Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
A simple sunset portrait of one of our most common birds, the mourning dove. I’ve seen them all my life but until we moved to Arizona I think I was only able to photograph one, and that was on a trip to New Mexico.
📷: Sony A6600 | Sony 100-400mm + 1.4X
🗓️: April 24, 2021
My favorite California patch is in the north in Redwood National and State Parks, but this little California patch is impressive in its own right (assuming I identified it correctly).
📷: Sony A6600 | Sony 100-400mm | Sony 1.4X
🗓️: March 27, 2022
As part of getting Bear ready for hiking again I took him for the first time to the short trail up the hill in Cavalliere Park. He loves looking out from up high so I gave him a moment to take in the view. I always try to sneak in the four mountains that helped me get my bearings when we moved here, especially Brown’s Mountain just above his nose as well as Cholla Mountain above his shoulders and Granite Mountain above his rump. Cone Mountain is blocked by vegetation but would be to his left.
While his siblings nearby practiced flying on a breezy spring evening, one last kestrel wasn’t quite sure about entering the wide world beyond. I feel such sympathy for the last-to-fledge, on the precipice between the only life they’ve known, the comfortable life that must end, and the dangerous path ahead where they can live their fullest lives. Taken near sunset in 2021.
While watching woodpeckers I noticed the saguaro beside the trail had exposed damage resembling Medusa’s head, covered in swirling snakes. That saguaros have a thin gorgon layer between their green skin and the spongy material beneath would explain why I sometimes stand transfixed before them, unable to avert my gaze.
We are beautiful forms but for such a short time. I rounded the bend to see a desiccated snake carcass hanging from what used to be my favorite saguaro in the park, perhaps an abandoned catch of a bird of prey. The desert recyclers had already changed the flesh of each into new forms, the scales and skeletons will take longer, the saguaro bones still a favored perch for a Gila woodpecker couple nesting nearby. The light was dying too, the sun dipping below the mountains, handing over the desert to the night watch before its rebirth in the morning.
A little fall color in the Sonoran Desert.
What’s better than watching a woodpecker on a saguaro? Watching two woodpeckers on a saguaro! I stopped for a while to admire the male when the female surprised me and flew into the nest. I watched this couple raise a family last spring so it was a treat to spend time with them again. I didn’t have much time as right as the female arrived a couple with a dog were approaching and though the dog ignored the birds, the male didn’t stay long. He mostly had his head turned away from me as he watched the dog approach, but turned back around for a moment as the female stuck her head out and then he flew off. In a couple of minutes the sun also departed, and so did I.
In the desert we have butterflies that resemble leaves more than our leaves do. All of the desert plants have adapted to minimize water loss to deal with the scarcity of rainfall, though I know one transplanted desert feline who will be happy to see the backside of the monsoon storms.
Taken last year on July 4th with the light fading as the sun slipped below the mountains, a white-winged dove enjoys saguaro fruit before calling it a night. I had planned to focus on saguaro flower and fruit photography this year but life had other plans. I wasn’t able to do much hiking this spring or early summer, and while the saguaro in our front yard blooms it only does so up high and regardless didn’t produce much fruit this year.
Boolie 