May 26, 2005
Well, this morning there were NO doves on the nest. I assumed the baby had flown off, but then I saw it sitting on the low brick wall in the carport. Smart bird--stayed out of the sun, anyway. He later moved over to a large empty planter by the air conditioner. From the pile of bird poop on the wall, he'd been there quite a while, so maybe this was the other missing baby? Who knows. I also don't know if his mom is feeding him, but presumably she is. Doves are clumsy and stupid, but there's no reason they wouldn't be as devoted parents as other birds.

Last night we put some mesh over the gate to the rose garden. There's still a fairly big gap at one end. I don't think it will keep the little bunny out, but I can't imagine a big jackrabbit getting in, so we'll see what happens.

May 25, 2005
Doves, Rabbits, and a Flicker!
The flicker first: I saw one on our morning walk on the Riverwalk yesterday, on a saguaro. It flew away quickly, but I'd seen them before at the other house. This was a gilded flicker, and a very handsome specimen at that, with his golden swirls and very woodpecker-y looking body.

Speaking of saguaros, the blooms are everywhere and I expect them to start turning into fruit soon. Birds are all over them, I assume eating bugs and perhaps drinking nectar. I'm not sure of the nectar content of saguaro flowers, and haven't seen any hummers on them, but then they are mostly too far away to see anything so small.

It's still really hot. The baby dove was actually two doves, but is now one again. I don't know what happened to the other one, but the ledge where the nest is perched is very small, and it's been windy. Probably he blew over or tried to fly and failed, and was eaten by something. The one that's left is quite large, looks fully feathered, but I don't know if it's up to flying. I always walk over and say hi, but he just freezes and tries to pretend he is invisible. Well, at least the mama dove managed to raise one baby Maybe he'll go to law school or get an MBA and make her proud.

At least one bunny has learned to get into our rose garden. It's just a little thing--a cottontail. The three cats love watching it out the patio door. It ate all my seedling zinnias, which I think I mentioned, and is now working on the lower branches of the rose bushes. It also eats weeds, which is helpful, but one of the rose bushes is starting to look really weird. I guess we'll have to put up some bunny-proof chicken wire or something before a jackrabbit gets in. A big rabbit could probably really wreck the roses.

May 18, 2005
Whooee! I happened to glance out at the pond this afternoon to see a Western Tanager visiting. What a gorgeous bird! Brilliant orange on head, bright yellow body, beautiful black body and wing stripes. I hope he sticks around, though I don't think this is really his habitat. I had one once at the pond at the old house, and never saw one again.

The saguaros are slowly coming into bloom. It's interesting. Some have flowers growing up and down the in part of their accordion pleats; others have a crown all on the top; still others are mixed, in a random-seeming pattern. I'd guess about a quarter to a third of the blossoms on most of the saguaros I've seen are open now. They are such BEAUTIFUL flowers (the State Flower of Arizona, actually). The blossoms will soon be followed by red fruit and then the monsoon. I LOVE THE DESERT!!!

May 17, 2005
A note on human nature: The mild spring is about over. It's in the nineties. We are heading for summer. This morning's top story in the paper featured words like "Hades" and "suffer." When I see headlines like that--not to mention listen to residents--about this time of year, I have to laugh. It's as if they're saying, "Oh, my gosh! It gets hot in Tucson in the summer! Who knew?"

One of my hummers drinks by hovering over the pond and dipping the tip of her bill in the water. That seems very awkward to me: much easier would be to hover at the waterfall or just perch on a rock by it.

Mama dove finally has at least one baby! Yesterday evening she was off the nest and I saw a tiny little gray nub sticking up. When it blinked at me, I knew that something had hatched. She's back on the nest today. Incubating more eggs? And where does the baby go? Does she sit on it?

Finally: I've noticed a great ABSENCE of baby quail. Just the four I saw earlier in the season. I'm disappointed; thought I'd get a lot. I used to get several families in the backyard at the other house. But maybe I'm getting them here and just not looking at the right times.

May 9, 2005
This morning I was fiddling around with the rocks on the waterfall again, when I heard a hummer. I looked up to see a little Anna--either a young female or immature male--buzzing at the water maybe a foot from my head. I held perfectly still, and the hummer finally sped off. I quickly rearranged the rocks, and was about to leave (to watch) when little hummer returned, even closer to me. I held totally still while she approached the water, tail fanned out, then suddenly noticed me and flew right up in my face, about two inches from my nose, and seemed to study me. Then she flew away, and so did I.

