Check the nature page and their website below for all of their activities. It's a great place to visit and to volunteer.
HOURS OPEN, WED 10-NOON
PHOTO BY Frank Staub
Leave out CLEAN water for birds in a bird bath or another type of clean ceramic dish. Remember that water can get moody which can kill the birds, hummingbird sugar water too, so change it every other day.
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Operation Pollination—Sign the Pledge. We did! Join the Environmental Sustainability Rotary Action Group's Operation Pollination, a national movement to inspire action in support of precious pollinators. It doesn’t cost anything to join the effort, and your pledge solidifies your commitment to pollinator habitat restoration and/or related educational activities. Learn more about Operation Pollination on the program’s website. And, watch this video to see how National Heritage Areas across the U.S. have pledged their support.In Southern Arizona,
In Southern Arizona, monsoon rains usually come in early July, although the official monsoon season kicks off on June 15 and runs through September 30, with many factors throughout the spring and early summer influencing its exact start. The word monsoon is derived from the Arabic word mausim, which means season. Monsoon thunderstorm activity accounts for two-thirds to three-fourths of the annual precipitation in Southern Arizona, where short-lived, intense monsoon thunderstorms can cause flash flooding in areas with steep terrain, low-lying roads, or normally dry washes. Lightning, hail, dust storms, and strong winds often occur during the monsoon season. Furthermore, it is incorrect to call a single thunderstorm a “monsoon,” rather it is a large-scale weather pattern that causes these thunderstorms.
The dew point can help predict when the monsoon is likely to start. When the dew point hits 55 degrees on three consecutive days, the chance of monsoon rain is high.
Places to see waterfalls after a good rain:
Safety tips:
I was recently asked by someone "how can I help the birds?" While it is sometimes easy to feel helpless, there is so much you can do!! Here are some tips:
- Vote for and support people and organizations who will fight climate change. Climate change is the number one existential threat for not just birds, but all living things, including us.
- Support bird conservation organizations at the local, state, and national levels.
- Keep cats indoors and learn how to protect birds from window strikes.
- Educate yourself about birds, as well as the healing and wellness power of birds and nature so you can educate others.
- Participate in HawkWatch, Citizen Science, such as Project FeederWatch and eBird so scientists can learn more about how birds are doing and what they need.
- Create a bird sanctuary in your own yard with native plantings to help resident, migrating, wintering, and breeding bird species.
- Feed the birds and learn best bird feeding practices to successfully attract the most birds and keep them safe.
- Mentor someone and help them learn about birds, including kids!!
Do not run. Running into a large predator in the wilderness will instantly trigger your fight-or-flight instincts. Follow the former; do not ever turn and run from a cougar. This is certain to trigger the cat’s predator response — they almost universally take prey by chasing and attacking from behind.
Look big. Make yourself look bigger to the cat. Open your jacket, raise your arms and spread your legs, and face the lion at all times. If you have trek poles or any objects handy, wave them around — and be prepared to use them to defend yourself.
Make noise. Speak loudly, and make as much noise as possible. There are plenty of anecdotes of people scaring away mountain lions with loud music (Metallica, in particular) played from a speaker or smartphone.
Maintain eye contact. You may have been told that staring down an animal is considered a challenge that could invite an attack — especially with dogs — but, in this case, maintaining eye contact with the lion is a best practice.
Stand your ground. If the lion challenges you by approaching from a distance, stand your ground. To the lion, only prey animals retreat. Lions don’t recognize a standing human as a typical prey animal. Standing your ground reinforces this fact.
Do everything to fight back. Adult male lions weigh 135 to 175 pounds, while females weigh between 90 and 105 pounds. These are powerful creatures with sharp claws and strong bites, but they aren’t insurmountable — and, if you’re attacked, there’s nothing better to do than to fight back. Mountain lions usually attack the head and neck; do your best to protect these areas by remaining upright and facing the cat during the attack. Use any weapon available to you. A sharp crack to the skull with a rock, or a blow to the body with a pocket knife or any other sharp implement, could be enough to end the attack.
