Brown’s Ranch – Page 2

Green Valleys

I have this romantic notion of photographing every saguaro I can see from the trails, however there are a lot more of them than there are of me so until that changes I’ll have to settle for my favorites. I’ve had my eye on this saguaro for a while, in this little area the skin has hardened around the areoles but deep in the pleats the skin remains supple. While the Valley of the Sun isn’t known for being green, Portland certainly was, and for me the hardened skin looming over the soft flesh is an homage to the lush Willamette Valley nestled beneath the Cascades, the few areoles with spikes sticking out standing in for the occasionally irritable volcanoes.

Lovers in a Dangerous Time

A pair of mourning doves on a crucifixion thorn, one of the most common desert birds and unlike the white-winged dove, year-round residents.

Morning Prayers

A Harris’s hawk silhouetted on saguaro blossoms at sunrise, surrounded by bees. A feeding frenzy often follows when the giants bloom though I didn’t get that sense so much this year. To be fair I wasn’t able to get up early very often on the weekends this spring, on this occasion I struggled to sleep and decided to make the best of it. It was a planned short hike, soon it was back home to join my wife and Bear for a hike in a county park.

📷: Sony A6600 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: June 10, 2023

The Sonoran Alligator

I’ve seen several new species this year while walking Bear, from a gray fox to a chuckwalla to this, the Sonoran alligator. Like it’s cousin in the marshes and swamps of the American South, our desert variety has eyes and nostrils at the top of its head, allowing it to lay still submerged beneath the desert floor. It was quite relaxed around Bear as the wildlife strangely often are, it smiled for the camera and showed off its fearsome maw but it was more curious than alarmed. Even so when I heard its stomach rumble I made my apologies and we continued down the path.

📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 105mm macro
🗓️: November 9, 2023

Five Years in the Making

It took me 5 years to make this picture, not that there is anything complicated in the setup, rather it took me 5 years of hiking in the desert to see my first chuckwalla. Back on a spring Saturday I finally got up for a sunrise hike, mostly motivated by the hope of photographing saguaro buds and flowers. Flush with success I headed home and picked up Bear and brought him back for us to hike together, and thankfully so as it was on this hike I first spotted the chuckwalla.

I came back the next morning for some more saguaro photography but as I passed by where I had seen her the previous day, I stopped because the pattern recognition part of my brain told me something was interesting but couldn’t tell me what or where. I stared for the longest time before finally realizing the thin rock in a crevice between granite boulders was in fact a tail. It’s obvious in the picture since it’s highly zoomed in courtesy of the telephoto lens, and I’m down at a lower level and different angle where the gap is more pronounced. She’s sleeping back in the darkness and protection of the crevice.

As before I went home and brought Bear back and she was more visible though still deep in shadow. I didn’t have the telephoto with me and besides Bear was eager for our time together, and so was I, so I snapped a quick picture and we continued into the desert.

📷: Sony A6600 | Sony 100-400 | Sony 1.4X
Date: May 28, 2023

The Hitchhiker

Thumbs up, looking for a ride, sometimes you can’t wait on plate tectonics to take you where you need to go.

A Welcome Return

I would have thought most desert animals would go into hiding during the hottest months and only emerge when the temperatures cooled but for some of my favorites it’s the other way round, so the arrival of more comfortable weather carries some sadness alongside. A notable exception are phainopepla who fly in for the fall and fill me with such delight, they’re here in numbers now and quietly encourage me on my hikes from many a palo verde or ocotillo. Yesterday this male was stretching and showing off the white bars on the underside of his primary wing feathers, I almost got a shot with his wings fully extended above his head but the tiny buffer on my Sony filled and it couldn’t take any more pictures.

Rising, Setting

A quick snapshot while hiking out of the park, the moon rising behind saguaros in the east, the sun minutes from setting in the west. In a world that can be so relentlessly awful I’m thankful for the places that cradle me in its beauty.

A Love of Nature Trails

They may not be the best for exercise or for feeling like you’re alone in the wilderness, but I’m a huge fan of nature / interpretive trails. They’re accessible to a wide range of people and are great if you’re short on time, and often have a good sampling of the local flora. This is Bear at the Jane Rau Trail in February, I wanted to see how he’d do going over the bridge over the wash (he was unfazed). This loop is really short but a nice addition to the start or end of a longer hike and can offer up some pretty cool wildlife, I’ve seen a bobcat and a gila monster here.

Second Shift

With the sun sinking low late on a summer day I met one of the most beautiful desert residents, a gophersnake. Taken two years ago, still my only sighting of a living one. Given the hot weather I suspect as my day in the desert was ending it was just beginning for the snake, starting the hunt as the temperatures slowly fell.