May 8, 2005
Spring and Waterfalls and Invisible Rabbits
This has been a most unusual spring, in that it has lasted, almost like spring back east. Usually, we have some very nice weather for about a month in part of March and April, and then it's summer. But the last few days--even this far into May--have been delightful, with actually chilly nights. Yesterday I think it only got up to 79. It's also been very windy, and now most of the beautiful blossoms have blown off the trees, but the cactus flowers are still going full tilt.

There is nothing more delightful than the sight of a hummingbird bathing at dawn in a waterfall. This morning I had two competing with each other for the pleasure. I've been working on improving the waterfall part of my pond, and at the moment it's just about perfect, and making a beautiful bubbling and splashing sound. The two hummers really seemed to enjoy the water. One of them somehow plopped her little belly on a flat rock right under the water and seemed to frolic as she made sure the wet stuff covered her whole body, then flew up to the fence railing in the sun to fluff out and dry off. She did this repeatedly. The other hummer was a male, I think a young one, and possibly a black chin. I haven't been able to confirm any black chins so far, but they should be around. I wish for a broad-bill, but it took me a few years at the other house for them to become year-round residents. If I'm patient they will probably start living here too.

Finally, this morning a rabbit sat beside the pond motionless for quite a while. I thought it was a rock until it moved. They have such perfect coloration for the desert. I just love all these little critters. I'm so fortunate to be able to see this slice of life.

May 6, 2005
Mama dove is still on the case, sitting on her nest on the pillar. She looks so patient. If it were me, I'd be thinking, "Is this thing ever going to hatch? How long do I have to sit here? What if it's a dud like the last one?" But then it's not up to me to perpetuate the dove (or any other) species.

Meanwhile, out at the pond, there have been a lot of rabbits. A huge one just now was eating a stalk of papyrus. He started at one end and then slowly sucked it in, like spaghetti, his jaws going the whole time. I'd think it would be too tough to be tasty, but he evidently likes it. He's still nosing around the papyrus pot. Which makes me think that maybe I can plant more of them this summer, for the shade and algae control. In the old house, they had a tendency to take everything over, but if I have rabbits to control them, this might be a good solution.

April 28, 2005
More dove news: the female is sitting on the new nest on the north pillar. Too bad I can't see into the nest, but I suppose she likes her privacy. I guess I'll clean up the old nest and straighten up the shelf while nothing is living there. (Yesterday afternoon a pair of quail seemed to be investigating the shelves, but maybe they were looking for something to eat.)

The cacti everywhere are starting to bloom, and it is lovely. Many more cactus than we had around at the old house. Our prickly pears, some of which are huge (the size of small trees) are starting to put out butter yellow and orange blossoms; some of the cholla have reddish and dark orange buds; and our saguaros have lots of buds, though I think they don't open till June. I'll try to take some pictures and figure out how to post them here.

April 26, 2005
Dove update: We saw a pair of doves investigating the empty nest. When I looked later, they had rolled the egg out and onto the bare shelf, so I threw it into the wash. They seemed busy around the nest on and off all day, and I assumed that the female would settle in and try again to raise a family (unless this was a different female).

Instead, they built a nest around the corner on top of the north pillar of our carport (last year a dove raised several checks on top of the south pillar). I saw her sitting there yesterday afternoon and evening.

But this morning, she was gone. No sign of any dove activity anywhere near the carport: just three empty nests, one on each pillar and one on the shelf.

April 23, 2005
Last night when we came home around 9:30, Mama dove was there, as she always is, patiently sitting on her nest. As I always do, I greeted her quietly and promised that I wouldn't hurt her or her babies.

This morning about 9:30, she was GONE! Her nest contained a single white egg. I had never seen her not on the nest. I thought maybe she had flown off to eat or drink, but she has not yet returned. I felt really bad for a while, thinking that something had happened to her. But now I wonder... she was on that nest for waht seemed like weeks. Maybe she simply decided that the egg was not going to hatch, and flew off to find a more potent mate and build a new nest. I hope that is what happened.

If there is still no sign of her tomorrow, we're going to clean out the nest and straighten up the shelf.

April 22, 2005
This afternoon we had a coyote in the back yard! He looked pretty healthy, but then I started worrying about a coyote hanging out in a neighborhood in the daytime, because there's a rabies epidemic in Pima County. Anyway, he trotted off to the north with that purposeful walk they have, so presumably he's gone. I hope he didn't see the Siamese cat from across the street that sometimes hangs out here.

