#127 - All things must come to end ...

“All things must come to end”

— Chaucer (1374-ish)

Part One

This old proverb is attributed to Chaucer. The word “good” was added much later and there are many variations. After exactly three years, my life on the road has come to end. I don’t need to use the added “good” as there is good and bad in everything. But, overall, there was much “good” and I fully intend to live a life on the road again. But it won’t be soon.

Full-time RV-ing is a wonderful thing. For those with the means, which includes not only financial stability, but access to doctors and friends and family, it can go on forever. For me, three years exhausted me in all ways, most importantly in terms of mental health. I have battled mental health issues and part of my choice to live free on the road was to find peace and happiness. In the short term, it was therapeutic; in the long term, the antithesis of happy and healthy.

So, I return to Chicago for the support and love of family, and the doctors and work I need. Even a self-proclaimed “loner” gets lonely, and for those with my brain chemistry, the bleakness of …

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I composed the above on January 16. As you can see, I abruptly ceased writing. Then I started to try to blog once again in April, and then stopped once more, as you will learn below. Then I resumed this week. And here you go …

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Part Two

Returning to blogging is more than just a smidgen intimidating. My recent writings focused on faunal wonders and grand adventures among the majesty of the Chiricahua Mountains. Photography, hiking, travel. Now I am in suburban Chicago and, like many, observing #stayathome. What stories do I have to share?

I began my second attempt at writing this entry back in April but, for a number of reasons, lost interest in sharing. One primary cause was my mental health. When I got to the discussion of mental health I felt I was getting “too personal.” That readers of my blog were mostly interested in my wildlife adventures or travel, and that perhaps this wasn't the audience for me to open up to about my own struggles. One of my battles is that I keep everything inside. I live in my own head and my own world. But in the interest of May being Mental Health Awareness Month, yesterday I posted “Break the Stigma graphics” on my social media, and publicly declared my own battles with mental health issues. I am diagnosed with Panic Anxiety Disorder and Acute Major Depression. I take medications. I first received treatment for mental health disorders over fifteen years ago. I saw a psychiatrist regularly and was on medications for years until my divorce and the resulting end of health insurance. Moving to the present, I am now in talk therapy. When I returned to Chicago over seven years ago after the loss of my mother, I went back on medications for anxiety and depression. I have been off and on them since, which I will explain later. One of the major problems with mental health problems, which 1 in 4 people will suffer from this year, is that stigma and breaking the silence. So, I will share.

I've been back on my home turf since January and haven't had fabulous tales to tell. I also have not felt well at all. However, I did travel to England and Scotland via Ireland in March with my stepdad Joel to visit my dear friends Mark, Kim, and Elli Pennell, as well as deliver the after-dinner presentation at the annual lectures of the British Tarantula Society. I do have some travel tales to tell. But we will come back to that.

First, an explanation of my abrupt end to my three-year odyssey as an RV-living nomad is in order. I don't wish to share everything, but I will say that I needed to address my psychological, physical, and financial health. I couldn't continue and at the end of my adventure I was mentally in a dangerously bleak place. Mental health is a private matter, but at the same time I am in favor of “breaking the stigma” and “ending the silence.” Speaking public about it can also be personally therapeutic, and beneficial to others who struggle and perhaps have the shame of talking openly about it. I wish there to be no shame in my game.

My life on the road was an escape. At first, it aided my mental health. Dramatically. As a self-professed “loner,” the lifestyle seemed perfect for me. I was in nature, camera in hand, and life was good. Even great. I was also medicated. Before I departed I got my doctor to put me back on a medication regimen similar to that my psychiatrist back in Nashville a decade earlier had me on. However, living on the road would mean I was away from care. Unfortunately, I didn't give that enough thought at the time. I returned to Chicagoland for six months during the first winter, and then again the following winter for a shorter time. I saw my general practitioner during that time, and he would prescribe anti-anxiety and antidepressant medications. I began to realize that I felt worse in Chicagoland than when I was elsewhere, something my current therapist has commented on several times. She believes my “home environment” harms my mental health. However, the joy of my road life, which became more of a live-mostly-stationary-in-an-RV in Cave Creek Canyon not-on-the-road life, dissipated when I returned to Arizona again in 2019. There were many reasons, some of which I won't divulge here.

I will say that the pressures of little income, isolation, the increasing need for long-overdue physical and dental care, not to mention reassessment of my mental health condition, became overwhelming, and that, coupled with some other matters, my idyllic life in my beloved mountain range lost its charm. I've made many abrupt changes in my life. Many complete and dramatic transformations that were perhaps hasty. I felt I had no choice but to make another, or you could say reverse the last one, I suppose. I went to Tucson to sell my RV and, that done, returned to my family in Chicagoland, somewhat defeated and needing care.

I lost my doctor during my three-year RV life. Somehow I had been able to acquire Medicaid health insurance and he was able to use that at first, but Centegra Healthcare became Northwestern, and that mega-network doesn't accept IlliniCare. I'll resist the temptation to go off on a tangent regarding the abysmal and shameful state of health care and health insurance in the United States. Unfortunately, that meant I could no longer get prescription refills, and I was forced to wean myself off of my mental health meds. That worked. Until it didn't. I felt good when I was still enjoying my life in Cave Creek Canyon and didn't have stressors or triggers that would negatively affect me. When I tired of my situation as the caretaker and a host of the Cave Creek Canyon Visitor Center, and thought about how my lifestyle wasn't sustainable financially or mentally or physically, I withered fast. As I stated, life on the road initially was partly about improving my mental health and it allowed me to get away from medication. But when the stressors returned, I began to take the leftover medication until it ran out. Without it, I was crippled and had to get back to Illinois to find a new doctor.

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Part Three

OK, that's enough heaviness for now. It certainly is enough sharing. However, I wanted to state publicly that I have severe symptoms of anxiety and depression that manifest themselves physically, especially in the form of a constant indescribably odd feeling in my head, and this incapacitates me much of the time. Being in lockdown here back in Illinois has been very rough on me, and it's tough to get through most days. My talk therapy is helping and my therapist is wonderful. My daily brisk morning three-mile walks were helping before I badly strained my knee and had to stop for now. The medications really aren't doing much, and keep getting changed and adjusted. The one that works is a “benzo” but the current trend is to consider these taboo and lump their use in with opioids and worse. It’s difficult to get Xanax or even the Clonazepam I have been given instead prescribed. My therapist is convinced that living in Chicagoland isn't healthy for me, and certainly not having my own place and not working and many other present factors are combining and conspiring to make me not really want to wake up most mornings. I came back to Chicagoland to get better, not have it make me worse.

But, on I forge. Just know that many people suffer from mental illness and it is not about being “depressed” or unhappy. It is a chemical imbalance and physical disease, and a psychological result of many years of unhealthy relationships or family life or unhealthy coping mechanisms or whatever, combined into a daunting illness that requires treatment just like anything else. What I can’t explain to doctors or family or anyone is how mental illness affects me physically. My head feels weird constantly. I am tired of doctors looking at me like I’m crazy while telling the same story, again and again, to have it diagnosed as “non-specific” this or that. It feels like I have brain cancer or something and it doesn’t go away. And the doctors - or now nurse practitioners since that is who I see instead at the clinic I ended up selecting - barely listen.

OK, time to push on. Let's return to the trip to the UK, which put me somewhere in the double digits for trips to Blighty since 2007. I think somewhere around 14, including one year when I visited the UK four times!

Kim & Mark Pennell, with me and Joel at the Oban Distillery in Oban, Scotland

After Mark had visited me in Arizona in August to celebrate my 55th birthday along with John Apple and his gal Ashley, I began to think about when I would see him again and whether I could make it back to Bristol, England in the near future. It all worked out when, courtesy of the British Tarantula Society (BTS), I was invited to present at their 18th Lectures and Dinner. This annual event is hosted by Mark and his wife Kim at the Aztec Hotel & Spa in a suburb of their Bristol hometown. My first trip to the UK was when the BTS first invited me to speak in 2007. It was just after my trip to Costa Rica with then BTS Chairman Andrew Smith. I had become the North American Representative of the society. That 2007 edition of the lectures were also attended by Scott and Debby Scher who own Arachnoboards.com, with whom I had organized the Arachnocon events that were held in San Antonio, Texas in 2006 and 2007. Scott and Debby would later also be asked to become BTS North American Representatives. In 2007, they traveled to the UK with Tom Patterson, who like his friends Scott and Debby are from the New York City area. Readers of this blog, and those who either saw my live lecture this year or have seen the “studio version” I will mention shortly, will recall that Tom visited me in Arizona this past late October to be part of our six-man “Team Sky Island Tarantulas 2019.”

