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.
Tag: Scottsdale
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.
Gilded, Dusted
A gilded flicker shows off his red mustache as he pauses during a saguaro breakfast, his face and bill dusted in pollen. We had a similar flicker in Oregon, Emma always let me know when one came into the backyard as they were favorites of ours.
Early Mourning
A mourning dove watches as the sun first tips over the mountains on a quiet spring morning on the Chuckwagon Trail.
Wrens
I met this cactus wren in the early light last Sunday after having just missed a picture the day before. If memory serves they were the first bird I saw on the trails after we moved here, they remind me so much of the boisterous little wren of the sloughs of the Pacific Northwest that I watched for many years, the marsh wren. More so in personality than appearance as they would dwarf my former friends if seen side-by-side, a bit unlikely as there is an even larger difference in the places they call home. The smile they always bring is the same though.
The Warmest Welcome
After a two month absence I made my return to the trails yesterday morning and the desert gave me a warm welcome in more ways than one as who was waiting to greet me but the ladder-backed woodpecker I photographed my last time out! Only this time instead of his favorite tree he was on a nearby saguaro whose arms were already blooming, dining headfirst from the giant blossoms of the giant cactus. And not just he but also his friends, as that morning and this on that one saguaro I also saw cactus wrens, curve-billed thrashers, a pair of gilded flickers, a male Gila woodpecker, and a pair of house finches.
Black-throats
The other sparrow I see in large numbers here are black-throats. While the source of their name is unmistakable, like the white-crowns they also have white racing stripes running across their heads, presumably to make them faster as they zoom-zoom across the desert.
Boolie 