> <div>      Those individuals returning now to the San Angelo region are coming from western Mexico - mostly from the states of Colima, Jalisco, Michoacan, Morelos, Guanajuato, and Nayarit - where they have been since late last fall. Oddly enough, some black-chins winter along the Gulf Coast fromTexas east to the Florida panhandle. This U.S. wintering has been a recently-reported phenomenon (beginning mostly in the 1980s), but whether those birds previously overlooked or are newly wintering there is unknown. </div> <bR> <div>      Males typically arrive in spring a week or two earlier and depart earlier after breeding than do females. These migrant black-chins, particularly in fall migration, tend to feed more on insects than flower nectar, unless they encounter sugar water feeders put out by people. And that brings up their diet, a more involved subject than you might have thought. </div> <bR> <div>      Black-chinned hummingbirds eat flower nectar and sugar water from feeders (no surprise) but also insects and spiders caught out of the air, picked out of tubular flowers, and gleaned from foliage and spider webs. When you think about it, it only makes sense. Nectar provides energy, but not enough of the lipids and proteins needed by all animals. </div> <bR> <div>      Hummingbirds don't actually suck nectar out of a flower or feeder. Their long tongue is grooved. Nectar moves into the tongue grooves by capillary action. The tongue is then pulled back into the bill and nectar squeezed out of it as it's again pushed out the nearly closed bill. The appearance really is a rapid series of licks. </div> <bR> <div>      Also, hummingbirds don't necessarily prefer red or orange over other colors, but many plants that have evolved hummingbird-pollinated flowers have those colors because insects are not much attracted to them. Hummingbirds learn that such colored flowers have good stores of nectar and for that reason search them out. </div> <bR> <div>      You have undoubtedly noticed your black-chins defending a feeder against other hummers of the same or different species. Artificial feeder defense declines when large numbers of hummers are using the same feeder, but during the middle of the summer females hotly defend feeders against all others that would use the feeder. Males will defend agains other males, but they typically back away from female aggression.</div> <bR> <div>      I have one more black-chinned habit to tell you of. No pair bond is formed between males and females. For sure males, but perhaps also females, of this species are promiscuous. Females build the nest, incubate the two eggs, and raise the young, while males are feeding and off chasing other females. This is unusual among birds as a whole since the class exhibits the greatest amount of monogamy among vertebrates. </div> <bR> <div>      This could be the most abundant hummingbird in Texas. That, I think however, is no reason for it to have any less appeal. Those Allen's and calliope hummers are good for spicing up a regional bird list, but it's the black-chinned that's there for you to enjoy every day from spring to fall. </div> <bR> <div>      Get those feeders up.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <IMG SRC="0cad6490.jpg" border=0 width="214" height="329" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></div> <bR> <div> <B>                                                                                A western spotted skunk performs </B></div> <div> <B>                                                                                his handstand defense posture.  If</B></div> <div> <B>                                                                                you're this close, you're probably </B></div> <div> <B>                                                                                going to get sprayed. </B></div> <div> <B>                                                                                                   </B><FONT SIZE="1" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" ><I><B>  (art by Terry Maxwell)</B></I></FONT></div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Spotted Skunks Rarely Seen, But They Are Not Rare</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> March 16, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <div>       </div> <div>      About 1970 in the parking lot behind the San Angelo Standard Times, smack downtown at about 1 a.m., I saw only the second civet cat that I ever had seen.  My first was on the earthen dam of O.C. Fisher Reservoir when I was a rock-chunking kid, and that seems light years back.</div> <bR> <div>      Now, why should those observations be remembered or be of interest?  Because I have spent a lifetime outdoors, and the animal turns out to not be as rare as my few encounters would indicate. In fact, Jeff Doty, a graduate student of biology at ASU, has live-captured and radio-collared 12 of them just within the past few months.  A rancher friend in Irion County has caught several over the past few years.