As plans for this March's trip to Bristol developed, my stepdad Joel decided to join me. We didn't realize at the time that I would be staying with him again by the time the trip departed, but he had traveled to the lectures with me four years earlier and was interested in seeing England again. As we discussed things with Mark and Kim the idea to visit Scotland for the first time was born. My lecture topic would be obvious as this all occurred just before my “Team Sky Island Tarantulas 2019” would assemble at my camp in the Chiricahuas and further search for new species of high elevation tarantulas would commence. Everything fell into place quite naturally, but in the weeks leading up to the trip COVID-19 became a concern.

Joel watches CNN daily and things were changing daily as I had already begun packing my suitcase. The day before our departure, and even the morning we were to leave, I was genuinely worried that Joel would want to cancel the trip. That would have meant me canceling as well. But that afternoon we were on our way to O'Hare International Airport for an overnight flight to Dublin and on to a Bristol, England arrival the following morning. This was before social distancing became a thing. All of the warnings were centered around washing your hands for twenty seconds or more as often as possible. We also had our own hand sanitizer. However, that was about it for precautions when we boarded our plane. People congregated as usual.

When we arrived in Dublin, we noticed much more signage about COVID-19 and many changes. Restaurants were mostly closed. The shops that remained open weren't taking cash and electronic payment was required. We only had a short layover and then boarded our prop plane for the less than one hour flight to Bristol. That plane, which holds maybe 80, was about half full. Soon we were on the ground in England, collected our luggage, and met Kim who so graciously was waiting to transport us to Mark's Serious Ink Tattoo Studio. Our friend from France, legendary tarantula breeder and explorer Jean-Michel Verdez (“JMV”), was due to get another tattoo from Mark that morning so we expected him to be there when we arrived. As we pulled up, I saw the French license plates on a car in front and found JMV in the chair, and our friend and his traveling companion and fellow French tarantula breeder/explorer Benoît Ménart sitting on the sofa.

After saying our hellos to Mark and Elli, as well as JMV and Benoît, Joel and I had a trip planned into the Clifton area of Bristol for a full English breakfast. On past visits to Bristol I have stayed at a motel in this area, which is where BBC Bristol is located. It’s only two train stops from the station about a ten-minute walk from Mark’s studio in Shirehampton. I haven’t used public transportation in the U.S. since my days at the University of Illinois-Chicago over thirty-five years ago, but it is fun to get yourself around in foreign lands via buses and trains. In fact, later in the week I would figure out how to catch a series of two buses from the Aztec Hotel & Spa where we stayed to get to Shirehampton and then walk on down to Mark’s Serious Ink Tattoo Studio. It’s fun to experience the locals and people watch. Using a taxi would be much less adventurous.

After our “breaky,” as the Brits like to call it, Joel and I walked around a bit before catching the train back to “the Shire” and returning to the tattoo studio. Later we would meet up with another friend, Mark & Kim’s best friend Haidee, who drove us to check-in at the Aztec Hotel & Spa. It was time to get ready for the Friday evening meet & greet with British Tarantula Society Lectures & Dinner attendees, which would take place right at our hotel. About one-third of those registered for the lectures take advantage of this wonderful social evening that includes a group dinner for those staying the full weekend at the Aztec. However, it is pricey lodging so many people choose to stay elsewhere, and don’t arrive until the next day’s lectures. That evening I spent a good deal of time with my dear mate, arachnohistorian and tarantula filmmaker and author Andrew Smith, plus JMV and Benoît and many more friends, old and new.

The morning of the lectures Joel and I met Mark & Kim as well as Peter and Connie Kirk for the first of many breakfasts at the Aztec. The pandemic was beginning to change things, and the usual buffet-style full English breakfast plus continental options were only available that weekend before it quickly changed to ordering exactly what you wanted.

Your after-dinner featured presenter, the bald tattooed American in black. #seriousink

Later, after breakfast, I helped Mark prepare a short presentation that would include the group photos from each of the previous seventeen years of the BTS Lectures & Dinner. People began to arrive and were filling the lobby outside the lectures room, which the hotel had well-stocked with beverages and snacks. However, the room itself was closed to everyone except the BTS committee and lecturers. Mark was loading everyones PowerPoint or Keynote presentations on his laptop, while I created slides for the historical group shots.

It was great to finally see Guy Tansley, Paul Carpenter, and others as the lobby outside the room continued to fill with excited attendees. Because my lecture wouldn’t be until after the banquet dinner, I was relaxed and just enjoying talking with friends I hadn’t seen in several years and meeting some new ones. Ray Hale and his wife Angela, who hadn’t made it the previous evening, finally arrived and I was happy to see these dear friends.

My mate Ray Hale (BTS Vice-Chairman and Exhibition Organizer), me, and Joel

Mark and I getting things read just before the lectures.

Then the lectures began. First up was Mark’s short introduction and the slideshow of previous lectures we had worked on.

Then the stage belonged to Emma Lawlor, a lovely Irish lass who gave a fascinating presentation titled Barcoding: A Useful Tool in Taxonomy. I was told afterward that it was her first real lecture and she was very nervous, but I couldn’t tell. She did a fabulous job.

Emma was followed by a lovely English bloke, Paul Carpenter, my mate with whom I have traveled to Costa Rica in 2006, Suriname in 2012, and Sri Lanka in 2014. His topic was Somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea, a tale of the tarantulas from two islands, a field trip that included another mate and traveling companion of mine, Guy Tansley, who was a part of the aforementioned Suriname and Sri Lanka trips, plus Paul’s brother Mark who joined us in Costa Rica and Sri Lanka, and Richard Gallon and Rolf Könen.

Paul was then followed by Ray Hale. Ray and Angela have been doing cruises in Indonesia with SeaTrek where Ray lectures on local fauna and evolution and other topics. A devotee of natural selection co-discoverer Alfred Russel Wallace, Ray’s topic was the Crossing the Wallace Line, and he covered the flora and fauna of the world’s largest island country with an emphasis on the faunal boundary (Wallace Line) that separates the biogeographical realms of Asia and Wallacea, a transitional zone between Asia and Australia, which Wallace discovered and created in 1859. I should mention that Ray and Angela joined our group led by Mark and Kim on Langkawi Island, Malaysia in 2017, as did my friend JMV and his wife Monique, so the theme of my world spider-hunting traveling companions being featured in the lectures was continuing.

And it didn’t stop there. The man who led my Costa Rica and Suriname adventures, legendary lecturer Andrew Smith, would close out the afternoon’s lectures. Poecilotheria – Carter’s Railway Spiders was a preview of his upcoming two-part documentary on his recent field trip to India with Guy Tansley and Stuart Longhorn. Andrew, who was the long-time Chairman of the BTS, usually has had the honor of being the after-dinner presenter, and it was truly an honor for me to be put in that coveted spot this year. As the afternoon’s lectures wound down and dinner was soon to come, all that would be left would be my presentation, The Tarantulas of the USA with a Focus on the Sky Islands of Arizona and New Species.

We all sat down to what the Brits call a “hot fork buffet,” where fortunately the forks are cool and it is the food that is hot. The room had been laid out wedding-style, with assigned tables and seats. At our primary table were Peter and Connie Kirk, Ray and Angela Hale, Mark and Kim Pennell, Mark’s sister Chris and her husband Alan, friends who I have spent three Malaysia trips with, not to mention my many visits to Bristol, and then Martin Nicholas, Joel, and me. As dinner wound down, I took the podium. After a fabulous introduction by Mark, which was preceded by my own announcement that bathroom breaks and bar stock-ups would be in order before my lengthy talk, I launched what would be an over 90-minute lecture detailing all American tarantula species.

I’m gonna leap ahead in time here before returning to Bristol and the trip Mark, Kim, Joel, and I took to Scotland for three days and two nights. Rolf Könen was kind enough to record my presentation for me, but after returning home and thinking about it for some time I decided I would produce a scripted and narrated version for YouTube release. There were things I left out of my live lecture and things I wanted to explain better, plus I hoped I could make it more concise. I failed with the latter because my voiceover version is actually almost two hours, but I did produce something that was more complete and also would be an HD full-screen version of my Keynote presentation rather than what was captured by a camera in a dark room with background noise. For those who haven’t seen it here you go. Please view the film on YouTube in HD and full screen for the best result.

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Part Four

Back to our timeline … The day after the Lectures we met for breakfast with everyone again and then made plans to see Mark and Kim later in the day. In England the meal they refer to as “dinner” (not “tea” or supper or “evening meal”) is traditionally on Sunday and is a “Sunday roast.” So, the four of us went to the White Lion, in Bristol’s suburb of Westbury on Trym for our roast.

White Lion, Westbury on Trym, at sunset

Kim, me, and Mark with pre-dinner drinks at White Lion, Westbury on Trym

Mark and I at the bar of Cuan Mor in Oban, Scotland. The name is Gaelic for “Big Ocean” and its street just around the corner from Oban Distillery has wonderful views of Oban Bay. But, as is usually the case in Scotland, it was blustery and rainy.

