Ernie's Great Outdoors

  Birds will head to Mexico for the winter By  ERNIE COWAN While the civilized world seems to struggle in turmoil right now, the natural clock of ages faithfully ticks on. As another August slips from the calendar, the beat of nature goes on, and the happy visitors to my summer garden are hearing the call to launch them on a journey south. We can’t hear this call, but the hooded orioles do, and they are eagerly preparing to return to some preordained place in Mexico for the winter. These beautiful birds have added color, sound and joy to Mt. Whoville, as they have for thousands of other bird lovers throughout Southern California who provide food, water and nesting sites. A week ago, I began to notice fewer brightly colored males, and this week the males are gone. This is typical, with males leaving first, followed by females and the late-crop juveniles. For the past few weeks the orioles have been feeding aggressively at the nectar feeders, quibbling and cackling as they alway...

Season has brought forth a baby boom of wildlife Ernie Cowan  Outdoors It’s been quite a spring season for free-range children. Just the other day I was sitting in a shady patch on my driveway working on a project when two toddlers suddenly ran right up to me. I could have picked them up. A moment later there were two more, followed, I was happy to see, by a concerned adult. Seeing me, papa sounded an assembly call and the four little quail youngsters resembling walnuts with legs, dashed back to the protection of the adult bird. The brief encounter brought joy to my heart and a big grin to my face. The innocence of the little chicks and their curiosity had brought them to within inches of me. While the world has been gnashing teeth over social and health issues, nature has endured, and this spring at least, seems to be thriving. We never get enough rain in Southern California, but this year we were blessed with abundant and well-spaced storms that pro...

ERNIE COWAN  Outdoors It was a wildlife encounter I can only describe as profound. I’ve photographed desert bighorn sheep many times over 50-plus years, but this adventure was one I will never forget. The summer heat was withering as I stepped from my vehicle in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park. Not only were temperatures well into the triple digits, but it was slightly after noon so there was no mercy from the pounding midday sun. I came with high hopes of finding bighorn sheep in one of the desert canyons that has perennial water. These isolated sources of water are a thin lifeline for the animals who live in this arid place. The air temperature alone was bad enough, but I could feel even more heat radiating off the light-colored desert sand as I followed the dusty trail. Movement caught my eye. A jackrabbit? They are not typically active in midday summer heat. I stopped on the trail and suddenly a massive desert bighorn ram pushed through a thicket of...

Outdoors:  Ernie Cowan Illuminating desert’s night creatures The heat of the late summer evening was still simmering as I gazed into the sky to find Antares, the bright red heart of the constellation Scorpio. Hanging above me at the western edge of the Milky Way, this mythical figure stood out brightly in the inky desert darkness. While I had found the scorpion constellation, I was actually here to find the earthly version as they emerge at night to wander the desert sands in search of food. To help me with my search, I was equipped with an ultraviolet, or blacklight, flashlight that makes these nocturnal creatures stand out distinctly. Did you know that scorpions glow a bright, fluorescent blue-green when illuminated by ultraviolet light? That was something I discovered decades ago when I borrowed a heavy, cumbersome blacklight from my science teacher and took it with me on a camping trip. My goal was to search for gems like calcite, fluorite, agate or a...

Outdoors:  Ernie Cowan Bats steal show during photo hunt You could almost see the last fumes of daylight evaporating from the hot desert sands as the sun dipped behind the San Ysidro Mountains. In the wash of deepening gray, black-tailed jackrabbits were becoming more active, and the black-throated sparrows were no longer coming to the small pond for water. Another summer day was changing from light to dark, and a different world was about to awaken. Against a sky that was now the last shade of dark blue, a bat flashed by. Our mission was about to begin. With friends Russ Hunsaker and bat expert Dick Wilkins, we had set up sophisticated photo equipment that would soon allow us to capture these fascinating creatures as they swooped out of the night to drink or capture insects on the surface of the desert pond. I was hoping to get a few good images of these interesting creatures that are rarely seen by most people. The idea of photographing bats struck me while ...

Outdoors:  Ernie Cowan Stop and smell the coyote melons There was an autumn softness in the air as I day hiked with a friend along a portion of the Pacific Crest Trail near Warner Springs. “What’s that smell?” he asked as we scuffed along the well-worn path. When I realized he wasn’t talking about me, I became aware of a pungent odor as we passed a low-growing patch of bright green vegetation that stood out from the surrounding dry grass. With large green leaves, huge yellow trumpet flowers and melons that looked like softball-sized watermelon, this was a plant that was hard to miss. And don’t forget the smell. This native plant is known by various names, including desert pumpkin, finger-leafed gourd and coyote melon, a name apparently given by Native Americans because it “was only good enough for coyotes to eat.” Even though these native plants look like small, round watermelons, this gourd is closely related to pumpkins. The fruit is the largest produced by ...

OUTDOORS:  ERNIE COWAN You won’t be taking home a pumpkin from this patch October is a traditional time to go on the Great Pumpkin search, but if you find this hidden pumpkin patch it’s not likely you will take one home. First, it would be highly illegal and more importantly, the “pumpkin” would weigh a ton or more. This unique pumpkin patch is actually a collection of geological oddities in the barren desert sands of Ocotillo Wells State Vehicular Recreation Area located along the eastern fringe of San Diego County. As cooler temperatures return to our county desert areas, it’s now a good time to discover some of these fascinating features. The pumpkins in the Pumpkin Patch are not growing plants at all. They are actually sandstone formations known as concretions. Geologists say these stone objects are the product of wind and water over millions of years eroding softer soil to reveal these globular sandstone formations. There are different theories on how c...