#desert mistletoe

[fatchance]

Desert mistletoe (Phoradendron californicum) at Brown Canyon Ranch, Cochise County, Arizona.

[michaelkim724]

Desert Mistletoe

[rjzimmerman]

Sitting on the front porch in the desert

I arrived back in the desert on Monday of this week, but haven’t really done “desert stuff.” I had a couple of board meetings about the government shutdown and its effects on Joshua Tree National Park and had an outing with 5th graders at Mission Creek Preserve. But I’ve had a persistent, annoying cold/URI for about a week now, so I’m just dragging ass when I’m not going volunteer work. I feel like a slug.

So, feeling sluggish, I decided to sit on the front porch in the warm sun. It’s 73 degrees here, but I can’t get too boastful about that knowing that the rest of the family is back in Chicago with the negative zero wind chill air and another snow storm coming. But, 73 degrees in the warm sun when one feels like crap is nice.

While sitting there, I had a visit from a girl phainopepla, a desert bird, dining on bugs in the sweet acacia tree. I didn’t have my camera or iPhone with me, so here’s the Google version of the visiting bird. She looks so serious.

The boy version of the phainopepla always reminds me of a satanic creature, because he’s all black and has those phainopepla red eyes. Boys look like this, kind of freaky.

Strange birds. Their favorite meal consists of the berries from the desert mistletoe. The mistletoe is parasitic, and tends to grow in the catclaw acacia, mesquite, ironwood and Palo verde bushes and trees. The berries look like this:

Phaiopepla eat the berries, but they can’t digest the seeds and so they poop them out. And the pooped out seeds, if they end up in one of those host plants, end up being another mistletoe, further slaughtering the host plant. 

My desert lecture of the day.........done.

[kenneturner]

Desert Mistletoe Berries Attracting Birds To Sabino Canyon

Desert Mistletoe Berries Attracting Birds To Sabino Canyon

This morning on the Plant and Bird Walk, we could see a small flock of Eastern Bluebirds, none close enough to get any good photos, but more will be coming to Sabino Canyon because of all the desert mistletoe berries in the canyon. Till then, the berries are attracting plenty of Phainopeplas.— kenne

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[michaelkim724]

Desert Mistletoe

[fatchance]

Desert mistletoe (Phoradendron californicum), Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument, Arizona.