After dinner we had a nightcap back at the Aztec, and then Joel and I prepared for the following morning’s trip to Scotland. We would be checking out of the Aztec for two nights and had brought a smaller carry-on bag to use for Scotland. We stored our larger luggage at the Aztec during our absence. Haidee was once again kind enough to chauffeur us, and Mark and Kim picked us early at the hotel and then we met Haidee at their house for the trip to Bristol’s small international airport. After a one-hour flight to Edinburgh we were soon picking out a rental car so we could drive west and tour the Scottish Highlands. I had yet to discover just how magical a place it is.

Our plan was to take the back roads and scenic routes and enjoy the countryside and its castles and villages before visiting Oban distillery and then driving on to Glencoe, where we would spend the first night. The next day we would continue to stay off the beaten path and take in the small villages of the highlands before spending the night in Stirling and visiting Stirling Castle the last morning. Our flight back to England wouldn’t be until mid-afternoon.

We stopped at a number of places as we drove, but the weather was wet and windy and we were prevented from the strolls we would have liked to take in some of these beautiful and charming villages. But as the saying on shirts and mugs in gift shops throughout Scotland declares, “In Scotland there’s no such thing as bad weather, only the wrong clothes.” Of course, another common quip you don’t find on souvenirs much is “which day in June is Scottish summer?”

Balloch Castle

Since 1794 … One of my favorite Scotch whiskies. We were served and sampled some cask strength, and I left with a bottle of “The Distiller’s Edition”, double matured Oban Single Malt Scotch Whisky aged 12 years in a normal cask before maturing another almost two years in a Montilla Fino “sherry” cask. I am still enjoying this distilled in 2005 and bottled in 2019 nectar.

Joel in front of the Chachaig Inn in Glencoe Village, Scotland where we spent the first night. This area is famous for so many productions being filmed in the area from Harry Potter to Highlander to James Bond’s Skyfall and many more.

The view from Clachaig Inn. Now you see why medieval and fantasy movies are filmed here. And why I fell in love with the Scottish Highlands.

On the trails that surrounded the Clachaig Inn

Our second day found us meandering on more backcountry roads, visiting the nature reserves in the Ballachulish-Glencoe and Glen Nevis areas, and having lunch at an incredibly quaint little village pub in Pitlochry, Scotland. We passed the Dalwhinnie Distillery but it had already been shut down due to COVID-19. That was a trend that we would see for the rest of our UK trip. In fact, our tour of Oban Distillery the previous day was the last they would offer before closing to the public. We checked on Stirling Castle where we planned to spend the following morning and discovered that we could go, but it would be the last tour they gave before their own shutdown. Once we returned to Bristol, we went out to dinner two nights in a row at places with no other diners and the establishments closing as soon as we left. We began to wonder if we would be able to get back to America! Eventually, we headed east and made our way to Stirling, and Hotel Colessio where we would spend our second night in Scotland.

Dalwhinnie Distillery in Dalwhinnie. There are five different types of Scotch whisky depending on region, and this distillery on the western edge of Cairngorms National Park actually can legally claim either Highland or Speyside.

Dunstaffnage Castle (Scottish Gaelic: Caisteal Dhùn Stadhainis) is a partially ruined castle in Argyll and Bute, western Scotland.

Drummond’s Restaurant & Public House in Pitlochry, Scotland

Hotel Colessio, Stirling, Scotland

After we got settled into our hotel, I found a pub within walking distance to spend the evening. Nicky-Tams Bar & Bothy was a very interesting place with colorful characters, to say the least. A “bothy” is a basic shelter, usually left unlocked and available for anyone. It also refers to basic accommodations for gardeners or other workers on an estate. It had two floors and the small bar area on the entry level was crowded so we took our drinks to the upstairs where we had the place to ourselves except for people who came up for the restrooms. We had drinks and food, me drinking fine Scotch, of course, at unbelievable prices. Afterward, we stopped at a convenience store for some chocolates and snacks and returned for a nightcap at the bar in the Colessio. The barman recommended a 14-year-old Speyside Single Malt called Inchgower that was wonderful.

The next morning we walked up the road to Stirling Castle for their final tour before closing due to the pandemic. I’m not much on history so I bored of it quickly despite the delightful Scottish accent of our young lady guide, but I do enjoy architecture and the walk to the beautiful castle passed many interesting buildings and a cemetery.

Church of the Holy Rude and Old Town Cemetery, Stirling, Scotland

Old Town Cemetery, Stirling, Scotland

Stirling Castle

A godless ape preaching the gospel inside Stirling Castle

Stirling Castle and Stirling, Scotland

After our visit to Stirling Castle, our foursome checked out of Hotel Colessio and had some time for a leisurely drive back to Edinburgh, where we drove into the city center and saw Edinburgh Castle. I am not much for cities either, but I loved Edinburgh and was sorry we would just catch a glimpse of it. We returned our rental car at the airport and had lunch in the terminal while awaiting our flight back to Bristol.

Edinburgh Castle from the road. No tour.

Back in Bristol on Wednesday evening, Joel and I checked back into the Aztec Hotel & Spa in the Bristol suburb of Almondsbury. It was an odd time as things were rapidly progressing with the global pandemic and we were a long way from home. As I mentioned above, we would find our next nights’ meals to be the last served at each restaurant we went to. But on Wednesday we had Mark and Kim return to the Aztec and have dinner with us in its nice restaurant. Thursday morning I figured out how to walk to the bus stop on the other side of the huge roundabout beside the Aztec and take two buses to Shirehampton to walk ten minutes more to Serious Ink Tattoo Studio where I would hang out with the Pennells. Joel would enjoy the hotel spa and pool. On Friday, Mark finished my sleeves. My right arm is my tribute to my late mother and also my beloved dog Taylor, and there was just enough space on the wrist to add “Jesse” and a feather in memorial of my parrot that passed away in September 2019 a week after turning 29. My left arm had more space around the elbow and Mark did an amazing job of filling that gap as well.

Aztec Hotel & Spa, Almondsbury, Bristol, UK

Early Saturday morning, Mark and Kim picked Joel and I up to take us to Bristol airport for our journey back to Chicago. The night before we had our final dinner at the Bengal Raj, one of our fabulous hosts’ favorite restaurants. Elli and her boyfriend Laurence joined us. The previous day at midnight was the “deadline” to return from abroad for U.S. citizens. We found the airport mostly deserted and our prop-plane flight from Bristol to Dublin only had about 20 people on it (one-third capacity). One of the reasons I fly Aer Lingus through Dublin is that there is a U.S. Customs Pre-clearance Facility at Dublin Airport so you arrive back in the U.S. as a domestic passenger. We breezed through that process and waited for the flight from Ireland to O’Hare. The airport was mostly shut down. Our flight was on a plane that holds more than 310 passengers, but there were only about 125 on the flight. Joel was able to spread out on a center row of four seats alone. Unfortunately, Aer Lingus planes have armrests that don’t go completely vertical so laying across them is next to impossible. Arriving at O’Hare I usually can go straight down to baggage claim from the international terminal, bypassing the customs area. However, CDC-operated personnel was awaiting our flight so we were ushered by an officer through the customs area without any checks and then into a very brief wait to give a questionnaire we were provided on the flight to the CDC staff. They asked additional questions and then directed us to a table where we would turn in the form to paramedics and other “volunteers” who took our temperature with a non-contact forehead thermometer, asked more questions, and then sent us to baggage claim. We got out of the airport very quickly as it was already becoming a ghost town.

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Part Five

I’ll wrap this long blog up now. It’s the first of 2020 and took all five months so far to write. In closing, I just want to add that I do have some more narrated Keynote presentation ideas in mind. I have already begun working on one that will cover the rattlesnakes of southeastern Arizona. I hope you all will enjoy some photographic slideshows that are supplemented by learning more about the wildlife I was fortunate to capture by camera during my three-year odyssey. With the tarantulas covered in depth by my BTS lecture and its two-hour narrated version, we will start with rattlesnakes and see what you think. I am finding it hard to focus (hell, I’m finding it difficult to “life”) and often cannot do much more than lay and Netflix and YouTube binge, but I’ll do my best to work a little on these projects each day.

Happy Memorial Day and Happy Mental Health Awareness Month!

All the best, MJ

#102 - Another Adventure with Brent

Happy November!

Autumnal change has shifted my activity patterns. Early October brought unusual rains and frigid temperatures to Cave Creek Canyon and I resigned myself that this year’s nightly road cruising was over. Nocturnal snakes became diurnal as the Arizona Sycamore leaves yellowed and the fading sun quickly brought chill. I began to spend my days hiking mountain trails not to look for reptiles and arachnids but rather reaching destination goals and exercising while taking in the fall colors in the Chiricahuas. But I also wanted to search for the autumn-breeding tarantulas of the region.