If you see a mountain lion near any area frequented by people, immediately contact your local authorities. If you’re near a state park or forest, contact park officials or your state’s Department of Wildlife. If no contact information for rangers or DNR services are available, or if you see a lion near an urban area, contact your local sheriff’s office or police department — they’ll either respond directly, or contact the appropriate wildlife service.
While adults might be spending the weekend trying to remember where they have hidden a hoard of Easter eggs, the black-capped chickadee has no trouble recalling where its treats are stashed. Now researchers have discovered why: the diminutive birds create a barcode-like memory each time they stash food.
Black-capped chickadees are known for tucking food away during the warmer months – with some estimates suggesting a single bird can hide up to 500,000 food itemsa year. But more remarkable still is their reliability in finding the morsels again.
Now researchers say they have unpicked the mechanism behind the feat. Writing in the journal Cell scientists in the US report how they gave chickadees sporadic access to sunflower seeds within an arena featuring more than 120 locations where food could be stashed.
The behaviour of the birds and the activity at each cache site – be it the storage of food, retrieval of food or checks on a stash – were recorded on video.
The team used an implanted probe in the brain of each bird to record the activity of neurons in its hippocampus – a brain structure crucial for memory formation.
The results show that each time a bird stashed seeds, even if it was in the same location, a different combination of neurons fired in its hippocampus, resulting in a barcode-like pattern of activity.
The same “barcode” was observed when the morsel was retrieved as for when it was cached.
The barcodes were distinct from place cells – neurons in the hippocampus known to be involved in the formation of memories involving specific locations. “The two overlapped randomly so that neurons could be neither, either, or both,” said Dr Selmaan Chettih of Columbia University’s Zuckerman Institute, first author of the study.
Indeed while place cell activity occurred every time the bird visited a cache site, the barcodes only occurred when the bird was actually storing, or retrieving, a seed. Overall, the team suggest a different mechanism is at play when the birds are making memories of specific events, as opposed to when it is making a mental map of an area.
“These results suggest that the barcode represents a specific episodic experience, unique in place and time in the chickadee’s life,” the researchers report.
Chettih added while not yet proven, it was possible the findings also applied to humans and other mammalian brains. “The message is that, when you form a memory of a specific event, your brain may generate a random label which it uses to store information associated with that event, in a way that is analogous to the way a store records information associated with each product to be retrieved when the label is scanned,” he said. “Perhaps another message is that the brains and mental abilities of these tiny, common birds can be quite remarkable.”
A mother and her three nearly full grown kittens paid us a visit for a drink from the birdbath. This wasn't the first time, since a few mornings recently I found the birdbath bowl tipped onto the ground. I thought it must have been deer but now I know who the real culprit is. We live in Rio Rico on the western slope of the San Cayetano mountains overlooking the Santa Cruz river. These beautiful bobcats are just one example of the abundant and varied wildlife we enjoy on a daily basis. photo by BRUCE TILDEN
The Santa Cruz River is the fourthmost endangered river in America, according to American Rivers’ 2024 rankings.
The river conservation nonprofit released its annual America’s Most Endangered Rivers list Tuesday to call attention to 10 of the most at-risk rivers and streams due to drought, pollution and climate change.
Nominated by the Sonoran Institute, the Santa Cruz was listed due to threats to water security and climate change. All rivers in New Mexico were ranked first on the list following a Supreme Court rollback on Clean Water Act protections.
The Sackett vs. EPA ruling left 96% of New Mexico’s streams vulnerable to pollution with potential downstream impacts to the Rio Grande, Gila, San Juan and Pecos rivers, American Rivers said.
“All water is connected. We cannot allow pollution anywhere without risk to the rivers we rely on for drinking water,” said Tom Kieran, president and CEO of American Rivers. “America’s Most Endangered Rivers is a national call to action to defend the streams and rivers on which all life depends.”