</div> <bR> <div>      So, why are sightings of this species so rare in comparison to the striped skunk or the western hog-nosed skunk?  Before considering that question, I should point out that the so-called civet cat is a real skunk, not a cat in any way.</div> <bR> <div>      The spotted skunks of the genus Spilogale are composed of three species.  In a small corner of southwestern Mexico can be found the diminutive pygmy skunk.  The other two species (western and eastern spotted skunks) have been the subject of taxonomic debate in the U.S. where they mostly occur.</div> <bR> <div>      Some authorities consider them to be geographic variants (races) of one spotted skunk species.  But they differ in important ways, perhaps most startlingly in a reproductive quirk of the western one <I>(Spilogale gracilis),</I> found in western Texas.</div> <bR> <div>      Western spotted skunks mate in early fall. Pregnancy or gestation lasts about a month - and pay careful attention here - the infants are born in April or May.  Have you been counting months?   Yes, well something's wrong then, right?  For about seven months after mating, fertilized eggs don't develop - they're delayed from growing in the uterus.  It's called delayed implantation.  Eastern spotted skunks have pregnancies like ours - they don't do that delayed thing.</div> <bR> <div>      Spotted skunks are the smallest of skunks - the larger males are about one and half pounds.</div> <bR> <div>      Their white markings are complex, consisting of spots and broken stripes, bringing us back to that question of rarity of sightings.  They are difficult to see at night.  The striking jet black pelage with broken white striping is nearly impossible to distinguish from moonlight shadows.  Apparently because of more strict nocturnality and preferred shrubby habitat, the animals are seldom observed by diurnal people.</div> <bR> <div>      One of the oft-told habits of this species is its response to danger.  Spotted skunks stamp the front feet when threatened.  If </div> <div> that doesn't work, they do a handstand - a moving handstand - perhaps to present a larger and more threatening appearance.  They shuffle forward and backward while handstanding - probably a balancing act.</div> <bR> <div>      Unfortunately, I've never witnessed this remarkable behavior. Their last resort is to spray with what is widely considered to be </div> <div> the most obnoxiously scented spray of all skunk species.</div> <bR> <div>      What we know the least and what we need to know the most is the ecology of the species.  If we are to understand its role in the countryside of our state, then we have a lot of field research ahead of us.  Fortunately, the ASU skunk corps has a goal of </div> <div> gaining just that knowledge.</div> <bR> <div>      Two western spotted skunk research projects are in progress - den site selection and home range characteristics.  Although those 12 radio-collared ones have been tracked and analyzed for home range size, the data at this point are too slight to reveal much with confidence.  It is apparent now however that this species' home ranges overlap with striped skunks.  The spotteds prefer denser woody plant growth than is required by the larger striped skunk.</div> <bR> <div>      More solid results are presently available on den site selection.  Fifteen dens have been located and their environments described.  They tend to den in areas with more large mesquite trees, denser shrubbery, more shade from tree canopy, and more prickly-pear cactus than is required by striped skunks.  Fifty percent of the dens were in large prickly-pear cactus clumps, 20 percent in wood piles, and 10 percent in trees.  Yes, trees. Spotted skunks, unlike all other skunks, are great tree climbers.</div> <bR> <div>      Spotted skunks are one of the secretive and almost legendary animals of our landscapes.  That gives them an exotic-like appeal, but one that requires using the tools of scientific investigation to understand.  Coming to more fully know this mammal can only be of benefit to its kind in a world increasingly adjusted to human wants.</div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Open Hunting Season on Montezuma Quail Not Wise for Texas</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> March 16, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <div>       </div> <div>      Hunting has not always had good press. For an extreme example, take the prehistoric overkill hypothesis offered to explain the large mammal extinctions at the end of the Wisconsin glacial period 11,000 – 10,000 years ago. Were early North American peoples responsible for the loss of mammoths and ancient bison species? Perhaps - the evidence is not clear. </div> <bR> <div>      Closer to our time, the rise of wildlife management and environmental ethics, fathered by Aldo Leopold, were pushed by loss of wildlands and excessive hunting that decimated game populations in the first half of the 20th century. Leopold taught us that with knowledge of