Brent Hendrixson was on yet another extended field research excursion as part of his sabbatical, and had been transversing the southwest in pursuit of tarantulas. With earlier trips focused on scorpions, he was now visiting localities of many of our American Aphonopelma tarantulas and photographing not only our theraphosid spider diversity, but also the breathtaking vistas throughout their range. I followed his progress knowing that he would make his way to my camp, and we would seek the elusive Chiricahua Mountain tarantula, and maybe sneak in some landscape photography.

Readers may recall that in late June I stumbled upon a tarantula burrow up canyon above the Southwestern Research Station and was fortunate enough to extract a very elusive spider (see blog entry #94 “An Endemic Tarantula”). This Aphonopelma chiricahua was a surprising reward on a very hot and dry June 21. You also might remember my #96, which told tales from Brent’s August visit with his summer Millsaps College course students and our trip to find another tarantula native to a Sky Island range, Aphonopelma peloncillo in the foothills of the Peloncillo Mountains. I would write up both experiences in an article for the British Tarantula Society entitled “American Mountain Endemics” (JACOBI, M. 2018. American Mountain Endemics. Journal of the British Tarantula Society 33(2): 10-16). You may download the article by clicking here.

Hopefully many of you have watched my video on Aphonopelma marxi, the namesake of the Sky Island diversity or Marxi group of U.S. tarantulas. If not, click here. This group of spiders is of particular interest to me as my passion is for the fauna and flora of our Madrean Sky Island ranges, many of which are part of the Coronado National Forest. However, the closest population of A. marxi to Cave Creek Canyon is in the Gila National Forest, north of Silver City, New Mexico. This is about a two hour drive northeast of my camp at the corral. There lies the Pinos Altos Range of the Mogollon Mountains near the Continental Divide.

During the drive up to the A. marxi site I had encountered a wandering mature male Aphonopelma hentzi just outside of Lordsburg, New Mexico. This is the United States’ most abundant and widespread tarantula and a native of the Great Plains and Chihuahuan Desert.

Aphonopelma hentzi, male, October 21, 2018

During a very recent run to Lordsburg for supplies I encountered three male A. hentzi, and the first one was very unusual. It was in great condition, which on October 21 is certainly not what you’d expect from a summer breeder that has wandered for months. Perhaps even more surprising was this spider’s location. I had never found one so far west. The two I would find on my return from Lordsburg were in the Animas Valley, east of the Peloncillo Mountains. This is where I would have expected to be the species’ westernmost limit in this area. But this guy was about one half mile from the Arizona border, west of Highway 80, between Portal, AZ and Rodeo, NM in the San Simon Valley. The other “desert” species of this area, including A. vorhiesi, A. gabeli and A. chalcodes, are also late spring through summer breeders, and those males have disappeared. Finding a “Texas Brown” tarantula so late in the year and so close to Arizona was very unexpected. In fact, the only Arizona records that Brent and his colleagues noted in their 2016 Aphonopelma revision were two females that Brent had found in Greenlee County, Arizona three miles west of the New Mexico border, about sixty miles north of my state line New Mexico male.

The mature males that interested me though, as the leaves of cottonwoods, sycamores and maples changed with the season, were a dwarf species from the desert grassland and a mountain endemic named for the Chiricahua Mountains. Aphonopelma parvum is a diminutive newly described species from southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico that is typically active in November and December. From my home in Cave Creek Canyon the population of interest would be one along State Line Road between Portal and Rodeo. And, of course, Aphonopelma chiricahua was what I would expect to be active at a similar time in the mountains, and what would be my primary target.

As Brent spent October traveling from locality to locality - and species to species - west of me, I texted him images of males I found here. The first of interest was found on October 9 just after midday crossing the road 1.6 miles from my camp, just west of Portal. Air temperature was 62ºF and the elevation 4790 ft. I considered it Aphonopelma parvum due to its small size. After all, the specific epithet of that species means “very little”. However, it was somewhat in an odd area between where I have now found A. parvum and A. chiricahua. As it was missing a leg and was thereby less ‘photogenic’, I took the above image for size reference and released him rather than saving him for Brent’s eventual arrival back in the Chiricahuas.

Aphonopelma chiricahua, mature male

On the morning of October 11 I found an even smaller male near the mouth of Cave Creek Canyon, at 4912 ft elevation, just one third of a mile down canyon from my camp. Freshly matured, this beautiful little boy was very black and had long fiery orange-red hairs on his abdomen. I didn’t record the air temperature just before 8:00 a.m. when I encountered him crossing the road, but reviewing weather data collected at the Southwestern Research Station shows that it was in the low 50s there five hundred feet higher so I expect it was in the high 50s at the entrance to the northeastern Chiricahuas. This male was collected for Brent Hendrixson’s research.

The next tarantula of note was discovered in the outdoor restroom building behind the Cave Creek Canyon Visitor Information Center (VIC). As I unlocked the men’s toilet on the morning of October 17, I found a small deceased tarantula that appeared to be an immature female. It also was collected for Brent. It was following yet another period of autumn rainfall here in the canyon and the temperature was quite chilly that morning.

On Monday morning (October 29) I drove up the mountain to hike the high elevation Crest Trail near 9000 ft. Brent had spent a few days in Phoenix and while I climbed the trail out of Rustler Park he began his five-hour drive toward Portal. The Chiricahuas had experienced several days of beautiful mild weather, with temperatures in the canyon below reaching 80ºF after fifty degree mornings, and it was reasonably warm and very sunny up among the peaks. Along my hike I saw at least fifty baby Slevin’s Bunch Grass Lizards (Sceloporus slevini) sunning themselves, a pair of Mountain Spiny Lizards (Sceloporus jarrovii) and, sadly, on the drive back down a dead-on-road (DOR) Twin-spotted Rattlesnake (Crotalus pricei). Also spotted were several Red-tailed Hawks, numerous Western Bluebirds and Yellow-eyed Juncos and many other montane birds.

I was back in the canyon by about 1pm and not too long after Brent pulled into the corral, already 8000 miles into this research road trip. On his drive south from the interstate (I-10) he had found a male Aphonopelma parvum near Granite Gap where Highway 80 passes through the Peloncillo Mountains into the San Simon Valley. After he settled in and we got caught up we decided our first adventure would be to drive out to State Line Road to a site where he had previously found A. parvum. This tiny species lives in burrows the size of a pea and they typically have excavated soil scattered to the side of the entrance.

In the video below you will see one of the females we extracted. Believe it or not, this was actually what Brent considered a “HUGE” female. We were able to find several of these tiny females in a short span, but were somewhat surprised that we didn’t find any males moving about or hiding in clumps of grass. We did, however, find a Desert Box Turtle as we were leaving. We then decided to drive back north toward Granite Gap to perhaps find a male where Brent had found one earlier. Only a handful of miles north, when we were near Rusty’s RV Ranch where I lived four months last year and the first month of this season, we found a male. The images following the video clip show the female and male of this little tarantula.

Aphonopelma parvum, adult female, Hidalgo County, New Mexico

Aphonopelma parvum, adult male, Hidalgo County, New Mexico

Tuesday October 30 Brent and I explored Rucker Canyon at the south end of the Chiricahua Mountains. I had never visited the area and was looking forward to seeing the “flatter” southern Chiris. After a pit stop farther south in Douglas, Arizona, we drove back up to Tex Canyon Road and west into Rucker Canyon. Brent wanted to search for a “small black tarantula” that a friend of his had reported finding in numbers while flipping rocks looking for reptiles. We flipped a lot of rocks over a couple of hours, but never saw a tarantula. However, we did find quite a number of black and red Phidippus jumping spiders (probably P. carneus), scorpions (Paravaejovis spinigerus) and centipedes. While I was sitting at a picnic table at Camp Rucker (Walnut Grove Campground) photographing two jumpers, Brent went to flip more rocks and returned with an absolutely huge jumping spider feeding on a grasshopper. The spider’s abdomen was already huge, but its gluttony apparently had no bounds. Brent was able to carry it to me on the stick where it was perched devouring the insect.

GLUTTONY: Phidippus vs. grasshopper

We left Rucker Canyon and found our way west and then north up the west side of the Chiricahuas and headed toward Chiricahua National Monument (CNM). Several days earlier CNM’s Facebook page had a video of their Visitor Center staff releasing a male tarantula that would be Aphonopelma chiricahua. We figured that a drive through the CNM would be worthwhile and then we would drive up Pinery Canyon to Onion Saddle and back down the other side (“my side”) of the range back into Cave Creek Canyon. Not long after we passed the entrance gate we saw a male on the road, which was fortuitous as he was the only spider we would see there. We continued to drive through CNM to Massai Point where I took some photographs and then, satisfied with finding a male of our target species, we began the climb up the northwest side of the Chiricahuas. As we ascended the rugged mountain road we came upon a rafter of about a dozen Gould’s Wild Turkey. I have seen many of them over the past few days, from canyon to peaks, on both sides of the mountains. Back at camp we went out to Vista Point for some twilight landscape photography.

