USA 2023 - Desert Plants and Birds at Red Rock Canyon NV

Friday 7 April 2023

Eastern Joshua Tree - Red Rock Canyon NV

If you're staying in Las Vegas, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is a great place for getting out of the city and exploring the desert. It’s close to the built-up area of Vegas - almost too close, perhaps. New housing schemes are relentlessly marching out towards the protected area. 

The cost of this proximity is popularity. Red Rock Canyon has a scenic drive that needs to be booked in advance. We hadn’t done that, but I’d seen online that several trails started from the visitor centre, so had thought that we wouldn’t need to do the drive to be able to hike the trails. Nothing so straightforward, unfortunately. A checkpoint (“fee station”) between the public road and the visitor centre diverted non-booked vehicles straight back out of the reserve. Very annoying. But we were determined not to be beaten. A few cars had parked just off the main road outside the vehicle exit. So, after a quick chat with a local coming back from a run, we left the car there and walked back up the road into the reserve.

Red Rock Canyon NV

As it turned out, this was a good thing. Being on foot in a desert means that you see a whole lot more than when you're whizzing through in a car. Starting with the plants. Dotted around were many Mojave Yuccas Yucca schidigera (below). There are several confusion species, but the key ID features for Mojave Yucca are, first, the yellowish-green leaf colour (not blue-green), which is seen well in these photos, and, second, the thick hairs on the leaf edges. Mature plants can grow branched stems. 

Mojave Yucca - Red Rock Canyon NV

Mojave Yucca (detail) - Red Rock Canyon NV

Dominating the landscape were the Joshua Trees (see the photo at the start of this post). Nothing growing in the desert is as big as this. They stand out as obvious landmarks above the lower shrubs, each of their twisted and complex forms seeming unique. Never mind the U2 album, this tree is one of the few that has a national park named after it (others include Sequoia and Coastal Redwood). It’s an iconic species. 

Joshua Trees are yuccas, which becomes obvious when you look more closely. This one had buds developing (below), looking almost sculptural in form. Each of these will grow into a cluster of flowers, which have no nectar and very little pollen. They are pollinated by micro-moths; the moths lay eggs, and some of the yucca’s seeds end up as food for the developing caterpillars.

Eastern Joshua Tree bud - Red Rock Canyon NV

As ever, the taxonomists have been having a go at the Joshua Tree. More dated field guides (and some less dated websites) list the species as Yucca brevifolia. I guess that the scientific name refers to its leaves, which are short by yucca standards. Previously, it was accepted that there were two subspecies of Joshua Tree: however, in 2007 these were upgraded to two full species – Western Joshua Tree Yucca brevifolia and Eastern Joshua Tree Y. jaegeriana. I was going to get grumpy and ignore the split, but the IUCN red list and the US Department of Fish & Wildlife both recognise it, so I shall go with the flow.  So – the trees here at Red Rock Canyon are Eastern Joshua Trees and those around Mojave, which we saw on the drive to Vegas the previous day, are Western Joshua Trees. The differences are subtle, and relate to size and branching pattern.

We walked on, past the fee station (where we’d been turned away when driving) and found a trail heading up to the visitor centre. I noticed a sudden movement in the vegetation.  It took me a while to locate the bird concerned – a Black-throated Sparrow (below) one of two.

Black-throated Sparrow on Mohave Yucca - Red Rock Canyon NV

Black-throated Sparrows are neat little birds (who says that sparrows are dull?) that are real desert specialists. They are resident in the northern half of Mexico, as well as southern California, Arizona and a bit of Nevada (here!). In summer they also breed further north. A nice find. There is life in the desert, and it’s exciting when you find it. Also here were a couple of American Robins.

From the visitor centre, we started hiking the first section of the Calico Hills Trail, which begins with a meaninglessly convoluted loop. We soon lost the crowds ...

Calico Hills - Red Rock Canyon NV

... but found them again at the first parking area, where a short trail leads down to a viewpoint of the Calico Hills. The sandstone cliffs are extraordinary, but most wildlife had made itself scarce. However, all was not lost: looking down from the road I saw a bird flitting around the rocks – my first Rock Wren (below). This is the commonest wren in the Las Vegas area, although both Canyon and Cactus Wren are also present at Red Rock Canyon (among others). Note the pale eyebrow stripe and the dark bars on its underside. 

Rock Wren - Red Rock Canyon NV

From the parking area, we retraced our steps along the trail to the visitor centre. On the way I was looking for more plants.

Beavertail Cactus - Red Rock Canyon NV

There’s something satisfying about finding cacti in a desert. They may be the stereotypical desert flora, but most of the deserts that I’ve explored have been pretty cactus-deficient. There were a few around here though, including Beavertail Cactus Opuntia basilaris (above). It’s obvious how it got its common name. The species is almost a US endemic, just overlapping the Mexican border.  Red Rock Canyon is in the middle of its distribution range, which extends over the deserts of the southwestern states.

Back at the visitor centre we admired the captive Desert Tortoises and had a quick mooch in the bookshop. I'll end this post with an image of an Anna's Hummingbird, that was making the most of a feeder there. Red Rock Canyon would certainly merit a revisit.

Anna's Hummingbird - Red Rock Canyon NV