Date: December 29, 2020
Place: Red Springs Desert Oasis, Las Vegas, Nevada
Coordinates: 36.146576, -115.419131
Length: 1.1 mile
Level: easy
The day of our 2020 desert trip to Las Vegas that we dedicated to birding started with a very nice birding walk at the Desert National Wildlife Refuge, which was followed with another nice walk but with fewer birds at the Spring Mountain Ranch State Park. We had about an hour of sunlight left so we went to the Red Springs Desert Oasis park, which was on our way back to our lodge. The sun hasn't set yet but it was already low enough to hide behind the low butte west of the parking area.
There were three trailheads at the parking lot and we took the south loop trail where the boardwalk was, which was also the main trail of the park.
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| Our hike as captured by my GPS |
The boardwalk encircles a botanical area watered by the springs. The entire place looked dry - I guess the springs were not flowing at the time of our visit.
I focused my attention on the surrounding views. The geology of the area was fabulous and we had a very nice view of the red Aztec sandstone layer that make the Calico Hills. Interpretive signs similar to those we've seen in the Red Rock Canyon national Conservation Area explained some of the area's geology.
Another interpretive sign informed us about the mutualistic connection between the mistletoe plant and the phainopepla bird - the phainopepla relies on the mistletoe berries for food and the mistletoe needs to go through the bird's digestive tract in order to germinate. I read this and all the other signs with great interest but then I had to hasten to catch up with my family further up the trail.
There weren't too many birds active there at the time, and the birds we did see were pretty common ones, such as the white-crowned sparrow.
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| White-crowned Sparrow |
We got closer to the rocky hill. The rock there was not the red Aztec sandstone - it had a pinkish color. It looked tempting to climb but I didn't see anyone climbing there.
Below the rocky slopes were tall bushes that looked dry but perhaps were in their winter look. Clamps of mistletoe adorned these bushes. The mistletoe looked very much alive. Some little red berries were still hanging on the mistletoe stems.
Sure enough, just as the interpretive sign that I saw earlier on the trail said, a phainopepla bird was sitting there in that bush, perched very close to the mistletoe. We didn't actually see her eating the berries though.
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| Phainopepla, female |
Another interpretive sign told us of the native people of this area, describing a bit their ancient ways of life, now completely extinct. Near the trail was a large boulder with a few petroglyphs and at least one modern graffiti. The sight of this boulder enticed a debate among us - wether the ancient petroglyphs were a form of graffiti, and if so, is modern graffiti a form of cultural expression that should be appreciated as petroglyphs are. My personal take on that question is that it depends. Petroglyphs may have been a form of graffiti but now some of the very few remains of an ancient culture we know very little about. Moreover, the petroglyphs aren't numerous and they don't take anything from the grandness of the surrounding natural beauty. Modern graffiti can be very much a form of cultural expression, but it should stay where it belongs - in the cities which is where this modern culture that forms the graffiti is. In nature, (as well as on many human-made settings) modern time graffiti is ugly and vandalistic, not to mention that most times it is completely meaningless. In short, while there might not be a philosophical difference between them, I'd take ancient petroglyphs any time over modern graffiti.
During most of the time of our hike we were in the shade of the sandstone hill on our west. During that same time however, the sun was getting lower and the light was slowly waning. It was getting harder to distinguish details on the rocky slopes.
The mockingbird was easy enough to see though, as it stood alone and in full view on top of one of the bare bushes near the hill.
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| Northern Mockingbird |
Another series of interpretive signs informed us of how the Red Springs were formed and the kind of vegetation and wildlife it supports. Since everything around us looked dry I could only conclude that the long drought had affected the flow of these springs.
When we took the eastern part of the loop trail we finally got out of the hill's shadow and into the sunshine. Ahead of us stretched the mild alluvial slope deposited there by countless of flush floods coming down the mountain washes.
From that part of the trail we had another, higher view of the red rock layer in the distance to the north of us.
From that same view point I took some close-up shots of those red hills, one of which i used as a header photo for this blogpost. The close-up image with which I finish this post however, is that of that nice Mohave yucca in the foreground.
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| Mohave Yucca, Yucca schidigera |
This was the last hike we did that day. It was a short one, and we didn't see many birds, but it was a nice one to end our day with.