Cathedral Vista, Cave Creek Canyon, Chiricahua Mountains

Yesterday was Halloween and the last day of Brent’s visit. I had anticipated that we would search for A. chiricahua burrows, probably near where I had found that female in a burrow back on June 21. However, it is an extremely elusive species and Brent was discouraged by the dozen or so attempts he had made to find this species over the past decade. After being on the road staying in tent or hotel for a long stretch, he was also looking forward to getting home to Jackson, Mississippi. He decided not to spend the night and asked me what hike I would recommend. He wanted to hit the road by mid-afternoon and take a break from spider hunting by exploring one of the trails that I frequent. I suggested that we drive up to the top of the mountain back to Onion Saddle and then hike the Barfoot Lookout Trail. Brent had been up to the top before and we drove up and over Onion Saddle the previous day, but he had never seen Barfoot or Rustler Park. After four or five days of very mild “Indian Summer” weather, it was colder Halloween morning and when we got up over 7000 ft it was cloudy and I worried that the amazing views we would have from the montane trails would be obscured by the fog. However, after driving into Rustler Park and showing him the area where our hiking club had encountered a tarantula at over 8500 ft. ten days earlier, and then driving to Barfoot Park and giving him a tour there, the cloud cover was parting a bit. Although it was a crisp 40ºF there at 8400 ft. and we were both wearing shorts, we at least had vests or flannel shirts and decided to stick to hiking the Lookout Trail. After our hike we drove down the mountain and before we descended to Onion Saddle Brent shouted for me to stop. Even though it was pretty cold I had been scanning the road for snakes, as I had seen that dead-on-road Twin-spotted Rattlesnake two days earlier. But before he jumped out of my truck Brent said, “I think I saw a tarantula”. Sure enough, there in the road was an adult male Aphonopelma chiricahua. It was not even half the size of the one we found in CNM the day before!

It is not uncommon for high elevation populations of animals to be considerably smaller, and we discussed the miniaturization of species with altitude. I suggested we pull off the road and walk around a bit and see if we found any other spiders. Brent began flipping roadside rocks and I walked back up the road looking in the ground litter on each side of the road for burrows. After a short period of time I called out to Brent that I had found another male! This one was curled up on top of a grass tussock and was in even better condition than the male Brent fortunately saw on the road. He also was very small - perhaps an inch and a half in diagonal legspan. As I showed Brent where I found him I began to closely examine a variety of wispy grass that covered much of the road shoulder. Before long I had found two small holes that weren’t much larger in diameter than the Aphonopelma parvum holes we had extracted females from two days earlier. They weren’t covered with silk and I wasn’t initially certain they would be tarantula burrows, but they were perfectly round and very clean and I soon became hopeful. Both holes were partially obscured in the middle of a patch of this fine grass. Brent began to flood the burrow and we were greeted by the forelegs of a tarantula! He poured a little more water and as it rose again and protruded from the burrow mouth a bit more, Brent used his other hand to scoop beneath the spider with a small trowel and our gorgeous prize, a surprisingly small adult female A. chiricahua, was out in the open. Below she is in all her glory, photographed later on my camp’s picnic table. After the image is another short video clip of Brent handling the spider in the field.

Aphonopelma chiricahua, adult female, 7765 ft., Chiricahua Mountains

The second burrow I discovered was also occupied by A. chiricahua. It was a smaller immature spider. So Brent’s ‘day off’ from searching for tarantulas suddenly had - so far - resulted in four specimens of the one species to elude him for some time. To quote his social media post when he posted his own photograph of this beautiful female: “Long story short: this was the find of a lifetime! I have spent more than a decade looking for this incredible spider and TODAY was the day! I present to you an adult female Aphonopelma chiricahua from Cochise County, Arizona. Many thanks to @jacobipix for finding the burrow and giving me a place to crash for a few days!”

Brent now had three males (two little guys from our high elevation ‘hotspot’ and the much larger male from CNM), one mature ‘high altitude’ female and a bonus immature. But we weren’t done. After returning down to my camp (after passing a troop of eight White-nosed Coati), I needed to drop something off at the post office so we drove into Portal and very close to where I had found the little male back on October 11 we found yet another male!

Today November begins and after training a new VIC host the next two days I will only have a few Saturdays remain as a VIC host. I’ll be staying until the end of the month, but have plenty of free time and also time to do some other non-hosting projects at the VIC. My tentative plan is to put winterize the Wheelhouse on November 30 and move it to storage at Rusty’s RV Ranch. Brent intends to fly back to Arizona for the first week of December to look for a couple of other late fall-winter active Aphonopelma (A. paloma, A. superstitionense) and we discussed me joining him. Then I will return to Chicagoland for a few weeks prior to my January Malaysia trip. And then perhaps back to Cave Creek Canyon in March?

#98 - Another Visit

I hadn't seen Chad Campbell in far too long. I tend to lose touch with people even in the best of times, and heading out to live on the road at the beginning of 2017 didn't lessen that propensity. Still, more sociable people can always reach out to solitary me, so I am never willing to take all the blame. And Chad did just that with an unexpected text asking whether I'd pick him up in Phoenix if he landed there. I have no clue how long it had been since we'd had any contact other than liking each other's Instagram posts, but it didn't affect my reply. I told him Tucson or El Paso were cool as they are 2.5 and 3 hours away, respectively, but Phoenix (5 hours) was a no.

Chad and a Green Chile Cheeseburger at the Portal Cafe

There is a very, very short list of people that have an open invitation to visit me and Chad certainly was on it, but after a few casual mentions last year to a few of the honorees of that mental list, I really didn't talk to anyone at all this year. As you read in the previous blog entry, my bonus dad Joel just visited and we had arranged that trip even before I left his house the day after his birthday in mid-April. He was set to spend my birthday here with me the first week of August and, other than visits by my arachnologist friend Brent Hendrixson, I didn't anticipate any other visitors. But Chad was itching to return to Arizona after his previous visits to Tucson for American Tarantula Society conferences that have since fizzled out, and without much hesitation he bought his plane tickets and I scrambled to switch with other volunteers to free up my schedule not one week after I had taken an entire week off from the Cave Creek Canyon Visitor Center in the northeastern Chiricahua Mountains to spend all my time with Joel.

Jump ahead to another trip to Tucson the night before picking up a guest. Again I wanted to road cruise for sidewinder rattlesnakes, and this time a guy I met through Instagram had recommended a road west of the one I had cruised the night before I picked up Joel. Heading out past the Old Sasco Ruins through rugged Sonoran Desert into a stormy dusk, I truly felt in the middle of nowhere. Just off the interstate the town of Red Rock, Arizona is new modern suburbia, but quickly the cookie cutter adobe family homes give way to sandy desert grassland scrub. Then, out of nowhere, I came upon a massive feed lot and sights and smells that will turn you off of beef for life. Thousands upon thousands of cattle stood shoulder to shoulder and I looked away and picked up the pace before the strong odor became too much. The pavement then ended and the dirt road soon disappeared into saguaros reaching toward the purplish gloomy sky and I was swallowed by the desert. I was glad there was still light so I could read the warning signs about road closures, flash flooding, federal agents and more, and I drove deep into the desert between the mountains and back out to learn the area before darkness. The road had many steep dips that recent rains had filled with water and rocks and several crossings were of great concern. One held as much water as I'd ever want to drive my truck through (and I did it four times) and another was very wet but also very rough with big rocks that had washed into the crossing. There were many "stream crossings" and quite a bit of rough road. That night I tested my truck more than any other.

Portrait of that night's Sonoran Desert Sidewinder (Crotalus cerastes cercobombus)

Sonoran Desert Toad (Incilius alvarius), one of several from my Old Sasco Road adventure.

Flashing forward once more, the next morning I was back at Tucson International Airport early enough for a local beer. As I finished up and started towards Chad's arrival, he texted me that he was already outside having a cigarette, his very short flight from Phoenix arrived early. His first request, even before he had left Minneapolis, was that we head from the airport directly to In 'N Out Burger, the legendary West Coast fast food icon. Then it was off to a giant liquor store I had scouted the day before for a connoisseur's collection of West Coast India Pale Ales for Chad, plus a small selection of lagers for me including not only Grand Canyon pilsner but my beloved Imperial from Costa Rica. Then we headed east to Willcox for groceries and on to an area known to contain two tarantula species, which Chad had explored a couple years prior during one of his Tucson visits. Rain shortened our time - and unsuccessful search - at the tarantula site, and we pushed on back here to Cave Creek Canyon. Chad would be the first visitor to actually bunk in my Wheelhouse and we had groceries and beer to stow and food to grill. But first Chad unpacked some very generous birthday gifts he had hauled all the way from Minneapolis, incurring overweight bag charges in the process in order to bring me some special beverages and a coffee cup. There were two imperial stouts and a giant Ziploc bag containing eight pint cans of one of my personal favorites brewed in Minneapolis - Indeed Brewing Company's Mexican Honey Imperial Lager.

