Black Hawks, the rarest species of hawk in North America, migrate back to the
Central Highlands this month. Photo by Ty Fitzmorris.
By Ty Fitzmorris
March is a deceptive month in the Central Highlands. Temperatures routinely reach 70 degrees, and the sunny, lengthening days suggest that spring is finally here. But March is also one of the wettest months, and most of that moisture comes in the form of snow. Large storm systems over the Pacific Ocean throw off snowstorms that sweep into the area from the north, dropping anywhere from inches to feet of snow and bringing us firmly back into winter.
Even in years such as this one, which could turn out to be among the driest on record, March often can bring enough snow and rain to bolster overall winter averages back to normal. Sometimes, however, after a dry January and February, March precipitation stays below average. The combined effects of this kind of winter drought can be profound.
The last time the Central Highlands experienced this combination was in 2002, and the lack of snowpack caused drought-stricken trees to succumb to bark-beetle infestations, which killed 50-80 percent of the Ponderosas in some areas. The extreme fire danger caused the national forests to close, which has only happened a handful of times.
These driest years, however, are the exception. More often than not, March brings large, wet storms, even after dry months prior. Because of this, however, March is one of the more dangerous times for creatures in the wilds. Many mammals are bearing young now, some insects are emerging from creeks and pupae as winged adults, and birds are making nests or migrating back into the area from the tropics. Dramatic cold snaps can cause many of these species severe temperature and food stress and sometimes lead to their deaths.
Most of the native plants of the highlands don’t trust the warm times enough to begin growing or flowering just yet. They’ll wait until the days are reliably warm and frost free, though exactly how they determine this is largely a mystery. Non-native plants, such as fruit trees and ornamentals have no such mechanism and flower as soon as the temperatures and precipitation allow. In the lower deserts, such as the western slopes of the Sierra Prieta mountains, the frosts have passed by now, and plants are emerging to greet their early hummingbird, butterfly, moth, fly, and native bee pollinators. The exuberance of spring is in riotous full swing in the deserts, and over the next several months it will climb up the riparian corridors and south-facing slopes into the Highlands.
In our high desert landscape, water scarcity is the single greatest factor that determines what happens in the natural world. But water scarcity can take different forms — too little falling as precipitation or too little available to plants and animals at the right time of year. Water is most useful to plants when it’s liquid, and when air temperatures are high enough for plants to perform photosynthesis. Plants (and animals for that matter) can’t utilize much of the precipitation that falls in the Central Highlands throughout the year because it falls in torrents — such as during the monsoon season of late summer — and washes through the landscape in erosive floods. Other times it falls in the form of snow, when air temperatures are too low for plants to perform photosynthesis.
Snow, however, proves to be the more valuable source of water for our region. That’s because it melts slowly from north-facing slopes, saturating soils and filling rivers slowly but continuously. Long after the lowlands are warm enough for plant growth and flowering, patches of snow remain in the shadows of the mountains providing this precious, scarce resource.
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A very brief survey of what’s happening in the wilds …
High mountains
• Mountain Chickadees move upslope and scrutinize trees for insect larvae as temperatures rise. As other bird species migrate through the region, they find chickadee flocks and forage with them before moving on.
Visit: Maverick Mountain Trail, No. 65.
Ponderosa Pine forests
• Bobcats give birth to two to eight kittens who remain in dens until June.
• Wild Candytuft (Thlaspi montanum), a small mountain perennial, blooms with brilliant white four-petalled flowers.
Visit: Miller Creek Trail, No. 367.
Manzanita Mason Bees are primary pollinators for all of our manzanita species. Photo by Ty Fitzmorris.
Pine-Oak woodlands
• All manzanita species continue flowering, providing the first major pollen and nectar crop for native bees, moths, and flies. Look especially for the stunning iridescent Manzanita Mason Bee (Osmia ribifloris) which flies for the next several months. Like the vast majority of bee species, these bees are solitary and do not live in colonies or hives, though their populations are declining because of pesticide use alongside many other bee species.
• Gregg’s Ceanothus, an attractive, succulent-stemmed shrub, begins flowering and displays small white flowers among its tiny leaves.
Visit: Little Granite Mountain Trail, No. 37.
Pinyon-Juniper woodlands
• Raccoon mating season is at its peak and may be punctuated with load, clicking nocturnal screeches as males fight over females.
• Gray Foxes give birth to (usually) four pups in their dens. This furtive fox is the most common fox in the higher Central Highlands, though it’s rarely seen. Gray Foxes are unusual in that they can climb trees better than any other North American canid and have been seen as high as 60 feet up in trees. To climb they grasp around the tree with their front feet while pushing with their hind feet, and they can run head first down trees that are nearly vertical.
• Junipers and cypress continue releasing pollen in large, allergy-inspiring clouds.
Visit: Tin Trough Trail, No. 308.
Grasslands
• Bats reappear in the dusk skies, including Mexican Free-tailed Bats (Tadarida brasiliensis), which return now from Jalisco, Sonora, and Sinaloa. All bat species are vital to the control of insect populations, and some, including Mexican Free-tails, eat as much as 80 percent of their own body weight per night.
• Female Badgers dig dens and carefully line them with grass. Here, they will give birth to two to three cubs toward the end of the month. Badgers are rare in our region, but are important predators of rodents, including our ubiquitous pocket gophers, packrats, mice, rats, and prairie dogs. Rodent populations skyrocket in places where predators such as Badgers are hunted. Badgers can live up to 14 years.
• Broad-winged hawks, such as Swainson’s, Rough-legged, and Ferruginous, continue migrating through the region and can often be seen sitting on power-line posts, looking for rodents. During migration, tens of millions of hawks migrate from South and Central America to North America. In one area in Mexico, as many as 1.5 million hawks have been seen in one day.
