Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
As I stared down the borehole of one of my favorite pieces of art, it felt more like I was photographing The Big Bang rather than the aftermath of a bunch of small ones. The hole was only 4 or 5 feet off the ground and the old saguaro’s skin hardened around it. I’d photograph these more but sadly I have not yet gotten my wish to be 50 feet tall and/or to have wings, but fingers crossed for 2024!
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 105mm macro
🗓️: December 3, 2023
As someone who loved even the ubiquitous rain in Portland, rain in the desert is quite special to me. When I woke to rain last month I waited for it to slow then hurried into the backyard for some macro shots of one of our saguaros. I had to work fast, the spines dry quickly and lose the wonderful colors, a couple have already dried here. The water drops on the skin evaporate quickly and gravity is constantly tugging at the drops dripping from the spines. One day I’ll play around with a watering can to get just the right droplets on my favorite areole, perhaps a fun project for a day when my mobility is limited, but that’s not what I wanted here. I didn’t want a picture of water drops on a saguaro, I wanted a picture of the rain.
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 105mm macro
🗓️: November 18, 2023
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.
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
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
This summer as I left work far in the distance I saw greenish smoke that usually means the desert is burning. The closer I got to home the closer the fire seemed to home and indeed as I cleared Troon Mountain I could see smoke billowing from the part of the preserve where Bear and I often walk. We prepared to evacuate but didn’t have to as the wind carried the fire away from us. I avoided the trails for a long while since burned areas are pretty sensitive but after seeing they were open, made a visit in the fall to see if I wanted to bring Bear back yet.
At first nothing was amiss but then I hit the burned part and there’s a wide swath of the desert that is completely charred. There are sandy areas with no plant life and exposed holes of the many small animals that once lived here. Some plants like this saguaro still had patches of green but they are the walking dead. We have enough other trails and enough time during my leave of absence that I’ll keep Bear away for now.
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 105mm macro
🗓️: September 29, 2023
Bear sandwiched between two saguaros on the Latigo Trail. The other day while making the long gradual climb back to the car on a western leg of this trail, he was so tired he let me take the lead, a first I think! Yesterday on a loop I stopped after a mile and doubled back to the car since he was flagging, so today I’ll give him a rest day and we’ll go for an easy walk in the neighborhood.
📷: Nikon Z fc | Nikon 24-70mm f/4
🗓️: October 31, 2023
I was walking Bear when I was struck by this beautiful but dead saguaro and took a few shots, I prefer this composition that includes a lot of the other living and dead plants around it with Granite Mountain anchoring the background. I haven’t taken Bear on the full loop around the mountain, now that he’s getting back into shape and the weather is cool enough, I’ll give him a chance soon. The uphill part is at the start so I’ll get a quick gauge of how he’s doing and can double back if he struggles, but I suspect he’ll be just fine.
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 24-200
Date: November 1, 2023
One of the best parts of my leave of absence is I get to take Bear hiking on weekdays as well as weekends. He’s had a few health issues that have kept me from taking him every day but I’ve enjoyed getting him back into hiking shape after the summer layoff. I started him on shorter trails since he was tiring quickly when it was warmer, and then choosing trails that let me easily extend the hike by half a mile or so based on how he was doing. Pretty quickly he was back to hiking our regular trails, even if he still tires a bit by the end, here he’s enjoying the view at The Amphitheater (real name, not one I made up) with saguaros and Cholla Mountain as the backdrop.
📷: Nikon Z 7II | Nikon 24-70 f/4
Date: October 22, 2023
Thumbs up, looking for a ride, sometimes you can’t wait on plate tectonics to take you where you need to go.
Boolie 