Chad's visit was only from midday Friday to midday Tuesday so we were working with limited time. Chad wanted to see tarantulas and rattlesnakes most and that he did. Saturday we made a trip into New Mexico and down into the Peloncillo Mountains to search for the tarantula I had pursued with Brent and his students only a couple weeks earlier. Successful in finding that special American spider again, I then took him to the scorpion site where I had taken four of Brent's students. 

Aphonopelma peloncillo, a Peloncillo Mountains endemic

Chad had only seen Western Diamondback Rattlesnakes before, and he added quite a few more of those to his life list, plus many more first-time ('lifer') Mohave Rattlesnakes and one special encounter with the third species of our trip, my favorite, the Black-tailed Rattlesnake. And he found it himself! I had taken up South Fork Road and South Fork Trail in search of the Elegant Trogon, the rare bird people come from around the world to see here, and - though we didn't find the trogon - during a search of a cabin for jumping spiders Chad found a young blacktail a few feet off the ground, nestled in the rock exterior rock wall. The snake didn't move as we took in situ photos of how we found it, including the smartphone image to the left, and then Chad returned to my truck which was parked nearby to get the rest of our needed camera gear and one of my snake hooks. Black-tails are usually placid rattlesnakes and this yearling snake certainly was very cooperative as I then moved it onto a nearby group of flat rocks so that we could photograph it further. 

Chad's "lifer" Western Black-tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus)

Another snake that Chad had repeatedly mentioned that he was hoping to see was a kingsnake. We have two here, the tri-colored Mountain King here in the mountains, and the Desert Kingsnake in the foothills and surrounding desert. Both can be very elusive so it was quite a thrill when one night's road cruising, the night we went down to the Peloncillos, included this beautiful black-hooded king.

Desert Kingsnake (Lampropeltis splendida), Hidalgo Co., New Mexico

Chad and I share a love of jumping spiders and he has become quite accomplished at doing true single-exposure macrophotography of jumpers using the same 1:1 100mm Tokina macro lens I use plus a 2.5X magnifier and a special light set-up. We were fortunate to find quite a few special jumping spiders during his visit. One was at almost 8400 ft elevation at Barfoot Park, and we also found cool jumpers right at my camp at the corral and a number of photo sessions took place on my picnic table.

Chad photographing a jumping spider in the high elevation mixed conifer forest of Barfoot Park

One of Chad's images from the above photo shoot (Phidippus toro, female) © Chad Campbell

On Chad's last night here, we went for another dinner at Portal Cafe and then Chad chose to return to the corral to enjoy some beer, conversation and image processing over another night of road cruising for snakes. But on the way back into the canyon we were destined for one more snake during his visit, which he called his "snake-cap", and it was a special one at that.

Our "snake-cap", adult Sonoran Lyre Snake (Trimorphodon lambda)

I don't know where I'll be next year, but if I am in the Chiricahuas I am hoping Chad will return and bring his girlfriend April with. We even talked about getting a small gathering of mutual friends together for more herping and spidering fun and more connoisseur brews and good food. 

This "spirited" Mohave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus) put on quite the show for Chad as it tried to "kiss" me

#97 - 54 - Adventures with Yet Another

2300 miles, 25 or so live rattlesnakes, 54 years. One amazing visit.

Three French hens, two turtle doves. And a trogon in a sycamore tree.

Those are just few of the numbers from my birthday week, which began two days before the 5th when I drove to Tucson to look for sidewinder rattlesnakes that Friday night before picking up my stepdad Joel from the airport midday Saturday.

2.5 hours to Tucson, an oil change, Wing Stop lunch and an afternoon escape-the-heat matinee of Mission Impossible - Fallout later, I was at the Motel 6 North Tucson.

That night I found my lifer Sonoran Desert Sidewinder. The next morning another lifer - this time a Sonoran Desert Tortoise.

Sonoran Desert Sidewinder (Crotalus cerastes cercobombus), Pinal County, Arizona

Morafka's or Sonoran Desert Tortoise (Gopherus morafkai), Pima County, Arizona

Then it was the airport and a scenic drive up the Catalina Mountains, followed by some Tucson shopping, groceries in Willcox and a dusk check-in for Joel at Rusty's RV Ranch. A short time later it was Joel's lifer rattlesnake as I spotted a Western Diamondback on the roadside only five minutes after leaving Rusty's to take him into the Chiricahuas for the first time. In the excitement I shooed it off the highway without capturing an image, but Joel got the thrill of seeing me move it from the road and see it slither into the desertscrub. As we entered Cave Creek Canyon it was rattlesnake number 2, a Western Black-tailed that a couple of guys had discovered. We asked if we could join them so Joel could see my favorite rattlesnake. It wasn't necessary as he'd see a few more during the adventures to come.

My diary will get fuzzy here as we did so much it would be impossible for me to recount it all chronologically without overlooking something. The snakes are a blur. So I'll forge ahead to the next day - Sunday the 5th, my 54th birthday. I had something different planned and our final destination was the wild west town of Tombstone, Arizona. First there was a stop in Douglas to see the wall between that city in extreme southeastern Arizona and Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico on the other side. Then we headed west along the wall, on to Bisbee for coffee and, finally, were walking the dusty cowboy streets of Tombstone. A beer at Doc Holliday's Saloon, some shopping and then lunch at Big Nose Kate's Saloon and before long we were back in Bisbee to have a beer at Old Bisbee Brewing Company. Back in the Chiricahuas for dinner time we grilled up steaks at my corral.

Road cruising followed, as it did every night, and Joel saw Diamondbacks and the deadly Mohave Rattlesnake, which would be the most frequently encountered snake over the week and two dozen rattlesnake engagements. In fact, we saw the largest Mohave I've seen one night in a very unexpected location. But of all the snakes the one we both will remember most is a big beauty of a Western Black-tailed that was crossing the primitive mountain road at 7500 feet elevation in the early afternoon. My goal for the week was always to get a photo of Joel with a rattlesnake. I didn't want him to get too close, but I think this image speaks a thousand words.

This beast was a spectacular example of the species that is my favorite rattlesnake both for its beauty, habitat and fairly gentle disposition. When a carload of birders descended the mountain road I had already moved it off the road, but I asked them if they wanted to stop for photos. It was a rare moment of wanting to share the joy of the experience and the majesty of the snake.

Portrait of a Beauty

Western Black-tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus), Chiricahua Mountains

Beast Mohave

Mohave Rattlesnake (Crotalus scutulatus), San Simon, Arizona

Other adventures included a trip up the mountain road over the top of the mountain to descend through Pinery Canyon to the northwestern side of the range for a visit to the Chiricahua National Monument. This special place has incredible rock formations - pinnacles, hoodoos, balancing rocks. We took in views like the one below at Massai Point, but then would take perhaps our most arduous hike of the week when we summited Sugarloaf Mountain.

Joel at Massai Point in the Wonderland of Rocks - Chiricahua National Monument

While we were at Massai Joel had asked what the structure atop a distant peak was. I had to look at it through binoculars and then I looked at the map and figured it out. He had no idea what was in store for him when I drove to the parking lot trailhead.

The trail was only one mile or so each way, but it climbed about 500 feet to an elevation of 7400 ft and was often steep and slippery.

Another adventure was our first birding trip. I wanted Joel to see the Elegant Trogon, the bird people come here from around the world to see, the Mexican bird that perhaps numbers only 60 in the United States. We parked in a prime area and I got out and only moments later was pointing out the dazzling male above us. I hadn't walked six steps. Good fortune smiled on us.

Each day we hiked, dined, road cruised. We were constantly on the move except one afternoon in Rusty's swim spa relaxing with a cold cerveza.

Snakes, birds, snakes, snakes. Tarantulas, vinegaroons, scorpions. More hikes. Each day was filled with activity and as the week began to wind down I asked Joel if he was interested in a road trip. I thought perhaps he'd want to see somewhere else in the southwest and we decided to limit it to a three hour drive. I mentioned a few options, but the one that immediately was of interest was Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument north of Silver City, New Mexico. I had visited the Gila National Forest in the region a few times last year, but had never gone to the Cliff Dwellings. It was pretty spectacular. I admittedly am not one for history and historical sites, but at the Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument you can actually enter the cliff dwellings unguided and see where Mogollons lived for twenty years or so in the late 1200's. It was certainly worth the trip and the winding and climbing scenic mountain drive there and back added to the experience.