The Colorado River in the Grand Canyon was the most endangered river last year. The Colorado has made the list several times, and American Rivers has previously highlighted other Arizona rivers, including the Gila, the Verde and the San Pedro.
Climate change, weakened regulation imperil many rivers
The American Rivers report calls for protection and aims to raise awareness of the 10 rivers featured and conservation for all 3 million miles of rivers across the nation.
The list signals severe degradation to the nation’s waterways, as about 44% are too polluted for swimming or fishing according to the EPA, and freshwater
The 10 most endangered rivers
1. Rivers of New Mexico 2. Big Sunflower and Yazoo Rivers (Mississippi)
3. Duck River (Tennessee) 4. Santa Cruz River (Arizona) 5. Little Pee Dee River (North Carolina, South Carolina)
6. Farmington River (Connecticut, Massachusetts)
7. Trinity River (California) 8. Kobuk River (Alaska) 9. Tijuana River (California, Mexico) 10 . Blackwater River (West Virginia, Virginia)
marine life is going extinct at unprecedented rates. Climate change has spurred severe floods and droughts, and new legal rulings have scaled back protections, worsening water quality, the group says.
The Clean Water Act was enacted in 1948 and implemented pollution control programs to keep waterways clean. It set wastewater standards and made it illegal to release pollutants into navigable waters without a permit.
In 2023, the EPA amended the definition of “Waters of the United States” based on the Sackett vs. EPA decision. It narrowed the scope of waters subject to federal jurisdiction, deeming relatively permanent or continuously flowing waterways “forming geographic features” qualify.
The new definition also states the Clean Water Act only applies to wetlands that are difficult to distinguish from waterways.
To nominate waterways threatened in some way, local groups had to prove the river’s importance to people and wildlife, the severity of the threat to the river and community and identify a decision in the next 12 months the public can influence.
Santa Cruz flows with treated wastewater. The Santa Cruz has been revitalized in the last 15 years, but advocates worry climate change and water scarcity could undo years of progress. The river’s perennial flows ceased in 1913 from extreme groundwater use, and seasonal flows followed in 1940. In the following decades, partially treated wastewater was discharged into the river, worsening water quality that endangered the ecosystem and the surrounding communities.
In 2008, wastewater treatment facilities were updated and now provide about 35 miles of perennial flows. As water quality improved, native fish, wildlife and vegetation have returned to the river.
As Tucson relies on water supplies from the dwindling Colorado River, advocates fear less wastewater will be released into the Santa Cruz.
“The water is treated to a really high quality and then released into the Santa Cruz, but you need water in the first place to create the Santa Cruz,” said Luke Cole, Santa Cruz River program director for the Sonoran Institute. “That’s really what the main threat is.”
Why advocates campaign for protection
The Sonoran Institute is campaigning for an Urban National Wildlife Refuge designation to protect the Santa Cruz.
If granted by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, this designation would provide funding for the federal government to buy parcels of land that would be protected permanently.
National wildlife refuges must be within 25 miles of urban areas and help residents engage with nature and protect wildlife.
The designation would allow the government to acquire more property in the future, provide open spaces for wildlife and provide amenities within the refuge.
“We’re seeing people using the river again, native fish, birds and wildlife are coming back,” Cole said. “All of this desert life needs the Santa Cruz River, and the recognition of it through this campaign is a great tool to help people refamiliarize themselves with this system and see the value in it.”
Beyond the potential designation, Cole hopes the Santa Cruz’s place on the endangered rivers list will raise awareness about the threats to the river, and encourage the public to advocate for its survival.
“For me, this is really a rebirth story that deserves to be told,” Cole said. “To see the recovery of the Santa Cruz River in the last 15 years is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before.”
Hayleigh Evans covers environmental issues for The Arizona Republic and azcentral. Send tips or questions to hayleigh. evans@arizonarepublic. com. ---This article was reprinted from The Arizona Republic.
See ar.ticle in NOTICES section for adding your signature or sign here: https://santacruzriver.org/letter-of-support/