Rudy: Join us as we visit Big Bend National Park along the Rio Grande in Texas, next on Nature Scene .

Narration: A production of South Carolina ETV.

Nature Scene is made possible in part by a generous grant from Santee Cooper where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you, members of the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.

♪ Jim: Hello and welcome to Nature Scene in the Chihuahuan Desert of Southwest Texas not far from the town of Study Butte.

I'm Jim Welch with naturalist Rudy Mancke.

It's early spring and here at Big Bend National Park, some of the plants are starting to blossom.

Rudy: And what a wonderful place this is, great variety of habitats and the Chihuahuan Desert is one of them.

90 plus percent of this desert is in Mexico but you get a good glimpse of it here.

And also you get a little glimpse of the Rio Grande and how that water changes the lives of plants and animals.

And then you've got some higher mountains here: the Chisos Mountains that we'll look at, totally different habitat there, and then a wonderful basin range geology story here, Jim, where ranges were pushed up and basins descended, volcanic activity, erosion.

I mean, all of this mixes together and creates a rather interesting place to talk about anything, and I guess we ought to start with the plants and the one that's most common around us here, and look how it's scattered, perfectly spaced.

Creosote Bush is the common name for it.

Some people call it Little Stinker, because after a rain it smells like creosote or like turpentine.

Jim: It does protect itself though by putting out a toxin.

Rudy: Yeah, the roots, actually a fibrous root system spreads around it, gathers water, and also produces toxins that keeps other plants' roots from really doing very well around it, so that gives it a little extra protection.

Water is at a premium here.

There's Ocotillo right next to us.

That's one of my favorite plants with the beautiful flowers on this time of year.

And again leaves on when there's extra moisture.

When it gets dry, those leaves will drop because you lose too much water evaporating from the leaves.

That's another plant that's made good adjustments here in the desert, and then look at the plant that's really the signature plant of the Chihuahuan Desert: Jim: Lechuguilla.

Rudy: Lechuguilla, one of the agaves.

That's an amazing plant.

To me it looks like a bunch of bananas, the leaves at the base, spine on the tip, spines on the sides, and you see in that clump, some are green, some are dead.

That plant flowers once in its life, and that's the last thing it does.

It takes a lot of energy to flower.

See the tall stalk from last year's flowers and fruit capsules still up at the top.

Jim: And over here, Rudy, over 70 cactus in the desert species.

Here are a couple right here in front of us.

Rudy: And the one with the big, big stems, and those are stems now, not leaves, one of the prickly pear cactuses.

Boy, that genus Opuntia is widespread in the United States and again, the spines, but those gorgeous flowers, yellow in that little reddish center.

And then really pretty close to it there, the strawberry cactus.

Look at the color on that.

Jim: Almost a waxy look to it too.

Rudy: The color, yeah.

The fruit is edible and you eat it raw, and doggone it, it reminds you of strawberries.

And then when you start looking out in front of us...

Remember that basin range geology we were talking about?

When the rain just came up and the basins dropped down, all that rock began to erode away from the mountain ranges.

Where'd it go?

Jim: Right here.

Rudy: To the basin.

And here's the alluvial fan that we're standing on and these plants are growing on.

Jim: Pieces of rocks from the mountains all around us.

Rudy: And look here, among the rocks.

Here's a little animal.

It's been sitting there all this time, one of the horned lizards.

Jim: Can you pick him up?

Rudy: I think this one is really pretty easy to get a hold of: Round Tailed Horned Lizard is the name.

Jim: Two and half?

Rudy: Yeah, not bad, though.

Jim: Two and a half inches or so.

Rudy: Look at that thing.

Jim: Tiny.

Rudy: Isn't that the cutest little animal in the world.

Typical of alluvial fans like this.

Jim: Color of sand and rock, great camouflage.

Rudy: Perfectly designed, really, to live in an environment like this.

Look at the spines coming off the back of the head, Jim, giving it that name: horned lizard.

A lot of times people call this a horned toad.

But certainly this is a reptile with scales and dry skin.

His eye keeps watching me a little bit here.

This one doesn't have external ears, which is another adjustment to living in very sandy soils.

Look at that little guy.

And the tail is, you know, nice and round and you see it's banded.

This thing feeds almost exclusively on ants.

It's not very fast, but neither are ants, and it'll settle down, the ant never notices it, and all of a sudden the rock eats you, so to speak, thinking from the ant's standpoint.

