Date: December 29, 2020
Place: Springs Mountain Ranch State Park, Las Vegas, Nevada
Coordinates: 36.069823, -115.458869
Length: 1.8 miles
Level: easy
The forth day of our 2020 family winter trip was dedicated to birding walks. After having a nice morning birding walk at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge Pappa Quail directed us to the Spring Mountain Ranch State Park where he hoped we would see more birds. Spring Mountains are the mountains northwest of Las Vegas - we've seen them earlier that day from the refuge - they had some snow up on the peaks.
As was the case with the Desert NWR, this place too used to be a functional ranch before it was turned over to the state to become a state park. We drove in directly to where the old ranch house was on a narrow road flanked with white low fences and a number of tall ash trees.
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| Ranch Access Road |
The building was closed. The parking lot was empty and there were no others there except us. The only reception we had was a sole roadrunner on the low cut and almost completely dry lawn. We were perfectly happy with this reception.
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| Greater Roadrunner |
In a few moments we figured where we wanted to hike, got our stuff out of the car and started down the trail.
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| Our walk as captured by my GPS |
The trail started in the large ash grove. An interpretive sign informed us that this grove was the only grove of naturally growing Arizona ash trees in the state of Nevada, and that their presence indicates the presence of underground water close to the surface.
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| Arizona Ash, Fraxinus velutina |
The ash are deciduous trees so naturally they were bare of leaves during our wintery visit. This of course, made it easier for us to see the birds that were active in their branches.
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| Ruby-crowned Kinglet |
The presence of underground water did good for other plants as well. I don't know if the cholla cactus has deep enough roots but the cholla that we saw there were large and very healthy looking.
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| Buckthorn Cholla, Cylindropuntia acanthocarpa |
As we distanced ourselves from the ranch house and the ash grove the vegetation became much lower, and the already familiar community of small shrubs and yucca plants covered the low hills. An interpretive sign encouraged us to look for blooming annuals but of course we saw none - it was not the season for it.
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| Trail |
The trail brought us close to the creek. I didn't expect to see any surface water flowing but to my surprise there was some trickle flow in the creek. I noticed other hikers down by the water. It wasn't a warm day by any means, but people did enjoy the close contact with rare water in the vast arid desert space.
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| Creek |
The trail crossed the creek and bent sharply to the southwest. Ahead of us were the foothills of the Spring Mountains, and the aztec sandstone layers were visible at the bottom of the hills. I hardly noticed them though - ahead of me was an unexpected sight -a Joshua tree. Joshua trees are a feature of the Mojave desert, not of the Great Basin desert which was where we were a. I guess this tree didn't get the memo.
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| Joshua Tree, Yucca brevifolia |
Further down the trail opened up a loop and as we curved around it we got a nice view of the mountains on the northeast which were much lower and more arid than the Spring Mountains. Directly before us however, was another area of trees and other tall riparian vegetation.
Some of the trees we saw there were live oak trees. Many of the oak trunks were covered with little holes - the work of sapsuckers, which are a type of woodpeckers. The sapsucker poke a series of holes called sap wells in the trunk. The tree sap seeps into and wells inside these wells where it attracts insects. The sapsucker then returns to drink the sap and eat the bugs.
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| Sapsucker Wells |
We didn't see any sapsucker in that spot, but we did see another species of woodpecker there - the ladder-backed woodpecker.
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| Ladder-backed Woodpecker |
The trail curved through the oak trees and turned back to the north. These oaks were there only evergreen trees around, what classifies them as a species of live oaks.
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| Scrub Live Oak, Quercus turbillena |
Near the trail was a wide sandy area that was almost bare of vegetation. An interpretive sign informed us that this place was a 'sand bath' for burros, or feral donkeys - descendants of runaway domestic donkeys that were used by miners and ranches in the past. We saw no burros in the area, and not even dung piles, Apparently it had been a while since the burros were here last.
Another interpretive sign said that in the park grew about 60 plant species, of which about 12 were endemic to the area. Naturally, we didn't see any annual plants, but the trees, even in their bare winter appearance, were quite lovely.
Back on the north side of the creek we went on another loop that the trail system offered. It looked like there weren't too many birds around and those that were present, didn't make it easy for us to see or photograph.
I was happy with the desert plants I saw, even the dry cacti, but my family birders as well as the younger chika were getting frustrated. We pressed on.
Along this part of the trail the trees were shorter, but closer together, forming what looked like a more protective area for wildlife. We didn't see any wildlife there at the time though, so we moved on to complete the loop.
All of the bushes near that part of the trail were bare of leaves. They could have been deciduous, I didn't know what species they were, but they could have also been dead. The local cacti looked very dry and unhappy, indicative a severe shortage of eater.
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| Beavertail Cactus, Opuntia sp. |
We completed the birding walk with a very low bird count. I liked the place but Pappa Quail and the elder chika were not satisfied at all. Having some daylight time left we decided to stop and check out one more place on the way back to town, so upon leaving the Spring Mountain Ranch State Park we drove off to Red Springs Desert Oasis - a small park just outside Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area.
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