Around this time...

 It happens faithfully once a year: Mule Deer (AKA Black-tailed Deer) suddenly invade our yard. They are always males, their antlers either in velvet or thoroughly out, and with enormous racks, or with velvet that soon will be enormous. Sometimes there are a dozen, sometimes only one. They drink from our water dishes that we put out for animals, then go to a remote corner of our yard where they stay for a few days, while their characteristic droppings pile up. This must be the time because lately Cheryl and I had begun thinking about them. Today when I woke from my afternoon nap she pointed out our back window and just outside our javelina fence was a male in velvet, looking, as they always do, the size of a moose.

Why only males? Where do they come from? Where do they go?

 

At around the same time (and there is no mystery this time, just the unrolling of early spring) the quail begin appearing with a daily-diminishing number of tiny chicks (this year we actually saw a Cooper's Hawk grab one, though you think it would hardly be worth his while).

 

I mentioned in my last blog the magical appearance from underground of our two Gila Monsters, and usually their rather quick disappearance back again.

A little bit less welcome is the arrival of the Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes. Cheryl is the rattlesnake wrangler in the family. When we first moved in here and had our first rattlesnake, we photographed it, and enjoyed watching the round-tailed ground squirrels testing their courage by darting at it from as close as they dared, then jumping back at the last second. But as we noticed that the snake was still hanging around the next day and the next we decided it was overstaying its welcome and took advantage of a service the fire department offers to remove it for us. When we called, a fireman came up and netted  it very competently. His rules said he needed to release it somewhere within a mile of where he caught it. He gave us a talking to about the brush piles we had left around, which would attract more snakes. The next time we had a rattlesnake, Cheryl worked out her own way to deal with it. She turned the hose nozzle to its stiffest stream and pointed it directly at the rattlesnake's head, and it turned out that the snake couldn't stand it and immediately began racing away, so that she easily drove it into the ditch beyond our land.

Of course you need to see the snake in the first place before you can remove it, and they are wonderful at concealing themselves. The worry is always you will inadvertently put your hand or foot too close to it. Well, we are getting pretty good at finding them first, and the trick is to watch the behavior of other animals, since nobody likes rattlesnakes.

At any given time there are a dozen Round-tailed Ground Squirrels in view in our backyard. Generally they are a nuisance eating all of our plants, but they provide a service in this way: If they see a rattlesnake, they face it agitatedly and begin stamping their feet at it. This is readily visible from a  distance, and is designed to be a warning signal to everything around.

 

 Here is a squirrel showing a rattlesnake off the premises.

Quail are the other indicator species. We first  grew aware of this one day when we saw a group  of five or six quail walking along in such a tight group that they were almost touching each other. That was so curious that we put our binoculars on them and saw they were closely following a Gila Monster. Just the other day we saw two quail walking in that nearly-touching way back and forth over a small piece of ground. This was just outside our side-gate in a place where we often put our hands to arrange the hose. I examined it as carefully as I could and finally made out a circle of slightly raised soil which in fact was a coiled rattlesnake buried just under the surface.