KOFA Mountains, Arizona

 

This is a mountain range named after a mine. The mine was the King of Arizona and the acronym became KOFA and that became the name of the mountain range in western Arizona almost on the southwest corner of Arizona. The area is designated as the Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. Here is a short history of the Wildlife Refuge from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service website.

Major Frederick R. Burnham, a frontiersman turned conservationist, observed that populations of bighorn sheep were sharply declining and appealed to the Boy Scouts to take up the cause. For two years, more than 10,000 boy Scouts and their leaders campaigned to protect bighorn sheep through a “save the bighorns” poster contest, talks, and dramatizations on the radio and at school assemblies. As a result of the campaign, land was set aside for the establishment of Kofa Game Range (as the refuge was originally known) and Cabeza Prieta National Wildlife Refuge. 

Kofa Game Range was managed jointly by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Bureau of Land Management until 1976 when it was awarded to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and renamed Kofa National Wildlife Refuge. The refuge's name was derived from an acronym for one of the area’s most notable mines, the King of Arizona gold mine.  

Kofa National Wildlife Refuge is part of the National Wildlife Refuge System, a national network of lands and waters managed for the benefit of wildlife and you. The refuge offers excellent opportunities to enjoy wildlife-dependent activities, including wildlife watching and photography, hiking, camping, and limited hunting. With more than 80 percent of Kofa National Wildlife Refuge designated as wilderness in 1990 under the Arizona Desert Wilderness Act, it offers vast lands to explore and appreciate. 

Rain over the Salt Flats, Utah

 

When the seasonal rains come to western Utah, the Salt Flats, famous for speed, flood with a few inches of water. You could easily wade across what would seem to be a very large lake. Although it looks like it might rain, after a lifetime of living in the desert, I knew that the chances were very slim that this small storm would move in our direction. When I was young and could drive a car, we used to race across the desert on dirt roads trying to catch these localized showers. If we caught one, we would stop and jump out of the car to dance in the rain. On this day, we did not get to dance in the rain. 

Shelf Fungi

 

We discovered this unusual shelf fungus along the Provo River Parkway Trail the other morning. I am fascinated by these fungi and have thought that I should have begun my studies with fungi and lichen years ago. Here is a brief explanation of these unusual fungi from Wikipedia: Polypore. 

Polypores are a group of fungi that form large fruiting bodies with pores or tubes on the underside. They are a morphological group of basidiomycetes-like gilled mushrooms and hydnoid fungi, and not all polypores are closely related to each other. Polypores are also called bracket fungi, and their woody fruiting bodies are called conks.

Most polypores inhabit tree trunks or branches consuming the wood, but some soil-inhabiting species form mycorrhiza with trees. Polypores and the related corticioid fungi are the most important agents of wood decay, playing a very significant role in nutrient cycling and carbon dioxide production of forest ecosystems.

Over one thousand polypore species have been described to science, but a large part of the diversity is still unknown even in relatively well-studied temperate areas. Polypores are much more diverse in old natural forests with abundant dead wood than in younger managed forests or plantations. Consequently, a number of species have declined drastically and are under threat of extinction due to logging and deforestation.

Polypores are used in traditional medicine, and they are actively studied for their medicinal value and various industrial applications. Several polypore species are serious pathogens of plantation trees and are major causes of timber spoilage.

A Smoky Sunset in Utah Valley

The air in Utah Valley has been filled with smoke during the past few weeks. Some of the smoke has blown in from the huge fires burning in California but some smoke also comes from local fires. When the smoke is thick, it almost obscures the sun. This is a photo of the sun just as it is disappearing behind the Lake Mountains west of Provo, Utah. 

Cormorants

 

The Double-crested Cormorant or Phalacrocorax auritus ORDER: Suliformes FAMILY: Phalacrocoracidae is fairly common throughout the United States. Here is a basic description from All About Birds from The Cornell Lab.

The gangly Double-crested Cormorant is a prehistoric-looking, matte-black fishing bird with yellow-orange facial skin. Though they look like a combination of a goose and a loon, they are relatives of frigatebirds and boobies and are a common sight around fresh and salt water across North America—perhaps attracting the most attention when they stand on docks, rocky islands, and channel markers, their wings spread out to dry. These solid, heavy-boned birds are experts at diving to catch small fish.

One cool fact from the website is as follows:

From a distance, Double-crested Cormorants are dark birds with snaky necks, but up-close they’re quite colorful—with orange-yellow skin on their face and throat, striking aquamarine eyes that sparkle like jewels, and a mouth that is bright blue on the inside. 

I spotted these birds sunning themselves next to Utah Lake in Vineyard, Utah. I am finding that taking photos with a very long telephoto lens is quite a challenge.  

Looking back near the end of the trail

There is only about a mile of paved trail along the Provo side of Utah Lake on the Shoreline Trail. The trail ends abruptly with a large water-filled ditch. At this point, we are only about four or five feet from the edge of the lake. The trail is rough and badly damaged with huge cracks. Most of the entire trail is quite rough for a street bike but this part is the worst. We take this opportunity to stretch our legs and turn our Catrikes around for the ride back to the parking lot. 

 

Really Old Wagon Wheel

When you walk around in the mountains and deserts of Utah and Arizona you find a lot of interesting things along the way. I have no idea how old this wagon wheel is but it was solid wood and has a metal axel ring. A very interesting discovery.