It's cloudy today, with a good chance of rain tomorrow. According to NOAA, there's a good chance that several records will be set with the rain, because for a number of locations including Nogales and Organpipe, no rain has ever been recorded on April 23. For the rest of us, I think the maximum might be .10 inch.

April 19, 2005

We were out of town for a week, and things changed markedly in that short time. It's much warmer, for example, in the eighties during the day, though still cool at night. All the cactus on the property are in bud, and should be gorgeous when they jump into bloom. The palo verdes in town are covered in beautiful yellow flowers, very reminiscent of the forsythia we saw in New Jersey and Long Island. (The ones in our yard are apparently retarded--no signs of bloom.) The pomegranate bush has several bright orange-red trumpet flowers that the hummers seem to like.

The mama dove is still sitting on her nest in the carport. Whenever we drive up she blinks, but doesn't seem to move otherwise.

This morning I saw a mama and papa quail with four little ones way out in the back yard. I haven't seen other babies, but there are probably a lot around in other quail families. Four doesn't seem like very many, so I assume something may have happened to the nest.

While I was gone the yard guy moved the end of the hose that creates the waterfall in my pond so that it is sort of spurting into the air like a fountain. It's kind of cool--sounds and looks good, but is quite a rush of water. This morning I saw a hummingbird trying to decide whether to bathe (or drink) or not. The bird repeatedly approached the water and hovered, its tail fanned out as if in a threat display. At one point it got drops of water on its beak but didn't seem to be drinking, and eventually gave up. I moved some rocks so there is a quieter area that is off to the side, so maybe he'll be able to use that. I'm going to see about building a better waterfall, but will need a bunch more rocks.

April 6
More signs of spring: all the bushes, trees, and most of the flowers are blooming or past bloom. It's starting to get hot during the day, but still cool at night. Yesterday afternoon I was watching through binoculars as a female hummer (probably an Anna, but I'm not sure) stuck most of her head into salmon-colored trumpet flowers on a vine that I don't know the name of. The blooms were quite small, but she managed to get right down into them. And when she emerged, her head was bright yellow with pollen. As she hovered, a goldfinch perched on the fence next to her; they were the same shade of yellow.

The other night coming home late we were startled when we got out of the car by a scrabbling and clawing sound, as if a critter were trying to escape from the shelves in the back of the carport. There is a rabies epidemic in the county these days, so we hastened on in. The next morning we checked out the carport and found a large black trash bag containing potting implements ripped open. We speculated that it might have been a coyote, a stray dog or cat, or even a bobcat that had previously learned those bags sometimes contain delicious garbage.

But it turned out that probably wasn't what made the sound. This morning my yard guy asked if I'd seen the bird nest on the shelves. And sure enough, there sat a sweet little mother mourning dove on her messy pile of sticks that doves think are nests. She was perfectly still, and nearly the same color as the shelving. We are going to leave her alone until her babies have flown, and then clean up the shelf.

March 28, 2005
Just a quickie: this morning I saw a BRIGHT ORANGE finch out by the pond. He looked like a house finch, but was orange instead of red. I looked him up in the bird book, and discovered that orange is a normal variant. In all these years of watching, this is the first one I've seen.

March 24
Spring continues to burgeon; blossoms to blossom. It is exciting to look at all the plants around the house and watch them burst forth. When we moved in most of the main blooming was over, so it's all new and fun. I don't know what a lot of the plants are. I have some kind of bulbs about to bloom, I think. I hope they're irises.

Random nature notes: our #2 cat was very interested in something on the kitchen counter yesterday morning. I assumed it was a roach, which seemed to be hiding under the telephone. I moved the phone and found a rather large scorpion. Large is good--it's the little bitty guys that are most venomous, but it freaked me out. My hands were shaking. Gotta get used to these incidents now that I live in the desert!

Cardinals and pyrrhuloxia continue to flock to the cardinal feeder. The seeds deplete rapidly. This morning I found one reason why: at least one clever finch has figured out how to operate it! The door on the feeder is restrained by a weight that lets it slide down to reveal the feeding hole. It's set exactly for birds of cardinal/pyrrhuloxia size. A dove, which is heavier, would cause the door to slide down too far. A finch is lighter, and causes the door to slide down not far enough. But the enterprising finch I watched this morning had figured out that if she shifts her weight on the perch, the door swings out far enough for her to stick her head between the door and the feeder and grab a seed! (Her beak isn't strong enough to open the seed, but that's another story.)