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

Gila Cliff Dwellings National Monument

It was an action packed week that left me exhausted. Saturday morning I picked Joel up one last time at Rusty's and we made the 150 mile trip to Tucson Airport. Then I turned around and headed home with a brief stop in Willcox for a few groceries and some lunch. As I type this Monday afternoon I am preparing to head to Tucson again Thursday. I will once again spend an evening looking for sidewinder rattlesnakes and then Friday morning pick up my buddy Chad at the airport for his five day visit. I'll close now leaving y'all with a short video of me wrangling one of the beautiful black-tailed rattlesnakes Joel got to see during visit. I don't usually have a cameraman so it was nice to be on the other side of the lens and get some memories captured. Below the video I'll post a list of just some of the animals Joel got to see during his week.

MJ wrangling a Western Black-tailed Rattlesnake (Crotalus molossus) in the Chiricahua Mountains.

Snakes: Western Black-tailed Rattlesnake, Mohave Rattlesnake, Western Diamondback Rattlesnake, Sonoran Lyre Snake, Sonoran Whipsnake, Mexican Hog-nosed Snake

Lizards: Yarrow's Mountain Spiny Lizard, Striped Plateau Lizard, Sonoran Desert Whiptail, Clark's Spiny Lizard, Crevice Spiny Lizard

Amphibians: Mexican Spadefoot Toad

Invertebrates: Vorhies' Tarantula, Desert Blonde Tarantula, Devil Stripe-tail Scorpion, Vinegaroon, Dung Beetle

Mammals: Black Bear, Coue's Desert White-tailed Deer, Mule Deer, Coati, Rock Squirrel, Coyote, Mexican Long-tongued Bat

Birds: Elegant Trogon, Blue-throated Hummingbird, Rivoli's (Magnificent) Hummingbird, Rufous Hummingbird, Black-chinned Hummingbird, Broad-billed Hummingbird, Broad-tailed Hummingbird, Acorn Woodpecker, Arizona Woodpecker, Mexican Jay

AND SO MUCH MORE ...

#94 - An Endemic Tarantula

For the ten years prior to beginning my road odyssey last year, most of my travel had been to exotic locales in search of tarantulas. Costa Rica, Suriname, Sri Lanka. These were destinations chosen for tarantula field work. Even Malaysian holidays had a primary focus on tarantula hunting. Even going back over thirty years, my road trips to Texas had an arachnological mission.

True, snakes and other reptiles were my primary distraction and deviation, and more than once on that first Costa Rican adventure in 2006, my mate and field trip leader Andrew Smith tried to rein in my desire to chase things that slither with commands of "Tarantulas, Michael, tarantulas!". Now an avid birder and wildlife photographer who often has mammals or other charismatic megafauna in the lens, I'd like to think that I was always a generalist naturalist. I love nature in all its forms. As enthralled as I was by the gorgeous red-legged tarantula (Megaphobema mesomelas) in Costa Rica, the world's largest spider in Suriname (Theraphosa blondi) or my beloved tiger spiders (Poecilotheria sp., ornamental tarantulas) in Sri Lanka, along those journeys Costa Rican hummingbirds enchanted, Surinamese labaria vipers thrilled and a fortunate sighting of a leopard in Sri Lanka amazed. Do I even need to mention orangutans and tree vipers in Borneo, or dusky leaf monkeys and hornbills in Malaysia?

Still, my tarantula-obsessed friends have wondered why my Instagram feed and blog entries have neglected the tarantula. Andrew has emailed me inquiring as to whether I do any tarantula hunting. In truth, last year I paid more attention to scorpions than tarantulas, and much more time was spent in pursuit of rattlesnakes. This year I am all over the place, chasing microfauna like robber and owl flies one moment and bears, bobcats and even the mountain lion the next. For the past two years, with only a few exceptions like the Rio Grande Gold Tarantula (Aphonopelma moderatum) in Texas or the beautiful Aphonopelma marxi tarantula from north of Silver City, New Mexico, both of which were female spiders I observed in burrows, the only tarantulas I have encountered have been wandering mature males found here in southeastern Arizona and southwestern New Mexico while out road-cruising for snakes.

It isn't that I have forgotten tarantulas. It is just that, firstly, this rugged area frustrates tarantula hunters and, secondly, I have many interests. Searching grasslands and desert scrub for burrows for the more abundant species in this region is hard work, so I guess an argument could be made for a third factor: laziness. Admittedly, a fourth reason could be collector bias for sexy spiders. When you've seen stunning tarantulas like Megaphobema mesomelas in Costa Rica and Poecilotheria subfusca in Sri Lanka, the local "brown jobs" like the local Aphonopelma gabeli and A. vorhiesi honestly don't have the same allure.

But let's get back to the first reason. My experience tarantula hunting in this region is limited, but my friend, arachnologist Dr. Brent Hendrixson, knows the tarantulas of the American Southwest better than anyone and has spent years and years searching for them. He has told me repeatedly that they can be very difficult to find. Many make their burrows beneath rocks or in scrapes where flipping rock after rock becomes the search method. Did I mention my laziness? At night I'd rather road cruise for snakes or black light for scorpions (the former enhanced by air conditioning and music; the latter makes finding scorpions rather effortless), and during the blazing heat of the day I can't bring myself to walk alone through the desert turning rocks.

However, there is one tarantula in the region that began to intrigue me. By now every reader should know of my deep love for the Chiricahua Mountains and that this year I am actually living right in the mountain range's Cave Creek Canyon. I have spent little time out in the surrounding flatlands. Most of my time is spent at 5000' or above, from the pine-oak woodlands of the rocky canyons and adjacent riparian zones up to the coniferous forests at 7500' and higher. And there is a newly described species of tarantula that lives in the Chiricahuas from 5000-8000'.

Aphonopelma chiricahua was described in 2016 by Brent and his two co-authors in a complete revision of the American species in the genus (all U.S. tarantulas belong to the genus Aphonopelma, but the genus reaches Central America). Their paper created many synonymies drastically reducing the number of species in the United States (currently 29), but it also established a number of new species endemic to specific localities (primarily Sky Islands) including Aphonopelma chiricahua, which occurs only in pine-oak woodland and mixed conifer forests here in the Chiricahuas.

Last week I encountered my first wandering males of the season while driving Portal Road at night. I was returning to Cave Creek Canyon from road-cruising out in the desert and found two males - the first just west of Portal and the second a little over a mile later closer to the entrance to the canyon. They looked freshly molted and I sent images to Brent for identification help. Mature male A. gabeli and A. vorhiesi look very similar, but it was the time of year that made him think it was probable they were the former species, which matures and breeds earlier than the late summer breeding A. vorhiesi. I had found plenty of both last year, and seeing my first males of the year stirred a desire to find something else. Yes, to tarantula hunt once more! Brent was on the road doing his own tarantula hunting in New Mexico and Texas during our conversations, and while I waited for replies I spent a good deal of time re-reading pertinent sections of the 340 page generic revision he co-authored. It reminded me that the "Arizona blonde" tarantula A. chalcodes is even found in this region (Brent found a male on the road to nearby Paradise that I drive frequently), which made me further bemoan how unlikely it was for me to find a female of any species in its burrow. But what really enticed me was the section on A. chiricahua.

The endemic species in the Chiris was described from only a handful of specimens. The male holotype (a single type specimen upon which the description and name of a new species is based) was actually caught by a retired biologist who is now an area realtor and is well-known to me. That was surprise number one. This male was found at 5083 ft. elevation on the road only a mile up canyon from the corral where my Wheelhouse is camped. Surprise 2. I then learned that the female paratype (additional specimens in the type series, other than holotype, used to describe a species) was from the area surrounding the Southwestern Research Station of the American Museum of Natural History (SWRS). It was collected at 5436 ft. and had been preserved for years at Auburn University in Alabama. The species description of Aphonopelma chiricahua in Hamilton, Hendrixson & Bond, 2016 was accompanied by no photo of a live female. An additional male was designated as paratype and, in total, eight specimens were examined for the species description within the Aphonopelma revision/monograph. The paratype female was the only female. The highest elevation male came from 8432 ft. near Rustler Park. 

Surprise #3 was that this species breeds in autumn. That meant that I wasn't going to come across wandering males this summer. My personal correspondence with Brent made me aware that he knows of females being seen on the roads during summer, presumably flushed out of their burrows during the summer monsoon rains. I began to hope I would be lucky enough to find one.