[wind blowing] Neat little animal.

Jim: Wind is helping us to stay cool.

Will it help him on the round as well?

Rudy: Well to a degree, just a wonderful little...

It almost looks like dinosaur, really miniature dinosaur.

Jim: Hard to believe that dinosaurs did roam here once upon a time.

Rudy: Look at him right there.

Let's get started.

♪ Walk on these flat alluvial fans.

They seem to go on forever, and seem to be so dry.

And then when you come to a place like this, the world opens right up.

And you realize there has been water in here.

Jim: 802,000 acres in the park and so many different things to look at.

Rudy: Boy, mountains rising in the distance, a lot of igneous rock in the distance, maybe a little bit of sedimentary stuff here.

It looks like it's layered.

And then you see where water has done its work.

Now there really are no streams down there right now.

They're just dry washes, but that fills with water when the rains come and just takes this material and carries it on down to the Rio Grande in the distance.

Water rearranging the world.

There is power in the rain drops.

♪ Jim: Spectacular cliffs over there of some sedimentary, Rudy!

What, sandstone or limestone or a combination?

Rudy: Mainly limestone rock that has been uplifted, rather obviously there.

Boy, what a spectacular view!

And then what makes it even better, we said that water rearranges the world.

Well, this is clear proof of that.

Santa Elena Canyon there with the Rio Grande River, cutting through that limestone rock.

And, of course, that's the border between the United States and Mexico here at Big Bend.

Jim: One of three canyons here in the park itself.

And that canyon runs about 10 miles through that formation.

Rudy: It's amazing!

See, the age of the rock up there that we're looking at is about 100 million years old or so, Cretaceous age anyway.

Jim: Laid down during that great ocean when it covered this area?

Rudy: Right, when it covered this part of what's now the United States.

And then when basin range geology began and faulting, like we've already talked about, has occurred, well, there's a fault line right there at the base.

And this stuff was shoved up about 3000 feet.

So this is material that rose.

Material on this side sank in the ground, slumped into that basin.

And guess what?

As the material moved up, that ancestral Rio Grande River was cutting down at basically the same rate and creating a steep walled canyon that's just as clear as clear can be.

Nature constantly rearranging the world.

I mean, it's never so obvious.

The power of water, and again, this is 24 hours a day, seven days a week, little bits at a time.

As it was rising, you were cutting down at the same rate.

Jim: Beautiful blue sky behind, but this typifies Big Bend too because the 112 mile curve of this area comes around the Rio Grande and forms this section.

Rudy: You can see from here now water does make a difference.

We were in a very dry situation a moment ago.

Here's a riparian area along the river, flowing fresh water, the world's gonna change once we walk down.

Let's head down there by the river next.

♪ Rudy: Sandy deposits here now closer to the river.

And boy, what a difference water makes.

Jim: Well, the second of three very excellent zones in terms of habitats with animals and plants, much different, of course, from the desert itself.

Rudy: Well, we said that water rearranges the world by physically moving rock around.

It also supplies good habitat for quite a few plants.

The one that dominates here is one of the grasses.

Giant Reed is one of the common names for it.

Sends up those branches with leaves, the stem is underground, and, I guess, to some degree supports the alluvium here, keeps it from falling in when the river gets up, but that's a plant you find all over the world.

It's cosmopolitan, widespread.

I see also down there salt cedar.

Now here's a non native species that in the west has basically taken over the world.

Really, we brought it over early 1800's from the Mediterranean region.

Jim: Tamarisk?

Rudy: Tamarisk is another name for it, salt cedar.

Fire cedar is another name.

Really if you look at the flowers, they, they're not fire engine red, but they have that pink look oftentimes, so maybe that's the term 'fire cedar.'

And then I see right down there, look at the mesquite.

Now, we see large mesquite trees every now and then here, and look, the flowers are on.

Yellow flowers, groups of flowers in place providing nectar and pollen for quite a few insects.

Now that's a tree that you expect to see in this part of the United States.

And usually when you see it, it's close to water.

Even if it's out in the desert, you go check it out, that tree is fairly close to a low area where water holds up a little bit more and the root system goes down 100, you know, a couple 100 feet or more to get to water.

Jim: That's a honey mesquite?

Rudy: Honey mesquite, thorns on it.

You see it does protect its investment of water.

We said earlier that, that's the trick out here is to gather water if you are a plant and hold it.

