Pinau Merlin was studying quantum mechanics when she moved to 蜜柚直播 40 years ago.
That quickly changed.
鈥淭he desert turned me into a naturalist,鈥 she says.
Twenty years ago, Merlin penned 鈥淎 Field Guide to Desert Holes,鈥 an authoritative roadmap to the holes that dot the landscape all around Southern 蜜柚直播. She spends hours at a time exploring and contemplating the desert around us, making her something of an expert on the topic.
A few hours wandering a trail with her was proof of that.
We met at Saguaro National Park East on a clear, crisp morning. Merlin, dressed in jeans and a green shirt that allowed her to blend into the environment, drove directly to the Cactus Forest Trail, hops out of the car, grabs her binoculars, packs a bottle of water and leads the way.
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A few feet in, she stops.
鈥淎 little ground squirrel has been at work here,鈥 she says, her voice loud enough to be heard but soft enough not to disturb any critters that may be around.
She points to a small, shallow hole. 鈥淥ftentimes, when holes don鈥檛 go anywhere, it鈥檚 because an animal has dug looking for a seed or following a scent.鈥
She knows it鈥檚 a ground squirrel because the mound of dirt around the hole is in a fan shape. She has long observed desert animals, studied how they dig, how they move.
鈥淭hey have distinctive traits, and each animal, when it鈥檚 digging, digs in a different way,鈥 she says.
鈥淲hen badgers dig, it鈥檚 a geyser of dirt. You get a hole shaped like a half moon, but you get this big throw mound. And coyotes, when they dig, the dirt goes back through their legs so you get a V-shaped pile. The throw mounds and the size of the hole are good indicators of the kind of animal.鈥
She moves a little way down the trail and stops again.
鈥淭his little hole is a Harris鈥 antelope squirrel,鈥 she says pointing to a roughly 2-inch hole with no mound around it, and then to several others in the same area.
鈥淲ith Harris鈥 antelopes you鈥檒l find a whole bunch of holes in same area because they are looking for groceries,鈥 she explains.
They particularly like barrel cactus, she says as she eyes a tidy hole underneath one.
鈥淭hey like to put a hole under barrel cactus for protection and the roots stabilize the hole. Inside, there鈥檚 a little tunnel, then a nest chamber and sometimes a little other tunnel.鈥
Then her eye spots a small area of dark, hardened soil.
鈥淭his is cryptobiotic soil,鈥 she explains. 鈥淭here are all kinds of microorganisms in here and they are really important. They are ancient. This one is maybe a few hundred years old.鈥
The living, solid crust protects soil from blowing away, absorbs rainfall and nutrients hold on to the crust.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a really important part of the desert,鈥 says Merlin.
She walks on, her eyes barely missing a thing.
鈥淭his is a deer track,鈥 she says, pointing out a track most would miss. 鈥淗e鈥檚 not moving super fast; he鈥檚 probably just going to jump across the trail. See, his toenails are going in and he pushed up some dirt at the forefront of the track.鈥
She spots a mound of dirt under a tree and leads us off the trail. The soft dirt under the tree is pocked with holes.
鈥淵ou get more than one species making a hole; that can confuse people,鈥 she says.
鈥淭here are several using it here because the soil is nice and soft.鈥
She points toward the roots and to larger depressions in the sand. Javelinas, she says.
鈥淭his linear stuff along the roots of plants is pretty classic javelina.鈥
To most, a hole is a hole is a hole.
Not so to the trained eye.
鈥淭hey are all pretty distinctive,鈥 says Merlin.
鈥淵ou can stand in one spot and turn around and see a million different holes.鈥
She spies what looks like a mound of decaying cactus and other plants off the trail and walks toward it.
鈥淭his is a girl pack rat house, which we know because the girls are sedentary, the males are transient. The mother usually has the best house, and the daughters don鈥檛 move that far away. If she dies, killed by an owl or something, a daughter might move back in. And she starts gathering. The (houses) get bigger and bigger and bigger. They can be used for many generations.鈥
She walks around the mound to point out the back door, an exit out the back, and a faint, narrow path to a bush where the pack rat would find cover.
鈥淚f you are at the bottom of the food chain, you need a lot of back doors,鈥 says Merlin. 鈥淚 watched a Gila monster go into the front door and flying out the backdoor was not only a packrat, but a Harris鈥 antelope squirrel.鈥
There鈥檚 plenty of chewed up prickly pear around the house, too. Pack rats, like many desert animals, munch on the cactus, biting into the side where the pad is softer, and spitting out the needles. Each animal has a distinctive bite mark, Merlin says.
鈥淧rickly pear is a good standby for a lot of animals. It doesn鈥檛 have a lot of nutrition, but it has moisture.鈥
If prickly pear isn鈥檛 around, they鈥檒l go for saguaro. Jackrabbits munch along the bottom, bighorn sheep eat a little higher and pack rats make a spiral as they eat around a cactus.
If you see holes higher up in the saguaro, they were made by either a woodpecker or flicker.
鈥淲oodpeckers use the middle of the saguaro for their nest and they put their nest between the outer tissue and the ribs because they are small,鈥 says Merlin. 鈥淔lickers are bigger birds and they can鈥檛 sit between the skin and the ribs. So they go through the ribs and into the middle of the cactus.鈥
Flickers head to the top of the cactus, where the ribs are thinner and not fused together. That does structural damage to the cactus.
鈥淰ery often, if a big storm or wind goes through, it鈥檒l take the top off the saguaro and that introduces bacterial decay and sometimes it鈥檒l kill the cactus.鈥
Though flickers and woodpeckers are the only two birds to make holes in saguaros, once they have been made, they become valuable real estate for other birds.
鈥淭here are huge demands for the cacti holes,鈥 says Merlin, who has observed a flycatcher aggressively dive bomb a woodpecker鈥檚 hole in an effort to drive the bird out.
As she walks along, she points out an an area littered with scat. 鈥淭his is a latrine,鈥 she says. Most were white and clearly old. She picks one up. 鈥淭his is from a bobcat, it has fur in it. With bobcats you look for Tootsie Roll shapes.鈥 This latrine is exclusively used by one bobcat, and family members if there are any. It鈥檚 part of marking their territory. Though if a coyote comes along, the latrine is an invitation to him.
鈥淐oyotes don鈥檛 pass anyone else鈥檚 scat without leaving their calling card,鈥 she says.
Merlin is a natural teacher, and stops every few feet to explain a hole, tracks, disrupted plants. If she picks up something, such as an owl鈥檚 tuft of down she sees blowing softly in the wind as it clutches to a branch, she puts it right back where she found it.
And you will never find her kicking dirt into a desert hole.
鈥淚n the desert, you have no business filling in holes,鈥 she says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e disturbing someone else鈥檚 habitat. That should never happen out in the wild. You have to respect nature.鈥