Jump ahead to this past Thursday, better known as the first day of summer. My previous blog entry recounted my experience that morning observing a behemoth of a black bear on the road just up canyon from the corral. What happened after the bear sighting is what concerns us here. As I have mentioned many times in many blog entries, I often don't know where I am going until I get there. I don't really plan my free days in advance. My truck is guided by whimsy. I could have easily gone hiking up on the Basin Trail in search of snakes or just walked my well-worn path on South Fork looking for Elegant Trogons and other birds. But I passed South Fork Road and then didn't turn off the forest road at the research station as I would have for the Basin Trail, Ash Spring or other popular destinations where I often hike. I decided to, for the countless time, to hunt an area above the research station for Rock Rattlesnakes. I have spent many hours in this prime location without success, but that doesn't prevent me from climbing the steep rocky hillside and shining my flashlight into likely crevices among boulder piles yet again. And this time it was in the back of my head that the location center for Aphonopelma chiricahua was also here. As the description reads, "Most specimens in natural history collections have been collected near the AMNH's Southwest(ern) Research Station".

The rock rattlesnake site is based on information from a friend who was part of a group that observed three within 30 yards of each other there during last year's SWRS field herpetology course. It is up a hillside adjacent to the SWRS, but accessed from about a mile up the road. That's about as specific as I choose to be. The steep slope has rock slides and boulder piles and is pine-oak woodland with pinyon pine, scrub oak, alligator juniper, Palmer's agave, prickly pear cactus, mountain yucca and numerous grasses, etc. After ascending to the area that looks like prime rock rattlesnake habitat and scouring the rocky terrain, I decided to continue to crest the hill and entered a grassy area at the top. I continued to hike down canyon from the highest elevation, which means towards the SWRS. I was wondering if I would find a vista where I could see the research station below. Most of my snake searching had been concentrated to a very rocky area about half the size of a football field and I have made a handful of visits this year to combine with dozens and dozens last year. This was, however, the first time I had gone all the way to the top, which reaches almost 5800 ft. above sea level and has extensive grassy flat areas. I found a large area cleared by ants and stopped to enjoy the breathtaking views of the canyon and the valley below. My mind turned to spiders and I began criss-crossing the top of the hill looking for any small creature to photograph. My camera had my macro lens and ring flash on it and I flipped some rocks looking for a subject. Always hoping for a snake or lizard, any beetle, bug or spider would do.

I hadn't hiked with my attnetion focused on the ground for more than a few minutes when I stopped in astonishment. There in my path on what seemed like a well-worn animal trail was a perfect tarantula burrow covered in silk. The species description of A. chiricahua is based on limited natural history information. It states, "Very little is known about the natural history of this elusive species. No burrows or shelters have been observed but these spiders probably seek refuge under rocks and rarely place silk around their burrow entrances". Elusive. Little known. I was very excited as I realized that this must be the spider and here I had found a perfect burrow near the type locality. The morning sun was rising fast and with a high temperature of 100F predicted I was hot, sweaty and tired from my climb. But I forgot all as I dropped to my knees and photographed the "textbook" silk-covered burrow. Perhaps the "rarely place silk" was presumptuous.

Only a tarantula burrow looks like this. There was no question what lived inside.

There are several ways to coax a tarantula from its burrow: flushing, tickling and digging. The latter is to be avoided as the tarantula can be injured or trapped, and it is destructive to the habitat. Furthermore, if you just want to photograph and release you are left to rebuild the retreat and it will always yield a very unsatisfactory result for the spider and alters the habitat. Arachnologists simply cannot dig perfectly round tunnels into the earth terminating in a chamber. Flushing is an easy and non-destructive means that works remarkably well in arid habitat. In essence you are simulating a flash flood and the tarantula will instinctively flee its tunnel and chamber rather than risk drowning inside. When tarantula hunting in the desert one normally carries jugs of water for this purpose. Hiking up the hillside I only had one 20 oz. water bottle and I had already drank half of it. We'll come back to "tickling" in a moment. First, we have to use a twig to brush away the silk layer the tarantula created to shade its retreat and deter pests like ants from house-crashing.

Tarantulas dig their own burrows and many are so perfectly round it is as if they were drilled by a coring machine.

With the silk removed and the hole once again photographed (yes, we tarantula hunters have far too many images of seemingly empty holes in the ground), I didn't give a moment's thought to my hydration despite my thirst and the heat. I began to pour the last ten ounces of berry flavored electrolyte-enhanced water in my possession down the hole. The orangish-brown furry legs that came forward put a big dorky smile on my face.

Aphonopelma chiricahua at the entrance to its lair

Alas, ten ounces hardly simulates monsoon rain flash flooding. The handsome rusty-brown tarantula came to see the light of day and its trespasser, but then just as swiftly retreated to darkness. I was out of flushing water and also now had nothing to quench my thirst. Two more full water bottles and backup gallon jugs were in my truck way down the hillside. So it was time to practice the art of tickling. But first, let's look at the habitat where the spider and I were spending the morning of the first day of summer.

In the center foreground you will see my walking stick inserted in the burrow when I returned later that evening to take additional photographs and record GPS coordinates lost during the excitement.

Tickling involves using anything from a blade of grass to a twig to entice the tarantula to the mouth of its burrow. There are various techniques used that range from dexterous finesse to a slightly more aggressive approach. Each of the gents I have pursued tarantulas with in the field has a personal touch. I admittedly lean toward the aggressive. Tickling can simulate a prey item and, in fact, tarantulas will often grab the twig with their jaws/fangs and can almost be tugged out of the hole. Tickling is usually accompanied by using the free hand to shade the hole so sunlight (or flashlight at night) is less likely to spook the spider. The finesse method employs brushing the forelegs and/or gently tapping the tunnel to elicit a feeding response. This brings the tarantula close to the opening, and typically requires many tries. My impatience usually gets the best of me and I tend to let the length of grass or twig go over or beside the tarantula when the opportunity arises so I can smack its little behind and encourage it to come out post haste. Overheated and without water, with the sun and temperature climbing, I relied more on the aggressive approach. I couldn't shade the hole with my free hand because I was trying to film video of the tickling with my iPhone, nine second of which can be seen below. With the glare of the sun and salty sweat running into my eyes preventing me from really seeing what was on the screen, and my heart racing with the excitement of finding this species in its burrow, the result wasn't great. 

I set down my phone for my final "tickle" and the spider came out. It was missing a leg and I couldn't help but wonder if I caused that during my sun-blinded, overly excited, aggressive tickle. Tarantulas readily autonomize their legs, which will regenerate during next molt. Within two molts the replacement leg will look like the original. With the spider out I then had to quickly decide what to do. I flattened my hand over the burrow opening to prevent reentry while I collected my thoughts. Normally I collect nothing. I might "temporarily restrain" for a later photo shoot in better conditions and later release in exact location, but I quickly realized that this specimen would be important to Brent as a research specimen. He will be visiting the Chiricahuas next month so he can take it for his own photo session. I know full well that it is likely he will pickle it for science, but I try not to dwell on that. I collected scorpions for him last year, and I resigned myself that this tarantula would be a gift to him. I would keep it alive until he and his summer field arachnology students arrive in the Chiricahuas. But, like I said, I don't collect and therefore I had no container. I had my camera, my iPhone, one - now very empty - water bottle, and my walking stick. Thankfully, my water bottle has a wide mouth lid and I put the tarantula inside. It was getting hot quickly so I hurriedly used my Gaia GPS app to find the waypoint and scrambled down the hill before the stainless steel bottle became too hot for the spider within. It wasn't until later that I discovered that in all the excitement I hadn't actually saved the waypoint. I had descended the hillside with a spider without exact location and elevation. I also descended rapidly through an unfamiliar area and wasn't sure where exactly I had been. Still, I'd have to hope I could find the burrow at a later date.

Back at my truck I grabbed a small box waiting for the trash and filled it with dirt and leaf litter from the area. I had one vacant custom tarantula home back at the Wheelhouse that was currently storing millet spray for my parrot that I would use to create a terrarium for the spider. Then I drove straight back to the corral to take some photos and build its new home. Back to WiFi, I posted the above video to my Instagram story and texted Brent. I was one happy tarantula hunter. Later that same evening, after the 100F had dropped to 90F, I returned to the hillside and tried to retrace my steps after climbing back up the rocky slope (again seeing no freaking rock rattlesnakes). I wandered a bit aimlessly for about thirty minutes once I reached the summit until I remembered the small dead tree near the burrow. It can be seen just to the left of my walking stick in the above habitat photo. Once I found that landmark, the burrow was easy to find and I was able to record the precise location. The burrow was at 5645 ft. elevation. As the crow flies it was just under three miles up canyon from my camp, almost directly north of the west side of the complex that is the AMNH Southwestern Research Station. And now I am on a quest for more. And a cricket or two to feed my new roommate ...

Aphonopelma chiricahua, 5645 ft., Chiricahua Mountains, Cochise Co., Arizona