When Anne Vogt bought her 71-acre Wood Canyon property in 2021, she didn’t know anything about this area’s climate or habitat. She grew up in Germany, and lived in New Jersey before moving here. Anne chose Patagonia “because I wanted to live where the hummingbirds are.” Once here, she discovered more and more about the rich biodiversity around us, and her passion for habitat restoration took off.
Four years later, Vogt’s property is a showcase for what is possible in a short amount of time, both in terms of expanding plant and animal populations, and in building alliances and resources to cultivate a greater whole.
Water first
Vogt’s first major project was to build a pond and small stream with recirculating water flow. She brought in Tucson-based conservation ecologist Jonathan Horst of Baseline Shift to help with structural design and plant selection. Horst’s previous work includes eleven years with Tucson Bird Alliance.
The open water portion of the pond is about 20’ x 25’ and up to four feet deep. “The length of the pond was designed to allow bats and barn swallows to glide down and pick up insects on the surface,” Vogt explained.
What makes the pond unique is the 70-foot stream that recirculates water into the pond in a series of step pools. “From the very beginning, it was my ‘non-negotiable’ vision to have a stream like this dropping into the pond,” Vogt said. “And Jonathan executed it perfectly.”
Within a few months after planting milkweed and other flowers, the pond was buzzing with bees and butterflies, including monarchs.
“You need both nectar flowers that attract the adult monarchs and queens to lay their eggs, and then the larval food, the milkweeds, for the caterpillars to munch down,” Horst said. “If you’ve got a successful project, all the things are half defoliated.”
The pond is surrounded by its own circle of wetland, too, because the pond liner extends over a foot beyond the edge of the pool. “All of this soil, and all of these plants are inside the liner,” Horst explained, pointing to the plants ringing the pond. “That’s why we can grow the horsetail milkweed, or the spikerush, or the horsetails—all the things that normally grow right next to a stream.”
Aquatic fauna are part of the environment, too. Horst knew that Patagonia resident Gary Nabhan had established a population of endangered desert pupfish in his pond through an Arizona Game and Fish program. Vogt was able to transfer 110 of the small endangered fish from Nabhan’s pond to hers. “Jonathan really is instrumental because of his connections and relationships,” Vogt said. “A year ago, someone [from AGF] came out and approved this pond as a recognized pupfish habitat.”
Because the pond and stream is inside a one-acre fenced area around Vogt’s house, javelina and deer don’t get in to chomp down on the new growth.
“We haven’t seen any noticeable damage,” said Vogt. “The rabbits and other small rodents, and occasional skunks and raccoons, prefer to hang out somewhere else on the property where the majority of the bird feeders and another smaller open water source are.
“I did have to install a low simple fence around the pond last year as a barrier to keep my dogs from trampling down new plants around the pond, but by now, the vegetation is so thick that they won’t go in. Instead, they love to cool down in the flowing water upstream, which is not a problem.”
Oak tree preservation and restoration
Five species of oak trees are native to the Santa Rita and Patagonia mountains: Emory, Mexican blue, Arizona white, netleaf, and gray oak. Most are found on Vogt’s property, and are supported by the Wood Canyon drainage that runs through it. Oak species are under stress from overall dry conditions, and because young plants are a favorite of grazing cattle. There have been no cattle on Vogt’s property for decades, and the native grasses have thrived. “We’re lucky that all of the conditions are here to try oak savannah habitat restoration,” Horst said.
Some of the biggest oaks in Wood Canyon are on Vogt’s property along the creek wash. To protect them, and to encourage further habitat development around them, Vogt hired Borderlands’ Watershed Restoration crew to build “quite substantial erosion control structures” that restored soil around exposed roots, and slowed water flow to benefit animals and plants, including reseeded native vegetation.
“It’s really nice to walk in the creek,” Vogt said. “It is shaded in the summer with the canopy overhead. This is where the Montezuma quail hang out because of these massive oaks, with acorns and oxalis to eat underneath.”
U.S. Partners for Fish & Wildlife grant
Most recently, Vogt partnered with Horst again to land a grant from the U.S. Partners for Fish and Wildlife (PFW) program. PFW “helps private landowners create habitat for threatened, endangered or other listed species or things that are potentially going to become listed in the future,” Horst explained. “In Patagonia, the pond at the Paton Center for Hummingbirds was created with Partners for Fish and Wildlife funds for Gila topminnows. And I think Gary Nabhan’s pond, way back in the day, was created with the same funding.
“Our current project has a number of different components,” Horst said. “A big section of it is oak savannah restoration. This elevation of the foothills of the Santa Ritas, historically, would have had lots of places with big oak trees in deep soil areas where rainwater collects naturally. There’d be a lot of grass, a lot of open space, and then these dells with huge oak trees in them. You don’t find very many of those anymore, because oak trees were really valuable for lumber, and little oak trees were a favorite snack for cows.”
In November, Vogt and Horst started planting 40 baby oak trees of all five species, sourced from Spadefoot Nursery in Tucson. They were joined by U.S. Fish & Wildlife biologist Sarah Gandaría, Arizona coordinator for PFW projects.
“We’ll have 40 oaks planted in this 15 or 20 acre section where there’s nice, deep soil, and water courses flowing down. It’s a good place for them to establish,” Horst said.
