Scratcher of heads, rubber of bellies
A rock squirrel peeks out from the rocks it calls home. A great horned owl was nearby, itself being harassed by an American kestrel, perhaps it got too close to her nest. A little later I saw a grasshopper fly off and impale itself on a buckhorn cholla. Life isn’t easy in the desert, even in a lovely spring.
A red-tailed hawk peeks out from its large nest in the rocks high above the Sonoran Desert. When the eggs hatch and it is time for the young redtails to learn to fly, there will be no soft landings if they aren’t successful on their first attempt.
I am the desert,
endless sky and stone.
I am the desert,
flesh and blood and bone.
A Coulter’s lupine finds purchase in the cracks between rocks up above the Sonoran Desert on the way to Sunrise Peak.
This canyon towhee had a mouthful of bugs, perhaps it had a nest nearby full of hungry youngsters.
First light falls on the California poppies and Coulter’s lupines blooming in front of the rock formation I call the Guardian. Haven’t had much time and/or energy for hiking the past few weeks but thankful I was able to get out for a few hours last week to see the desert in bloom. This was my first time seeing the Sonoran Desert bloom like this. The picture below is from a few minutes earlier in a slightly different position, clouds in the east mostly blocked the sunrise light but a little bit of red light fell upon the landscape before coming on strong for a few minutes as shown above. I like them both.
We arrived in Arizona a year ago today, how thankful I am we ended up in this wonderful place.
A turkey vulture stretches out a wing over its mate in their nest in massive boulders high above the desert floor. The seemingly romantic gesture was only a momentary stretch while preening.
This Harris’s antelope squirrel had the high ground early on a June morning, perched atop granite rocks atop a small hill, so it saw me from a distance as I approached up the Vaquero Trail. The rising sun soon joined us and we spent that wonderful moment together when the light first sweeps across the desert landscape. It was moments like these that made me fall in love with the area, the trail is close to our new house so perhaps the squirrel and I will be reunited before long. I haven’t been hiking since we moved, Ellie’s had a tough week adjusting to the new house so I’ve spent my evenings with her when she struggles the most and have been too tired to go out in the mornings. We’ll see about tomorrow, the wildflowers are in full bloom so it would be a shame to miss them, but she’s a higher priority.
Last spring I was amazed at how many birds fed at saguaros as they bloomed and fruited, such as this white-winged dove sticking its face into fruit at the end of an arm along the Latigo Trail. It’s a good thing saguaros aren’t carnivorous or a lot of birds would lose their heads!
Cactus wrens are smaller than the doves but still large for wrens, this one stuck its head deep into a blossom on the saguaro where it was building its nest and raising its young. When it emerges its head will be covered in pollen, some of which will be deposited at the next blossom it visits.
The tiny verdin had to stick most of its body into the fruit to feed at the back, in this picture it is feeding closer to the front and only its head is hidden. When the fruit ripens it is the white-winged doves that eat the most, but other birds enjoy the short-lived bounty as well.
The first bird I saw from the backyard of the new house was a male phainopepla, sitting in a tree in a narrow wash beside our yard. That’s a new one for me, I’ve seen quite a few birds in the backyard of our rental house but until now the phainopepla I had only seen on the trails. I saw this male on the Marcus Landslide Trail where they were numerous this winter, I haven’t been back recently but will soon as the trailhead is only a 10 minute drive from the new house.
Boolie 