Visit: Mint Wash Trail, No. 345.
Rivers, lakes, & streams
• Northern Rough-winged Swallows return from their overwintering grounds in southern Mexico and the Yucatan Peninsula. While some continue north as far as Canada, many will stay in the Central Highlands and begin breeding, building nests, and laying eggs.
• Contrary to their name, mayfly swarms (order Ephemeroptera) fly from now through the summer above perennial streams. These swarms are short-lived as the now-adult mayflies emerge, mate, lay eggs, and die, all within the space of a few hours. The aquatic larvae may have been alive for several years by this point, but the winged adult stage represents such a brief, though glorious, crescendo that they don’t eat at all, and, in fact, don’t have usable mouthparts as adults. They can be identified by their long trailing tails and slow, fairy-like flight.
• Antlions (family Myrmeleontidae) construct cone-shaped funnels in riverside sand. The creatures themselves are very difficult to see, as they remain buried at the base of their funnels, but they are the larvae of large, winged damselfly-like insects, and they’re important predators of many species of ants. If an ant falls into an antlion’s funnel, the antlion flings sand outward, causing the ant to fall to the center, where it’s captured by the antlion.
• Migrating warblers sweep into our region toward the end of the month through riparian corridors. Look for Yellow-rumped Warblers heading the northward charge, followed by Orange-crowned Warblers, and, later, Wilson’s, MacGillivray’s, and Black-throated Gray warblers.
• Black Hawks (Buteogallus anthracinus), the rarest species of hawk in North America, return to the Central Highlands to begin mating, nesting, and egg-laying in the high Cottonwood trees of our riverine corridors, the leaf-buds of which burst now, revealing brilliant green leaves that provide cover for Black Hawk nests. Black Hawks have been known to catch fish by sitting on the shore and tickling the water’s surface with their wingtips until a fish investigates, at which point the hawk jumps onto the fish.
Visit: Willow Lake Loop Trail, off of Willow Creek Road in Prescott.
Deserts/Chaparral
• Spring is in full regalia in the desert and lowlands with extraordinary displays of wildflowers. Most ubiquitous are the yellow flowers of Yellow and Blue Paloverde trees (Parkinsonia florida and P. microphylla) and Creosote Bush (Larrea tridentata), which line roads and the uplands along river corridors. Several species of pink-purple lupines, brilliant orange Mexican Poppies, and the pink-red penstemons are also conspicuous now, as are hundreds of other, more uncommon species.
• The diversity and overflowing abundance of spring flowers offers pollen and nectar to the amazing diversity of native bees in the Sonoran Desert, which has the highest bee diversity on Earth at over 1,000 species, most of which are unstudied. The most conspicuous spring desert bees are the large black carpenter bees (genus Xylocopa) and the emerging queens of the sole bumblebee species, Bombus sonorous.
• In some years, the dayflying moth Litocala sexsignata flies in massive mid-day clouds of thousands in chaparral, while very few can be seen in other years.
• Desert owls, including the minute Elf Owl, begin mating and nesting.
• Desert Tortoises emerge from hibernation. Desert Tortoises are one of only four species of tortoise in North America, and the most threatened. They can live 50 to 80 years, and consume grasses, cactus, shrubs, and wildflowers.
Visit: Agua Fria National Monument.
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In the skies
Prescott March weather
Average high temperature: 59.3 F, +/-4.6
Average low temperature: 28.5 F, +/-3.4
Record high temperature: 83 F, March 18, 2007
Record low temperature: 2 F, March 1, 1913
Average precipitation: 1.68”, +/-1.56
Record high March precipitation: 7.11”, 1918
Record high March snowfall: 34.2”, 1973
Record low March precipitation: 0”, 5.5 percent of all years
Max daily March precipitation: 3.21”, March 3, 1938
March Night skies
March 1: New moon at 1:00 a.m.
March 16: Full moon at 12:08 p.m.
March 20: Vernal Equinox at 9:57 a.m. The tilt of the Earth is such that the sun shines directly on the Equator, causing day and night to be of roughly equal length everywhere on Earth. (Equinox means “equal night” in Latin.) The sun also rises exactly to the east today and sets exactly to the west. Between the Autumnal Equinox and the Vernal Equinox, the sun sets south of west; the rest of the year it sets to the north of west. The further north you go, the wider these annual swings become.
March 30: New moon at 1:45 p.m. This is our second “black moon” of the year, a rare instance when one calendar month contains two new moons. This is as rare as a “blue moon,” when two full moons occur in one calendar month, which happens roughly once every two-and-a-half years, though having two in one year (the other was in January) hasn’t happened in many decades.
Astronomical Highlight: The largest planet in our solar system, the giant gas-planet Jupiter, shines just to the west of the brightest stars in Gemini, Castor, and Pollux. It can be seen to the west late in the evening surrounded by the Winter Hexagon, a collection of the brightest stars in the night sky. The Winter Hexagon is composed of Castor, Pollux, Capella, Aldebaran, Rigel, Sirius, and Procyon, some of the easiest stars to learn the names of because of their conspicuous positions.
Look also for Jupiter’s moons, which are visible through binoculars in a line immediately adjacent to Jupiter. Jupiter will grow gradually to be more of a crescent during the next three months as it moves toward the sun in June, at which time it will disappear from the evening sky until early 2015. After July of this year, however, Jupiter will be increasingly visible in the morning sky, before sunrise.
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Ty Fitzmorris is an itinerant and often distractible naturalist who lives in Prescott and runs Peregrine Book Company and Raven Café as a sideline to his natural history pursuits. Contact him at Ty@PeregrineBookCompany.Com with questions or comments.