Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
Two dimensions don’t do justice to how much this battered old beauty leans over, its trunk and surviving arms littered with woodpecker holes. How many families has it sheltered on this little sliver of land, protected from the development that surrounds? I meant to photograph it months ago but got pulled up and down the trail first by a phoebe and then a woodpecker, so I was thankful it still stood in all its perfect glory on a visit at sunset a couple of weeks ago.
Though I only saw it in silhouette I knew from shape and size which of our ground squirrels I was seeing as I came down the Saddlehorn Trail. This is a rock squirrel, the one I see least. The trail wound away from it so this was my only good view, I did like that I could put the tops of saguaros behind it for context as it looked out from atop the large granite boulder.
Saturday morning for the first time in two months I had enough energy to get up early for a hike in the desert. With the sun rising and the moon about to bid good day I used a gently sloping boulder abutting the trail to add my shadow to the desert’s own, a little nod to my deep appreciation at being back.
First light finds the battered old beauty still standing. Some days that’s enough.
A quick snap from the backyard as flashes of lightning streak above Tom’s Thumb and the McDowell Mountains on a stormy summer night.
A Costa’s hummingbird shows off his purple crown on a winter morning. The color is based on the way the light falls upon the feathers, not pigment, so when he had his head turned his crown appeared black (as the rest of his face and throat does here, but they will light up too if the light is at the right angle).
Natural artwork in the stone on a rainy winter’s morning on the Slate Trail at Cave Creek.
My award for the cutest member of the desert that will still stab you six ways from Sunday goes to the diminutive hedgehog cactus with its almost comically long needles. I found this little clump in the slate at Cave Creek on a rainy winter’s day. Rain, I remember rain. It was wet I think.
I last checked on the Moss Man in May, although a little more plant debris had blown in of the two of us I was looking the worse for wear. I haven’t been in the area since but I hope he’s doing OK, we’ve hardly had any rain this summer.
Boolie 