species’ biology can come management of habitat and regulation of hunting pressure. We then can have both the sport of hunting and nonconsumptive enjoyment of wildlife well into the future. </div> <bR> <div>      But despite the application of Leopold’s philosophy by state and federal game management agencies, hunting appears to be in sharp decline in our society. At the beginning of this new millennium, reportedly only 10 percent of hunters are in the age group of 18 to 24, down 14 percent from 1991. </div> <bR> <div>      Some have blamed cultural urbanization, but then others point outthat even rural kids spend a lot of their time at computerized play stations and television sets. Others point out a growing change in attitude about nature. Rising human populations with loss of plant and animal habitats have become associated with attitudes of protectionism and nonconsumptive uses of wildlife. </div> <bR> <div>      So, what are hunters’ options for countering this downward trend in their beloved sport? And let me state clearly that I am a proponent of responsible hunting, however little of it I actually do. I have fond memories – amazingly - of a goose hunt on the Texas coastal plain, a hunt in which I embarrassed myself by unintentionally letting every goose in my sights escape Scott-free. That sport takes real skill. </div> <bR> <div>      Well, my point today is that I don’t have even a few ideas to help improve hunting’s plight - except for one. Do not go out of the way to give yourselves more bad press in this nature protectionist time by proposing to hunt remnant species for which basic natural history and population level are so poorly known as to make guesswork out of management decisions. </div> <bR> <div>      The Texas Parks and Wildlife agency is proposing Amendment 65.62 to the state wildlife regulations. Recommendations will be made to the TPW Commission at their meeting in the first week of April. We now are in the period of public comment on the proposed amendment. </div> <bR> <div>      The agency proposes to open the hunting season on Montezuma (Mearn’s) Quail <I>(Cyrtonyx montezumae)</I>, allowing a daily bag limit of two birds. Their reasons are to protect hunters of other quail species who unintentionally kill Montezumas and to give hunters an opportunity to bag all 4 quail species native to Texas. </div> <bR> <div>      Those reasons, presumably, will not be offered to allow hunters to bag all native columbids in Texas (including red-billed and band-tailed pigeons) or get away with mistaking nongame sandpiper species for snipe. Responsible hunting involves not pulling the trigger on what you cannot identify. </div> <bR> <div>      More importantly, the best current information indicates that Montezuma Quail are reduced to remnant populations in four Edwards Plateau counties and in several mountain ranges in the Trans-Pecos. The distribution has been declining for over 100 years. The cause of the decline is not in dispute - it isn’t hunting. Habitat degradation (from natural drought or overgraziing) has brought this species down, but even light hunting of the remnants is not going to help, </div> <bR> <div>      Furthermore, the species as a whole is poorly understood and practically nothing is known of its natural history in Texas. What is needed, clearly, before the state proposes hunting this quail, is a sound, research-based knowledge of its local population levels, local reproductive rates and covey home ranges under varying environmental conditions, and a host of other facts that will put the agency in a defensible position with regard to such a proposal. </div> <bR> <div>      My preference is that this unique Texas quail not be hunted now or in the future. With a season so long closed, Montezuma quail has assumed a nongame stature with the naturalist public, however the department classifies it. Its odd appearance, behavior, and secretiveness have made our "crazy quail" something different – something of a regional protected icon – even to many of the land owners and residents within its range today. </div> <bR> <div>      Let’s work on improving northern bobwhite and scaled quail conditions in Texas such that traditional quail hunting of potentially widespread species resumes its former grandeur. If you want to comment on this proposal to hunt Montezuma Quail, write Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, Attn: Robert MacDonald, 4200 Smith School Road, Austin, Texas 78744; or phone 800-792-1112; or email <FONT SIZE="3" COLOR="#0000FF" FACE="Times New Roman" ><A HREF="mailto:robert.macdonald@tpwd.state.tx.us" TARGET="_top" TITLE="mailto:robert.macdonald@tpwd.state.tx.us"><U>robert.macdonald@tpwd.state.tx.us</U></A></FONT>. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B><IMG SRC="0c8850a0.jpg" border=0 width="389" height="522" ALIGN="BOTTOM" HSPACE="0" VSPACE="0"></B></div> <bR> <div> <B>Studying Spotted Skunks Requires Technology and Money</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> March 9, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      I want to visit with you today about the smallest species of skunk in our region, but I might end up with too little space to tell you anything.  