Now look right under the mesquite.

Look at this, look at the roadrunner!

Right there!

Right there!

Look at him!

Jim: Oh, my goodness!

Rudy: Look at that big beak!

Bet he catches a lot of lizards with that thing.

That's a neat bird.

Jim: A close up look too.

You can see coloration that I've never noticed before.

Rudy: On the side of the head there, does more running than ever flying.

And then I see another one.

Look over here, close to it, under the mesquite again that area, there's another one, preening, both of them, and this one, look at him, opening his mouth and panting a little bit.

It's a hot day and that's one way those birds cool off, by letting water evaporate from the linings of their mouth.

Jim: Chief food reptiles, snakes, small snakes.

Rudy: Yeah, lizards and snakes mainly running around.

Look at him moving around the bush, chasing each other maybe.

I don't know what's going on.

Jim: Very comical.

>> Yeah, those are neat animals.

Jim: Oh, look at the white-winged dove.

Rudy: Oh, yeah, there's another bird that's typical of this area.

Often you'll hear it calling in the distance but the white, bright white on the wing.

No question about the common name white-winged dove there.

And you see now that's a seed eater so he's just flipping his beak here and there trying to pick up seed that probably were left, you know, by the river last time it got up here high.

Jim: 434 birds so far counted here in the species in the desert, and of course, the three zones account for much of that.

Rudy: Now there are a lot of different animals here.

Jim: Rudy, what's that other plant waving in the breeze?

It's a tall one, flowering right now, but not a true tree.

Rudy: Well, tree tobacco is the common name for that thing.

It's got flowers on it, those yellow tubular flowers.

And that's like the ocotillo in the sense that a lot of hummingbirds will come and take advantage of the nectar and the small insects that are in those tubular flowers.

That's a non native plant, now, South American.

It does very well in this part of the United States.

And believe it or not, people used to smoke the leaves.

So the name tree tobacco makes pretty good sense.

Jim: This breeze feels nice.

It does get breezy here at the end of March, of course.

A very dry season in the desert.

The wettest is mid summer.

Rudy: Well, it feels good in the hot weather to have a little bit of breeze.

I thought I noticed something down here when we walked up.

Look at this little thing.

Jim: That's a monarch.

Rudy: Not alive anymore, but this butterfly really has an interesting story to tell.

Jim: Rather sad, Rudy, but this monarch didn't make it.

Rudy: Well, these things migrate.

Most of the ones in the United States and Canada migrate to Central Mexico, you know, a couple of valleys to spend the winter.

Migration doesn't always work.

And this one didn't make it back probably, because they should have turned for home.

Look at the markings.

This is a butterfly that's really well known, I think, all over the United States because of the orange on the wings and the black.

And then those white spots.

Look at that thing!

And big and a very, very sturdy flyer because it's the one that really is known for migrating great distances.

Few of the pieces are missing.

No question about that.

This is the monarch butterfly.

Jim: One of the many kinds of butterflies, one of the larger ones as well.

Rudy: Yeah, that's pretty easy to identify even on the wing.

Let's put it down here and get closer to the Rio Grande.

♪ Big Bend really does have a lot of variety.

I like that.

So much to see here!

Jim: Geologically and even biological stories, the history too, this Terlingua Creek area we're crossing over this wash.

There's a story in 1860 of the Camel Caravan where the US Army tested camels here in the Chihuahuan, and the men were dying of thirst, the animals too.

And they found this point where the Rio Grande comes through Santa Elena.

What a surprise and what a celebration.

Rudy: Oh, it's interesting the way these creeks rise and flow with the amount of water that falls, but boy, that is a beautiful view of that canyon.

Water down now, but still often roaring through, cutting out that rock and taking it and dumping it somewhere else.

Jim: How many years has this been happening?

Rudy: A long, long time, millions of years, no question about that.

And you can see when the rock came up, Jim, you can see it wasn't tilted very much.

Those beds have not been disturbed at all.

It was lifted up slowly, the river was cutting through, and a little bit of flow into Terlingua Creek.

There's the delta of Terlingua Creek right here out in the Rio Grande.

Jim: Mexico on the left, U.S., the United States right here on the right.

Rudy: And weathering rock.

Now, way down in the distance, you can see a big hunk of rock that has fallen down.

That's bigger than a house!

Weathering away from the side, falling in and disturbing, rearranging the flow of that river.

