LOCAL FIELD TRIP
Hassayampa River Preserve
Beetles fascinate me, they appear in so many sizes, shapes and colors. I try to sneek away every once in a while to explore and collect. Here are a few from my collection.
Local Fall Field Trip
We have had the opportunity to go on a couple of local field trips lately to enjoy the wonderful fall weather we have been having! Our first field trip was with our school to the Hassayampa River Preserve. We had two very capable volunteer guides who split us into two groups to hike the trails in the preserve. The day started off cool but soon warmed up nicely.
We enjoyed being in a forest – a Cottonwood/Willow Riparian Forest, the most endangered forest type in the country according to our guide. This kind of forest can only grow where there is abundant water near the surface and this is exactly what happens along the Hassayampa River in this area. There is always water flowing in the Hassaympa but it is mostly underground. In this stretch of canyon south of Wickenburg, shallow bedrock forces the water to the surface! You can find at least a small stream at any time of the year. This makes the area very important for birds and mammals. I have been surveying the beetles of the preserve for the last 4 years and am getting a good checklist built. I may cover that in a future post. But today, we did nothing but hike the trails, look at a few birds, and enjoy the scenery.
California Fan Palm
The palms in the preserve have received little care in the last 20 years. We heard an interesting bit of history from our guide… Apparently the area around Palm Lake used to be a trailer court. One of the residents was working on his Corvette and had a little accident. He poured gasoline into the carburetor to try to get it started and the car caught fire. That fire spread to the palms, and you can still see the burn marks on the trunks.
Washingtonia palms don’t need to be trimmed for their health. The trees in the preserve have about 20 years worth of dead fronds on them and are doing great! The problem is with the fire hazard. If a spark (or a burning car) were to ignite the dead fronds on these trees during a dry time of year the results could be disastrous! A lift is the only safe way to trim off the dead fronds and we have the only lift capable of getting in to these trees. Two winters ago we cut the dead fronds off all the trees close to the visitor center to reduce the risk. Subsequently we removed several of the palms that were growing near the foundation of the building. We will likely have more work there in the future as funding becomes available.
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