The problem is that I am drawn to introduce you to the modern world of wildlife research.</div> <bR> <div>      Finding out what we need to know about spotted skunks involves the use of battery-powered radio transmitter collars, a yagi directional antenna and radio receiver, GPS, GIS, UTMs, CALHOME, and LOCATE, among other sundry electronic doodad.  And all that costs money before you ever fill up the tank and head to the field in your skunk clothes.</div> <bR> <div>      Two things we don't know about spotted skunks - among many things that we want to know - involve habitat use.  How big are their territories and where do they den?  The only way to get a definitive handle on that sort of understanding is to follow individuals - not an easy thing to do, but nonetheless we're going to do it.  So, let's get started with your training.</div> <bR> <div>      We're going to catch skunks using two methods: live trapping with Tomahawk traps and hand-catching using the skunk corps.  The Tomahawk traps are simple, humane cages with a trap door sprung by the skunk entering for a tasty morsel.</div> <bR> <div>       I described hand-catching for you a couple of weeks ago. Briefly again, you gather the students who live for this sort of thing - the skunk corps - and head to the brushland in a pickup truck at night.  When a skunk is spot-lighted, it's a mad dash out of the truck and off into the night - you can join the chase if you want to as long as you've had your rabies shots.  The object is to catch the animal, preferably without bodily injury to yourself or the skunk.</div> <bR> <div>     Upon capture, the skunk is returned to the truck and anesthetized with an injection of a carefully determined cocktail of sedatives.  Someone in authority has the permit to possess these chemicals for wildlife research.</div> <bR> <div>     Once our spotted skunk is sufficiently groggy to handle, all participants gather around and contribute to the data collections: external parasites are combed from its fur; its general body condition is recorded; measurements - total length, and length of tail, ear, and hind foot - are taken; sex and reproductive condition are recorded - a female might be lactating, indicating young in a den; an ear tag with a unique identifying number is attached and so on.</div> <bR> <div>      Most critically, a collar with a battery-powered radio transmitter is carefully fitted to the skunk.  For the western spotted skunk, we'll use a collar weighting 24 grams.  That gives a functional battery life of two years.Uh-oh, someone points out that our skunk is waking, and I notice you backing up a little.  C'mon now - a little courage.  Well, our work is done on this little fellow, se we stand back while he comes out of his stupor.  When released, we want him alert and able to take care of himself.</div> <bR> <div>      Before we leave the scene, we need to see if his radio is working.  The radio receiver with its yagi directional antenna is fired up.  Our graduate student in charge of the project - it's his graduate thesis research - slowly rotates the antennna until the signal is received.  It works.</div> <bR> <div>      On future nights, we're going to pinpoint the locations of this skunk with our antenna and a GPS unit.  A handheld global positioning system (GPS) device uses satellites to pinpoint the location.  The skunk corps drives to established points of known location and uses the antenna to locate the direction of the skunk from the point.  After repeating the procedure from at least one other fixed point, the data is fed into the computer program LOCATE.  This program calculates the triangulation of directions and fixes the skunk's location.</div> <bR> <div>      You might be discouraged - I was - to find that the skunk locations are recorded in UTMs - universal transverse mercator units - not in latitude and longitude. It's a system of mapping developed by the U.S. Army in 1951.  I could get really involved here in describing how it works, but suffice it to say that it uses a decimal grid system rather than one of degrees, minutes, and seconds.  It's supposed to be more efficient - yeah.</div> <bR> <div>      Back in the lab at school, we're going to plot all the individually known skunk locations using a GIS - geographic information system - and then using the computer program CALHOME, determine home range size for each western spotted skunk we </div> <div> caught.</div> <bR> <div>      Did you get all that?  Well, guess what?  I don't have any space left to talk about what we've learned about the animal.  But I think we needed to go through this training exercise for you to develop a little savvy about the modern world of wildlife research.  I'm sure you'll have to hear most of it again before you're comfortable with it, but for now let's just get our skunk clothes and running shoes.  