Boy, this is powerful!

Jim: Such a dramatic view and the Park Service makes it easy to get to with a road and parking lot right here beside it.

Rudy: It's hard to turn our back on something pretty, but look right in front of us now as we turn around.

I mean, there are plants here that are really doing great in a situation that's changing a lot.

I love the grass over there.

Look at that: rabbit foot grass, perfect common name for it.

No doubt about it.

If you rubbed it, it'd be fuzzy like the foot of a rabbit down low to the ground here and again out of the wind.

That'd be a good place to be.

Jim: Pretty yellow flower over here.

Which one is that?

Rudy: Desert marigold, that's pretty good common name.

It's one of the composites, you know, clusters of flowers together.

You can see the leaves are kind of covered with whitish material which reflects sunlight, keeps down the water loss, which is very, very important in these plants out in the sun here and in relatively dry areas.

And then I see another composite right over there.

And more of a sort of a purple look to those ray flowers.

Tansy-leaf aster is the name for that, typical of this part of the United States.

Jim: Flowers growing so close to the historic old Rio Grande that keeps on flowing down toward Mexico.

Rudy: Yeah, meandering off in the distance there.

That's nice!

Plenty more to see though.

Let's keep going.

♪ Well, here comes another part of the geological story that's amazing about this place.

Jim: Just off Ross Maxwell Drive, it gives the appearance of a moonscape, and yet it's all volcanic.

Rudy: Volcanic material that has really left a pretty good record here, in the form of that air fall.

Tuff, it's called.

Really, it's ash that exploded out of a volcano.

Really, there were two volcanoes active here, during the Eocene - Oligocene times 20 to 50 or so million years ago.

Jim: The Sierra Quemada and the Pine Mountain volcanoes both poured tons of it here.

Rudy: And you can just see it layered.

They are just piled up there, not so much in layers, but piled up, and then you see all of this darker rock on top that's also volcanic, but probably most of this is flow rock.

Instead of exploding out of a volcano, it just flowed.

Jim: Has a clinker-like sound when you walk on it.

Rudy: Sound is interesting and solid material.

And you see this used to be on top of more of the ash.

The ash has eroded away, and now all this stuff has fallen down, gives kind of a strange look to it, as you've already suggested.

And then, of course, sticking out above everything else is another mass of igneous rock that probably you see intruded in to other rock.

The magic of this place is that erosion has taken away a lot of rock and exposed rock that you would normally not have seen, and there it is, sticking out.

Jim: Rudy, this small intrusion over here has what looks like a tree trunk, fossilized wood.

Rudy: Looks like fossilized wood.

There are two beautiful pieces there that at first glance you would guess fossilized wood.

But that is liquid rock that has flowed in.

It can't flow into air like that.

It must have flowed into other rock or ash that's been removed.

It's really, it's a magical place here because of the erosion that has occurred.

And we said as we started, the geology here is a big part of the story, and certainly, that affects plants and animals.

Our next stop, I think we'll get a totally different view because of the geology.

Just look off in the distance there, Jim.

Chisos Mountains are next.

♪ Jim: The basin here at Chisos Mountains, totally different from down below, and Casa Grande behind us, that's over 7000 feet.

Rudy: And all this around us now volcanic rock, which is, as we've said, pretty common here.

Now erosion has exposed it a lot more than it would have been otherwise and created really a different habitat.

Jim: It's like a green, green island in a desert sea, Rudy.

Rudy: It's a coniferous forest.

Jim: It's amazing.

Rudy: You've got Mexican, Mexican Pinyon pine over there.

And you can see those distinct cones on it, flatter cones, big pine nut there that a lot of animals take advantage of, and people do.

And then also junipers, and I see at least two species here.

One of them is really a rare one.

Let's talk about the Weeping Juniper first, and I think that's a pretty good common name.

Jim: Drooping the leaves.

Rudy: It droops down if it's not getting enough water.

That's not what's going on there at all.

This is the only place in the United States you can see that species of juniper.

The rest of it is in Mexico.

That's a peripheral species here.

And then the other one that's much more widespread, Alligator Juniper is the common name for that now.

Jim: The bark looks like skin of an alligator.

Rudy: Look at that platey bark like the skin of an alligator, and that one has cones on it too, those round things there on the juniper.

Jim: This is pinyon-juniper-oak mix, I think.

