MARFA — Walking my dogs on Pinto Canyon Road, pretty much a daily occurrence, so much so that I recognize the trucks of the ranchers who live farther down the road, the cyclists, a couple runners, one training for an Ironman completion who loops me and the dogs, and one lonely pronghorn. I’ve been at this same routine for years, and yet this year was the loneliest of all. Very few cattle on either side of the road, mostly empty pastures due to the drought, very few other animals as well. Most of the wildlife I encounter has been run over. It’s terrible, however it does allow for close inspection.
The deadlights of this summer included a tiny baby bobcat with the most beautiful coat, just a lovely animal. My younger son questioned if I would be wearing a bobcat hat next time he visits. It did 100% cross my mind, and yet I left it on the side of the road thinking with the drought another animal or raptor might need the sustenance. Although I am enthralled by every living being encountered out there, the most serious thrill was the burrowing owl sitting at the edge of the pavement one morning. It flew up and circled the dogs and myself and flew off. The next morning it lay dead in nearly the same spot, run over. It’s the only one I’ve seen in my 15 years out on that road.
Two years ago a colony of horny toads lived close to the road. I got to know them one by one as they were run over. The giant one, the pregnant one, the tiny baby one, and on and on until they were no more. I was hoping they moved to a safer location as I didn’t see even one the following year, then this year there was a medium-sized horny toad, oh joy! And days later flattened by a vehicle. There was also one trapped by the new macadam at the very edge of the road. Not a good year for those guys. Most summers once the rains come, turtles and tortoises, never sure which, show themselves. Some individuals are seen on multiple occasions as I move them out of the road. This summer only one sighting, crushed by a vehicle. Not one animal stands a chance against a 5,000-pound car. The vet pointed this out to me maybe six years ago when I called about getting help for an injured and yet still alive turtle. My best efforts only extended its life by about a week, however, because I read they have great suffering in their slow deaths. I did get the vet to agree to find a way to euthanize one in similar shape going forward.
In total I only saw three dung beetles all summer, not their usual constant crossings. They use celestial navigation as they traverse the terrain backwards pushing their balls of dung. Although they were near absent, I learned from Dr. Bonnie Warnock at Sul Ross that the commonly used medicine for livestock, ivermectin, kills dung beetles, as does the flea and tick pesticide folks use on their cats and dogs. Dr. Warnock uses a more expensive product on her cattle that doesn’t kill dung beetles, and I don’t use any poison on my dogs, so here’s to the lucky dung beetles we encounter.
Spotted only one red velvet bug struggling to get across the new rough surface of the road all summer, none of the hordes of years past. Same problem I saw with dung beetles. No roller-skating out there kids, it’s rough.
Another sighting was a lone tarantula. There have been years when they look like folks headed to an outdoor concert covering rough ground, as far as the eye can see, and yet not this year. This drought has affected every single plant and animal. Please for the sake of all, let the rain return.
In the first-time, fun-time department, there’s the short-legged animal covered in a sheet running in front of my car like a cartoon animal who had run under a clothesline, snagged a sheet and kept running. Then it turned to look at us, the stripes on the side of its head gave it away, it was a badger with an almost silvery, shimmering, shaggy coat — American badger to be precise, not the honey badger of Internet fame.
Another first on Pinto Canyon was a walking stick in all its brown/green glory, spindly legs gingerly picking their way across the road, definitely one of the cool kids of the planet. Several days later it was on its back, I went to help it flip back over, only to discover it was a tiny walking stick clinging to a run-over walking stick. That’s when I check on the sky, clouds or no clouds, and search for the moon shadow.
Two days, two encounters with approximately 8-inch-long baby snakes. The first one was dead, and I couldn’t tell if it was a rattlesnake because there was no nascent rattle. Back at home I learned baby rattlesnakes don’t begin to get their rattles until after their first shed, at seven to ten days. Tiny baby rattlesnakes have a tiny nub at the end where the rattles will get added on with each shed, even though I had not noticed such.
The next day, the tiny live snake was definitely not a rattlesnake. We watched it closely as it left the pavement and wove itself into the grass along the road and then into the scruffier plants with lots of bare ground. The astounding camouflage made it almost impossible to follow, even though I knew exactly where it was. When a large truck comes down the road, I scan the earth adjacent to the pavement to make sure it is snake free, and then step off with my dogs. What a fool, there’s no way I would see a snake, just no way after my lesson with the tiny snake.
The biggest influence on my walks this year, besides an aging dog that slowed our pace considerably, was TxDOT. Yes they resurfaced all 32 miles of the road; however the shocking thing was as they paved, they also mowed, right from the road to the fence line. There went the carpet of wildflowers in bloom. It was quite a shock to show up and find them gone. These flowers had somehow grown without moisture, the subtle fragrance that wafted over on occasion, all gone. They were there every day in the withering heat, until they were gone.
I have for years begged TxDOT not to mow until the wildflowers go to seed, or at least until after the butterfly migration, and yet only one year did the butterflies find flowers. TxDOT has a thing about mowing. Now the butterflies don’t migrate through here. Tune in next year to find out if the wildflowers return without having gone to seed. The bare earth an affront to the effort and hard work those flowers did out here this year. A little fringe of native grasses, a narrow ribbon the mowers had missed, had gone to seed before the most recent mow, so most likely they will be back; it’s the flowers that I beg to surprise me. Right now the original road warriors, the chocolate daisies, have managed to bend under the mower blades and some survived. At least those early, early spring blossoms that last through until the freeze keep me inspired. Walk on they say.