There's night work - still the best part - to be done.</div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div> <B>Hog-nosed Skunks Are Dietary Specialists</B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> March 2, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      In my long career as a biologist, I have met some men (never women) that were notable dietary generalists. I see no reason to doubt that there are such women – I just never met any. In our technical vocabulary, a dietary generalist is eurytrophic (eury = broad, trophic = feeding). </div> <bR> <div>      In particular, I recall Dr. Irby Davis, a Texas game-bird biologist of some renown. At one point in his career, Davis worked with doves and was attending a conference in Tamaulipas, Mexico concerning white-winged dove nesting colonies that were crop pests. Since white-wings were a major economic force in the regional sport hunting scene, it was clearly to everyone’s advantage to solve this peskiness with regard to grain crop depredation. Enter Dr. Davis, or so the story goes. </div> <bR> <div>      At the conference, a field trip was taken to a white-winged dove nesting colony – one of those remarkable aggregations of several thousand pairs. A local farmer inquired of the biologists the progress of nesting – When could one expect the now present eggs to hatch? As the legend goes, Dr. Davis reached upward into a dove nest, extracted an egg, popped it into his mouth, crunched it, smacked his lips and responded – "Oh, about 10 days I should think." I desperately hope that widely-told story is true. </div> <bR> <div>      Along those same lines, my former graduate student at Angelo State University, Mike Husak had the habit of supplementing his otherwise normal diet with arthropods he encountered in the field. While studying golden-fronted woodpeckers for his master’s degree thesis, Mike would often sample the local living fauna for new flavors. He claimed to enjoy grasshoppers (sans legs, of course) and absolutely relish the tangy citrus-like bouquet of ants. </div> <bR> <div>      On the other hand, Ann and I know a sports announcer whose entire diet consists of little more than fried chicken and cheese. Such a limited diet is referred to as stenotrophic (steno = narrow). </div> <bR> <div>      Enough of that - I should let this extended introduction actually lead to something useful to a nature column. You remember that last week we began the subject of skunks, and I confessed to a fondness for hog-nosed skunks. Well, western hog-nosed skunks are in warmer months fairly stenotrophic – much more so than Mike Husak or Irby Davis. </div> <bR> <div>      Despite its larger size than other local skunks, hog-nosed skunks have a taste for small things – insects. In particular, they like ground beetles and their larvae. A study of this species in Central Texas, as reported by Davis and Schmidly in the <I>MAMMALS OF TEXAS</I>, found that insects (including beetles), arachnids (such as spiders and scorpions), and snails constituted anywhere from 56 percent to 94 percent of their diet, depending on the season. </div> <bR> <div>      Hog-nosed skunks sport some physical adaptations that support their insect-eating habit. Although all skunks have longer claws on their front feet than on their hind feet, the difference is exaggerated in hog-nosed skunks. With these long claws they dig for beetles and other insect prey. </div> <bR> <div>      But certainly the most notable feature of this skunk is its long, flexible nose. Apparently, it uses that appendage to root (like a hog) in the ground. My suspicion is that you have seen sign of their rooting without guessing the responsible animal. I used to think that plowed ground around prickly pear cactus plants was due entirely to armadillos, but now I suspect that it is mostly the activity of hog-nosed or what some folks call "rooter" skunks. </div> <bR> <div>      Vernon Bailey, in his turn of the 19th to 20th century mammal survey of Texas, found this skunk quite difficult to trap. And nothing seems to have changed in the last one hundred years. The ASU Biology Department student skunk corps have mostly resorted to hand-catching this animal, as I reported to you last week. </div> <bR> <div>      Fresh eggs, cat food, sardines, or meat work well to bait live traps for striped skunks, but hog-noses apparently prefer their own personally-rooted beetles. Bailey shot one skunk at night that had a stomach filled with several hundred of "these crisp juicy beetles." Such a discriminating taste would, I think, be well appreciated by Davis and Husak. </div> <bR> <DIV ALIGN="LEFT"></DIV> <div>      Bon appetit.