Rudy: Yeah, and then a little bit of oak over there, some of the scrubby oak, some of the smaller oaks, Gray's Oak and Emory's Oak, I think, also are here, and some others.

Look at the mistletoe in one of the oaks too.

Jim: That's why it spreads.

Rudy: It's one of those parasitic plants that seems to zero in on that specific species on the hardwoods.

Moving right there, just a little, not really much, a little twitch.

>> A deer!

Rudy: A deer right there!

A little twitch right there.

Jim: Small!

Rudy: That is the White-tailed deer that up here is really the only place in the United States you're gonna see it.

It's also known in mountains over in Mexico, the Carmen White-tailed deer.

Jim: Can't be much bigger than 50 pounds.

Rudy: Not a large one is it at all, big ears on it.

And look, a beautiful healthy animal, which is not generally getting as large as other white-tailed deer.

Oh, that's neat!

This is really in a sense a little island, you see, these mountains are.

Jim: Well, they get about 20-25 inches of rain up here, twice as much as the desert.

Rudy: That's a beautiful animal.

And look over here too.

Now, here's another species that's typical of this area, another one of those agaves.

Common name for that one, Century Plant.

People believed for years that it would live a century, and then it would send up a flowering stalk and die.

They don't really last that long before they flower.

Look at the thorns on the side of that thing.

See the spines on the sides and on the end.

And then in the distance you can see one that flowered last year, and that's the last thing it does, just like the lechuguilla that we were talking about.

Jim: Grows 10-20 years, flowers, and dies, and that's it.

Rudy: Wow!

Kind of interesting to see that.

Look at the bird, dark there with a crest on it, phainopepla.

Boy, that's one that's not commonly seen anywhere but the Southwest areas, and it feeds on mistletoe fruit.

So there's a relationship there with that mistletoe we saw a moment ago.

That's another nice animal.

Now just look right in front, Northern Mockingbird sitting up there, announcing his presence there.

Jim: I heard him singing; he's been singing all along.

Rudy: That is a beautiful call and so many of them, a mockingbird.

Jim: Great mimic.

[chirping] Rudy: Scientific name for that is mimus polyglottos.

It mimes other birds in many tongues.

I think that's a beautiful scientific name.

And look at another one calling: Cactus Wren.

There's the largest wren in the United States right there.

See it?

On top, singing his heart out, curved beak, little white line over the eye.

That's a big wren!

Jim: Sure is.

[Bird chirping] Rudy: That's an amazing bird.

Jim: Look what's come close now, another wren type of bird.

Rudy: There's your Rock Wren right in front of us up on the rock, perfect place for it.

Smaller, now, than the Cactus Wren, beautiful little animal.

Look at the way he kind of pumps his body a little bit up and down.

Curved beak again.

You see that little wren-like tail with barring on the underside.

Oh, that is a neat little animal.

Jim: A little bit of streaking.

Rudy: Beautiful bird!

And doesn't seem to be bothered by us at all.

And right at the top of the tree there, Savannah Sparrow, I believe.

Get your binoculars up.

Now that's an uncommon one, just migrating through.

That's a Savannah Sparrow not seen that commonly here.

Jim: That's an accidental.

Rudy: Oh, yeah.

And look at that broad view, Jim.

Look at the window, they call it.

Looking down now on to the open basin area that we were walking on, you can imagine all this rock broken down and carried out through that window to the basin beyond.

And the plant sticking up there... See the old fruit on it that's so tall, sticking up, leaves at the base.

You see it's still alive even after it flowers.

Jim: Kind of a rosette of leaves at the base.

Rudy: Yeah, and it's really not an agave at all.

It's a different, different plant.

Jim: A beautiful sweeping panoramic view here from the window at Chisos, the centerpiece of the park.

And we've had a chance, Rudy, to visit all three habitats from the river, the desert, and here in the mountains.

Rudy: A great variety of habitats, wonderful plants and animals.

And then a marvelous geological story.

I mean, that's just a perfect mix, and we've just scratched the surface, Jim.

This is such a large place.

Jim: Big Bend National Park in southwest Texas.

It's an area the size of the state of Rhode Island.

You should come and see it for yourself and join us again on the next Nature Scene .

♪ Narration: Nature Scene is made possible in part by a generous grant from Santee Cooper, where protection and improvement of our environment are equal in importance to providing electric energy.

Additional funding is provided by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and by viewers like you, members of the ETV Endowment of South Carolina.