All are welcome, all are welcome.
In the Fading Dark
Taken the day before the previous picture of a juvenile Harris’s hawk, this adult perched atop an old saguaro is part of the family group raising up the youngsters. Like most of the saguaros in the area, the tips of the arms were covered in flower buds with some starting to bloom. I was playing around with near-silhouettes of the family in the moments before the sun rose, it always took a few tries as I don’t have a remote shutter for this camera so I relied on the self-timer given the really slow shutter speed, but since the birds were turning their heads to watch the desert below I never knew which direction they’d be looking when the shutter tripped.
Morning on the Latigo
An old ocotillo, giant, sprawling. A young Harris’s hawk, calling, listening. An unseen family, listening, answering. A blue and pink sky, the sun will come, the sun will come. All is quiet save the birds, morning on the Latigo.
Not Samwise
A bobcat in our front yard, taken through the window of my office. The window makes the pictures a little odd but it’s not easy to be this close otherwise. Those teeth are a reminder that this is a predator, and indeed it captured a rabbit beside the house that morning. It may be the reason the ground squirrel who built a nest in the front yard has not been seen lately, though there are other predators too. Yesterday a pair of spiny lizards seem to have moved into the squirrel’s hole and this morning my wife saw a roadrunner had flattened itself against the ground outside the hole. I saw the female lizard later but it’s a dangerous world, in far too many ways. Theirs of necessity, ours of our own invention.
Trixie’s Second Favorite Orange Tabby
Sunday I woke early enough to go hiking but being tired and knowing I had a long week ahead I went back to sleep for a bit. So I was home but not awake when my wife and Trixie noticed a bobcat sitting on the ledge of my office window. I was up when it made its return hunting rabbits and other prey, though this time it didn’t come quite so close.
Sharply Dressed, Sharply Perched
A cactus wren is as sharply dressed as it is sharply perched as it sits atop a buckhorn cholla with saguaros towering behind. Taken in early May with flower buds starting to emerge on the tips of the cholla.
Sunrise Mask
I stood at sunrise beside one of my favorite saguaros, here with the top of the sun just tipping over the mountains and starting to bathe the desert in its red light. I don’t often remember to take self-portraits, especially not during such beautiful light that lasts literal seconds, but the composition was so close to what I was taking anyway that I couldn’t resist a quick one as a celebration of being back in this amazing place. Since I’ve had to go into work throughout the pandemic I stayed off the trails at first until the process of transmission was better understood, and now try to avoid the popular trails and wear a mask if it gets crowded (it wasn’t at this early hour, I slipped it on for the picture). This mask is from Tom Bihn, they are easy to slip on and off and quite comfortable to boot (plus they donate one for every one you buy). There’s also a free pattern if you want to make them yourself.
The backpack is from Tom Bihn as well (it’s the Guide’s Pack), it’s been on somewhere around 170 hikes with me in the desert the past couple of years, at this time of year mostly just loaded with a safety kit, medicine, trekking poles, snacks, and gobs and gobs and gobs of Gatorade. In late May this early in the morning there is just enough cool air left in the desert for long sleeves but the time is rapidly approaching when even I switch to short sleeves.