I saw a second finch watching the first and try the same thing, but this one didn't get the trick and instead pecked futilely at the plastic.

March 9, 2005
Yesterday we went on a hike behind Picacho Peak, a state park about forty miles north of Tucson that is the site of the only Civil War battle ever fought in Arizona. Apart from its historical significance, Picacho is renowned for its wildflower displays.

We saw everything yesterday: brittle bush, lupine, poppies, phocelia, tackstem, twist, globe mallow (the pink kind), and a gazillian yellow, pink, and magenta flowers that weren't in the wildflower book. I took several digital photos, and will try to figure out how to post them here.

It was a gorgeous day, blue skies and around seventy degrees, and except for a few planes it really felt like "being out in the desert." In addition to the wildflower, we also saw:

• A white goat with a black face at the top of one of the ridges. We were told he is a domestic goat who escaped, and has evaded capture for three years. He seems to be very happy trotting around on the ridge top and foraging in the desert scrub. I'm assuming that he has reverted to an ancestral state. I hope a female goat escapes sometime and joins him.
  

• A white bird! We do not know what this was, as we weren't able to get a really good look at it, but its body shape and habits seemed very finchlike, so we concluded that it is an albino or leucistic house finch. I tried to get a picture of it, but don't think I succeeded.

Not too many other birds visible, but it was midday and already feeling hot. I know summer will be coming soon enough, but I'm really loving the spring.

March 2
The Scott's Oriole is back today. I just saw him first at the fruit feeder, eating fruit, then at one of the hummer feeders--one that isn't accessible to orioles--trying in vain to feed, and then in the pond, taking a good long bath. He is so gorgeous! Shiny ebony and bright lemon yellow. I hope his wife comes by one of these days. I'd like to get to know these guys better. I occasionally got orioles at the old house--hooded and Bullock's, mostly--but they never stuck around.

March 1
I love it when birds look exactly like their pictures in my bird book. I just had a beautiful male Scott's Oriole on the fence behind the bird pond. According to the map, he's up here for breeding season. I wish him great luck--preferably in my back yard, so I can watch his babies grow up. (I've never seen baby orioles, to my knowledge).

The spate of rain stopped and everything is lovely now--blue skies, high sixties to low seventies, a few puffy clouds, the air clear and the mountains every shade of lavender. Everything in my back yard is fixing to bloom, except the new citrus trees.Even the "dead" ocotillo out behind the pond is putting out leaves, and it practically never does. The others all have orange flowers already.

Out in front of the house, the brittle bush is starting to bloom. The desert zinnias have been flowering for a few days. A bunch of other stuff is coming up, but I don't know if it will turn out to be wildflowers or "weeds." Which is also what wildflowers are.

February 22, 2005
Birdsongs!
Yes, Spring is here! Everywhere I go I hear birds singing. I heard a beautiful concert from a goldfinch in the big palo verde tree yesterday. Alas, I don't hear mockers here in the yard (sniff, sniff), but they're in full voice everywhere else. Today the Riverwalk was thrumming with birds (and the river was rushing with water. What a treat!). There were a couple of trees full of starlings, whose yellow bills proclaim they are in mating plumage. They sound a little bit like bells, and it's fun to hear a bunch of them chirping at once.

There were plenty of mockers, too, including one especially beautiful singer who turned out to be a thrasher. I always forget that they can sing beautifully too, but don't generally do so except in early spring. I think what the thrasher and the mockers were singing was, "Look at my beautiful territory! It's a perfect place to raise a family, plus I'm the hottest dude on the river!"

And speaking of mating, the entrance to the Riverwalk was a raucus cactus wren singles bar, with half a dozen of the little guys displaying, squawking, hopping around, and making a general spectacle of themselves. I'm pretty sure that what they were saying to each other was, "Want to do it?"

February 17, 2005
More signs of spring: early blooming trees as we drive through Tucson. Yards full of bright splashes of African daisies. Weeds (or wildflowers) sprouting everywhere on our property, thanks to the rain. And still more rain to come, this weekend and the middle of next week. I had nearly 1 1/2 inch on the rain gauge after last week's downpours. The gray days get to me, but it's exciting to see how happy the desert plants seem to be.

The male cardinals and pyrrhuloxia at the seed feeder seem to be in full mating plumage. And yesterday afternoon I saw an oriole bathing in the pond. I didn't get a good look at it--just the back. Brilliant black and yellow. I have at least a gazillion woodpeckers draining my hummer feeders. I may have to go back to the drippy single-serving feeders, at least for a while.