</div> <bR> <bR> <div> <B>Hog-nosed Skunks Are Subjects of Local Study </B></div> <div> <B>Terry Maxwell</B></div> <bR> <div> February 23, 2003</div> <div> San Angelo Standard Times </div> <div> © <FONT SIZE="2" COLOR="#000000" FACE="Times New Roman" >2003 Terry Maxwell</FONT></div> <bR> <div>      If you’ve driven Texas byways during the past month, you’ve undoubtedly noticed the delicate fragrance of mercapton wafting about the roadside. Mercapton is the stink agent in skunk spray. The question, whether it has occurred to you are not, is "What are we to make of this increase in flattened skunks?" </div> <bR> <div>      You might assume, as did one Brownwood journalist who recently contacted me, that we’re in an epidemic of skunks. Since rabies can be a problem in skunks, any increase in their population might alarm you. The evidence, however, points to another cause for the plethora of skunks. I recommend that you survey the sex of the next ten dead skunks you encounter. Stop the car and get out, pick up a stick and flip the animal over. A cursory examination of its anatomy will likely reveal it to be a male – as are most roadkill skunks in this season. </div> <bR> <div>      It’s the breeding season. Romance is in the air, so to speak, and bull skunks are notoriously poor at avoiding cars as they meander about in search of the fairer sex. Let me clarify just how slow they move. Naturalist Brush Freeman, recently having driven 170 miles from Utley (Bastrop County) to Port O’Connor on the coast, counted 42 dead on the road. My colleague in Biology at ASU, Dr. Robert Dowler, counted 30 between San Antonio and San Angelo. Ann and I observed a startling 46 on U.S. 277 between Abilene and San Angelo a little over a week ago. </div> <div>   </div> <div>      In the San Angelo vicinity, there occur 3 species of skunks, but only two are regularly roadkill. The more common by far is the striped skunk <I>(Mephitis mephitis)</I>, but the one I want to introduce today is the more interesting – the western hog-nosed skunk <I>(Conepatus mesoleucus)</I>. </div> <bR> <div>      In fact, the history of the <I>Conepatus</I> skunks in Texas is cause for some concern. Two species occur in our state. Our own western hog-nosed skunk occurs from Central Texas west to Arizona and south to Nicaragua – a widespread species. Vernon Bailey, the legendary student of Texas mammals at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, described a geographically separate race of this skunk in the Big Thicket of East Texas – an animal he called the "swamp conepatus." It was the most common skunk that Bailey and his field men trapped in that area. It was not seen again until a roadkill was found in 1961, but despite intense investigation none have been seen since. It’s likely that the swamp conepatus is extinct. </div> <bR> <div>      The largest skunk in Texas is the eastern hog-nosed skunk <I>(Conepatus leuconotus)</I>, known only on the coastal plain from Corpus Christi south to Veracruz, Mexico. It has become very rare in the past half century and warrants concern. </div> <bR> <div>      Our own western hog-nosed skunk remains fairly common although fewer of it are seen than the commonplace striped skunk. Because it is encountered here about as frequently as anywhere in Texas and because ASU has a mammalogy graduate program of note, Dowler has received funding from Texas Parks and Wildlife for a two-year study of local skunks, concentrating on the hog-nosed. </div> <bR> <div>      There has developed in our Biology Department a veteran skunk corps of graduate students and undergraduates. And lest you worry about them, they’re all vaccinated against rabies. I’ve lost count of the number of skunk projects being conducted by these students, but I intend to get up to date and report back to you – it’s fascinating stuff. </div> <bR> <div>      We’re about out of space here today, so all I can do now is inspire you to catch the next installment. To learn some particular things about these animals you have to follow them around. But that’s hard to do with nocturnal skunks, so the trick is to attach radios to them and track them with antennas. The skunk corps, however, discovered a problem – isn’t that always the case? Hog-nosed skunks are hard to live trap. There is a solution, though - one that likely did not occur to you. </div> <bR> <div>      Hog-nosed skunk catching works as follows: (1) load up a pickup with eager skunk corps sprinters, (2) drive ranch roads (those with owner permission) at night and shine spotlights into the brush, (3) when a skunk is spotted, brake the truck, and (4) observe with wonder as two or three people jump from the truck and dash pell mell into the brush after a now thoroughly alarmed animal with a famous defense system. </div> <bR> <div>      One of three outcomes is usual in these rodeos: (1) the skunk gets away, (2) the skunk is caught by a sprayed sprinter, or, preferably (3) the skunk is snatched by the tail before spraying. In any of these cases, the evening is sure to be memorable. </div> <bR> <div>      Skunks play a major role in the ecology of our countryside, and an understanding of how things work out there includes coming to understand them. But I assume you have an intuitive grip on why most naturalists have avoided investigating these important animals. </div> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> <bR> </td> </tr></table></body>