Montana Outdoors: Lichens 101

Wolf lichen is one of many common lichens found throughout western montana forests growing on tree trunks and decaying logs and limbs. Adds a pleasing bright green splash to what is so often a mostly dull, drab brown landscape.

Lichens are used birds, insects and mammals for a variety of things including food, shelter and building material.

We (some of us) use lichens for food, drink, dyes, clothing and decorations. Indians sometimes warded off starvation dining on lichens; pets have been fed lichens for similar reasons.

Some lichens, such as wolf lichen, are poisionous. Wolf lichen got its name from Europeans who mixed it with glass to poison (kill) wolves.

  Wolf lichen didn't kill this elk but another lichen Byoria sp. did kill several elk recently in Wyoming. Curious since antelope routinely eat the same lichens with no ill-effects whatsoever.

Ringbilled gull soaring above Clark Canyon yesterday made for an interesting shot to play around with in Lightroom. And yes, no doubt ringbilled gulls would not know a wolf lichen from a wolf...

The unsettled weather of late has not done much for my fishing but it sure does make for some interesting photo ops...Enjoy.

Travel: Mojave Desert National Preserve

MDNP boasts the densest Joshua tree forest in the world.

Joshua Tree (yucca brevifoilia)

Found at high elevation, 1300-6000 feet, Joshua trees are a Mojave Desert indicator species. Among the fastest growing desert plants, seedlings grow as much as 3 inches per year, Joshua's are also long-lived, some hundreds, even thousands  of years old.

The Preserve, unlike most National Park Service administered places, allows camping just about anywhere (our camp shown here is on a two-track off one of the few hard roads within the preserve) and also unlike most allows hunting, dogs off leash as well as motorized travel on just about any trail (no off road, thank goodness). Encompassing over a 1.5 million acres there are just two relatively small developed campgrounds, one of which discourages trailers and RVs. Hunters can expect to find mule deer, desert bighorn, chukar and Gambel's quail. All hunting is subject to California seasons and regulations.

Mid-19th century Mormon settlers found the tree's unique shape reminiscent of the Biblical story in which  Joshua reaches to the heavens in prayer. Later miners and ranchers utilized the trunks and branches to fuel ore-processing steam engines and for fencing.

The trunk of a Joshua tree is made of thousands of small fibers and lacks annual growth rings, making it difficult to determine age. Sporting a top-heavy branch system as well as a deep and extensive root system, often spreading 30 or more feet. The tallest reach 40 feet or so. Seedlings grow from seed but some sprout from rhizomes. It flowers but only in wet years.

One Damn Big Beaver Dam...

...has been discovered in a remote corner of sprawling Wood Buffalo State Park in northern Alberta. For a lot of you this is probably not new news as proof of its existence, a Google Earth image, has been widely disseminated on the internet now for a few weeks. But since I've been involved in your basic love/hate relationship with the toothsome rodents for as long as I can remember I just couldn't resist tossing in my two cents...no news there either, eh?

Anyway for those of you unaware the dam is humongous by any definition: 2700 feet long (850 meters) it is thought to be the longest anywhere and an ongoing project of a large clan of ambitious rodents since sometime in the early 1970s. As a fellow blogger noted, "I'll bet a lot of landowners are saying thank God it's not on my property." Beavers, neat as they can be and often are, can and often do put even the most heinous vandalism acts to shame. For example back in the day a family of busy beavers set up housekeeping on a small creek on our property.

Over that first summer they erected several small dams, a single somewhat larger dam and built an impressive house. Next spring, apparently concerned high water might be a problem the crew dug an impressive ditch which allowed overflow from the main dam to enter our man-made pond, then cut an equally impressive, after all we're talking beavers here not D-8s, overflow trench which eventually eroded such the dam collasped. Each time we tried to fix it, the beavers quickly remodeled the repairs to their own liking.

Meantime the dam building continued up the little creek until eventually there were 11 dams as I recall flooding at least 100 acres of what was once prime woodcock cover. Oh well, wood ducks found it their liking so for a time we switched loyalities and instead of woodcock we ate wood duck. During all of  this we engaged and engaged the services of others in a futile attempt to trap at least enough of the culprits to slow the advance...didn't happen.

After about 7 or 8 years however the food supply was starting to dwindle big time. Evidently in desperation instead of alder, aspen and willow the beavers started on our many wild and productive apple trees scattered about the property. But the proverbial straw that broke the beaver's strangle hold was an old apple tree which produced in odd years about the sweetest, tastiest apples imaginable and stood at least 400 yards from the nearest water. For us that did it. We enlisted the aid of former bomb disposal guy with handy access still to explosives and...that as they say was that. 

Do I still have a fondness in my soul for the big rodents? Hell yes. But to paraphrase the man "Glad that big dam ain't on my place.