A rare bluebird
Vogt is particularly excited about the nesting boxes that have attracted azure bluebirds, a vulnerable subspecies of the eastern bluebird, that is listed as a “Species of Greatest Conservation Need” by Arizona Game & Fish.
“They have nested here for two years but they weren’t successful [at reproducing] for whatever reasons,” Vogt said. “But two weeks ago, Jonathan saw three of them. And yesterday, I heard something rustling in one of the nest boxes.”
“They use them as a roost during the winter,” Horst explained.
A nesting box design study is another component of Vogt and Horst’s PFW project. They built side-by-side boxes with different entry shapes to see which the birds prefer. “Right now we have eight blue bird boxes and 20 Lucy warbler boxes with the design study,” said Vogt.
Agaves for nectar bats
To cultivate agaves and pollinator attractors, Vogt and Horst set up a fenced, irrigated nursery garden. Twenty-six agaves were transplanted from other spots on the property where they were growing close together. In addition, they planted agave seeds, as well as wild flower, pipe vine, and different types of milkweed.
Their plan is to create agave patches for the nectar bats, especially the endangered lesser long-nosed bat. In other areas where water gathers and the soil stays wet, they’ll add things like nutsedge and oxalis to the vine mesquite grass that grows there.
Fireflies lit the way
When awarding their grants, Partners for Fish & Wildlife looks closely at existing habitat features that would improve chances for success. Vogt’s existing pond was a gold star in that regard. “They saw that we had created the pond up here, and that, oh, look, all of these milkweeds are already growing,” Horst said. “There are already pollinator plants here.”
Horst and Vogt’s stretch proposal was to add breeding populations of two endangered fireflies to the project goals. “If you look on the Firefly Atlas, there are a couple of known populations near Sonoita Creek, two or three miles away.”
PFW reviewers were skeptical, wondering how fireflies from Sonoita Creek would find Vogt’s pond, a new water source. But fireflies showed up the same summer after they finished the pond. “So they were already here, but nobody had ever documented them,” Horst said.
The next question was “Where was the water (before the pond)?” Larva stages of fireflies feed on snails that require permanent water or wet soil. Vogt’s best guess was a concrete drinker installed decades ago by the previous owner that had stayed wet.
“Once PFW heard that, and Anne sent them photographs, they agreed, yeah, we can add fireflies,” Horst said. “They’re trying to make their funding go as far as possible. That’s why we have so many different species stacked into the project, between migratory birds, threatened and endangered birds, rare birds, two kinds of fireflies, bats, oak trees, and the oak habitat in general. It’s a whole bunch of things for a single, small project to stack together.”
A habitat patchwork where every piece matters
Horst and Vogt are hopeful that the oaks and agaves will grow quickly with irrigation and careful tending. Horst says the most immediate change will be in the pollinator areas. “We’re already seeing 10 or 15 different species of butterflies here along the creek,” he said. “Once we’ve got a number of big pollinator areas, I expect the number and diversity of butterflies to go way up, and probably a lot more native bee species, too.”
Vogt emphasized that every patch of improved habitat matters because they give species routes to hopscotch across our whole region. “A lot of Patagonians have beautiful pollinator flower gardens, and they make a difference.”
Horst added, “You can get a large-scale effect by having a whole bunch of people do little, tiny projects in proximity to each other. If you create [something small] and your six neighbors do the same, then you effectively created a much bigger project.” Twice the size means four times the impact for the species, he added.
Another point Horst made is, “Don’t be afraid of having a lot of the same type of plant, because sometimes in order to get discovered, a patch has to be a certain size. So sometimes you want a big cluster of the same thing, or it can be mixed together with other stuff, but you need a certain amount of, say, milkweeds together.”
“Also don’t be afraid of plants that are uncommon and don’t get used very often, especially food stage plants,” Horst continued. “A lot of people think, Oh yeah, well, if it doesn’t have a pretty flower, I don’t want to plant it. Or, if I plant it and it gets munched down, what’s the point? Well, if it’s the right plant, the point is for it to get munched down, so then you get the awesome butterflies or fireflies or whatever it is trying to attract”
The next steps for the PFW project include planting other native species for wildlife, removing encroaching mesquites, and installing more nest boxes and erosion control structures. “This project will benefit a whole suite of wildlife species including various bats, migratory birds, invertebrates, and candidate/petitioned species such as the Monarch butterfly and Southwest spring firefly,” Vogt said.
“I remain committed to do more restoration work after this specific project is completed,” Vogt said. “It will be exciting to watch the fruit of our efforts and keep learning what works well, and maybe what not. There is plenty of space and different habitats on the property for expanding the work—to be discussed with Jonathan and hopefully PFW again.”
Vogt spoke about the importance of taking the long view. “This was actually a question we got when our coordinator from PFW asked what our focus would be, realizing that when you have like a tiny, little oak tree, it will be way beyond our lifetime when they start to thrive and become really big. And she asked, ‘Are you committed? Do you also want to have oak trees as part of the project? Because you won’t see the big result.’
“Yeah, it should be beyond our lifetime,” Vogt affirmed. “Yeah, it’s a very long term thing to be patient and create something that will be here for me when I’m gone. You know, it’s an
intriguing, philosophical thought.”